On Friday, April 8, 2022, a major fire was reported in the tomb being built for ‘Abdu’l-Baha. The images and videos posted showed a formidable fire, with fewer such horrific images of fire and smoke. The flames rose tens of meters into the sky with smoke, and a terrifying, large tunnel of smoke swirled around the construction site, hovering like a conical tornado.
The situation was so strange and unexpected that even the House of Justice called “the Baha” got severe damage in this incident. After extinguishing the fire of “the House of Justice”, it was declared that an assessment of this incident will be carried out and the necessary repairs will be done in near future.
And the Baha’i-affiliated media around the world, which were trending the burning of a Baha’i Tomb in Iranian villages, did not cover the news at all. And strangely enough, the House of Justice called on the Baha’i community to remove even the images on their phones from the incident.
This news vacuum sparked widespread rumors in and around the Baha’i community. Baha’is, who paid a lot of money for every inch of the building, are still searching for the event and wondering why such a big incident in the safest country in the world is without any explanation. It has happened, and analysts in the region who know that the Zionist government has made great use of the tourist income of Baha’i places asked why the government and the municipality, which, according to Ali Nakhjavani (1990 among the Baha’is of California) charge large sums of money for construction permits in such cases. Are there any differences? Even some wounded critics of the Baha’i. Faith considered it a ploy by God and a divine punishment.
In general, most of the available analyzes are divided into several main categories,
- the first group considers this incident as just a coincidence. They have focused more on the poor management of the House of Justice in construction. Extensive billion-dollar money laundering for small projects using inexperienced contractors and rent-seeking with opaque budgets may eventually lead to such incidents. Fortunately, the height of this billion-dollar building may not even reach ten meters, otherwise, it could have led to bigger accidents with heavy casualties. The group wants an end to the non-transparent process of all decisions of the House of Justice, especially the construction of astronomical instruments. The building, which could have been built for hundreds of thousands of dollars, has cost hundreds of millions of dollars so far, and even the contracting team and consultants have not even designed a simple fire extinguishing system for the construction site to prevent the fire from spreading quickly in the first moments. So that the House of Justice does not have to ask for prayer after the fire spreads. Even the Bahai’s of this group say that this event was predicted by ‘Abdu’l-Baha, Himself and that is why he forbade the construction of his tomb in his will, and this blatant violation of his will by the House of Justice should have had the same result.
- The second group blames extremist Jews for the incident. They say that nowhere in Acre and Haifa, which are the safest parts of the land, such a huge incident does not happen for no reason. A non-Jew who called the Jews of Palestine Apes (although ‘Abdu’l-Baha is widely referred to by the Bahai as saying to the Ottoman rulers that it was intended to reduce the Ottoman government’s sensitivity to his actions). They believe that even if there is no need for the Bahai to have helped to establish a Jewish state in the Occupied Territories. We no longer need to allocate the best of the Mediterranean land to the Bahai garden, and it is better to build synagogues and promenades for Jewish youth instead of Baha’i tombs. Even in a Jewish land, the anti-Semitic tombs and Baha’i monuments have become a symbol of the city of Haifa, which is unacceptable to its Jewish inhabitants, and tourists will not be a convincing reason for such constructions. This group does not consider the restriction on obtaining a permit for a nine-day pilgrimage to the Baha’i holy lands to be sufficient, just as Christians’ visit to the birthplace of Jesus Christ is severely restricted. Baha’i should also consider other places of worship. Perhaps it is this current of thought that has made the House of Justice think seriously about Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan.
- The third group believes that as information spread and the role of the Baha’i, and especially the ‘Abdu’l-Baha, in orchestrating Arab lands for the Jews, the lost Palestinian children would sooner or later take revenge on the orchestrator, and this could only be arranged by Arab construction workers. Because most of the construction projects in that area are built by Arab workers, it is enough for a Palestinian to know about the role of ‘Abdu’l-Baha in the purchase of Palestinian land and its sale to Zionist landowners on the Internet. Naturally, this revenge will be the easiest way to alleviate the aching heart of the young Arab, and on the other hand, the security controls of the government are not so serious in this regard, and incidentally, they may not be reluctant to strike a razor blade at the House of Justice under this pretext. Do not be unlucky. After all, sending a military group to protect Baha’i buildings costs the government, and the House of Justice has a lot of money to build such buildings.
