On a December day in 1973, Anisa Abdul-Razzaq Abbas heard a knock at the door of the Baghdad home she was visiting. She opened the door to greet two men from the Iraqi Al-Amn security force, who immediately placed her under arrest. Her crime: being a member of the Bahá’í Faith, a religious minority in her native Iraq.

Over the next six years, Anisa—along with other members of the Bahá’í community who were arrested at that time—would spend three years in Iraq’s infamous Abu Ghraib prison and a further three years in Al-Rashaad prison before her release in 1979. During her years of incarceration, Anisa would rely on her faith to meet the myriad challenges of prison life. Day after day, she and her fellow-prisoners experienced levels of cruelty and injustice that most would find unthinkable. Separated from her husband, who was being held in the men’s prison, and from her children who were without both parents, Anisa was sustained through her darkest days by the steadfast devotion and sacrificial love of her family, and by the strength and solidarity offered by her fellow Bahá’í prisoners.

Anisa’s story is one of patience, courage, and steadfastness in the face of religious prejudice and state-sponsored oppression, and it is a reminder to us all of the resilient strength of the human spirit.

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Finally, a book that challenges conventional wisdom about healing from trauma and abuse.

Simply put, you can't think your way to happiness if you're suffering the effects of trauma or abuse. Yet every day, millions receive this message from a multi-billion-dollar self-help industry. As a result, many think it's their fault when their efforts to healing themselves fail. Far too many sincere, intelligent, and highly motivated people who have followed popular advice for self-healing still feel depressed, anxious, unloved, and unlovable.

Why is this?

If popular pathways for self-healing don't work, what does?

How can those who suffer begin to find relief, function better, and feel genuinely optimistic, relaxed, loved, and lovable? This engaging and highly readable book, based on the author's professional experience in treating those who suffer from the devastating effects of emotional trauma, offers hope for those who suffer and those who care about them. Dr. McGraw O'Connor describes how trauma affects the brain and, therefore, one's ability to carry out "good advice"; explains the subtle and largely hidden processes of attunement and attachment that take place between parents and children, examining their impact on all future relationships; tells what is needed for healing to occur; discusses the profound health benefits of spirituality and a relationship with God in assisting and accelerating the healing process; and suggests how members of the helping professions can begin to tap the deepest, most authentic parts of themselves to touch the hearts of those they seek to help.

Here's What They're Saying...

"McGraw writes for anyone who has ever been disappointed by a shrink or a self-help book... She puts a novel spin on the self-help genre." — Library Journal

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“The sun of Bahá has set.” These were the opening words of the telegram announcing the ascension of Bahá’u’lláh, the Prophet and Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, Who passed from this earthly life in the early hours of May 29, 1892. As the news traveled, throngs of mourners from all walks of life descended upon the fields surrounding the Bahjí compound where He had spent His final years on earth as a prisoner of the Ottoman Empire. Within twenty-four hours His sacred remains had been interred in a modest building that was to be the Point of Adoration, the Qiblih, toward which millions of His followers continue to turn in daily prayer.

In the pages of this book historian Michael V. Day takes the reader through the last years of Bahá’u’lláh’s life—in ‘Akká, Mazra‘ih, and Bahjí—highlighting pivotal moments and texts associated with the establishment of His shrine. Drawing upon a wide range of sources, including eyewitness accounts, the author paints vivid pictures of the daily life of the Manifestation and of those in His orbit; of His final days and illness; of His ascension and funeral, and of the period of mourning that followed. While there are many details that remain beyond our reach as we peer through the lens of history at these momentous events, the accounts pieced together here offer us a great deal to ponder and invite deep, meditative reflection.

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