Shrine of the Báb

Listen first. Water runs quietly along narrow stone channels beside the steps. Gravel crunches softly under someone's shoes. A gardener's shears click somewhere below. Then you look up, and the dome catches the light — a rounded crown of gold set against the green slope of Mount Carmel, high above the city of Haifa and the wide blue curve of the bay.

This is the Shrine of the Báb. For members of the Bahá'í Faith, it is one of the holiest places on Earth. For everyone else, it is a rare thing in a modern port city. It is a place built almost entirely for stillness. The city carries on around it with traffic, cranes, ferries and markets. But here the air feels slower, and voices drop without anyone asking them to.

So who was the Báb? His given name was Siyyid ʻAlí-Muḥammad, a young merchant from Shiraz, in Persia. In the 1840s he announced that he was the bearer of a new divine message. He took the title "the Báb," which means "the Gate." He taught that he was preparing the way for a greater messenger still to come. His ideas spread quickly across Persia, and they alarmed both the clergy and the state.

The response was harsh. Thousands of his followers were persecuted and killed. In 1850, in the city of Tabriz, the Báb himself was executed by a firing squad in a public square. Bahá'í accounts of that day tell a remarkable story. According to these accounts, the first volley of bullets failed to kill him and only cut the ropes that held him. He was found, tied up again, and shot by a second regiment.

What happened next is a story of secrecy and devotion. His followers recovered his remains and kept them hidden for many years. They moved them from place to place in Persia, out of reach of the authorities. Much later, the remains were carried in secret to the Holy Land. This journey lasted the better part of half a century. And it ended right here, on this mountainside.

The spot itself was chosen by Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith. Bahá'ís see him as the messenger whose coming the Báb foretold. Bahá'u'lláh was an exile and prisoner in nearby Akko, across the bay. During one visit to Mount Carmel, he indicated this place on the slope. His son, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, later built a simple stone building here. In 1909, he laid the Báb's remains to rest inside it.

Here is the first surprise. That plain, square stone structure is still here. It was never knocked down. The golden building you see today was wrapped around it, like a protective shell around something precious. The work was guided by Shoghi Effendi, the head of the Faith after ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. The design came from William Sutherland Maxwell, a Canadian architect. The superstructure was finished in 1953.

Now look closely at the building. It blends styles from East and West. A colonnade of slender granite columns runs around the lower level. Above it sits an arcade of arches, then a tall drum with narrow windows, then the dome itself. Much of the stone was cut and carved in Italy and then shipped across the Mediterranean. The pieces were assembled here on the mountain, almost like a giant puzzle.

And the dome — that is the second surprise. It is not solid gold. It is covered in around twelve thousand gilded tiles, each shaped a little like a fish scale. The tiles were made in the Netherlands. Together they create a surface that shifts with the weather. At midday it flashes brightly. In soft evening light it glows a warm, deep amber. On grey days it can look almost bronze.

The shrine does not stand alone. It sits at the centre of nineteen terraces that climb from the foot of the mountain to its crest. The number nineteen matters in Bahá'í belief. The Báb and his first eighteen followers made nineteen, and the Bahá'í calendar has nineteen months. The terraces opened to the public in 2001, after years of building. Their designer was the architect Fariborz Sahba.

Walk among them and you notice the precision. Hedges are trimmed into crisp geometric shapes. Lawns are cut short and even. Flower beds come in bands of red, orange and white. Cypress and palm trees frame the views. Much of this care comes from volunteers, Bahá'ís who travel from around the world to serve here for months or years. In 2008, UNESCO added these holy places to its World Heritage list.

Inside the shrine, the mood changes again. Visitors take off their shoes before entering. The rooms are hushed and carpeted. People sit or kneel in silence, and some pray quietly in many languages. Photography is not permitted inside. Bahá'ís do not try to convert visitors here, so there is no sermon and no pressure. You are simply welcome to sit for a while, whatever you believe.

One more thing that many visitors miss. Turn your back to the shrine and look downhill. A straight line runs from the terraces down to the sea. That line continues along Ben Gurion Avenue, the main street of the old German Colony, with its stone houses and red tiled roofs. The street and the shrine form one long axis. From the bottom of the avenue, the dome rises perfectly at its end.

Before you leave, pause for a moment. Feel the warm stone under your hand. Listen again for the water in the channels and the gardeners at work. Below you, the bay opens toward Akko, where Bahá'u'lláh was once a prisoner. As you walk away, glance back once or twice. Notice how the gold changes as you move — and how quiet this mountainside feels above the noise of the city.