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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."
525 stories.
While Bahá'u'lláh lived in solitude in the mountains, His family in Baghdad heard of a dervish who had comforted a weeping schoolboy and written him a beautiful copy. Bahíyyih Khánum recalled how they became convinced it was their father.
On the voyage into exile at ‘Akká, Jinab-i-Munib fell gravely ill. The Master and Mirza Musa carried him to a hospital at Smyrna, but when the Master returned with fruit for him, he had died.
Bahíyyih Khánum recalls how, when Bahá’u’lláh was banished from Adrianople, a false report that He would be parted from His family and followers led one of them to try to take his own life, until ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s protest kept them together.
Haji Mirza Haydar-'Ali tells of a man so afraid of being found with the Kitáb-i-Íqán that he hid it in a stable manger, until he reflected on the fearlessness of its Author and became a believer.
In ‘Akká, where there was no hospital, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá quietly paid a doctor to treat the poor. When a crippled woman named Na'um caught measles and was shunned, He gave her a room, His own bedding and every care.
While living in the house of Bahá’u’lláh’s brother in ‘Akká before her marriage, Munírih Khánum could watch ‘Abdu’l-Bahá swimming in the sea from her window. She remembered Him as a strong and graceful swimmer.
When a child asked why all the rivers of the earth flow into the ocean, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá answered that the ocean sets itself lower than them all and so draws them to itself.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá recalled a believer imprisoned with Bahá’u’lláh in ‘Akká who, with only a rug, a samovar, a cup and a teapot, made his tea each afternoon with such gratitude and joy that every cup seemed better than the last.
At eight ‘Abdu’l-Bahá grieved over His Father’s sufferings; in Baghdad He prayed without ceasing while Bahá’u’lláh was away in Sulaymaniyyih, rejoiced at His return, and drank in the teaching at the gatherings by the Tigris.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá told of a Persian believer who, travelling in the wilderness, could not sleep for fear his new shirt would be stolen, until he decided to get rid of it so he could rest.
Told he could come on pilgrimage once his debts were paid, an Egyptian merchant spent five years clearing them. Arriving unrecognized in Haifa, he was found by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who spent the night praying beside him.
When a merchant in ‘Akká seized the exiles’ charcoal, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá sat quietly in his shop for three hours. Their talk about Christ won the merchant’s respect; he paid back the money and became a lifelong friend.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá remembers Fátimih Begum, widow of the King of Martyrs, who bore persecution, poverty and the death of her son with thankfulness, but could not survive her grief at Bahá’u’lláh’s passing.
Bahá’u’lláh recounts how Muhammad, who had prayed toward Jerusalem, was commanded in the midst of the noontide prayer to turn toward the Ka‘bih, and how this change tested His companions.
When Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, died in 'Akká in 1870, Shaykh Maḥmúd asked for the honour of washing his body while the grieving Most Great Branch kept watch outside the tent. He was buried beyond the city walls.
At Gallipoli, foreign consuls offered to secure refuge in Western Europe for Bahá’u’lláh and His family, but He would not abandon His followers. Bahíyyih Khánum recalls the hungry, frightened voyage that followed.
Four months after the death of the Purest Branch, the exiles were moved out of the barracks of ‘Akká. Bahá’u’lláh and His family went to the house of Malik; most companions lodged in the Khán-i-‘Avámid, later the first pilgrim house.
The Vazír dreamed that his son Bahá’u’lláh swam in a limitless ocean, with a multitude of fishes clinging to His hair. A soothsayer explained the dream, and after meeting the boy praised Him greatly.
In the Mazandaran village of Máhfurúzak, Mullá ‘Alí Ján and his wife ‘Alavíyyih Khánum organized village life around prayer, schools and a cooperative; after his execution in Tehran in 1883 she devoted her life to the Faith.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá remembers Áqá ‘Alí of Qazvín, a host and teacher of the early believers who was beaten for his faith, followed Bahá’u’lláh to the prison of ‘Akká, and remained content through poverty and illness.
After his father’s death, Áqá Ḥusayn-i-Áshchí was taken into Bahá’u’lláh’s household and became its cook; he recalled the meagre meals in Adrianople and how Bahá’u’lláh smiled on learning that he counted the coal for each brazier.
Four brothers living near Bahá'u'lláh's house in Baghdad were drawn to Him by watching Him come and go, and later bore captivity in Mosul with patience. ‘Abdu'l-Bahá remembers each of them and their uncle.
As a boy, Ibn-i-Asdaq travelled with his father to Baghdad and met Bahá'u'lláh, who revealed a prayer for him. Years later he became one of the four Hands of the Cause named by Bahá'u'lláh.
Ibn-i-Abhar, one of the four Hands of the Cause named by Bahá'u'lláh, was told to seek answers through consultation, counselled by ‘Abdu'l-Bahá on trustworthiness, and sent to Yazd shortly before the upheaval of 1903.
Two brothers who shared Bahá'u'lláh's exile died in each other's arms in the ‘Akká barracks, and He gave up His prayer carpet to pay for their burial. ‘Abdu'l-Bahá also recalls their brother Pahlaván Riḍá.
Escaping his captors after the upheaval in Nayríz, Muḥammad-Ibráhím Amír fled to Iraq, copied the sacred verses, and served Bahá'u'lláh day and night through every exile to the Most Great Prison.
Muḥammad-Ibráhím, a coppersmith and poet from Káshán, came to Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdad, was exiled to Mosul, and spent his last years in Haifa serving travellers. His elegy for the King of Martyrs moved all to tears.
Ḥájí ‘Abdu’lláh left Persia for the Holy Land, farmed for a time at Ghawr near Tiberias while spending much of his time in prayer, then settled near Bahá’u’lláh at Junayna, where he passed away.
When a Persian Consul pressed him to testify that thieves had stolen far more than his few goods, the Tabríz merchant ‘Alí-‘Askar refused to lie; later, in the ‘Akká prison with his stricken family, he never ceased giving thanks.
Hounded by his own relatives and friends in Ádhirbáyján for his faith, Hájí Áqá of Tabríz fled with his family to Adrianople, shared the exiles’ imprisonment in ‘Akká, and died there near Bahá’u’lláh.
Faraju’lláh of Tafrísh came with his father to Adrianople, followed Bahá’u’lláh into the ‘Akká prison, later prospered in trade, and ended his days in India; his grave is in Bombay.
Three brothers from Tabríz gave their hearts to Bahá’u’lláh: Hájí Hasan was killed for proclaiming the Faith in Ádhirbáyján, while Hájí Ja‘far and Hájí Taqí followed Him into the ‘Akká prison.
For decades Ḥájí Abu’l-Ḥasan Ardikání carried the Ḥuqúqu’lláh and the believers’ letters to Bahá’u’lláh, met Him in the public bath at ‘Akká, became trustee of the Ḥuqúqu’lláh, and served on into the ministry of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá remembers Mírzá Ḥasan, the great Afnán, a learned kinsman of the Báb who settled near Bahjí, studied the stars by night, and did not long survive the passing of Bahá’u’lláh.
Ḥájí Mírzá Músá, whose father had been devoted to Bahá’u’lláh in Baghdad, longed to give Him the house He lived in; Bahá’u’lláh would accept it only by purchase, and revealed a Tablet in Mírzá Músá’s honour.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá remembers Ḥájí Muḥammad Khán, a Balúch mystic whose long search for a spiritual guide ended in the presence of Bahá’u’lláh; he settled near Him in the Holy Land and passed away beside the Shrine of the Báb.
In 1889 Ḥájí Muḥammad-Riḍá Iṣfahání was murdered in the bazaar of Ashkhabad; the Russian authorities tried and convicted the killers, the Bahá’ís interceded for their lives, and the community went on to build its own institutions.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá remembers Hájí Muhammad-Ridá of Shíráz, a humble believer who served the Afnán, attended Bahá’u’lláh in the Holy Land, and died in Sidon, often praised by the Blessed Beauty.
Hájí Muhammad-Tahir of Yazd begged Bahá’u’lláh for martyrdom and was told he would live long to teach the Cause. He served for decades as a teacher, historian and protector of the families of Yazd’s martyrs.
Driven from Yazd for his faith, Mullá Mihdí set out with his two sons for the Holy Land, teaching along the way. Sick, his feet torn, he reached Mazra‘ih and died close by the Mansion of Bahá’u’lláh.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá remembers Mírzá Músá, Bahá’u’lláh’s faithful brother, who shared every exile from Ṭihrán to ‘Akká, and recalls Bahá’u’lláh’s joy when the fame of the Cause reached Díyárbakr.
For forty years Husayn-Áqá kept the coffee service and waited on everyone who came, without ever giving offence; after Bahá’u’lláh’s ascension he and his mother stood firm in the Covenant despite ties of kinship.
A young merchant from Tabríz heard of the new Manifestation in Smyrna, left his business to serve Bahá’u’lláh, and made his home in Haifa a way station for Bahá’í travelers, remaining steadfast after the Ascension.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá remembers Ismu’lláhu’l-Asdaq, who was led through Shíráz by a halter, survived the siege of Fort Tabarsí, and in Baghdád gently won over a furious Persian prince within a quarter of an hour.
Jináb-i-Muníb, a gifted calligrapher and singer from Káshán, walked beside Bahá’u’lláh’s howdah from Baghdád to Constantinople; later, gravely ill on the exile to ‘Akká, he was put ashore at Smyrna, where his grave lies.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá remembers Mashhadí Faṭṭáḥ, who came from Ádhirbáyján with his brother, lost everything he owned, lived content and silent in the prison of ‘Akká, and died of grief after the passing of Bahá’u’lláh.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá remembers two believers from Ádhirbáyján who lived near Adrianople, missed the exile to ‘Akká, followed on their own, farmed outside the city, and died of fever giving thanks to God.
Mírzá Abu’l-Faḍl, head of a religious college in Tihrán, became a Bahá’í in 1876, was imprisoned three times, and taught the Faith in Turkmenistan, Egypt and America until his death in Cairo in 1914.
Mírzá Áqáy-i-Rikáb-Sáz, an early believer and calligrapher of Shíráz for whom Bahá’u’lláh revealed the Tablet of the Verse of Light, was betrayed, imprisoned and put to death in his native city.
A learned seeker from Yazd became a carpenter in Baghdad, gathered provisions for the exiles on the road to Constantinople, and served in the ‘Akká barracks, where he revived after Bahá’u’lláh bade that the prayer for healing be chanted.
Bahá’u’lláh’s son Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, fell through a skylight in the ‘Akká barracks in 1870 and offered his life so that the believers might attain his Father’s presence; in 1939 Shoghi Effendi reburied him on Mount Carmel.
Mocked in Káshán for his faith, the poet Mírzá Mihdí came to Baghdad, stayed behind to guard the Holy House, endured exile in Mosul, and at last reached the ‘Akká prison, where he spent his final days in joy.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá recalls how He sensed a holy soul in a carriage approaching ‘Akká and went to the city gate to meet the Afnán, and how, after the Afnán died in India, his body was at last laid to rest near Baghdád.
As boys, two brothers of Isfahan served the Báb at their father's banquet. Grown into honest, generous merchants, they were put to death in 1879, and Bahá’u’lláh named them the King of Martyrs and the Beloved of Martyrs.
In Baghdad, Bahá'u'lláh has 'Abdu'l-Bahá settle a rich jeweler's disputed estate in a single day and gives the share pressed upon Him to the jeweler's son. Later Mírzá Muhammad defends those estates and becomes known as the Deputy.
Raised by Bahá'u'lláh from infancy, His brother Mírzá Muḥammad-Qulí served Him through every exile, pitching the tents and passing around the tea, and remained firm in the Covenant after His ascension.
A respected scholar of Isfahán gave up every comfort to serve Bahá’u’lláh and the believers in ‘Akká; after Bahá’u’lláh’s ascension, unable to bear His absence, he wasted away and died.
Mírzá Mustafá of Naráq, a believer since the days of the Báb, teaches the Faith openly in Tabríz with Shaykh Ahmad-i-Khurásání; when captured he reveals who he is, and at the place of execution asks to die first.
Muḥammad-‘Alí of Iṣfahán followed Bahá’u’lláh into exile and spent the rest of his life a prisoner in ‘Akká, yet he savored every blessing so gladly that people said even kings were not so happy.
Muḥammad-‘Alí Ṣabbáq, who could neither read nor write, followed Bahá’u’lláh from Baghdád, spent two lonely years in Constantinople helping believers on their way, and shared the exile to ‘Akká before settling in Sidon.
Muḥammad-Hádí, a master bookbinder from Iṣfahán, kept the square before Bahá’u’lláh’s house in ‘Akká swept and sprinkled, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá recalls how a bowl of barley soup once cured his long fever.
Áqá Muḥammad of Iṣfahán served the King of Martyrs and the Beloved of Martyrs for years, then emigrated to ‘Akká, where he swept the ground about Bahá’u’lláh’s house and, after His passing, wept and prayed there each dawn.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá remembers Mullá ‘Alí-Akbar, a learned seeker who found the Faith, was chained and jailed again and again in Ṭihrán yet kept safe, and after his death appeared to Him in a dream, saying he had been teaching the Faith.
A renowned mujtahid of Najaf met Bahá’u’lláh in Baghdád, then taught the Faith in Qá’in, Ṭihrán, Bukhárá and Ishqábád through persecution and poverty, until he died far from his homeland.
Nabíl of Zarand, poet and teacher, sought Bahá’u’lláh in Baghdád, Adrianople and ‘Akká, waited in a cave on Mount Carmel until the prison gates opened, and could not bear to live after His ascension.
Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí met Bahá’u’lláh in Ṭihrán before the Báb’s Declaration. Driven from Qá’in for his faith, he lived in poverty in Nazareth, trading needles for eggs, and at last made his home in ‘Akká near Bahá’u’lláh.
After his father was killed for his faith near Káshán, ‘Alí-Akbar attained Bahá’u’lláh’s presence in ‘Iráq, later crossed deserts and mountains with his wife to reach Him again, and stayed loyal to the Covenant.
Shaykh Ismá‘íl, a Sufi leader of Kurdistán, persuaded Bahá’u’lláh to come to Sulaymáníyyih, where he and his disciples asked Him for the poem that became the Qasídiy-i-Varqá’íyyih.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá recalls Shaykh Ṣádiq of Yazd, a man of constant prayer in Baghdád, whom He healed at Bahá’u’lláh’s bidding, and who later died on the road to Mosul, longing to reach his Lord.
Shaykh Salmán slipped out of arrest in Tihrán when a stranger mistook him for someone else. Every year afterwards he walked from Persia to Bahá'u'lláh, carrying the believers' letters and bringing back His Tablets.
Siyyid Ismá‘íl of Zavárih swept the doorstep of Bahá'u'lláh's house in Baghdad with his own turban each dawn. Transformed by His words, he at last gave up his life beside the river, an act Bahá'u'lláh recalls in the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá recalls Siyyid Muḥammad-Taqí Manshadí, who welcomed pilgrims at his little shop in Haifa, handled the Tablets and the believers' mail, stayed loyal to the Covenant, and carried on that service in Port Sa‘íd until his death.
Won to the Faith by Jamal Effendi, Siyyid Mustafa Rumi spent his life teaching in India and Burma. He was killed at Daidanaw during the Second World War, and in 1945 Shoghi Effendi named him a Hand of the Cause of God.
A master cabinet-maker, poet and mathematician from Yazd entered Bahá’u’lláh’s presence almost daily in Baghdad, endured exile and hardship in Mosul, and spent his last days praying by the tomb of Bahá’u’lláh, longing for reunion.
Two carpenter brothers from Káshán, driven out by persecution, joined Bahá’u’lláh in ‘Iráq; by different roads, one through Adrianople and one through captivity in Mosul, both reached the prison of ‘Akká, where they worked at their craft, joyful and faithful to the end.
A prosperous builder in Ṭihrán left his work and possessions for the Faith, lost even his bride, walked on foot to the Most Great Prison singing an ode Bahá’u’lláh had written down for him, and ended his days content in a cave near Haifa.
A quiet master carpenter from Káshán joined Bahá’u’lláh in Baghdad, endured captivity in Mosul, and after the ascension of Bahá’u’lláh made the glass roof over the inner courtyard of His Shrine.
On the evening of her wedding Munírih Khánum received Bahá’u’lláh’s blessing, then awaited ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the bridal room. The service was very simple, with no choir, decorations or cake, just cups of tea.
Let these exalted words be thy love-song on the tree of Bahá, O thou most holy and resplendent Leaf: ‘God, besides Whom is none other God, the Lord of this world and the next!’
O Leaf of Paradise! Loose your tongue at all times in gratitude for the blessings of the Beloved of the Worlds, for you are always mentioned in His Glorious and Sanctified Presence, and you are ever in the hearts of His maidservants.
I feel prompted to offer my sincere best wishes to you and to express the agony of separation that has deeply affected me.
O My Leaf! Hearken thou unto My Voice: Verily there is none other God but Me, the Almighty, the All-Wise.
His nine-year-old son, later surnamed the ‘Most Great Branch’, destined to become the Centre of His Covenant and authorized Interpreter of His teachings, together with His seven-year-old sister …
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.
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 — the tender solicitude she showed as a child in His absence, and the delicate, grave missions He entrusted to her in her teens.
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.
The position of Bahá’u’lláh among the Prophets is unprecedented and unique, because the condition of the world at the time of His advent was unprecedented and unique.
In making appointments, the only criterion must be fitness for the position.
Training in arts, sciences, crafts and useful professions is regarded as important and necessary.
Thus simply and serenely did Bahá’u’lláh pass the evening of His life on earth until, after an attack of fever, He passed away on the 29th of May, 1892, at the age of seventy-five.
Abbás Effendi, Who afterwards assumed the title of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (i.e.
Mírzá Ḥusayn ‘Alí, Who afterwards assumed the title of Bahá’u’lláh (i.e.
In *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era*, Esslemont quotes the Cambridge orientalist Edward Granville Browne's account of meeting Bahá'u'lláh at Bahjí in 1890: the face he could never forget, and the words he recalled hearing.
The journey to Constantinople lasted between three and four months, the party consisting of Bahá’u’lláh with members of His family and twenty-six disciples.
After much negotiation, at the request of the Persian Government, an order was issued by the Turkish Government summoning Bahá’u’lláh to Constantinople.
This terrible imprisonment lasted four months, but Bahá’u’lláh and His companions remained zealous and enthusiastic, in the greatest of happiness.
The Writings of Bahá’u’lláh are most comprehensive in their range, dealing with every phase of human life, individual and social, with things material and things spiritual, with the interpretation of ancient and modern scriptures …
At that time Akká (Acre) was a prison city to which the worst criminals were sent from all parts of the Turkish Empire.
The importance of the press as a means of diffusing knowledge and educating the people, and its power as a civilizing force, when rightly directed, are fully recognized by Bahá’u’lláh.
In the little book of Hidden Words, in which Bahá’u’lláh gives in brief the essence of the prophetic teachings, His first counsel refers to the individual life: “Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart.”
About this time Bahá’u’lláh wrote His famous letter to the Sulṭán of Turkey, many of the crowned heads of Europe, the Pope, and the Sháh of Persia.
Bahá’u’lláh tells us that the life in the flesh is but the embryonic stage of our existence, and that escape from the body is like a new birth through which the human spirit enters on a fuller, freer life.
Having in His earlier years of hardship shown how to glorify God in a state of poverty and ignominy, Bahá’u’lláh in His later years at Bahjí showed how to glorify God in a state of honor and affluence.
To know the Manifestation of God means also to love Him. One is impossible without the other. According to Bahá’u’lláh, the purpose of man’s creation is that he may know God and adore Him.
As to the manner of His coming at the end of the age, Christ said:— And they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
The following particulars regarding the marriage of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá were kindly supplied to the writer by a Persian historian of the Bahá’í Faith:— During the youth of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá the question of a suitable marriage for Him was naturally one …
Bahá’u’lláh, like Muḥammad, forbids His followers to lead lives of monastic seclusion.
In the year 1869 Bahá’u’lláh wrote to Napoleon III, rebuking him for his lust of war and for the contempt with which he had treated a former letter from Bahá’u’lláh.
As a religious body, Bahá’ís have, at the express command of Bahá’u’lláh, entirely abandoned the use of armed force in their own interests, even for strictly defensive purposes.
After His return from this retirement, His fame became greater than ever and people flocked to Baghdád from far and near to see Him and hear His teachings.
Esslemont records that Persian believers who walked to 'Akká to see Bahá'u'lláh were refused entry to the city, and stood on the plain outside the third moat, from where they could see the windows of His quarters.
Although advocating as the ideal condition a representative form of government, local, national and international, Bahá’u’lláh teaches that this is possible only when men have attained a sufficiently high degree of individual and social development.
The use of prayer is enjoined upon Bahá’ís in no uncertain terms.
Esslemont quotes Bahá'u'lláh's own description, from the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, of the dungeon in Tihrán where He was held for four months in 1852, with nearly a hundred and fifty fellow-prisoners.
Even when the imprisonment was at its worst, the Bahá’ís were not dismayed, and their serene confidence was never shaken.
A great stumbling block to many, in the way of religious unity, is the difference between the Revelations given by the different Prophets.
Bahá’u’lláh asked no one to accept His statements and His tokens blindly.
The Bahá’í doctrine of the unity of mankind strikes at the root of another cause of war, namely, racial prejudice.
According to the Bahá’í view, the problems of human life, individual and social, are so inconceivably complex that the ordinary human intellect is incapable of itself of solving them aright.
The state of the world today surely affords ample evidence that, with rare exceptions, people of all religions need to be reawakened to the real meaning of their religion; and that reawakening is an important part of the work of Bahá’u’lláh.
At last the imprisonment was mitigated. A mobilization of Turkish troops occurred and the barracks were required for soldiers.
In many of His conversations Christ speaks of the future Manifestation of God in the third person, but in others the first person is used.
Bahá’u’lláh forbids tyranny and oppression in the most emphatic terms.
Bahá’u’lláh enjoins justice on all His followers and defines it as:—“The freedom of man from superstition and imitation, so that he may discern the Manifestations of God with the eyes of Oneness, and consider all affairs with keen sight.”—Words of Wisdom.
Never, perhaps, did the world seem farther away from religious unity than in the nineteenth century.
Bahá’u’lláh constantly urges men to realize and give full expression to the perfections latent within them—the true inner self as distinguished from the limited outer self, which at best is but the temple, and too often is the prison of the real man.
Devotion to God implies also severance from everything that is not of God, severance, that is, from all selfish and worldly, and ever other-worldly desires.
In an account by 'Abdu'l-Bahá quoted in *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era*, the Master tells how, after Bahá'u'lláh three times declined to leave 'Akká with the words "I am a prisoner," an Arab shaykh of the city pleaded with Him for a whole hour until He consented to go to the mansion of Mazra'ih.
In the Hebrew, Christian, Muḥammadan and many other Scriptures, there is a remarkable similarity in the description of the signs which are to accompany the coming of the Promised One.
About a year after coming to Baghdád, He departed alone into the wilderness of Sulaymáníyyih, taking with Him nothing but a change of clothes.
Another proposal frequently and powerfully advocated by Bahá’u’lláh was that a Universal League of Nations should be formed for the maintenance of international peace.
One of the most important instructions of Bahá’u’lláh in regard to the economic question is that all must engage in useful work.
From that time onwards, He became His father’s closest companion and, as it were, protector.
Wishing to help Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdad, a learned believer of Yazd took copper vessels from the city's mosques and sold them. Bahá'u'lláh accepted the money, then had it thrown into the river.
Tarázu'lláh Samandarí, a youth on pilgrimage in the last months of Bahá'u'lláh's life, recalls twice being present as Bahá'u'lláh revealed verses at great speed while His secretary wrote them down.
In Baghdád the divines of Karbilá and Najaf sent Mullá Hasan ‘Amú to ask Bahá’u’lláh for a miracle. He agreed, if they would first choose one and pledge in writing to accept His Cause; they did not dare.
As a young man visiting Yalrud, Bahá’u’lláh resolved a puzzle about a tradition concerning Fatimih that a famed mujtahid’s scholars could not answer, and the next day the mujtahid rebuked his disciples.
In Baghdád Bahá’u’lláh sent gifts to the poor of His neighbourhood, stopped each day to greet an eighty-year-old woman who waited for Him in the road, and arranged a daily allowance for her when He left the city.
At a gathering, a Sufi leader esteemed by Muhammad Shah boasted that he would not trouble to see Jesus Christ at his door. Bahá'u'lláh alone answered him, with a question that left all present speechless.
When a covetous governor of 'Akká plotted to imprison the Bahá'í shopkeepers, Bahá'u'lláh told the believers not to open their shops and to leave the matter in God's hands. Next morning a telegram arrived dismissing the governor.
When the authorities in Adrianople planned to part Bahá'u'lláh from His family and followers, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá pleaded, persisted and at last vehemently protested, until the governor declared that the exiles could not be separated.
A Bábí who had taken up arms for revenge fled to Hamadán and was arrested. A writing of Bahá'u'lláh forbidding retaliation fell from his collar, and after reading it the governor let him go.
Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl boasted that he could write a better book than the Kitáb-i-Íqán, then found himself unable to write a simple letter. Years later, after praying with tears, he came to faith and found the book an ocean of knowledge.
On 22 April 1863 crowds of believers and admirers wept in the streets of Baghdad as Bahá'u'lláh left His house and was ferried across the river to the garden that His followers named the Garden of Riḍván.
When Bahá’u’lláh was a child, His father dreamed that He swam in a limitless ocean with a multitude of fishes clinging to His hair. A renowned soothsayer interpreted the dream as a sign of His future ascendancy.
In 1835 Bahá’u’lláh married Ásíyih Khánum. Known as the Father of the Poor and the Mother of Consolation, they cared for the needy while His father's fortunes collapsed and the family moved to a rented house in Tehrán.
During a visit to 'Akká, Ḥájí Mírzá Ḥaydar-'Alí was allowed into Bahá'u'lláh's presence while verses were being revealed, and he left a brief account of that memorable occasion.
On his first pilgrimage, around 1878–79, Varqá heard Bahá’u’lláh’s words recall a forgotten childhood dream, and later Bahá’u’lláh answered a doubt Varqá had never spoken aloud.
Bahá’u’lláh recalls how ‘Abdu’l-Bahá served the Cause in Adrianople and ‘Akká, facing the world on His Father’s behalf and securing the mansions of Mazra‘ih and Bahjí.
Two brothers of Isfahan who met the Báb as boys and later Bahá’u’lláh in Baghdad became prosperous merchants, renowned for their honesty and for spending their wealth on the poor and on Bahá’u’lláh’s companions.
Bahá'u'lláh intended His niece Shahr-Banu Khanum to marry His eldest Son, but relatives in Tihran prevented the match and forced her into another marriage, which left her in lasting grief.
Told he might visit Bahá’u’lláh once he owed no man anything, the Egyptian merchant ‘Abdu’l-Karím spent five years paying his debts, arrived at Haifa penniless, and was found at the dock by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
Challenged by Fatḥ-'Alí Sháh to match a celebrated master's calligraphy, Mírzá 'Abbás-i-Núrí, the father of Bahá'u'lláh, copied it, added lines of his own, and was honoured with the name Mírzá Buzurg.
In Baghdad in 1862 the Báb's eldest uncle, still doubtful of his Nephew's claim, brought his questions to Bahá'u'lláh, Who answered them in two days and two nights with the Kitáb-i-Íqán, the Book of Certitude.
In June 1870 Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, fell through a skylight while praying on the roof of the barracks in 'Akká. Offered recovery by Bahá'u'lláh, he asked instead that his life be accepted as a ransom so that the believers might enter His presence.
Tarázu'lláh Samandarí recalls hearing Bahá'u'lláh chant the Tablet of the Sultán on the First Day of Riḍván and handing roses to the friends at His bidding, and a later Riḍván in the Garden of Riḍván.
Hájí Muhammad-Táhir-i-Malmírí recalls how Bahá'u'lláh answered the question about the Imams he had carried in his heart for months, and how, when he longed for martyrdom, Bahá'u'lláh told him he must live to serve the Cause.
In the prison barracks of 'Akká the devoted Mírzá Ja'far fell ill and breathed his last. Bahá'u'lláh said to chant the prayer "O Thou, the Healer", and before an hour had passed he sat up, laughing and joking.
Born at sunrise in Tihrán into a noble family, Bahá'u'lláh never went to school, yet as a youth He explained a question a famous scholar's students could not, and rode to Tihrán to stop an injustice against His father.
When Bahá'u'lláh withdrew to the mountains for two years, the young 'Abdu'l-Bahá prayed, read the writings of the Báb and helped His family. After His Father returned, He helped Him by receiving those who came to visit.
On the night Bahá'u'lláh moved to the Mansion of Bahjí, Nabíl and Hájí Muḥammad-Ṭáhir followed Him to circumambulate it and found its paths crowded with a mysterious throng. Bahá'u'lláh later named them Bulbul and Bahháj.
Ásíyih Khánum shared fifty years of Bahá'u'lláh's life, through exile and imprisonment. Her daughter and granddaughter remember her gentleness, her unselfishness and her simple, prayerful life.
A man who once set out to kill a Bahá'í becomes a believer, walks six months to 'Akká, and passes unseen through the guarded prison gate into the presence of Bahá'u'lláh.
Moved to tears by verses Nabíl read to him, the unruly youth Áqá Buzurg walks to 'Akká, meets Bahá'u'lláh twice, receives the name Badí, and is given the task of carrying His Tablet to the Sháh.
The youth Buzurg of Nayshábúr walks to 'Akká, is named Badí by Bahá'u'lláh, and carries His Tablet on foot to Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, giving his life rather than betray his fellow believers.
Honest Bahá'í pioneers in Egypt build a thriving store and send Bahá'u'lláh a money belt full of gold. When riots leave the store in ashes, the belt comes back to them by post, untouched.
A life of Bahá'u'lláh for children: His boyhood in Tihrán, His refusal of His father's post, the Báb's letter brought by Mullá Ḥusayn, prison and exile, and His declaration in the Garden of Riḍván.
When Bahá'u'lláh was a child, His father dreamed that He swam in a huge ocean while many fishes held on to His hair and followed Him. A wise man explained what the dream meant.
Running late for Feast, a father tells his son how the merchant ‘Azíz, delayed in Istanbul by unsold goods, met the father of Badí' and became a Bahá'í. When they arrive, they learn why their own delay was a blessing.
Túbá Khánum, a daughter of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, recalls how in 'Akká her grandfather Bahá'u'lláh let the children choose cloth for their frocks, saved sweets for them and promised picnics at the Riḍván.
During His two years in the mountains of Kurdistan, Bahá'u'lláh, dressed as a dervish, comforts a weeping schoolboy and writes out a copy for him. The teacher sees that the writing is royal penmanship.
A grandfather tells his grandson how the Báb's eldest uncle, unsure that his Nephew could be a Messenger of God, took his questions to Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdad, and how the Kitáb-i-Íqán was revealed in two days and two nights.
As a youth visiting Núr, Bahá'u'lláh explained a question that a famous mujtahid's two hundred students could not answer. The mujtahid then told his students of two dreams he had had about Him.
In a children's class, Ms. Bates uses chains no one can break to explain how Bahá'u'lláh, though still a prisoner, walked out of the prison of 'Akká after nine years and made His home in a mansion.
As a child at His brother's wedding in Tihrán, Bahá'u'lláh watched a puppet show of a king and his court, then saw the whole court carried away in a box. From that day the world's trappings seemed to Him like that spectacle.
During a day in the Garden of Junaynih with the pilgrims, Bahá'u'lláh sends them to welcome 'Abdu'l-Bahá as He arrives from 'Akká, and says that with the Master's presence the garden has become truly most delightful.
Bahíyyih Khánum recalls her mother Ásíyih Khánum's marriage to Bahá'u'lláh, her forty mules of wedding treasures, and their life of caring for the poor. The jewelled buttons were later exchanged for bread on the road to exile.
The Greatest Holy Leaf tells Lady Blomfield of her family's winter exile from Tihrán to Baghdád: her father still ill from the Síyáh-Chál, the youngest child left behind, and her mother riding a jolting mule through the snow.
While living as a dervish in the mountains of Kurdistán, Bahá'u'lláh found a boy weeping because his schoolmaster had punished him for bad writing, and wrote out a copy for him in His own hand.
For two years after Bahá'u'lláh withdrew from Baghdád, His family did not know where He was. His daughter Bahíyyih Khánum remembered those hard years and the day He came home dressed as a dervish.
Exiled from Tihrán in midwinter, Bahá'u'lláh's family travelled four weeks to Baghdád. Ásíyih Khánum sold her last treasures for the journey, washed the family's clothes with her own hands, and once, in the dark, made Him a cake with salt instead of sugar.
In 1851 Bahá'u'lláh visited Karbilá. There He met the aged Shaykh Ḥasan-i-Zunúzí, whom the Báb had sent to wait in that city to see the promised Ḥusayn, and confided His secret to him.
During Bahá'u'lláh's twelve days in the Garden of Riḍván in 1863, roses were heaped so high in His tent that the companions could not see one another across them, and at night He spoke of the sleepless nightingales.
Bahíyyih Khánum recalls the order for a new banishment from Adrianople, the believers' grief at a threatened separation from Bahá'u'lláh, the wait at Gallipoli, and the crowded eleven-day voyage that followed.
Mirza Mihdi, the Purest Branch, served as Bahá’u’lláh’s amanuensis. Aqa Rida remembered him as a pillar of strength to the exiles, reading to them from the Supreme Pen and teaching them courtesy, patience and dignity.
Bahíyyih Khánum recalls the night Bahá’u’lláh came home to His family in Baghdád after more than two years as a dervish in the mountains, and how the young Abbas Effendi threw Himself at His Father’s feet, weeping.
Bahíyyih Khánum recalls how, as a youth in Baghdád, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá argued with the learned men in the mosques, who came to call Him the youthful sage. Asked who His teacher was, He answered that His Father had taught Him.
Writing a century after the death of Mirza Mihdi, the Purest Branch, the Universal House of Justice recalls his dying plea to his Father and the words in which Bahá’u’lláh revealed the meaning of his sacrifice.
Early in His imprisonment in ‘Akká, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá joined a discussion between a Muslim and a Christian in a butcher’s shop, and the news of it began His great popularity in the city.
As a child at a family wedding in Tihrán, Bahá'u'lláh watched a puppet play of a king and his court, then saw the whole show carried away in a box. He later wrote that the world's trappings have seemed to Him ever since like that spectacle.
In the *Epistle to the Son of the Wolf*, Bahá'u'lláh recounts a vision in which Trustworthiness itself, standing on a pillar of light, declares that it is the most great ornament of the people of Bahá and the supreme instrument for the prosperity of the world.
Stripped of His possessions since the Síyáh-Chál, Bahá’u’lláh lived simply; once He gave a companion bound for Istanbul an old pair of His slippers so that new shoes of the right size could be bought.
Bahíyyih Khánum recalled that four days before the exiles left the garden outside Baghdád in 1863, Bahá’u’lláh told ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and then four others, that He was the One promised by the Báb, asking them to keep it secret.
In January 1853 Bahá’u’lláh, banished from Persia, set out with His family for Baghdad; through the worst of the winter they crossed the snow-bound mountains and reached the city in April.
Bahíyyih Khánum recalled how, on the 1863 journey from Baghdád to Constantinople, her brother ‘Abdu’l-Bahá guarded Bahá’u’lláh day and night, snatching sleep ahead of the caravan with His head on His horse’s neck.
Nabíl-i-Akbar, the only disciple Shaykh Murtadá raised to the rank of mujtahid, was found kneeling humbly before Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdad. Driven later from Qá'in, he taught in disguise and died penniless in Bukhárá.
Mishkín-Qalam, the leading calligrapher of Persia, signed his work as a bondsman at the door of Bahá'u'lláh. 'Abdu'l-Bahá's memorial follows him from Adrianople to Constantinople, where he was slandered, to captivity in Famagusta and his last years as the Master's close companion.
In Bahá'u'lláh's house in Baghdad, a Persian prince asked Ismu'lláhu'l-Asdaq who he was. The renowned teacher answered that he was one of the keepers of the door, then gently won the angry prince over as 'Abdu'l-Bahá listened from a room above.
In Baghdád a Persian consul and hostile shaykhs summoned the divines of Karbilá and Najaf to move against Bahá'u'lláh and His fellow exiles. The foremost of them, Shaykh Murtadá, refused to pronounce them infidels, and the scheme failed.
Ḥájí Muḥammad Khán, a Balúch dervish, searched far and wide for a true guide and found none until he attained the presence of Bahá'u'lláh in the Most Great Prison. He went back to share the news with his old friends, then settled near Bahá'u'lláh.
Ḥájí Muḥammad Khán left home young as a wandering dervish in search of a true guide. He found what he sought in the presence of Bahá'u'lláh, told his family not to wait for his return, and later made his home near the Most Great Prison.
When thieves stole his few goods, Ḥájí ‘Alí-‘Askar refused the Persian Consul's demand that he swear to a far larger loss. Later, a prisoner with his family in 'Akká, he gave thanks to God even when all of them lay ill.
In Káshán a tradesman thought to be unlettered asked the Shaykhí leader Hájí Muhammad-Karím Khán to show him the Fourth Pillar that the Hájí's own book said every believer must know.
The divines gathered at Káẓimayn sent an envoy to Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdád to ask for a miracle. He agreed, on condition that they choose one miracle together and put their promise in writing. They let the matter drop.
In Constantinople Bahá'u'lláh declined to call on the Ottoman ministers or seek their favour. Less than four months later He was banished to Adrianople, and He answered the edict with a Tablet sent to the Grand Vizir.
In 'Akká, a bookbinder from Iṣfahán kept the square in front of Bahá'u'lláh's house swept and sprinkled at all times, and Bahá'u'lláh would smile and praise what he had made of it.
A dervish poet who found Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdád asked to join His exile as a groom, walking beside the convoy by day and singing. In the barracks of 'Akká, Bahá'u'lláh dedicated a special night to him.
Believers who came into the presence of Bahá'u'lláh found they could not look steadily at His face. One pilgrim spilt his tea without noticing, and a Cambridge scholar wrote that he could never forget it.
Arrested in Tihran as a Babi, Shaykh Salman was freed by a merchant who mistook him for someone else, and then told the merchant the truth. For some forty years he carried Tablets of Baha'u'llah on foot and never lost a letter.
In the village of Manshad a boy heard chanting at secret meetings and asked the Babi doctor Radiu'r-Ruh what it meant. The doctor warned that telling him could cost many lives, then taught him; later he was poisoned for his faith.
Bahá'u'lláh granted Khadíjih-Bagum, the widow of the Báb, permission to make the pilgrimage to 'Akká. When danger closed the road through Shíráz, she fell ill and died with words of praise.
Pilgrims walking from Persia carried plants for Bahá'u'lláh's garden near 'Akká. After nine years within the prison city's walls, He was persuaded to leave them, and the Sultán's farmán against Him became a dead letter.
Muḥammad-Hádí, a bookbinder and illuminator from Iṣfáhán, kept the square before Bahá'u'lláh's house in 'Akká so clean that Bahá'u'lláh said he had turned it into the bridalbower of a palace.
Pilgrims who had walked from Persia were refused entry to 'Akká and could only glimpse Bahá'u'lláh at a window from beyond the moat. Another pilgrim, Ustád Ismá'íl-i-Káshí, gazed for hours, but his sight was too weak to see His face.
In Baghdad a secret midnight audience with Bahá'u'lláh was requested. The reply was a verse He had composed in the wilderness of Kurdistan, and it told plainly what coming to Him would cost.
In August 1868, exiled from Adrianople to Gallipoli with no one sure where they would be sent next, Bahá'u'lláh gave the departing escort officer a message for the Sultan and warned His companions of the hardships ahead.
After 'Abdu'l-Bahá settled a Baghdád jeweller's estate among his quarrelling heirs in a single day, the son offered Him a ruby ring. Years later, in 'Akká, He sent it to India to be sold for the sick, and the money never came.
Two brothers died on the same night in the barracks of 'Akká. The guards demanded payment to bury them, and the exiles had no money, so Bahá'u'lláh gave the prayer carpet that had been placed beneath His feet to be sold.
After the martyrdom of the King of Martyrs, his mother-in-law Shamsu'd-Duha was hunted and beaten in Isfahan. Her brother, who was not a Baha'i, won her release by promising her silence, but she went on teaching.
The Persian Ambassador's intrigues helped bring about Bahá'u'lláh's banishment from Constantinople. Nearly thirty years later, in the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, Bahá'u'lláh testified to the ambassador's honesty in his service and said he deserved commendation.
A pasha exiled to 'Akká from Yemen, near death, entrusted 'Abdu'l-Bahá with a bag of gold for his daughter. The Master paid for his funeral Himself and sent a dervish to Ṣan'á, who put the gold into her own hands.
In 1868 soldiers surrounded Bahá'u'lláh's house in Adrianople. On the road to Gallipoli He began the Súriy-i-Ra'ís, addressed to the Ottoman Prime Minister, writing that though armed troops surrounded Him He remained in a state of utmost joy.
Badí', a youth of seventeen, carried Bahá'u'lláh's Tablet to Náṣiri'd-Dín Sháh on foot from 'Akká to Ṭihrán, delivered it to the king, and was tortured and put to death for it.
In Adrianople Bahá'u'lláh began to proclaim His Mission to the kings of the world in the Súriy-i-Mulúk and other Tablets, and from the prison of 'Akká He wrote to Napoleon III, Queen Victoria, the Czar and the Pope.
In 1870 Mírzá Mihdí, Bahá'u'lláh's son, fell through a skylight in the barracks of 'Akká. Offered his recovery, he asked instead that his life be a ransom for the believers kept from Bahá'u'lláh's presence.
On the ninth day after Bahá'u'lláh's passing, His Book of the Covenant was unsealed and read aloud at His Tomb. In it He directed His family and followers to turn to 'Abdu'l-Bahá.
In Adrianople a messenger of Bahá'u'lláh foretold to Haji Mirza Haydar-'Ali how a devoted merchant, granted wealth, would fall away, lose everything and at last return to serve the Cause as a poor man.
'Abdu'l-Bahá tells how Nabíl-i-Zarandí, who had spent his life in the service of Bahá'u'lláh, was overwhelmed with grief when Bahá'u'lláh passed away in 1892, and could not bear to live on without Him.
Esslemont's account of Bahá'u'lláh's birth in Tihrán on 12 November 1817, His wisdom and generosity as a youth, His refusal of His father's post in the Ministry, and His acceptance of the Báb's Cause in 1844.
In April 1863, before His exile to Constantinople, Bahá'u'lláh spent twelve days in the Garden of Najíb Páshá outside Baghdád, and there announced that He was the One whose coming the Báb had foretold.
Bahá'u'lláh entered the Garden of Riḍván outside Baghdád on April 22, 1863. The river overflowed, and His family could not join Him there until the ninth day, which Bahá'ís now keep as a Holy Day.
At noon on May 3, 1863, the twelfth day of the Festival of Riḍván, Bahá'u'lláh rode out of the Garden of Riḍván and set out from Baghdád for Constantinople, as crowds of believers and others lamented His departure.
Bahá’u’lláh was born in Tehran in 1817. As He grew, His father, Mirza Buzurg, marvelled at His wisdom, dreamed of Him swimming in a boundless ocean, and heard a soothsayer foretell that no one could stand in His way.
The first of the Arabic Hidden Words, revealed by Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdád, gives His first counsel: to possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart.
The twelfth Hidden Word in Arabic — Bahá'u'lláh's reminder that the soul was made with the hands of power, and that within it He has placed the essence of His light.
The twenty-second Arabic Hidden Word tells the soul that it was created noble yet has abased itself, and calls it to rise unto that for which it was created.
The second Hidden Word in Arabic names justice — *the best beloved of all things in My sight* — and explains it not as rule of law but as the soul's capacity to see with its own eyes and know with its own knowledge.
The third Hidden Word in Arabic — Bahá'u'lláh's word that the human soul was created out of His love, engraved with His image and shown His beauty.
The fortieth Hidden Word in Arabic — Bahá'u'lláh's image of the soul's rest: that no journey through space and no traversal of the heavens can bring it, save submission to His command and humbleness before His Face.
The fifth Hidden Word in Arabic — Bahá'u'lláh's brief reciprocal of love between God and the soul.
In the fifty-ninth Arabic Hidden Word, the Voice of God calls the human heart His home and bids that it be sanctified for His descent.
The sixty-fourth Hidden Word in Arabic — Bahá'u'lláh's word that He has created His eternity and wrought His unity for the soul, and His call to the soul to clothe itself therewith.
The sixty-third Hidden Word in Persian — Bahá'u'lláh's warning to the peoples of the world that their deeds have not been effaced in His sight, but are graven upon tablets of chrysolite.
The third Hidden Word in Persian — Bahá'u'lláh's tender injunction that the believer plant naught but the rose of love in the garden of the heart, hold fast to the nightingale of affection and desire, and treasure the companionship of the righteous.
The sixty-ninth Persian Hidden Word — Bahá'u'lláh's call that holy words and pure and goodly deeds ascend unto the heaven of celestial glory, and that deeds be cleansed from the dust of self and hypocrisy.
The fifth Hidden Word in Persian — Bahá'u'lláh's warning that the most negligent of men is he that disputeth idly and seeketh to advance himself over his brother, and His counsel: Let deeds, not words, be your adorning.
The forty-fourth Persian Hidden Word — Bahá'u'lláh's counsel to hear, see and speak no evil, to magnify not the faults of others, and to live the fleeting days of this life with a stainless mind and a sanctified nature.
The ninth Hidden Word in Arabic — Bahá'u'lláh's image of His love as a stronghold: he that entereth therein is safe and secure, and he that turneth away shall surely stray and perish.
The seventy-third Persian Hidden Word — Bahá'u'lláh's testimony that the soul is the daystar of the heavens of His holiness, and His call to let not the defilement of the world eclipse its splendor but to rend asunder the veil of heedlessness.
Bahíyyih Khánum recalls how, after Bahá’u’lláh withdrew from Baghdád, her brother ‘Abdu’l-Bahá grieved deeply and spent His days copying and memorizing the tablets of the Báb.
Munírih Khánum recalls how Bahá’u’lláh summoned her from Iṣfahán, her guarded journey by way of Mecca to ‘Akká, and her simple wedding to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, at which Bahá’u’lláh Himself chanted the prayers.
Ibn-i-Asdaq begged Bahá’u’lláh for the station of utter self-sacrifice. In a Tablet of January 1880, Bahá’u’lláh answered that service to the Cause is the greatest of deeds and that one may live and yet be counted a martyr.
A man in ‘Akká hated ‘Abdu’l-Bahá so much that he turned his back whenever they met. When a narrow street forced them face to face, the Master told him his hatred could never be as strong as His love.
In Persia in the early days of the Faith, a mujtahid of Yazd threatened to punish a kebab-shop worker for chopping meat to a rhythm. In such a society, Bahá’u’lláh declared music a means of upliftment and joy.
At a feast on the first day of Ayyám-i-Há, nearly two hundred believers gathered in a tent at Mazra'ih, and Bahá'u'lláh called Ḥájí Muḥammad-Ṭáhir-i-Málmírí by name to sit at His table.
Shaykh Maḥmúd of ‘Akká hated the Bahá’ís and laid hands on ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the mosque, but the Master’s serene reply turned his anger into shame, and he became a devoted Bahá’í.
A poor man who brought wood to Bahá’u’lláh’s house admired a splendid rug there. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá told him to take it and, as the man ran off with it, called after him with good humour.
Ḥájí Amín served as Trustee of Ḥuqúqu'lláh for forty-seven years. Chained in the prison of Qazvín, he ate without complaint the food his jailers tainted, and with no home of his own he lived among the believers who welcomed him.
In 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.
Áqá ‘Alí worked all day and had friends to supper almost every night, teaching them the Faith. Later, poor in ‘Akká, he lived on bread and brook water and was content, because he could come into Bahá'u'lláh's presence.
When Áqá Faraj first heard of Bahá'u'lláh, he clapped his hands for joy and hurried to Iraq to meet Him. Later he went on foot to Adrianople and followed Bahá'u'lláh into the prison of ‘Akká, where he served Him faithfully.
In Adrianople, where food was scarce, Áqá Ḥusayn, Bahá'u'lláh's cook, saved meat and oil until he could cook a meal, and measured the coal for every brazier. When Bahá'u'lláh heard of it, He was amused and agreed such care was needed.
Four 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.
As a young boy, Ibn-i-Asdaq travelled with his father to Baghdad and met Bahá'u'lláh several times. Bahá'u'lláh revealed a prayer for him, and years later named him a Hand of the Cause of God.
When 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.
Two 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.
Seized by his persecutors after the upheaval in Nayríz, Muḥammad-Ibráhím Amír broke free and escaped to Iraq. There he copied sacred verses, and he served in Bahá'u'lláh's household through every exile to 'Akká.
Áqá Muḥammad-Ibráhím, a coppersmith and poet from Káshán, met Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdad, was exiled to Mosul, and later served the believers and travellers in Haifa, spending what he earned on friends and strangers.
Ḥájí ‘Abdu’lláh left Persia for the Holy Land, farmed for a time at Ghawr near Tiberias while spending much of his time in prayer, and then settled near Bahá'u'lláh at Junayna.
When thieves stole a little merchandise from ‘Alí-‘Askar, the Persian Consul wanted him to say the loss was enormous. He refused to lie, even when the Consul threatened him.
Hájí Áqáy-i-Tabrízí was driven from his home in Ádhirbáyján because of his faith. He fled to Adrianople, went with Bahá'u'lláh as a prisoner to ‘Akká, and died there.
Faraju'lláh of Tafrísh and his father left Persia to live near Bahá'u'lláh in Adrianople. He went with Bahá'u'lláh to the prison of ‘Akká, and later lived for many years in India.
For 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.
Mírzá 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.
Hájí 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.
The 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.
Ḥájí 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.
In 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.
Ḥájí Muḥammad-Riḍá of Shíráz served one of the Báb's relatives for many years, then came to the Holy Land and spent a long time near Bahá'u'lláh, Who often spoke in his praise.
Ḥájí 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.
Ḥájí 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.
Mírzá 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.
In 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.
Husayn Effendi, a young merchant from Tabríz, heard of Bahá'u'lláh in Smyrna, left his business to serve Him, and later made his home in Haifa a resting place for Bahá'í travellers.
Jináb-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.
Mashhadí Faṭṭáḥ lost everything he owned, yet he lived content in the prison of 'Akká, always remembering God. When Bahá'u'lláh passed away, he died of grief.
Two 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.
A learned head of a religious college in Iran saw Bahá'u'lláh's prophecies come true and became a Bahá'í. As Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl he taught the Faith in Iran, Egypt, Paris and America.
Mírzá Áqáy-i-Rikáb-Sáz of Shíráz asked Bahá'u'lláh to explain the isolated letters of the Qur'án, and received the Tablet of the Verse of Light. He was later martyred for his faith.
A 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.
Mírzá 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.
Mírzá 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.
From 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.
As 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.
Bahá'u'lláh's younger brother, Mírzá Muḥammad-Qulí, served Him quietly all his life: passing the tea, pitching the tents on the road to Constantinople, and sharing His exile in ‘Akká.
Mírzá 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.
Mírzá 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."
Muḥammad-‘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.
Muḥammad-‘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.
Muḥammad-Hádí, a gifted bookbinder from Iṣfahán, left his home to live near Bahá'u'lláh in ‘Akká. He kept the square in front of Bahá'u'lláh's house so clean that Bahá'u'lláh praised him for it.
Áqá 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.
Mullá ‘Alí-Akbar studied for years without finding joy until he found the new Faith. Mocked and often arrested in Ṭihrán, he stayed calm and faithful, and he was kept safe from harm.
When 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.
Bahíyyih Khánum remembers the freezing winter journey her family made from Tihrán to Baghdád when she was six, and how her mother never complained.
In 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.
For 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.
The Báb told Shaykh Ḥasan to wait in Karbilá, where he would see the promised Ḥusayn. Years later, at the gate of a shrine there, Bahá'u'lláh took him by the hand.
In a garden outside Baghdád, roses were piled so high in Bahá'u'lláh's tent that His friends could not see one another across them, and at night the nightingales sang until dawn.
From 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.
After 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.
Nabíl 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.
Bahá'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.
When 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.
When Bahá'u'lláh went to the Garden of Riḍván, the river overflowed, and His family could not join Him there until the ninth day.
Bahá'u'lláh was being sent far away from Baghdád, yet in His last days there He showed great joy, and crowds, even the Governor, came to honor Him before He rode away.
A boy was crying because his teacher had punished him for poor handwriting. A dervish in the mountains, who was Bahá'u'lláh, wrote out a copy for him to learn from.
On 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.
Nabíl describes the self-forgetting companions of Bahá’u’lláh in Baghdad, where ten persons often lived on a pennyworth of dates and no one knew whose shoes and cloaks were whose.
Bahíyyih Khánum recalls the caravan of about seventy-five people that set out from Baghdad with Bahá’u’lláh in 1863, and how ‘Abdu’l-Bahá guarded His father day and night on the journey.
Bahíyyih Khánum remembers the day Bahá’u’lláh, disguised as a dervish, came home to Baghdad after two years in the mountains, and the simple food He had lived on there.
Another of those who left their homeland to become our neighbors and fellow prisoners was ‘Abdu’l-Ghaffár of Iṣfáhán.
When he was very young, people thought of ‘Abdu’lláh Baghdádí as a libertine, solely devoted to pleasure.
This was a patient and long-enduring man, a native of Káshán.
Among those who emigrated and were companions in the Most Great Prison was Áqá ‘Abdu’s-Ṣáliḥ.
Another among the prisoners was Abu’l-Qásim of Sulṭán-Ábád, the traveling companion of Áqá Faraj.
Also among the emigrants and near neighbors was Áqá ‘Alí Najaf-Ábádí.
In all these straits, Áqá Faraj was the companion of Abu’l-Qásim.
These two blessed souls, Mírzá Maḥmúd of Káshán and Áqá Riḍá of Shíráz, were like two lamps lit with God’s love from the oil of His knowledge.
Two brothers of Pahlaván Riḍá, brought as captives to 'Akká, died on the same night in each other's arms. Bahá'u'lláh gave the prayer carpet from beneath His feet to be sold to pay the guards, and the brothers share one grave.
'Abdu'l-Bahá remembers Áqá Riḍá of Shíráz and Mírzá Maḥmúd of Káshán, who walked ahead of Bahá'u'lláh's howdah from Baghdád to Constantinople, cooked and cared for the exiles each night, and served for fifty-five years.
This man of God came from the district of Tafrísh. He was detached from the world, fearless, independent of kindred and stranger alike.
Fáṭimih Begum, widow of the King of Martyrs, was orphaned young and left destitute when her husband was martyred. She bore every loss with thanks, until the ascension of Bahá'u'lláh proved more than she could endure.
Áqá Ṣidq-‘Alí was yet one more of those who left their native land, journeyed to Bahá’u’lláh and were put in the Prison.
Ḥájí ‘Abdu’r-Raḥím of Yazd was a precious soul, from his earliest years virtuous and God-fearing, and known among the people as a holy man, peerless in observing his religious duties, mindful as to his acts. His strong religious faith…
'Abdu'l-Bahá remembers His uncle Mírzá Músá, Áqáy-i-Kalím, the true brother of Bahá'u'lláh, who shared His exiles from Ṭihrán to 'Akká and remained steadfast to the very end.
Yet another of the emigrants and settlers was the valiant Jamshíd-i-Gurjí, who came from Georgia, but grew up in the city of Káshán.
Jináb-i-Muníb, a calligrapher, poet and singer of Káshán, walked beside Bahá'u'lláh's howdah from Baghdád to Constantinople. Gravely ill on the voyage to 'Akká, he was put ashore at Smyrna, where his grave lies.
Among the exiles, neighbors, and prisoners there was also a second Mír Imád, the eminent calligrapher, Mishkín-Qalam.
In the flower of tender youth, Muḥammad-‘Alí, the illumined, heard the cry of God, and lost his heart to heavenly grace.
This man, noble and high-minded, was the son of the respected ‘Abdu’l-Faṭṭaḥ who was in the Akká prison.
Muḥammad-Muṣṭafá was a blazing light.
The late Pidar-Ján was among those believers who emigrated to Baghdád.
Sháh-Muḥammad, who had the title of Amín, the Trusted One, was among the earliest of believers, and most deeply enamored.
Khurshíd Begum, who was given the title of Shamsu’d-Ḍuḥá, the Morning Sun, was mother-in-law to the King of Martyrs.
Sulaymán Khán was the emigrant and settler who was given the title of Jamálí’d-Dín.
One of the emigrants who died along the way to the Holy Land was Zaynu’l-Ábidín of Yazd.
This distinguished man was one of the greatest of all the Báb’s companions and all the loved ones of Bahá’u’lláh.
Munírih Khánum, wife of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, recalls losing five children in 'Akká, the words Bahá'u'lláh wrote to her when her little son Ḥusayn died, and the wisdom she came to see in it.
Ṭúbá Khánum, a granddaughter of Bahá'u'lláh, recalls His last illness at Bahjí in 1892, His final words to the believers and the family, and the nine days of mourning the Master arranged after His passing.
Na'ím was beaten, imprisoned and exiled from his village near Iṣfahán for his faith. In Ṭihrán he copied the Writings in poverty, later prospered as a teacher, and served the Cause devotedly all his life.
Nabíl-i-Zarandí left his family in youth, sought out Bahá'u'lláh, and spent his life travelling and teaching at His direction. 'Abdu'l-Bahá records his devotion and his grief at Bahá'u'lláh's passing.
Pidar-Ján, a poor old believer in Baghdád, sold socks for a living but was so absorbed in prayer that thieves took them from his outstretched hands. The friends called him Father Dear.
Bahíyyih Khánum, daughter of Bahá'u'lláh, recalls to Lady Blomfield her childhood of danger and exile, her work at her mother's side, and her choice to remain unmarried so as to serve her family.
Mishkín-Qalam, the leading calligrapher of Persia, left fame and favour to follow Bahá'u'lláh. He was imprisoned for years on Cyprus, then served in 'Akká, and remained firm in the Covenant after Bahá'u'lláh's ascension.
After Bahá'u'lláh's ascension, 'Abdu'l-Bahá asked the chronicler Nabíl to select passages from Bahá'u'lláh's Writings to form the Tablet of Visitation, the text now recited in the Shrines of Bahá'u'lláh and the Báb.
'Údí Khammár built the Mansion of Bahjí for his own family. After an epidemic, 'Abdu'l-Bahá rented it for Bahá'u'lláh, who lived there from 1879 until His ascension in 1892.
'Abdu'l-Bahá remembers Muḥammad-Muṣṭafá Baghdádí, a fearless believer of Iraq who settled in Beirut to help pilgrims on their way to and from 'Akká, and who stood firm in the Covenant after Bahá'u'lláh's ascension.
Túbá Khánum, a daughter of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, remembers Bahá'u'lláh's last illness at Bahjí, His farewell to the family, and the nine days of mourning in which the Master received more than five hundred guests and gave to the poor.
J. E. Esslemont tells how 'Abdu'l-Bahá arranged for Bahá'u'lláh to leave the prison-city of 'Akká for the countryside, how He lived simply at Bahjí, and how He passed away there on 29 May 1892.
Six days before His ascension in May 1892, Bahá'u'lláh called the believers and pilgrims at the Mansion of Bahjí to His bedside, thanked them for their services, and prayed that God would assist them to remain united.
Bahá'u'lláh wrote His Will and Testament, the Kitáb-i-'Ahd, in His own hand and entrusted it to 'Abdu'l-Bahá during His last illness. Opened nine days after His ascension, it directed His family and followers to turn to the Most Mighty Branch.
Bahá'u'lláh ascended at Bahjí at dawn on 29 May 1892. A telegram beginning "the Sun of Bahá has set" carried the news to the Sultan, and for a week mourners of many faiths gathered at Bahjí to grieve with His family.
In the last year of His life, Bahá'u'lláh addressed His last outstanding Tablet to a cleric of Iṣfahán whose father had condemned two beloved believers. He called him to repent and quoted many passages from His own earlier Writings.
In Adrianople, years before His ascension, Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Súriy-i-Ghuṣn, the Tablet of the Branch, which praises the station of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and calls Him "the Limb of the Law of God" and "the Trust of God."
Mírzá Músá, known as Áqáy-i-Kalím, was Bahá'u'lláh's brother and went with Him into every exile. 'Abdu'l-Bahá remembers his devotion and a day in Baghdád when Bahá'u'lláh called out to him in joy.
Bahá'u'lláh called His eldest Son the Most Mighty Branch, the Master and the Mystery of God. Shoghi Effendi explains what the last title means, and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, in His own words, asks to be known only as the Servant of Bahá.
Nabíl of Zarand left his home as a youth to teach the new Faith, wrote odes in praise of Bahá'u'lláh and travelled on His errands. From 1888 he wrote the chronicle published in English as The Dawn-Breakers.
Mullá Zaynu'l-'Ábidín, once the leading cleric of Najaf-Ábád, became a follower of the Báb and of Bahá'u'lláh, who named him Zaynu'l-Muqarrabín. His careful copies of Bahá'u'lláh's Tablets became a standard for checking published texts.
Ḥájí Abu'l-Ḥasan of Ardikán was the first pilgrim to see Bahá'u'lláh in 'Akká. From 1881 until his death in 1928 he served as Trustee of the Ḥuqúqu'lláh, travelling among the believers and keeping nothing for himself.
In Adrianople Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Súriy-i-Mulúk, the Súrih of Kings, in which He addressed the monarchs of East and West together for the first time, called them to justice, and described His own banishment.
In Baghdád in 1862 an uncle of the Báb brought Bahá'u'lláh a list of questions about the promised Qá'im. In two days and two nights Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Kitáb-i-Íqán in reply, and the uncle's doubts were dispelled.
About 1873, still a prisoner in 'Akká under a sentence of perpetual banishment, Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, which Shoghi Effendi calls the Mother Book of His Dispensation and the Charter of His New World Order.
Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Súriy-i-Haykal in Adrianople and recast it in 'Akká, joining to it His messages to Pope Pius IX, Napoleon III, Czar Alexander II, Queen Victoria and Náṣiri'd-Dín Sháh, and had the whole written in the shape of a pentacle.
In a Tablet revealed in answer to a believer's questions, Bahá'u'lláh set out nine of His teachings for the rulers and peoples of the world, each called an Ishráq, a Splendour.
In Baghdád in 1862 an uncle of the Báb brought Bahá'u'lláh his written questions about the promised Qá'im. In two days and two nights Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Kitáb-i-Íqán, the Book of Certitude, in reply.
On the death of the Ottoman Foreign Minister Fu'ád Páshá in 1869, Bahá'u'lláh, a prisoner in 'Akká, foretold the fall of the Grand Vizier and of Sultán 'Abdu'l-'Azíz. When the Sultán was deposed and killed in 1876, the fulfilled prophecy led the scholar Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl to accept the Faith.
On 22 April 1863, on the eve of His exile to Constantinople, Bahá'u'lláh crossed the Tigris to the Najíbíyyih Garden. During the twelve days He spent there He declared His mission to His companions.
About 1873, still a prisoner in 'Akká and living in the house of 'Údí Khammár, Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the Most Holy Book, which sets out the laws and institutions of His Faith.
Toward the end of 1871, while still a prisoner in 'Akká, Bahá'u'lláh answered a letter from a devoted believer in Persia with the Fire Tablet, in which He laments His sufferings and then replies to Himself as the Tongue of Grandeur.
In Baghdád and Adrianople Bahá'u'lláh revealed verses faster than they could be written down. Shoghi Effendi gathers the testimony of those who saw it, including the verses He had thrown into the Tigris.
After nine years within the walls of 'Akká, Bahá'u'lláh was persuaded to move to the country, first to Mazra'ih and then to the mansion of Bahjí, where, though still nominally a prisoner, He was honoured by officials and visitors.
In ten years of exile in Baghdád, Bahá'u'lláh's house became a refuge for people of every faith and class. When He left for Constantinople in 1863, crowds wept and pressed forward to embrace His stirrups.
When Bahá'u'lláh was twenty-two His father, a minister of state, died, and the Government wished Him to take His father's post. He declined, and the Prime Minister said, "Leave Him to Himself."
When Bahá'u'lláh was a child, His father, the Vazír Mírzá Buzurg, dreamed of Him swimming in a limitless ocean with a multitude of fishes clinging to His hair. A soothsayer said the ocean was the world of being.
Before the Báb declared His mission, Bahá'u'lláh stopped to listen to the celebrated mujtahid of Núr and explained a theory none of his disciples could. Afterwards the mujtahid told his students of two dreams about Bahá'u'lláh.
Bahá'u'lláh was born at dawn in Tihrán on 12 November 1817. Shoghi Effendi traces His descent to Abraham, Zoroaster, the last Sasanian king and Jesse, and names the Promised One of each earlier faith whom He fulfils.
Bahíyyih Khánum remembered her mother, Ásíyih Khánum, who married Bahá'u'lláh in 1835: her wealth as a bride, her gentleness, and the care for the poor that led people to call her the Mother of Consolation.
The Báb and Bahá'u'lláh were born two years apart but on consecutive days of the lunar calendar. In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas Bahá'u'lláh names Their births among the four great festivals and says the two days are accounted as one.
Bahá'u'lláh wrote His Will, the Kitáb-i-'Ahd, in His own hand and entrusted it to 'Abdu'l-Bahá during His last illness. On the ninth day after His ascension it was read aloud, naming the Most Mighty Branch as the One to whom all must turn.
Every year for some forty years Shaykh Salmán walked from Persia to Bahá'u'lláh with the believers' letters and carried His Tablets home, never losing one. After the ascension he served 'Abdu'l-Bahá in the same way.
In Adrianople Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Súriy-i-Ghuṣn, the Tablet of the Branch, which extols 'Abdu'l-Bahá as the "Branch of Holiness" and the "Trust of God" and foreshadows His appointment as Centre of the Covenant.
In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas Bahá'u'lláh told the believers to turn, after His passing, to "Him Whom God hath purposed." In His Book of the Covenant He wrote that this verse meant the Most Mighty Branch, 'Abdu'l-Bahá.
When His house in Baghdád could not hold all who came to bid Him farewell, Bahá'u'lláh crossed the Tigris to the Najíbíyyih garden, later called the Garden of Riḍván, and there on 22 April 1863 declared His station to His companions.
As Bahá'u'lláh left Baghdád for Constantinople in 1863, people of every class came to bid Him farewell. The Muftí and the governor visited Him in the Najíbíyyih Garden, and as He rode away crowds bowed to the dust before His horse.
When Bahá'u'lláh was summoned from Baghdád in 1863, His followers were dismayed. Esslemont records that during the twelve days in the Garden of Riḍván He showed the greatest joy, dignity and power, and His followers became happy and enthusiastic.
In A Traveller's Narrative, 'Abdu'l-Bahá records the Báb's words calling Himself a dewdrop from a limitless ocean and pointing to One yet to come. Shoghi Effendi explains how the Declaration in the Garden of Riḍván fulfilled the Báb's prophecy.
Nabíl-i-A'ẓam, who was in the Garden of Riḍván in 1863, recalled the roses heaped each morning in Bahá'u'lláh's tent and the night Bahá'u'lláh spoke of the nightingales.
Bahá'u'lláh entered the Garden of Riḍván on 22 April 1863. That same day the Tigris overflowed, and the rest of His family could not join Him until the ninth day, which Bahá'ís now keep as a Holy Day.
The Báb foretold the coming of "Him Whom God shall make manifest," pointing to the year nine and to a span of nineteen years. Shoghi Effendi shows how both were fulfilled, in the Síyáh-Chál and in the Garden of Riḍván.
'Abdu'l-Bahá, then eighteen, arranged His Father's stay in the Garden of Riḍván and crossed the Tigris with Him. There, The Chosen Highway relates, Bahá'u'lláh confided to Him that He was "He Whom God shall make Manifest."
In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas Bahá'u'lláh named the days of Riḍván the first of the two Most Great Festivals and called the Most Great Festival "the King of Festivals." He wrote that on the first day of Riḍván "all created things were immersed in the sea of purification."
When the scholar Nabíl-i-Akbar came on pilgrimage to 'Akká around 1873–74, Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Tablet of Wisdom in his honour. In it He answers Nabíl's question about the origin of creation, speaks of the sages of Greece, and counsels him on how to teach.
Áqá Muḥammad-i-Qá'iní, the one disciple Shaykh Murtaḍá raised to the rank of mujtahid, met Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdád and became Nabíl-i-Akbar. He spent the rest of his life teaching the Faith, hunted and poor, and died far from home.
In 1889 Ḥájí Muḥammad-Riḍáy-i-Iṣfahání was stabbed to death in the bazaar of ʻIshqábád. A Russian military court condemned his killers, and the Bahá'ís interceded for their lives, a deed Bahá'u'lláh praised.
Mullá ʻAlí-Akbar, known as Ḥájí Ákhúnd, taught the Faith so openly in Ṭihrán that he was the first to be arrested whenever trouble broke out. 'Abdu'l-Bahá remembers his chains, his composure and his constancy: he was never vanquished.
Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl headed a religious college in Ṭihrán when he first met the Bahá'ís. After months of argument he accepted the Faith in 1876, lost his post, was twice imprisoned, and spent the rest of his life teaching and defending the Cause.
Badíʻ, a seventeen-year-old believer, asked Bahá'u'lláh for the honour of carrying His Tablet to Náṣiri'd-Dín Sháh. He walked alone to Ṭihrán, brought it to the king, and was tortured and killed. Bahá'u'lláh named him the Pride of Martyrs.
'Abdu'l-Bahá remembers Mullá Ṣádiq, Ismu'lláhu'l-Aṣdaq: led through Shíráz with a halter for teaching the Báb's Faith, starved at Fort Ṭabarsí, rescued from execution, and a teacher of the Faith for the rest of his life.
In 1870 Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, fell through a skylight while praying on the roof of the barracks of 'Akká. Dying, he asked Bahá'u'lláh to accept his life as a ransom for the believers who could not reach His presence.
In Iṣfahán in 1879 two merchant brothers known for their honesty and generosity were denounced as Bábís by a cleric who owed them money. They refused to recant and were beheaded. Bahá'u'lláh mourned them in His Tablets for years.
Ashraf was born in the besieged fort of Zanján. Years later, when he was condemned for his faith, his enemies brought his mother to persuade him to recant. She urged him to stand firm instead, and Bahá'u'lláh praised her in a Tablet.
In 1854 Bahá'u'lláh left Baghdád without a word and lived for two years in Kurdistan as Darvísh Muḥammad. The learned of Sulaymáníyyih came to revere Him, until a messenger from His family found Him and begged Him to return.
In Baghdád, after His return from Sulaymáníyyih, Bahá'u'lláh answered the mystical questions of Shaykh Muḥyi'd-Dín, a Ṣúfí judge of Khániqayn, with the Seven Valleys, which describes the soul's journey toward God in seven stages.
In Baghdád, about 1858, Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Hidden Words as He paced the banks of the Tigris in meditation. He described the book as the inner essence of what had been revealed to the Prophets of old.
About two years before His passing, Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Kalimát-i-Firdawsíyyih, the Words of Paradise, in honour of Ḥájí Mírzá Ḥaydar-'Alí. Its "leaves" set out counsels on the fear of God, religion, justice, unity, education and peace.
When the believers in 'Iráq were hiding their faith, Muḥammad-Muṣṭafá Baghdádí openly served Bahá'u'lláh, later hosted pilgrims in Beirut, and stayed firm in the Covenant, as 'Abdu'l-Bahá recalls in Memorials of the Faithful.
Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl, head of a religious college in Ṭihrán, became a Bahá'í in 1876 and spent the rest of his life teaching the Faith, from Egypt to Paris to Green Acre, yet he wept when believers praised him.
Two brothers of Iṣfáhán, later titled the King and the Beloved of Martyrs by Bahá'u'lláh, built a prosperous business, gave generously to the poor and to Bahá'u'lláh's exiled companions, and were renowned for their honesty.
Mishkín-Qalam, the leading calligrapher of Persia, heard of the Faith and set out to find Bahá'u'lláh in Adrianople, wrote the Most Great Name in many forms, endured years of imprisonment in Cyprus, and remained firm in the Covenant.
Ustád Báqir and Ustád Aḥmad, carpenter brothers from Káshán, followed Bahá'u'lláh into exile and worked at their craft in the prison of 'Akká. 'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote that they were never neglectful of duty, never at fault.
Mírzá Muḥammad-Qulí, a younger brother of Bahá'u'lláh, served Him through every stage of His exile. 'Abdu'l-Bahá recalls that in the prison of 'Akká he accepted comfort and torment alike and gave thanks with a face that shone like the sun.
Jamshíd-i-Gurjí was chained in Constantinople and sent under guard toward Persia to be put to death. Thrown into a pit one night, he called out the next morning that these depths were the heights of the Lord.
On the exile journey from Baghdád to Constantinople, Mírzá Maḥmúd and Áqá Riḍá walked ahead of Bahá'u'lláh's howdah each day, then cooked and washed up for the believers until midnight. 'Abdu'l-Bahá remembers their humility and contentment.
Shaykh Ṣádiq of Yazd, healed in Baghdád through words given by Bahá'u'lláh, stayed behind as bidden when the exiles left the city. After Bahá'u'lláh reached Mosul he could bear the separation no longer, ran after Him, and died on the open plain.
Ásíyih Khánum, whom Bahá'u'lláh called Navváb, came to her marriage with forty mule-loads of wedding treasures. Her daughter remembered how she sold them for the family's exile, did the hardest work in poverty and prison, and never uttered a word of complaint.
Darvísh Ṣidq-'Alí, a Súfí poet, found Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdád and begged to go with Him into exile as a groom. He walked beside the convoy by day, tended the horses at night, and served Him faithfully all the way to the prison of 'Akká.
In Haifa in 1891, after nine days of silence that followed the martyrdom of seven believers in Yazd, Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Lawḥ-i-Dunyá, a Tablet that sets out principles for the peace and betterment of the world.
At Naw-Rúz 1863 Bahá'u'lláh camped with His companions in a field outside Baghdád. On the fifth day He revealed the Tablet of the Holy Mariner, then had the tents folded; a month later He entered the Garden of Riḍván.
In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas Bahá'u'lláh confirmed the Báb's calendar of nineteen months and made Naw-Rúz the feast that closes the Fast. He later explained that it falls on the day the sun enters Aries.
In April 1863 Bahíyyih Khánum, then in her teens, helped the household prepare for exile while Bahá'u'lláh stayed in the Garden of Riḍván. The Tigris overflowed, and only on the ninth day could the family join Him there.
Mírzá Asadu'lláh Káshání and other companions pitched Bahá'u'lláh's tent in the Garden of Riḍván, cooked and made tea, held the tent ropes through days of wind, and kept watch at night during the twelve days of 1863.
On 22 April 1863 Bahá'u'lláh was ferried across the Tigris to the Garden of Riḍván. That same day the river overflowed, and His family could not join Him there until the ninth day.
Bahá'u'lláh crossed the Tigris to the Garden of Riḍván on 22 April 1863 with three of His sons. The river overflowed that day, and the rest of His family joined Him only on the ninth day, 30 April.
'Abdu'l-Bahá was eighteen when He crossed the Tigris with Bahá'u'lláh to the Garden of Riḍván in 1863. Shoghi Effendi records that He had recognized His Father's station while still a child.
Ásíyih Khánum, whom Bahá'u'lláh called Navváb, lost her wealth and home when He was imprisoned in Ṭihrán, and shared His exile. In 1863 she and the rest of the family joined Him in the Garden of Riḍván on the ninth day.
When Bahá'u'lláh was imprisoned in Ṭihrán in 1852, His family was left destitute, and they shared His winter exile to Baghdád. In 1863 a flooded river kept them from joining Him in the Garden of Riḍván until the ninth day.
Nabíl recalled that each morning in the Garden of Riḍván roses were heaped in Bahá'u'lláh's tent, and He sent them to His friends in Baghdád. A flooded river kept His family from joining Him there until the ninth day.
In the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, Bahá'u'lláh recalls the four months He spent chained in the underground dungeon of Ṭihrán in 1852, and the first stirrings there of His Revelation.
Shaykh Maḥmúd of 'Akká hated the Bahá'ís. Angered to hear 'Abdu'l-Bahá praised, he went to the mosque and laid hands on Him. The Master's calm reply took away his anger; days later he begged forgiveness and became a devoted Bahá'í.
Returning to Baghdád from Kurdistán in 1856, Bahá'u'lláh found the Bábí community dispirited and divided. Through His counsels and His writings He restored its faith and reformed its conduct.
In Baghdád Bahá'u'lláh sent gifts to the poor, the disabled and the orphans of His neighbourhood. He stopped each day for an old woman who waited for Him, and when He left the city He provided for her for the rest of her life.
To avoid becoming a cause of discord among the Bábís of Baghdád, Bahá'u'lláh withdrew to the mountains of Kurdistán. For two years He lived there as Darvísh Muḥammad, and the people of the region came to revere and love Him.
In His last major Tablet, Bahá'u'lláh wrote to Shaykh Muḥammad-Taqí, a cleric of Iṣfahán who had persecuted the believers. He counselled him, gave him a prayer of repentance to recite, and offered him the same advice He had given His own son.
In Washington in 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá told of Isfandíyár, a black servant of Bahá'u'lláh who, though hunted by the Sháh's officers, stayed in Ṭihrán for a month to pay the family's debts in full before he would leave.
Mishkín-Qalam, the leading calligrapher of Persia, set out to find Bahá'u'lláh and reached Him in Adrianople. Slandered as an agitator in Constantinople, he was held captive for years on Cyprus, and afterwards stayed loyal to the Covenant.
In His letter to the Sháh of Persia, quoted in A Traveller's Narrative, Bahá'u'lláh wrote that for nearly fifteen years His persecuted followers had assailed no one, and explained that true victory means conquering one's own heart.
Bahá'u'lláh and about seventy companions were locked in the barracks of 'Akká, where nearly all fell sick and three died. Over the following years the hostility of the town gave way, step by step, to respect and reverence.
Every year for nearly forty years Shaykh Salmán walked from Persia to Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdád, Adrianople or 'Akká and back, carrying the believers' letters and His Tablets, and never lost one.
When thieves took Ḥájí ʻAlí-ʻAskar's few goods, the Persian Consul wanted him to testify to a far larger loss. Threatened with prison and banishment, he refused to lie. Bahá'u'lláh later said of him, "I am pleased with him."
Mírzá Muḥammad, a scholar of good family in Iṣfáhán, gave up a life of comfort to go to the prison of 'Akká, where he served Bahá'u'lláh, the believers and the travelling pilgrims day and night.
Ustád Ismá'íl, a prosperous builder in Ṭihrán, lost his work, his possessions and his bride for the Faith. He ended his days peddling trinkets from a cave near Haifa, always giving thanks to God.
Napoleon III is reported to have flung down Bahá'u'lláh's first Tablet. From the barracks of 'Akká Bahá'u'lláh wrote again, warning that the Emperor's empire would pass from his hands. In 1870 he was defeated at Sedan and lost his throne.
From 'Akká Bahá'u'lláh wrote to Pope Pius IX, announcing the return of Christ and bidding him leave his palaces and sell his ornaments in the path of God. In 1870 Italian troops seized Rome and the Pope's temporal rule ended.
Bahá'u'lláh was imprisoned in the barracks of 'Akká. 'Abdu'l-Bahá recalled how, in later years at Bahjí, governors and generals humbly asked to be received by Him, and how all bore witness that He was no prisoner, but a King of Kings.
In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, revealed in 'Akká around 1873, Bahá'u'lláh told the kings of the earth that the King of Kings had appeared and summoned them to serve Him. He addressed the rulers of America and foretold suffering on the banks of the Rhine.
From the barracks in 'Akká, Bahá'u'lláh wrote to Czar Alexander II of Russia, summoning him to proclaim His Cause and recalling that a Russian minister had helped Him when He lay in chains in Ṭihrán. The Czar did not heed it.
In Adrianople Bahá'u'lláh wrote His longest letter to any single king, asking Náṣiri'd-Dín Sháh for justice and for a meeting with the divines in his presence. The youth Badí' carried it to the Sháh and was put to death.
When Bahá'u'lláh reached Constantinople in 1863, He would not make the calls on the Sultan's chief ministers expected of every government guest. The Persian Ambassador used this against Him, and within four months He was banished to Adrianople.
After leaving the Garden of Riḍván on 3 May 1863, Bahá'u'lláh travelled with His family and twenty-six companions across eastern Anatolia to Constantinople. Officials and villagers welcomed Him along the way, and His companions served Him on foot.
When Bahá'u'lláh's convoy left Baghdád for Constantinople in 1863, Muḥammad-Muṣṭafá Baghdádí remained in the city. 'Abdu'l-Bahá recalls how he stayed loyal, withstood the enemies of the Faith and taught it openly.
In the Garden of Riḍván, Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Súriy-i-Ṣabr, the Tablet of Patience, in honour of Ḥájí Muḥammad-Taqí, a survivor of Nayríz whom He named Ayyúb (Job). It praised the steadfast and prepared the believers of 'Iráq for His departure.
In Baghdád 'Abdu'l-Bahá grew into a youth beloved by all who knew Him. The Chosen Highway records how, before the exile of 1863, He shielded His Father, arranged His move to the Garden of Riḍván and set out with Him on the journey to Constantinople.
On the long journey from Baghdád to the Black Sea in 1863, officials and villagers received Bahá'u'lláh with honour in town after town. As the caravan neared Sámsún, He revealed the Tablet of the Howdah.
At noon on 3 May 1863 Bahá'u'lláh rode out of the Garden of Riḍván on a red roan stallion, the best His lovers could buy for Him. Crowds bowed at His horse's feet, and believers and unbelievers alike wept.
Summoned to Constantinople, Bahá'u'lláh spent twelve days in the Garden of Riḍván while a caravan was prepared. Then He set out with members of His family and twenty-six disciples on a journey of three to four months.
In the twelve days before He left Baghdád for Constantinople, Bahá'u'lláh showed, in Esslemont's words, the greatest joy, dignity and power, and the notables of the city, even the Governor, came to honor Him.
When Bahá'u'lláh left Baghdád in 1863, friends and strangers wept in the streets. On the day He rode out of the Garden of Riḍván, an eyewitness wrote, believers and unbelievers alike sobbed and lamented.
Shoghi Effendi calls Riḍván the holiest and most significant of all Bahá'í festivals. Its twelve days, which Bahá'u'lláh called the King of Festivals, ended at noon on May 3, 1863, when He rode out of the garden toward Constantinople.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá recalled walking twelve miles in the Baghdád heat to a poor thorn-picker’s hut, where the wife burnt the little cake she made for Him, and called it the best reception He ever attended.
Exiled in chains from Egypt to the Sudan, Ḥájí Mírzá Ḥaydar-‘Alí and his companions were tied in pairs to the sides of camels, and despite the pain they could not help laughing at the sight.
Muriel Ives Barrow Newhall recalled that when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá asked Bahá’u’lláh why He had never clearly designated the universal language, Bahá’u’lláh replied, "Because no one ever asked Me."
During His retreat in the mountains of Kurdistan, Bahá'u'lláh comforted a weeping schoolboy and wrote him a copy to learn from. The schoolmaster recognized the writing as royal penmanship, and people set out to find Him.
In the mountains of Kurdistan, Bahá'u'lláh stopped to help a crying boy who had been punished for poor writing. His copy was so beautiful that the schoolmaster knew its writer was no ordinary dervish.
While Bahá'u'lláh lived as a dervish in the mountains of Kurdistan, He gave a gathering of Sufis so wonderful an interpretation of a mystical poem that they begged Him to return. He told them to seek tidings of Him in Baghdad.
The last illness and ascension of Bahá'u'lláh at Bahjí on 29 May 1892, His farewell to the friends, His burial, and the reading of the Kitáb-i-'Ahd nine days later.
In the Lawḥ-i-Aqdas, the Tablet to the Christians, Bahá'u'lláh tells the followers of Christ that the Father has come, and calls on their bishops, priests and monks to recognize Him.
In Adrianople Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Súriy-i-Mulúk, His first address to the kings of the world as a body, calling them to rule with justice, to settle their differences and to reduce their armaments.
Aḥmad of Yazd lived near Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdád and later set out to reach Him in Adrianople. In Constantinople he received the Tablet of Aḥmad, and instead of going on, he returned to Persia to teach.
During His last visit to Haifa in 1891, Bahá'u'lláh pitched His tent near the Carmelite monastery on Mount Carmel and revealed the Tablet of Carmel, which is considered the charter of the Bahá'í World Centre.
At Naw-Rúz 1863, in His tent outside Baghdád, Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Tablet of the Holy Mariner. His companions were filled with sorrow when they heard it, and the next day He was told He must go to Constantinople.
When the philosopher Nabíl-i-Akbar visited 'Akká around 1873-74, Bahá'u'lláh revealed for him the Tablet of Wisdom, which speaks of the origin of creation and of the ancient sages who learned from the Prophets.
Napoleon III left Bahá'u'lláh's first Tablet unanswered. The second, sent from 'Akká in 1869, warned that his empire would pass from his hands. In 1870 he was defeated at Sedan and taken prisoner, and his empire fell.
Around 1869, while a prisoner in 'Akká, Bahá'u'lláh revealed a Tablet to Pope Pius IX, calling him to leave his palaces and abandon his kingdom unto the kings. In 1870 the Pope lost his temporal rule.
From the prison of 'Akká Bahá'u'lláh wrote to Queen Victoria, praising her for forbidding the slave trade and for entrusting counsel to the people's representatives, and calling on the rulers of the earth to hold fast to the Lesser Peace.
The calligrapher Mishkín-Qalam, sent by Bahá'u'lláh from Adrianople to Constantinople, was arrested through the Persian ambassador's slanders and held for about nine years at Famagusta in Cyprus before he was freed and went to 'Akká.
As an infant Bahá'u'lláh never cried. At five or six He dreamt that birds and fishes attacked Him without harming Him, and an interpreter told His father that the peoples of the world would assail Him in vain.
Shaykh Maḥmúd, a religious leader of 'Akká, went to the barracks to kill Bahá'u'lláh and was twice turned back by messages that read his intentions. After a dream recalled a childhood prophecy, he returned and became a devoted believer.
In the Síyáh-Chál in 1852, Bahá'u'lláh's fellow prisoners were called out one by one to their deaths. The executioner, who had grown friendly to Him, would afterwards tell Him how each had died.
Chained in two rows in the Síyáh-Chál in 1852, Bahá'u'lláh's fellow prisoners chanted each night the verses He had taught them, until the sound carried to the Sháh's palace nearby.
Aḥmad of Yazd set out from Baghdád to reach Bahá'u'lláh in Adrianople. In Constantinople he received the Tablet revealed for him, and instead of going on he returned to Persia to teach.
When the Governor of ‘Akká insulted the newly arrived prisoners and one of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s attendants answered him in rage, the Master rebuked the attendant on the spot. The Governor’s attitude changed, and he began to treat the prisoners more humanely.
In a 1922 talk printed in the Star of the West, Martha Root remembered Mírzá Ḥaydar-'Alí, who endured years of prison, set out as a very old man from the Holy Land for Persia without even a donkey, and was called the Angel of the believers.
The first issue of the Star of the West, then called Bahai News, carried a photograph of Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, and an account of his fatal fall in the barracks of 'Akká and his one request to Bahá'u'lláh.
Bahíyyih Khánum recalls that strife grieved Bahá’u’lláh because of the unhappiness it brought others, and that He would take the blame upon Himself to restore peace.
After Bahá’u’lláh returned to Baghdad from the mountains, curiosity-seekers crowded to see Him; His son ‘Abdu’l-Bahá put placards on the doors and admitted only genuine truth-seekers.
Bahíyyih Khánum recalls how a daughter born after the Báb's prayer for a childless follower came to the Holy Family, and how, at Bahá'u'lláh's request, 'Abdu'l-Bahá took her as His wife.
Bahíyyih Khánum recalls her brother's grief in Baghdad while Bahá’u’lláh was away, His devotion to copying and memorizing the tablets of the Báb, and His one diversion, horseback riding.
When the prison gates opened, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá sold a gift to repair His companions' rooms in the caravanserai, leaving His own damp, flea-infested room to the last; the money ran out before it could be repaired.
Bahíyyih Khánum recalls the order that sent Bahá'u'lláh from Baghdad to Constantinople, the grief of His followers, and how the family went to live in tents in a friend's garden until the departure.
When the order came banishing the exiles from Adrianople to 'Akká, one despairing believer tried to take his own life. Bahá'u'lláh would not leave until the Governor promised to care for him and send him on.
Bahíyyih Khánum recalls the hard four-month journey from Baghdad, when Bahá'u'lláh cooked a warm pudding for the exiles with His own hands, and their cramped arrival in Constantinople as prisoners.
As the exiles prepared to leave Baghdad, 'Abdu'l-Bahá shielded His Father from intruders. In the Riḍván garden, Bahá'u'lláh confided to Him that He was the One promised by the Báb.
Bahíyyih Khánum recalls that on the day of His wedding, after carefully preparing to receive the guests, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá quietly withdrew to keep His habit of visiting the poor and sick.
A Christian merchant in ‘Akká seized charcoal the Bahá’ís had bought. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá waited three hours in his office to ask for it; His patient answers won the merchant’s respect, and he became a firm supporter.
When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was once held in chains, His jailers were amazed to hear Him sing and laugh; He told them they were doing Him a kindness.
In a parable from The Seven Valleys, a lover fleeing a watchman scales a garden wall and finds his beloved there, and sees that what seemed tyranny was a hidden mercy.
While Bahá’u’lláh lived as a dervish in the mountains, His family in Baghdád sold their only rug to buy a donkey for a Bábí who set out to find Him; months later He came home.
In a prayer for a memorial gathering, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá recalls Fáṭimih Begum, widow of the King of Martyrs: her sufferings after his martyrdom, her patience, and her years of humble service in the Holy Land.
Bahíyyih Khánum recalls the day soldiers surrounded the family's house in Adrianople with orders to separate Bahá’u’lláh from His family, and the week ‘Abdu’l-Bahá spent pleading until the family was allowed to go with Him.
On the slow journey through the fields and mountains of Turkey, the melodious chanting of Jinab-i-Munib brought joy to those who travelled with Bahá'u'lláh and testified to his love for Him.
When the Governor of 'Akká read Him the Sultán's edict condemning the exiles to prison for ever, 'Abdu'l-Bahá called it meaningless, since sooner or later the captives would leave the prison, dead or alive.
When he reached Hamadán his character became known, and, as he was of the clerical class, the doctors vehemently pursued him, handed him over to the government, and ordered chastisement to be inflicted.
Then the Royal Command was issued that their Reverences the learned doctors and honorable and accomplished divines should write a reply to that epistle.
I know not how long they shall ride the steed of desire and wander erringly in the desert of heedlessness and error.
In June 1870 Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, fell through an unguarded skylight in the barracks. Dying, he asked that his life be accepted as a ransom for those prevented from attaining the presence of their Beloved.
Túbá Khánum recalls her little sister Ruh-Angiz, whom Bahá’u’lláh promised to love more than all the rest. After His passing the child longed to go to Him, and the next year she passed away.
At Gallipoli the exiles learned of an order to separate Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the family and the followers. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá told the Governor they would not submit, and after a week He won the concession that they remain together.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá retells an Arabian chronicle: Hanzala, pledged to die on King Nu'man's Day of Evil, returned to keep his word, and his faithfulness brought the king and his ministers to faith in God.
Near Mardin, on the journey from Baghdad to Constantinople, two mules belonging to an Arab traveller were stolen. Bahá’u’lláh halted the caravan and refused money in their place until the animals themselves were restored to their owner.
Each week ‘Abdu’l-Bahá walked from ‘Akká to visit Bahá’u’lláh at Bahjí. When His Father asked Him to ride, He rode, but dismounted as soon as He sighted the Mansion.
In the Súriy-i-Haykal, Bahá'u'lláh recounts how He moved to another house, hoping the flame of envy in His brother's breast might be quenched, and how His brother answered with the pen of calumny.
A man in 'Akká denounced 'Abdu'l-Bahá and hid his face from Him, yet for twenty-four years the Master sent him food, clothing and a doctor, until the man came weeping to beg His forgiveness.
While Bahá'u'lláh lay chained in the Siyah-Chal, His enemies failed to prove Him guilty and tried to poison Him. After four months He was released on condition of exile, ill and scarred by the chains.
Speaking at the Bowery Mission in New York, 'Abdu'l-Bahá told how Bahá'u'lláh, though wealthy, left all He had in Baghdad and lived two years among the poor, choosing the title The Poor One.
A pilgrim from Khusf who had seen nothing extraordinary in his first days in 'Akká was overwhelmed in Bahá’u’lláh's presence. Bahá’u’lláh then explained, with the example of a parrot and a mirror, why the Manifestations appear in human form.