Highlighting Australia
- As a proudly Australian initiative, we’re excited to showcase a collection of Australian stories, music, tributes and more.
Join activities, celebrations, study groups, spiritual empowerment and education programs for young people, and more.
Baha’i beliefs address essential spiritual themes for humanity’s collective and individual advancement. Learn more about these and more.
The Baha’i Blog team is excited to launch a new initiative called “Personal Reflections on the Baha’i Faith from Around the World”, in honour of the bicentenary anniversary of the Birth of Baha’u’llah, Prophet-founder of the Baha’i Faith.
In this initiative, we share portraits of Baha’is and their friends from different countries and territories all over the planet. Accompanying their photographs are a few of their words about what the Baha’i Faith means to them or how it has touched their lives.
As this year celebrates 200 years since the Birth of Baha’u’llah, we’ve decided to capture at least 200 of these portraits and reflections, and are sharing them on social media and on a website dedicated to the project. We hope you find this project as inspirational as we do!
We will be publishing one portrait per day, so be sure to stay updated by following our social media pages:
Facebook & Instagram & Twitter
The website dedicated to this project is: personalreflections.bahaiblog.net
We have intentionally chosen not to use the names and locations of those being photographed so that the focus remains on the person’s face and what they have said, rather than allowing any connotations to arise of where they may be from and who they are because of their name.
Our hope is that by sharing these pictures and quotations, we will answer the call from the Universal House of Justice to communicate “a sense of what it means for humanity that these two Luminaries rose successively above the horizon of the world” and we hope that such “initiatives, coupled with widespread celebrations that are both uplifting and reverent, are also sure to spark the curiosity and wonder of many who may as yet be unfamiliar with the names of the Bab and Baha’u’llah.”1
We hope you find this project uplifting and will join us in sharing it as widely as possible on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
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We recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their cultures; and to elders both past and present.
The views expressed in our content reflect individual perspectives and do not represent authoritative views of the Baha’i Faith.
Visit the site of the
Australian Baha’i Community
and the Baha’i Faith Worldwide
This is lovely!!!!!!
Anne (September 9, 2017 at 2:01 AM)
great project!
love the idea of not emphasizing the name but country could have helped
tahereh ahdieh (September 9, 2017 at 11:35 AM)
Hi Tahereh, so glad you like it and thank you so much for your support! We thought about the point you raised regarding the inclusion of the country a lot during the initial stages of the project, and have intentionally chosen not to use the names and locations of those being photographed so that the focus remains on the person’s face and what they have said about how the Revelation of Baha’u’llah has touched their life. We felt that names and locations could allow for certain connotations to arise of where they may be from and who they are because of their name. It’s hard to say where people are “from”, especially nowadays, and it would be hard to add that sort of label to the photo. For instance what country should you write down next to the photograph of a person photographed in Canada, who has a Filipino mother and a Persian Father, partly raised in Australia, and now settled in The Netherlands? We’d rather leave it out and let viewers see past that. I hope that makes sense and helps explain some of the thought process behind the decision.
Naysan Naraqi (September 9, 2017 at 12:55 PM)
Das finde ich eine wunderschöne Idee lieber Naysan. Wie muss man sich für diesen Blog anmelden? Ich verstehe, Deutsch, Italienisch, Englisch Romanisch usw. Kann alles lesen, aber nicht schreiben. Für mich wäre also die Sprache kein Problem. Will in Deutschland die besten Übersetzung Programme bestellen. Aber wie lieber Naysan, dann beim neuen Facebook bei euch richtig anmelden? Ahhhh, ich glaube ich weiß doch wie. Bin ein Dummkopf
Margrit Rita HURNI Bern Schweiz (September 9, 2017 at 12:06 PM)
Praise for your continued innovative endeavors!
Ladjamaya (September 9, 2017 at 2:21 AM)
Thanks so much for your support and encouragement Ladjamaya!! 🙂
Naysan Naraqi (September 9, 2017 at 3:03 AM)
The messages from men, women and children are inspiring and uplifting. I like this idea Naysan.
Criselda R. Figuerres (September 9, 2017 at 1:06 PM)
We’re so glad you are finding this inspiring and uplifting! Please feel free to follow this project on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter if you haven’t already as we will be adding more and more photos and quotations. 🙂
Sonjel Vreeland (September 9, 2017 at 9:23 PM)