The turning point of Baha'u'llah's life, and the founding moment of the Baha'i Faith, came in 1863 in a garden outside Baghdad which Baha'is call the Garden of Ridvan. There, on the eve of a further exile, he declared to a small circle that he was the one whose coming the Bab had foretold, He whom God shall make manifest, the Messenger for this age. The declaration at Ridvan is commemorated as the greatest Baha'i festival.
His central teaching is progressive revelation: the idea that religion is one and unfolds in stages, that the founders of the great faiths, Abraham, Moses, Krishna, the Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus, Muhammad, the Bab and Baha'u'llah, are successive Manifestations of God, each renewing eternal spiritual truths and bringing social teachings suited to the needs of their time. On this view the world's religions differ not in their source, which is one God, but in the era and circumstances they addressed.
From this flow the faith's characteristic principles: the oneness of God, the oneness of religion, and the oneness of humanity; the abandonment of prejudice; the harmony of science and religion; the equality of women and men; universal education; and the goal of a peaceful, united global civilization, including proposals for a world tribunal and an international auxiliary language.