Bahai Temple
Opened on 15 January 1962, the Bahai Temple on Kikaya Hill 6km from Kampala on Gayaza Road is the only place of worship of its kind in Africa. It is the spiritual home to the continent’ Bahai, adherents to a rather obscure faith found by the Persian mystic Bahaullah in the 1850s. Born in Tehran in 1812, Bahaullah was the privilege son of a wealthy government minister but he declined to follow his father into the ministerial service, instead devoted his life to philanthropy.
IN 1844, Bahaullah abandoned his Islamic roots to join the Babi cult, whose short-lived popularity led to the execution of its founder and several other leading figures by the religious establishment- after escaped by the Bahaullah only because of the high social status of his family. Bahaullah was nevertheless imprisoned, with his feet in stocks and 50kg metal chain around his neck in Tehran’s notoriously unsanitary and gloomy Black Pit. It was whilst imprisoned that Bahaullah received the Godly vision that led to the foundation of Bahai. Upon his release, Bahaullah dedicated the remaining 40 years of his life to writing the books, tracts and letters that collectively outlined the Bahai framework for the spiritual, moral, economic, political and philosophical reconstruction of human society.
Bahai teaches that heaven and hell are not places, but states of being defined by the presence or absence of spirituality. It is an inclusive faith, informed by all other religions-Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Buddhist and Islamic holy texts are displayed in the temple-which it regards to be stepping stones to a broader, less doctrinal spiritual and meditative awareness. It is also admirably egalitarian: it regards all humankind to be of equal worth, and any member of the congregation is free to lead prayers and meditations. Although not a didactic religion, Bahai does evidently equate spiritual well-being with asceticism: the consumption of alcohol and intoxicating drugs is discovered in Bahai writings, and forbidden in the temple grounds, along with loud music, picking flowers and “immoral behaviour”.
The Bahai Temple in Kampala, visible for miles around and open to all, is set in neatly manicured gardens extending over some 30ha atop Kikaya Hill. The Lower part of the building consists of white nontagon roughly 15m in Diameter, with one door on each of its nine shaded faces.. This is topped by an immense green dome , made with glazed mosaic Italian tiles, and a turret that towers 40m above the ground. The interior, which can seat up to 800 people, is illuminated by ambient light filtered through coloured glass windows, and decorated with lush Persian carpets. Otherwise, it is plainly decorated; in keeping with the Bahai belief that it would belittle the glory of God to place pictures or statues inside his temple. A solitary line of Arabic text repeated on the wall at regular intervals approximately translates to the familiar Christian text Glory of Glories.
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