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June 25, 2013

Many Prophets visited Mount Carmel

This mountain [Carmel] is where Israel's prophets passed their nights in prayers. Every step of it has been blessed by the footsteps of the prophets .... This land will be the envy of the world, the center of arts and sciences. 'Akka and Haifa will be connected and all the vacant lands will be cultivated. All these caves that you see have been the abode of the prophets, step by step. Every atom of this soil is holy. All the prophets, while praying, longed to reach this day and give the glad tidings of the coming of the Lord. They prophesied that the Lord of Hosts would come and the tent of the Lord would be pitched on Mount Carmel. ... in all these mountains and caves the prophets of God prayed at night, shed tears, and longed to be with us in these days of the Blessed Beauty. Since I am a prisoner and cannot move, you make a pilgrimage on My behalf. My utmost desire is to go and visit in freedom, but I cannot. You go on behalf of 'Abdu'l-Baha and make a pilgrimage to all of the Holy Places ... and beseech God's bounty. I cannot go. I am a prisoner. I am reincarcerated, and I have no permission to go out. The government prohibits me. 
-‘Abdu’l-Baha  (From talks to pilgrim in 1907; ’Memories of Dr. Habib Mu’ayyad’, pp. 19, 21, 22, 53; include in the book: ‘Zikrullah Khadem, The Itinerant Hand of the Cause of God’)

Many Israelitish prophets either lived here or passed a portion of their lives or sojourned for a while or spent the last days of their existence on this mountain.... Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, David, Solomon, Moses, Isaiah, Zechariah and, last of all, Christ. Elijah lived on Mount Carmel. ... His Holiness Christ came to this holy mountain many times. 
~ ‘Abdu’l-Baha  (From a talk in 1914, quoted in Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, ‘Mount Carmel, the Vineyard of God,’ in Star of the West, vol. 14, no. 5, August 1923; include in the book: ‘Zikrullah Khadem, The Itinerant Hand of the Cause of God’)

June 8, 2013

Advice given by ‘Abdu’l-Baha to a believer about marriage and family life

December 22, 1918 
Haifa

Now that thou art returning to America thou must think of taking unto thyself a wife. Do thou choose a girl who may be suitable to thy intellectual and spiritual ideals. She must be wise, intelligent, and a symbol of aspiring perfection. She must take an interest in all the problems pertaining to thy life, and be thy companion and partner in every phase of thy existence. She must be sympathetic, kind-hearted, happy, and endowed with a joyful disposition. Then thou must devote thyself to her happiness and love her with a glorious, spiritual love.

Before choosing a wife a man must think soberly and seriously that this girl will be his friend throughout all his life. It is not a temporary matter. She is a soul with whom he must associate all the days of his life; she will be his mate and his intimate confidant; therefore, day by day their love and their attachment to each other must increase.

The greatest bond that will unite the hearts of man and wife is faithfulness and loyalty. Both must exercise toward each other the utmost faithfulness and loyalty and not let any trace of jealousy creep between them; for this thing like unto poison vitiates the very foundation of love.