{"id":82,"date":"2010-04-21T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/bahais-celebrate-first-day-of-ridvan-with-prayers-elections.html"},"modified":"2010-04-21T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-21T07:00:00","slug":"bahais-celebrate-first-day-of-ridvan-with-prayers-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/bahais-celebrate-first-day-of-ridvan-with-prayers-elections.html","title":{"rendered":"Baha’is Celebrate Ridvan With Prayers, Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today marks the first day of Ridvan, the holiest period of the year for members of the Baha’i faith<\/a>, a religion that began in modern-day Iran and has major temples in Israel<\/a>, Illinois <\/a>and India<\/a>. (Photo below shows me at the Lotus Temple in New Delhi a few years ago — very impressive building.)<\/p>\n

\"lotus<\/p>\n

The holiday runs April 21 to May 2, commemorating founder Baha’ullah’s declaration as God’s messenger. In America, adherents will both pray and organize; an official press release states that <\/a>hundreds of American Baha’i communities will elect nine-member Local Spiritual Assemblies to manage affairs for the next year and send 171 delegates to the Baha’i Temple near Chicago to elect their National Spiritual Assembly or nine-member national governing council for 2010-2011. <\/p>\n

For more on the festival, check out this Beliefnet column <\/a>by Randolph Dobbs, a Baha’i leader in California.<\/p>\n

*Click here to <\/span>subscribe to Belief Beat <\/span><\/strong><\/a>and <\/span>click here to <\/span>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today marks the first day of Ridvan, the holiest period of the year for members of the Baha’i faith, a religion that began in modern-day Iran and has major temples in Israel, Illinois and India. (Photo below shows me at the Lotus Temple in New Delhi a few years ago — very impressive building.) The holiday runs April…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nBaha'is Celebrate Ridvan With Prayers, Elections - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/bahais-celebrate-first-day-of-ridvan-with-prayers-elections.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Baha'is Celebrate Ridvan With Prayers, Elections - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today marks the first day of Ridvan, the holiest period of the year for members of the Baha’i faith, a religion that began in modern-day Iran and has major temples in Israel, Illinois and India. (Photo below shows me at the Lotus Temple in New Delhi a few years ago — very impressive building.) The holiday runs April…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/bahais-celebrate-first-day-of-ridvan-with-prayers-elections.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-04-21T07:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/import\/lotus%20temple.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Baha'is Celebrate Ridvan With Prayers, Elections - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/bahais-celebrate-first-day-of-ridvan-with-prayers-elections.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Baha'is Celebrate Ridvan With Prayers, Elections - Belief Beat","og_description":"Today marks the first day of Ridvan, the holiest period of the year for members of the Baha’i faith, a religion that began in modern-day Iran and has major temples in Israel, Illinois and India. (Photo below shows me at the Lotus Temple in New Delhi a few years ago — very impressive building.) The holiday runs April…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/bahais-celebrate-first-day-of-ridvan-with-prayers-elections.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2010-04-21T07:00:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/import\/lotus%20temple.jpg"}],"author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/bahais-celebrate-first-day-of-ridvan-with-prayers-elections.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/bahais-celebrate-first-day-of-ridvan-with-prayers-elections.html","name":"Baha'is Celebrate Ridvan With Prayers, Elections - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/bahais-celebrate-first-day-of-ridvan-with-prayers-elections.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/bahais-celebrate-first-day-of-ridvan-with-prayers-elections.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/import\/lotus%20temple.jpg","datePublished":"2010-04-21T07:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-04-21T07:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/bahais-celebrate-first-day-of-ridvan-with-prayers-elections.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/bahais-celebrate-first-day-of-ridvan-with-prayers-elections.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/bahais-celebrate-first-day-of-ridvan-with-prayers-elections.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/import\/lotus%20temple.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/import\/lotus%20temple.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/bahais-celebrate-first-day-of-ridvan-with-prayers-elections.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Baha’is Celebrate Ridvan With Prayers, Elections"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for The New York Times and other media outlets. She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}