Already nine months before His ascension Bahá’u’lláh, as
attested by ‘Abdu’l
‑Bahá, had
voiced His desire to depart from this world. From that time onward it became
increasingly evident, from the tone of His remarks to those who attained His
presence, that the close of His earthly life was approaching, though He
refrained from mentioning it openly to any one. On the night preceding the
eleventh of Shavvál 1309 A.H. (May 8, 1892) He contracted a slight fever which,
though it mounted the following day, soon after subsided. He continued to grant
interviews to certain of the friends and pilgrims, but it soon became evident
that He was not well. His fever returned in a more acute form than before, His
general condition grew steadily worse, complications ensued which at last
culminated in His ascension, at the hour of dawn, on the 2nd of Dhi’l-Qa‘dih
1309 A.H. (May 29, 1892), eight hours after sunset, in the 75th year of His
age. His spirit, at long last released from the toils of a life crowded with
tribulations, had winged its flight to His “other dominions,” dominions
“whereon the eyes of the people of names have never fallen,” and to which the
“Luminous Maid,” “clad in white,” had bidden Him hasten, as described by
Himself in the Lawh-i-Ru’yá (Tablet of the Vision), revealed nineteen years
previously, on the anniversary of the birth of His Forerunner. - Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
