- Hasht-Bihisht
The Hasht-Bihisht (lit. Eight Paradises) commonly refers to a
Azali apologetic text which is particularly critical of theBahá'í Faith - a religion that believed the Bábímessianic figure ofHe whom God shall make manifest has already appeared inBahá'u'lláh . It is well cited by manypolemic texts against the Bahá'í faith.Two sons-in-law of Mirza Yahya Azal, namely, Shaykh Ahmad Ruhi and Mirza Aqa Khan Kirmani, are reputed to be the authors, and it was written before 1890 [http://bahai-library.org/books/tn/tn.w.html] .----There is another famous "Hasht Bihisht" written by
Amir Khusro around 1302 AD. It is based upon an earlier epic poem, theShahnameh written byFirdausi around 1010 AD and a later adaptation, theHaft Paykar byNizami , written around 1197 AD. TheShahnameh is a very long work spanning many ages of Persian history. Khusro's "Hasht Bihisht" retells just a small portion of the life ofBahram V Gur and embellishes the original historical but glorified tales with other non-historical elements. Most famously, Khusro "appears" to be the "first" writer to have addedThe Three Princes of Serendip as characters and the story of the alleged camel theft and recovery as a plot element to the more traditional Bahram Gur stories.----
[Taj Mahal showing the eight chambers surrounding the central chamber.] In architecture the Hasht Bihist refers to a specific type of floorplan common in Indian Mughal architecture whereby the plan is divided into 8 chambers surrounding a central room.
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