Bahá’u’lláh’s mission began in a subterranean dungeon in
Teheran in August 1852. Born into a noble family that could trace its ancestry
back to the great dynasties of Persia’s imperial past, He declined the
ministerial career open to Him in government, and chose instead to devote His
energies to a range of philanthropies which had, by the early 1840s, earned Him
widespread renown as “Father of the Poor.” This privileged existence swiftly
eroded after 1844, when Bahá’u’lláh became one of the leading advocates of a
movement that was to change the course of His country’s history.
(From
‘Baha’u’llah’, a brief introduction to Bahá’u’lláh’s life and work, prepared at
the request of the Universal House of Justice by the Bahá’í International
Community Office of Public Information and published in 1992.)
