This video shows the present-day old city of Akka. The prison where Baha’u’llah was held is the large structure toward the top of the frame, to the left of a blue dome.
Podcast: Out of exile, a light to the world — 150th anniversary of Baha’u’llah’s arrival in Holy Land: Part 2
This episode of the Baha’i World News Service podcast focuses on Baha’u’llah’s arrival 150 years ago to the fortress city of Akka and events in the period that immediately followed it.
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“The arrival of Bahá’u’lláh in ‘Akká marks the opening of the last phase of His forty-year long ministry, the final stage, and indeed the climax, of the banishment in which the whole of that ministry was spent,” Shoghi Effendi writes in God Passes By , a history of the first century of the Baha’i Faith. “The period of His incarceration in ‘Akká brought with it the ripening of a slowly maturing process, and was a period during which the choicest fruits of that mission were ultimately garnered.”
SLIDESHOW Baha’u’llah entered Akka on 31 August 1868 through the sea gate, which can be seen left of center along the sea wall. This photo, from 1920, shows what the sea gate would have looked like at the time of Baha’u’llah’s arrival, with water running directly to the wall. Today, this area along the old sea wall is a paved promenade.
The horrible conditions of the city and the dreadful treatment Baha’u’llah and His companions received upon arrival were meant to signal their imminent demise and the end of Baha’u’llah’s Cause. Yet, Baha’u’llah’s description of that scene paints another picture entirely: “Upon Our arrival, We were welcomed with banners of light, whereupon the Voice of the Spirit cried out saying: ‘Soon will all that dwell on earth be enlisted under these banners.’” Akka would be the setting for some of the most extraordinary developments in Baha’i history.
It would be from His prison cell in Akka that Baha’u’llah would produce some of His most weighty writings. Among these were letters addressing individually a number of the kings and rulers of His time: Pope Pius IX, Napoleon III, Czar Alexander II, Queen Victoria, and Nasiri’d-Din Shah. It was also in Akka where He later revealed His Most Holy Book, the Kitab-i-Aqdas.
Baha’u’llah would live the remaining years of His life in the prison city and its surrounding area. His resting place at Bahji , just outside the old city of Akka, is the holiest place in the world for Baha’is.
The Bahá'ís of Huntsville, AL 