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CNN Sunday Morning

Baha'i Religion Teaches Acceptance

Aired May 20, 2001 - 07:07   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Elsewhere in Israel, Jews and Muslims live and work side by side. They're among millions of adherents to the Baha'i faith, which recognizes all other religions and excludes no race, culture or class.

CNN's Jerrold Kessel shows us the Baha'i's spectacular new shrine on Israeli's Mediterranean coast.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Meticulous finishing touches in a major new garden, which exploits dramatically the juxtaposition of sea, mountain and sacred purpose.

FARIBORZ SAHBA, BAHA'I GARDENS ARCHITECT: A spiritual atmosphere touch the heart of the people. It's -- you don't know -- you don't need to know the reason for that. You just feel comfortable. You feel at home.

KESSEL: Under this clump of trees: a key moment a century ago, the son of the Bahula (ph), who transformed the faith, is the founder, the bob, into a universalist religion, marked it as the spot where the remains of the founder would eventually lie.

The shrine set in the new gardens will be the focus for thousands, from among the world's 6 million Baha'is, who'll attend next week's dedication here in the battling Israeli port city of Haifa.

The Baha'i religion grew out of Sufi mysticism in 19th century Persia. Baha'is practice no congregational prayers. This is, however, their world administrative center, the new neoclassical buildings housing the faith's sacred scriptures.

Eagle, symbol of majesty and wisdom; peacocks of eternity predominant in the manicured gardens that have been laid out upwards and downwards from the shrine on 19 terraces.

SAHBA: Geometry and all of these parallel lines and rhythm that goes with human -- with the water that comes step by step. It's -- all of them created order in the mind that, in my opinion, has direct relation with that peace. That nothing argues with you; everything is in such a discipline. KESSEL: The universalist aspirations of the faith are endorsed by trainee guides, Jews and Muslims, who will shepherd visitors through the gardens and through basic tenets of the religion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe I can understand their point of view, and without them thinking that I'm trying to make them behind.

KESSEL (on camera): An oasis of serenity at a time, in an area where serenity is probably the last word on anyone's lips, whatever their religious persuasion.

DOUGLAS SAMINI MOORE, BAHA'I WORLD CENTER: The light shines most brightly in the midst of a very dark place.

KESSEL (voice-over): The light in which the gardens are bathed at night is meant to symbolize the contrast from the time when the faith's founder was imprisoned in darkness for his beliefs in his native Persia.

The Bahula (ph), mindful of the suspicions which the then Ottoman rulers of the holy land might have towards any outgoing religion forbade the creation of an indigenous community. To this day, this is one of the few places in the world without its own Baha'i community.

MOORE: The vision of the Baha'i faith is really transcendent of any particular culture or identity. It's really a global vision. It's really universal.

KESSEL: Despite an endeavor to integrate the gardens into the natural wildness of historic Mount Carmel, in a way they're suspended out of place. The gardens reflect not only the religion's inner repose but, ironically, also the distance the universalist religions keeps from the place which has its heart.

Jerrold Kessel, CNN, Haifa, Israel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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