Bahá'í World Centre in Haifa: Global Spiritual Headquarters
Learn how exile brought the Bahá’í holy places to Haifa and Acre and what the World Centre does today.
Category pages
- Why the Bahá’í World Centre is in Haifa and AcreOttoman exile brought Bahá’u’lláh to Acre in 1868. His later direction to establish the faith’s centre on Mount Carmel, and his burial near Acre, fixed its spiritual and administrative heart in the Haifa–Acre area.
- The Báb’s Remains and the Shrine on Mount CarmelAfter the Báb’s 1850 execution in Tabriz, his remains were kept in hiding and later carried to the Holy Land. ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá interred them on Mount Carmel in 1909; the golden-domed shrine was completed in 1953.
- The Bahá’í Terraces and UNESCO ListingNineteen garden terraces frame the Shrine of the Báb on Mount Carmel, opening in 2001. UNESCO inscribed a wider group of Bahá’í holy places in Haifa and the Western Galilee in 2008 for their spiritual value and testimony to pilgrimage.
- The Universal House of Justice and the ArcThe Universal House of Justice is the Bahá’í Faith’s nine-member international governing council, elected every five years. Its seat is one of four institutional buildings arranged along the Arc on Mount Carmel in Haifa.
- The World Centre, Its Volunteers, and HaifaThe Bahá’í World Centre combines holy places, pilgrimage gardens and international administrative offices. Volunteers from Bahá’í communities worldwide serve for set periods in the care of the sites and the centre’s internal administration.