Recently Added

• The First Bahá'ís of South Africa — Bahá'í Chronicles records the establishment of the South African Bahá'í community in the early 1950s — when Shoghi Effendi's Ten Year Crusade brought pioneers to the apartheid-era cities, and the first declarations were made by a handful of Black, white, and Indian South Africans who had found in the Faith the answer to the racial question their country had not yet faced.
• From 'Akká to Bombay: Jamál Effendi's Mission to India — Bahá'í Chronicles records that in the late 1870s, Bahá'u'lláh dispatched Sulaymán Khán-i-Tunúkábání — known as Jamál Effendi — from 'Akká to India, with the charge to establish the Faith on the subcontinent. With Sayyid Muṣṭafá Rúmí, who would later carry the work into Burma, he founded the first Bahá'í communities of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta.
• John Esslemont: A Doctor at the Master's Side — Bahá'í Chronicles preserves the biographical record of John Ebenezer Esslemont — the Aberdeen physician who, after encountering the Cause in 1914, wrote the introductory work *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era,* moved to Haifa to serve at the Master's side, and was named by Shoghi Effendi a Hand of the Cause after his early death in 1925.
• Lua Getsinger: The Mother-Teacher of the West — Bahá'í Chronicles preserves the biographical record of Lua Aurelia Getsinger — the radiant Tennessee farm girl who, after the 1898 pilgrimage of fifteen Westerners to 'Akká, became the most celebrated travel-teacher of her generation, and whom 'Abdu'l-Bahá named *Livá* — *the Banner-Bearer.*
• Martha Root: The Leading Ambassadress of the Faith — Bahá'í Chronicles preserves the biographical record of Martha Root — the small, quiet Pennsylvania newspaperwoman who, in the years between 1919 and her death in 1939, travelled four times around the world as a Bahá'í teacher, met queens and presidents, and was named by Shoghi Effendi *the foremost Hand of the Cause* of the Western world in his time.
• May Maxwell: A Mother of the Western Bahá'í Community — Bahá'í Chronicles preserves the biographical record of May Bolles Maxwell — one of the first pilgrims to 'Akká, the woman who established the Bahá'í community of Paris and of Montreal, the mother of Rúḥíyyih Khánum, and the travel-teacher whom Shoghi Effendi would name a martyr of the Faith after her death in Buenos Aires in 1940.
• An Abiding Impression: Bahíyyih Khánum's Winter in Adrianople — Shoghi Effendi's tribute to Bahíyyih Khánum records the cost of the Adrianople exile to her own body — a winter of exceptional severity, a poor and unhealthy lodging, and dire financial distress that left her, as a young woman, with a permanent loss of vitality and a shadow on her face that would remain until the end of her life.
• The Burden a Sister Carried: Bahíyyih Khánum in the Baghdád Crisis — Shoghi Effendi's tribute to Bahíyyih Khánum recalls the years of crisis in Baghdád — when Mírzá Yaḥyá's faithlessness had unsettled the Bábí community and Bahá'u'lláh had retreated for two years to the mountains of Sulaymáníyyih — and the delicate, grave tasks the teenaged Greatest Holy Leaf undertook to hold the household together.
• She Restored Sight to the Blind: Bahíyyih Khánum's Wartime Relief Work in Haifa — During the Great War, Haifa was crowded with the destitute, the orphaned, and the sick. From the household at the foot of Mount Carmel, the Greatest Holy Leaf — already in advanced age — distributed daily food, money, clothing, and remedies she had herself prepared.
• A Handful of Flour: Bahíyyih Khánum's Tihrán Childhood — 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.
• An Old Believer Looks Up: A Mountain Ascended Many Times — In *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era*, Esslemont describes the proximity of the Persian believers in 'Akká to the great Mansion of Bahjí — the pilgrim who, after the long road, would silently ascend the path each morning to be near the windows of the Master, then sit beneath the trees, then descend at dusk having barely spoken.
• Renowned at Thirteen: The Boy Who Could Speak on Any Subject — 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.
• Those Piercing Eyes: Edward Granville Browne in the Presence of Bahá'u'lláh — In *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era*, Esslemont preserves the famous 1890 account by the Cambridge orientalist Edward Granville Browne — the only Westerner ever to record his impressions of meeting Bahá'u'lláh. The short paragraph was written in plain academic English. It has never been surpassed.
• The Cairo Community: The Faith Takes Root in Egypt — Esslemont's *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era* records the early growth of the Bahá'í Faith in Egypt — the publication of Bahá'í pamphlets in Cairo from the 1890s, the establishment of small communities in Cairo and Alexandria, and the difficulties when the Egyptian religious authorities ruled, in the 1920s, that Bahá'ís were no longer to be considered Muslims.
• Pilgrims Beyond the Third Moat: An Esslemont Story of 'Akká — In *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era*, J. E. Esslemont preserves the small, heartbreaking image of Persian believers who walked thousands of miles to the prison-city of 'Akká, were refused admittance at the gates, and contented themselves with standing on the plain beyond the third moat, looking up at the windows of the Blessed Beauty's quarters.
• Foul Beyond Comparison: Bahá'u'lláh's Recollection of the Síyáh-Chál — In *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era*, Esslemont preserves Bahá'u'lláh's own brief description of the Síyáh-Chál — the underground prison in Tihrán in which He was held in chains for four months in 1852. The dungeon was *foul beyond comparison*, dark, and crowded with nearly one hundred and fifty fellow-prisoners.
• Letters to Tolstoy: The Russian Imperial Bahá'ís — Esslemont's *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era* records the surprising recognition of the Bahá'í Faith by Count Leo Tolstoy in his last decade — the great Russian novelist who corresponded with Bahá'í teachers and praised the Faith in letters that reached far beyond the small Russian Bahá'í community of his lifetime.
• An Hour of Kissed Hands: 'Abdu'l-Bahá Wins Bahá'u'lláh a Day in the Country — In *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era*, Esslemont preserves a small story of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's strategic kindness — how He arranged for a respected local shaykh to plead with His Father for an outing into the countryside, and how the Master's quiet diplomacy ended decades of strict confinement.
• Quiet, Untheatrical, Most Convincing: Esslemont on the Master in London — In *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era,* J. E. Esslemont preserves the testimony of those who heard 'Abdu'l-Bahá in London in 1911 — that the Master's manner was *quiet, untheatrical, most convincing,* and that the simplicity of His speaking, more than any rhetoric, carried the weight of His Father's revelation.
• The Young Merchant of Shíráz: Esslemont's Portrait of the Báb — In *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era*, J. E. Esslemont introduces the Western reader to the Báb as He was before His Declaration: a young merchant of Shíráz, raised by a maternal uncle after His father's early death, known across His district for piety, gentleness, and the scrupulous honesty of His business dealings.