May
20, 2001
THE
STAIRWAY TO BAB
Baha'i's Canadian Connection
Three Canadian architects helped design
faith's $250M spiritual centre
BY BOB HARVEY
 The Canadian connection
to the fast-growing Baha'i faith will be highlighted in Israel this
week as believers gather from around the world to dedicate a
$250-million monument to their martyred founder.
Three Canadian architects, one of them the father-in-law of the
movement's world leader, participated in the design of the world's
newest great spiritual centre.
In the 1950s, Montreal architect William Sutherland Maxwell designed
the golden-domed Shrine of the Bab in Haifa, while Vancouver architect
Husayn Amanat designed the site's administrative centre.
Another Iranian-born Canadian architect, Fariborz Sahba, designed the
sacred garden terraces that will be dedicated Tuesday.
Mr. Maxwell's daughter, Mary, was the wife of the world leader of the
faith, Shoghi Effendi, and its pre-eminent leader from her husband's
death in 1957 until her own death in Haifa last year.
Hundreds of Baha'i volunteers, many of them Canadians, helped construct
the terraces over the past decade.
Baha'i: 'Unique blend'
Mr. Sabha said in a phone interview that the shrine and gardens are a
unique blend of eastern and western influences, and a physical
manifestation of Baha'i's belief in the unity of all mankind.
As project manager, he said he contracted Canadian firms to do much of
the work on the majestic administrative buildings.
The 19 garden terraces stretch one kilometre up the slopes of Mount
Carmel in Haifa, a mountain sacred to Jews and Christians as the site
where the prophet Elijah vanquished the prophets of Baal, and to
Baha'is as the resting place of the remains of the Bab ("gate" in
Arabic). The Bab was an Iranian merchant who declared in 1844
that he had come to prepare humanity for a divine teacher who would
lead humanity into an age of universal peace. Within three
years, Iranian authorities imprisoned him in brutal conditions, and
then executed him by firing squad in 1850.
Thirteen years later, a Persian nobleman who was one of the Bab's
followers, declared himself to be the messenger of God, and taught the
unity of the human race, the equality of men and women, and the
essential unity of all major religions as true expressions of
God. He became known as Baha'u'llah, Arabic for the Glory of
God, and was exiled to a penal colony in Acre, where he is now buried
in a modest shrine not far from Haifa.
In the last 40 years, the Baha'i community has grown from about 400,000
members to about 5 million today, including 30,000 Canadians.
Next week, 19 Canadians will be among 3,300 Baha'is who gather in Haifa
to represent communities in 235 different countries and dependent
territories.
Two Ottawa members of the Baha'i community will be going to Haifa for
the dedication: Pearl Downie, a retired federal public health policy
analyst; and Doris Debassige-Toeg, an Ojibway who has spent much of her
career working as a federal development worker with Inuit and Dene.
Printed in the The Ottawa
Citizen, 2001 May 20
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