Mount Carmel was already known to be a holy place in ancient times.
Mount Carmel played a very special and important role form the Bahais all over the world, as the dwelling place of the world centre of their religion.
The historical link which already existed between the Bahai religion and Israel was extended at the very inception of its path as an independent world religion. At the end of the nineteenth century, the founder of the Bahai religion, Baha’u’llah, was driven out of his country of birth, Persia. His forced exile took him first to Baghdad, then to Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), Adrianopol (Edirne), and finally to Acco (Acre), which at that time was a penal colony under the auspices of the Ottoman emirate. Baha’u’llah’s final resting place was Bahji, which is just outside Acco.
At the time of his visit to Haifa in 1890m Baha’u’llah showed his son, Abdu’l-Baha a specific spot on Mount Carmel and made clear that this spot should serve as the eternal resting place for the bones of the Bab. The Bab had been the person who had brought the good news about the Bahai religion to the world. Baha’u’llah instructed his son to establish a suitable burial place at this spot, and prophesied that at this very spot the world centre of the entire Bahai religion would also be established. The Bab had died a martyr’s death in Persia in 1850, six years after prophesying his spiritual mission. For sixty years after his death, his bones had been transported in secret from place to place, in order to prevent them falling into the hands of his enemies.
It was only in 1909 that these bones were finally interred on Mount Carmel, at the precise spot that Baha’u’llah had pointed out to his son. And it was Abdu’l-Baha himself who laid the first structure of the Shrine to the Bab.
Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahai Religion, continued in the footsteps of Abdu’l-Baha, by establishing the Shrine which has survived to this very day. The Shrine to the Bab was planned by the well known Canadian architect, William Sutherland Maxwell. The Shrine was designed through an impressive combination of the best that the west and the east can offer in architecture. The wonderful granite pillars were built in the classical Roman style. Its Corinthian capitals are influenced by ancient Greek art, whilst its very impressive arches add a unique Oriental touch to the whole effect.
