Mansion of Bahjí

The Mansion of Bahjí (Arabic: delight) is a summer house in Acre, Israel where Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, died in 1892. His shrine is located next to this house. The whole area was called Al-Bahjá (Place of Delight).

The area was originally a garden planted by Sulayman Pasha, who was the ruler of Acre, for his daughter Fatimih, and he named it Bahji. Later the area was further beautified by `Abdu'llah Pasha, and in 1831 when Ibrahim Pasha besieged Acre he used the property as his headquarters. The property was well known for its beautiful gardens and pond fed by an aqueduct. The property then fell into the possession of a Christian family, the Jamals.

In 1870 `Udi Khammar, a wealthy merchant from Acre who also originally owned the House of `Abbúd, bought some of the land from the Jamals close to the mansion of `Abdu'llah Pasha and built the Mansion of Bahji, over an earlier and smaller building, which Abdu'llah Pasha had had built for his mother. `Udi Khammar had built the house for his family, and when he died was buried in a tomb in the south-east corner of the wall directly around the building. In 1879 an epidemic caused the inhabitants to flee and the building became vacant.