May 29


Amber pages





Mehmed II's Turks captured Constantinople - and renamed it Istanbul - today in 1453. What theme does this lead to? The end of the European Middle Ages, because that was defined by the Rome-Byzantine schism? The transfer of Islamic power from Mecca, or was it Cairo or Damascus by then anyway? The start of the Ottoman empire, the worst thing that ever happened to the Moslem-Arab world, and will again, if Erdogan gets his way (he usually does). The threat to Europe (Jan Sobieski and the battle of Vienna is on May 21)? Or is the theme the "merging" of the two faiths, the Hagia Sophia (a mosque inside a cathedral) here and the Mezquita (a cathedral inside a mosque) in Cordoba: that could actually make a rather interesting essay.


Charles II was restored to the English throne, today in 
1660



Baha'u'llah, the prophet of the Baha'i Faith, died today in 1892. I have the birth of the other founder, the Bab, on May 23 - but why am I doing this one's death anyway? He was born in Tehran, Iran on 12th November, 1817, as Mirza Husayn-Alí. The comparison of his relationship to the Bab with that of John the Baptist and Jesus is worth making; also his origins make him comparable with the Buddha (has anyone ever pointed out that the early life of Moses, sanctuaried in the royal palace with no knowledge of the outside world, and then going out to see it as a young adult, witnessing slavery and the bullying of the overseers, and reacting by committing murder... and then going and sitting under his version of the Bodhi tree to acquire a moral and an ethical code...). And his being a merchant parallels Mohammed. So he becomes a reincarnation of all of them. How convenient!

And can I resist writing a travel-paragraph or two, based on innumerable visits down the years, to the glorious, magnificent, stunningly beautiful Bahai Temple and Gardens in Haifa?





Sir Edmund Percival Hillary and Tenzing Norkay reached the summit of Mount Everest, today in 1953 (see July 24 for my list of some of the "other" Tenzings)





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