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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."
Fuller stories for older children.
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá was eight, His father was imprisoned and the family lost everything. Sent to His aunt's house for money, He was chased and pelted with stones, and reached home too exhausted to speak.
3 minIn a village in northern Iran, Mullá ‘Alí Ján and ‘Alavíyyih Khánum started family prayer, schools for girls and boys, and a cooperative. He was martyred in 1883; she spent the rest of her life teaching the Faith.
5 minMary Maxwell, who grew up in Montreal, married Shoghi Effendi in Haifa in 1937 with no celebration and no elaborate ceremony. Known afterwards as Rúḥíyyih Khánum, she served the Faith for the rest of her life.
4 minFour brothers in Baghdad came to love Bahá'u'lláh by watching Him come and go near their house. They accepted the Faith at once, and later bore captivity and famine in Mosul with patience.
3 minWhen Ibn-i-Abhar, a Hand of the Cause, asked Bahá'u'lláh for guidance, Bahá'u'lláh told him to consult with steadfast believers and act on their decision. He later taught across Persia, the Caucasus and India and promoted the education of women.
3 minTwo brothers followed Bahá'u'lláh from Adrianople into the prison of 'Akká, where both fell ill and died on the same night. Bahá'u'lláh had the prayer carpet from under His feet sold to pay the guards for their burial.
3 minAfter a dream, young ‘Abdu’l-Vahhab left his shop in Shíráz to follow Mullá ‘Alí, a disciple of the Báb. His angry father beat Mullá ‘Alí, but years later Bahá'u'lláh brought the father to the Faith and he was forgiven.
4 minFor decades Abu'l-Hasan of Ardikan carried the believers' letters and offerings to Bahá'u'lláh. Bahá'u'lláh made him Trustee of the Ḥuqúqu'lláh, and the Bahá'ís came to call him Hájí Amín.
4 minMírzá Ḥasan, a relative of the Báb, was a merchant and scholar who came to love Bahá'u'lláh deeply. He settled near Bahjí to be close to Him, and died soon after Bahá'u'lláh's passing.
3 minHájí Mírzá Músá wanted to give Bahá'u'lláh the house in Baghdád where He had lived. Bahá'u'lláh refused the gift and had the house bought at a fair price, and it became the Most Great House.
2 minThe Báb's three uncles came to His Faith at different times: one early, who died among the Seven Martyrs of Ṭihrán; one after Bahá'u'lláh answered his questions in the Kitáb-i-Íqán; and one some years later.
3 minḤájí Muḥammad Khán, a wandering seeker from Sístán, found what he had long searched for when he heard the call of Bahá'u'lláh. He shared the news with his old friends and then came to live near Bahá'u'lláh.
3 minIn 1889 an elderly Bahá'í was killed in the bazaar of 'Ishqábád. For the first time, the killers of a Bahá'í were brought to justice, and then the Bahá'ís asked that their lives be spared.
3 minḤájí Muḥammad-Taqí, a merchant of Kirmán, and Siyyid Murtaḍá, a merchant of Zanján, were among the Seven Martyrs of Ṭihrán in 1850. At the end, each asked to give his life before the others.
3 minḤájí Muḥammad-Ṭáhir, a weaver of Yazd, asked Bahá'u'lláh to let him die as a martyr and was told he would live long to teach the Cause. He lived to be a hundred, teaching and caring for the families of the martyrs.
3 minḤájí Mullá Ismá'íl of Faráhán searched for the truth from his youth and found it in the Báb. He was the third of the Seven Martyrs of Ṭihrán, and before he died he forgave his executioner.
3 minḤájí Mullá Mihdí, who made rose-water in Yazd, was driven from his city for his faith. He set out with two of his sons to reach Bahá'u'lláh, teaching along the way, and died at Mazra'ih, close to the Mansion.
3 minMírzá Músá, the younger brother of Bahá'u'lláh, was raised by Him, wanted no rank or office, and went with Him through every exile, from Ṭihrán to Baghdad, Constantinople, Adrianople and the prison of 'Akká.
3 minIn the prison city of 'Akká, Husayn-Áqá served coffee to every visitor for forty years without offending anyone, and he stayed loyal to the Covenant even though he was bound by close family ties to some who broke it.
3 minMullá Ṣádiq was led through the streets of Shíráz with a halter for teaching the Faith, yet kept smiling and speaking. He survived the siege of Fort Ṭabarsí and taught for the rest of his life.
3 minJináb-i-Muníb, a poet and calligrapher who had once loved an easy life, walked with Bahá'u'lláh's party from Baghdad to Constantinople, and later, though gravely ill, went with Him into exile and died at Smyrna.
5 minLouis Gregory, a Black lawyer from Charleston whose parents had been enslaved, became a Bahá'í in 1909. 'Abdu'l-Bahá seated him in the place of honor at a Washington luncheon, and he spent his life working for unity between the races.
4 minTwo believers from Ádhirbáyján followed Bahá'u'lláh to Adrianople and then to 'Akká, where they farmed, fell ill in the heat, and died giving thanks to God.
2 minMírzá 'Abdu'lláh, a master of Persian music, kept teaching though mobs attacked his school. 'Abdu'l-Bahá called him "Divine musician" and encouraged him to preserve the old melodies by writing them down.
3 minA learned man from Yazd became a carpenter and a servant to all the friends, and in the prison of 'Akká, after he had stopped breathing, Bahá'u'lláh told the friends to chant the prayer of Yá Sháfí and he recovered.
3 minMírzá Mihdí, the youngest son of Bahá'u'lláh, fell through a skylight in the prison of 'Akká and, as he lay dying, asked that his life be accepted as a sacrifice so that pilgrims could reach his Father.
4 minMírzá Mihdí of Káshán was mocked in his home town for his faith, went to Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdád, endured exile in Mosul, and at last reached the prison of 'Akká, where he died.
3 minFrom a rooftop in 'Akká, 'Abdu'l-Bahá saw a distant carriage and sensed that a holy being was in it. It was the Afnán, Ḥájí Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí, whose burial years later near Baghdád 'Abdu'l-Bahá guided by letter.
4 minAs boys, two brothers of Isfahan served the Báb at their father's banquet. They grew up to be honest, generous merchants and devoted Bahá'ís, were put to death in 1879, and were named by Bahá'u'lláh the King and the Beloved of Martyrs.
3 minMírzá Muhammad, a respected young scholar of Iṣfahán, left a comfortable life to serve the believers and travellers in the prison-city of 'Akká, and after Bahá'u'lláh's passing he wasted away with longing.
3 minMírzá Mustafá of Naráq gave up everything for the Faith and taught it openly in Tabríz. When the men sent to arrest him doubted they had the right man, he took off his hat to show his long hair and said, "I am the one."
3 minMirza Yusuf, nephew of the martyr Vahid, searched for years before becoming a Bahá'í. In 1902 'Abdu'l-Bahá sent him to teach in America, and later gave him his uncle's name.
4 minMuḥammad-‘Alí of Iṣfahán followed Bahá'u'lláh from Baghdád to Adrianople and into the prison of ‘Akká. A prisoner for the rest of his life, he was known there for his contentment and joy.
3 minMuḥammad-‘Alí Ṣabbáq could not read or write, but he followed Bahá'u'lláh from Baghdád to Constantinople, Adrianople and ‘Akká. He spent his last years near Bahá'u'lláh's Shrine.
2 minÁqá Muḥammad of Iṣfahán served the King of Martyrs and the Beloved of Martyrs, then went to ‘Akká, where he was given the honor of sweeping the ground at Bahá'u'lláh's door.
2 minAfter years of searching, Mullá ‘Alí became the second to believe in the Báb. Sent to announce His coming in Iraq, he was arrested, tried and imprisoned, and he died the first Bábí to give his life for his faith.
4 minWhen Ásíyih Khánum married Bahá'u'lláh, forty mules carried her wedding treasures. Together they cared for the poor, and when hard times came, her jewels paid for food and her gold buttons were traded for bread.
3 minIn May 1922 the Greatest Holy Leaf visited the old barracks in 'Akká where her family had been imprisoned, and Lady Blomfield wrote that her eyes were charged with memories.
5 minBahíyyih Khánum remembers the freezing winter journey her family made from Tihrán to Baghdád when she was six, and how her mother never complained.
5 minIn September 1911 Archdeacon Wilberforce invited 'Abdu'l-Bahá to speak at his London church, and the whole congregation knelt to receive His blessing.
5 minIn 1852, while Bahá'u'lláh lay chained in the Black Pit, His wife went out late at night to learn whether He was still alive, and six-year-old Bahíyyih Khánum waited in the dark holding her baby brother.
5 minFor two years Bahíyyih Khánum and her family did not know where Bahá'u'lláh had gone, until news of a holy dervish in the mountains led to His return.
5 minWhen the Báb was brought to Tabríz to be questioned by the leading religious scholars, He told them plainly that He was the promised One, and He did not take back His words.
5 minIn Iṣfáhán the Báb stayed with the city's chief religious leader and then with its governor. He wrote an explanation of a chapter of the Qur'án with amazing speed, and told the governor how God's Cause would be kept safe.
5 minThe Báb was sent to a far-off mountain castle so that His followers could not reach Him. Instead, the warden and the townspeople came to love Him, and the same thing happened at a second prison.
5 min'Alí Khán, the strict warden of the fortress of Máh-Kú, let almost no one see his Prisoner, the Báb, until something he saw one morning at dawn changed his heart.
5 minIn Tabríz in 1850 a regiment fired at the Báb and His young follower Anís, but the bullets only cut their ropes. The Báb was found in His room, calmly finishing a conversation.
5 minThe Báb sailed for two months with Quddús to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. On the way a thief took His writings, and in Mecca He told a well-known scholar who He was.
5 minIn 1852 Bahá'u'lláh was chained for four months in the Síyáh-Chál, an underground prison in Ṭihrán. There, in a dream, He heard the words that told Him of His Mission.
4 minIn 1850 Ḥujjat and his fellow believers took shelter in an old fort in the city of Zanján and held out against the Sháh's soldiers for many months.
4 minOne by one, eighteen seekers found the Báb, each by his own search, and became His first followers, the Letters of the Living.
3 minAt the Báb's request, Mullá Ḥusayn set out from Mashhad wearing the Báb's green turban, with a black flag carried before him, and led his companions to the shrine of Shaykh Ṭabarsí.
4 minBefore dawn on a winter morning in 1849, Mullá Ḥusayn, the first to believe in the Báb, rode out of the fort of Shaykh Ṭabarsí at the head of his companions. He was wounded and died in the fort beside Quddús.
4 minQuddús, the leader of the believers at Fort Ṭabarsí, was betrayed by a broken promise and killed in his home town. On his last day he prayed for the people who hurt him and spoke of his death as his wedding.
4 minAt forty, Shaykh Aḥmad left his home in Bahrayn to prepare people for the coming of the Promised One. In Ṭihrán he understood the meaning of Bahá'u'lláh's birth, and before he died he passed his work to Siyyid Káẓim.
3 minSiyyid Káẓim gave his students clues about the Promised One and, near the end of his life, urged them to scatter far and wide in search of Him. Mullá Ḥusayn went, and found the Báb.
3 minSent by the king to test the Báb, the scholar Siyyid Yaḥyá silently resolved to ask for a commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar. At their third meeting the Báb offered to reveal exactly that.
4 minAt a gathering of the Báb's followers in the village of Badasht, Ṭáhirih came before the believers without her veil and told them that a new day had begun.
3 minBrought before the religious leaders of Tabríz and the young prince, the Báb sat in the seat kept for the prince and told them that He was the promised One.
3 minIn 1850 Vaḥíd and his companions held a small fort near Nayríz against a large army, until the army's leaders tricked him with a promise sworn on the Qur'án and then broke it.
4 minThe warden of Máh-Kú was ordered to keep the Báb shut away. The people nearby came to love the Prisoner, and after a strange vision the warden himself became gentle and let visitors in.
4 minOn His way to help Bábís trapped in a fort, Bahá'u'lláh was arrested in the town of Ámul. He asked to be punished in place of His companions, and He alone was beaten.
2 minFrom exile in Adrianople, and then from prison in 'Akká, Bahá'u'lláh wrote to the kings and rulers of the world, calling them to justice and to God.
5 minIn 1912 'Abdu'l-Bahá laid the first stone of the House of Worship at Wilmette. The stone He used was one that builders had thrown away, brought there by a Chicago Bahá'í named Nettie Tobin.
5 minAfter Bahá'u'lláh passed away, a document He had written and sealed was opened and read aloud. In it He told everyone to turn to His eldest Son, 'Abdu'l-Bahá.
5 minShoghi Effendi was a student in England when 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away. He hurried home to Haifa, and his grandfather's Will named him Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith.
5 minAt a gathering of the Báb's followers in the village of Badasht, Ṭáhirih appeared without her veil and announced that a new age of religion had begun.
5 minNabíl followed Bahá'u'lláh from 'Iráq to 'Akká, teaching His Cause wherever he went. When Bahá'u'lláh passed away in 1892, Nabíl's grief was more than he could bear.
4 minBahá'u'lláh was born in Tihrán in 1817. As a youth He was wise, kind and generous, turned down His father's post in the government, and was later called the Father of the Poor.
5 minMullá Ḥusayn was searching for the Promised One. Outside the gate of Shíráz a Youth in a green turban welcomed him, took him home, and that night declared that He was the Báb.
4 minWhen Bahá'u'lláh was ordered to leave Baghdád, He stayed for twelve days in a garden of roses by the Tigris, and there told His followers that He was the Promised One the Báb had foretold.
3 minIn Boston in 1912, a speaker warned a large audience that a false Christ had come to America. 'Abdu'l-Bahá, speaking next, told them of the truth of all the Prophets of God, and especially of Christ.
3 minOn December 5, 1912, many friends came aboard the ship Celtic in New York to say goodbye to 'Abdu'l-Bahá. In His last words to them He said that the whole earth is one globe and all nations are one family.
5 minAt a children's event in Brooklyn, Admiral Peary, the explorer of the North Pole, asked 'Abdu'l-Bahá to make a short speech. He had not planned to speak, but His talk captured everyone's attention.
5 minOn His last evening in New York, 'Abdu'l-Bahá spoke to students and professors at Columbia University about the powers of the human mind and spirit, and about the love that joins East and West. Afterwards, people did not want to leave Him.
5 minIn a San Francisco synagogue, 'Abdu'l-Bahá spoke about Moses and then asked His Jewish listeners why they should not also praise Christ and Muḥammad.
3 minWhen 'Abdu'l-Bahá left Minneapolis, His friends went with Him to the train. Before He left, He asked them to be kind to the poor and help them.
2 min'Abdu'l-Bahá could stay only two days in Minneapolis and St. Paul. In that time He spoke at His hotel, a club, a synagogue and two friends' homes.
4 minIn Pittsburgh in 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá taught that laws should help the poor and that the rich should give to them from willing hearts.
5 minAfter traveling across America and back, 'Abdu'l-Bahá returned to New York in November 1912 and welcomed the many friends and visitors who came to see Him before He sailed away.
5 minAbout eighteen hundred students filled a university hall at Stanford to hear 'Abdu'l-Bahá speak about science, peace, and the whole human race as one family.
3 minAs He left a country house in Milford, 'Abdu'l-Bahá looked at the green countryside all around and began to cry, because He was remembering the sufferings of His Father, Bahá'u'lláh.
2 minThe president of Clark University invited 'Abdu'l-Bahá to visit. He spoke to more than a thousand students and teachers about the value of science, and told the president He would never forget the meeting.
4 minMullá Ḥusayn, the first person to believe in the Báb, put on the turban the Báb had sent him and rode out of Fort Ṭabarsí against the army surrounding it. He was wounded and died in the fort beside Quddús.
3 minHoward Colby Ives invited 'Abdu'l-Bahá to speak at the church he had named the Brotherhood Church. When 'Abdu'l-Bahá spoke on brotherhood, Howard felt ashamed of how little he had lived the word.
3 minSaying goodbye to 'Abdu'l-Bahá on the ship that took Him from America, Howard Colby Ives knelt and placed the Master's hand on his head. He never forgot how still that hand lay.
2 minShoghi Effendi drew a great curving line on Mount Carmel where, one day, the buildings of the Bahá'í World Centre would stand. He lived to see only the first of them.
5 minIn 1937 Mary Maxwell of Montreal married Shoghi Effendi in Haifa. Almost no one knew beforehand, and there was no celebration, no wedding dress and no reception.
5 minTo design the dome and arcade of the Shrine of the Báb, Shoghi Effendi turned to a Canadian architect who was also his father-in-law, William Sutherland Maxwell.
5 minIn London in 1957, Shoghi Effendi fell ill with the flu, kept working until he had finished his last map, and passed away peacefully in his sleep.
4 minLetters poured in to Shoghi Effendi from all over the world. He decided to keep writing back to individual believers, and he wrote and typed his own books himself.
3 minAt Oxford, the young Shoghi Effendi worked day and night to perfect his English so that he could translate the holy writings, until the news of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's passing called him home.
4 minShoghi Effendi, the grandson of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, was often unhappy at school in Beirut, but he studied hard so that one day he could serve his grandfather and translate His letters into English.
3 minSoon after he became Guardian, Shoghi Effendi went away for a time to gather his strength, walking for long hours, usually alone, in the mountains of Switzerland, while the Greatest Holy Leaf looked after the Faith.
4 minShoghi Effendi planned a ten-year Crusade to carry the Faith to 131 new countries and territories, and in its very first year Bahá'ís settled in one hundred of them.
3 minIn 1921 Shoghi Effendi, a student in England, walked into an office in London and read a cable on the desk telling of the passing of his grandfather, 'Abdu'l-Bahá.
2 minShoghi Effendi worked for eight months to translate Nabíl's Persian history of the Báb and His followers into English, and in 1932 it was published as The Dawn-Breakers.
3 minWhen soldiers in Tabríz fired at the Báb, the bullets only cut the ropes, and He was found in another room. The soldiers laid down their arms and would not fire again.
3 minOn the winter journey into exile from Tihrán to Baghdád, Ásíyih Khánum cared for her family with her own hands, and one night made Bahá'u'lláh a cake in the dark, using salt instead of sugar.
3 min