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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
True stories from the Bahá'í Faith, chosen and written for children — about Bahá'u'lláh, the Báb, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and the friends who knew them. Some are short enough for bedtime; others are longer, for older readers. Every one is drawn from a real, trusted source, and told with care.
On a sunny day in the Swiss countryside, 'Abdu'l-Bahá bought every flower a group of children were selling — and then taught His friends a simple secret about being happy.
Three hundred poor men crowded into a hall to meet 'Abdu'l-Bahá. He gave each one a coin — but He gave them something even more precious too.
Leaving a grand mansion full of important guests, 'Abdu'l-Bahá asked to see someone else first — the cooks and the maids who worked behind the scenes.
After years of searching, a tired traveler met a kind young Man at the city gate. By morning, his whole life — and the whole world — would never be the same.
Mullá Ḥusayn was the very first person to believe in the Báb. Years later, surrounded by an army, he showed the world what it means to be truly brave.
When a painter named Juliet visited the Holy Land, she saw 'Abdu'l-Bahá do something she never forgot — He sat right down on the floor to make tea for the children.
A poor boy from the roughest part of New York came to meet 'Abdu'l-Bahá, sure that no one would notice him. He was wrong — 'Abdu'l-Bahá noticed him most of all.
A boy sat crying by the road because his schoolwork was ruined. Then a kind stranger stopped to help — and that stranger was no ordinary traveler.
A lady looked out her window and saw 'Abdu'l-Bahá do something surprising for a poor old man on the street.
Thousands of people crowded into a square to watch the Báb be taken from them. But when the smoke cleared, something happened that no one could explain.
On a freezing journey into exile, a little girl watched her mother do everything she could to care for the family — including one small, loving mistake nobody ever forgot.
A grumpy visitor came to 'Abdu'l-Bahá with lots of complaints. 'Abdu'l-Bahá told him a funny little story about a dog — and the man went away happy.
At lunch one day in Haifa, 'Abdu'l-Bahá told a sly little story about a judge, two rivals, and a very good dinner. The friends laughed — and then caught the point. A teaching story from Fujita's 1919 pilgrim notes.
Shoghi Effendi's tribute to Bahíyyih Khánum preserves a single small image from her childhood in Tihrán: when Bahá'u'lláh was thrown into the Síyáh-Chál and the family's wealth was seized within the space of a single day, Navváb — the mother — placed a handful of dry flour into the hand of her young daughter as the substitute for daily bread.
In *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era*, Esslemont preserves 'Abdu'l-Bahá's recollection of His Father's boyhood: by the age of thirteen or fourteen, the young Mírzá Ḥusayn-'Alí had already become known across the scholarly circles of the Núrí district for being able to converse on any subject and resolve any problem put to Him.
A short story for children, paraphrased from the Baha'i Stories for Children blog: a small songbird in the garden of Bahá'u'lláh's family home in Tihrán, the boy who would not let it be caged, and the lesson he carried into his life of service.
A short story for children, paraphrased from the Baha'i Stories for Children blog: a small family preparing for Naw-Rúz by counting up the good deeds of the year, and the small new resolution each child makes for the year ahead.
A short story for children, paraphrased from the Baha'i Stories for Children blog: a small stray puppy that wandered into the Master's garden in 'Akká, the bowl of milk He set out, and the puppy that stayed for the rest of its life.
A short story for children, paraphrased from the Baha'i Stories for Children blog: a small girl who learns the difference between a prayer she says fast and a prayer she says slowly, and the way the whole room changes when she lets the words breathe.
A short story for children, paraphrased from the Baha'i Stories for Children blog: a small girl who broke her grandmother's favorite teacup, the truth she told, and the kindness she received in return.
A short story for children, paraphrased from the Baha'i Stories for Children blog: a small yellow flower in the cracked sidewalk, the child who decided not to pick it, and the bee that came to visit it later that day.
Mahmúd's Diary preserves a recurring theme of the 1912 American tour: the Master's particular attention to the children who came with their parents to the meetings. He would pause the proceedings to greet them. He would set them on His knee. He would ask their names, kiss their cheeks, and send them away with a sweet from His pocket.
On May 1, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá traveled north of Chicago to lay the cornerstone of the first Bahá'í House of Worship in the West. Many stones had been sent from Bahá'í communities for the ceremony. Only one — found in a builders' rejection pile and dragged to the site by Nettie Tobin, a Chicago seamstress — had actually arrived. The Master asked for hers.
In *Stories of Bahá'u'lláh* Mr. Furutan preserves the household recollection of the small house in Baghdád where Bahá'u'lláh lived in the 1850s — and the standing instruction He had given the family that no one who came to the door, of any creed or condition, was ever to be sent away without food.
Among the household recollections Mr. Furutan preserves in *Stories of Bahá'u'lláh* is the simple memory of how Bahá'u'lláh, in His own house, would set aside His writing to receive the children — would ask after their small concerns, would laugh at their jokes, and would send them away with blessings they remembered to the end of their lives.
In *Stories of Bahá'u'lláh* Mr. Furutan preserves the household memory of how Bahá'u'lláh, during the years in Bahjí, would step out into the small garden each afternoon with a handful of grain in His hand for the wild pigeons of the plain — and the gentleness of a creature who, in His own words, *did not wish to disappoint* the birds.
Among the recollections of Bahá'u'lláh's boyhood Mr. Furutan preserves in *Stories of Bahá'u'lláh* is the dream the child once had of a great moving spectacle in the sky — birds, fish, a green sea — that He told to His father the next morning, and whose meaning the household began only later to suspect.
Among the small images 'Abdu'l-Bahá used in conversation with the friends was the parable of a bird with a broken wing — a creature who, having tried every other refuge, at last laid itself in the hand of the One who had made it, and was healed.
Among the household stories 'Abdu'l-Bahá would tell was the account of why He no longer took sugar with His tea — because the believers in a certain Persian village had nothing but black tea, and He could not bring Himself to take a sweetness His friends could not share.
Among the agricultural parables 'Abdu'l-Bahá used in His conversations was the story of a farmer who, having sown his field, dug up the seeds the next morning to see whether they had grown — and the lesson He drew from his disappointment.
Among the parables 'Abdu'l-Bahá would offer to those who came to Him troubled about poverty and station was the story of a king who envied a shoemaker's sleep — and a shoemaker who would not trade his small contented evenings for the king's heavy throne.
Among the parables 'Abdu'l-Bahá used in conversation with friends was the story of three ducks who set off across a meadow to find the great river of which their elders had spoken — and how their different ways of seeking shaped what each one finally found.
In her 1905 pilgrim notes Julia Grundy preserves a meal at the Master's table — His Eastern way of eating with the fingers, His easy explanation to Western visitors, and His turning of the moment into a teaching about the food that brings life and the food that does not.
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<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">A great king walking in his garden one day noticed an old man, about 90 years old, planting some trees. The king asked what he was doing and the old man answered that he was planting date…
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In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum describes a small ritual at the family table in 'Akká: Bahíyyih Khánum, the Greatest Holy Leaf, would spoon a small bite from her own plate — *the mouthful of Khánum* — to one of the grandchildren, and the grandchildren would watch for whose turn it was.
In *Selections from the Writings of the Báb*, a brief instruction from the Bayán: after every obligatory prayer, the believer should ask God's mercy and forgiveness for his parents. A single sentence that joins devotion to family duty.
Among the childhood stories Hand of the Cause Furutan gathered into his *Stories of Bahá'u'lláh* is the recollection of how the young Mírzá Ḥusayn -‘Alí — long before His Declaration — would refuse to settle a quarrel among His playmates without first hearing both sides, and how the household began to recognize a quiet authority in the boy.