Newcastle upon Tyne shares a special connection with many of the celebrations of the bicentenary of the birth of Bahá’u’lláh that have recently been taking place around the world.
In the summer of 1886 a talented 24-year-old Cambridge natural sciences graduate, with an interest in oriental and middle-eastern affairs, and a flair for languages, and who was still also completing studies in medicine, was reading an 1866 publication in which its author, Arthur de Gobineau, provided eye-witness accounts of the gruesome persecutions faced by the followers of the Báb (the Prophet forerunner of Bahá’u’lláh) in Persia.