Loading…
"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
Loading…
"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
43 stories in the library.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum recalled how ‘Abdu’l-Bahá carried flower-pots two miles in the heat to the tomb of Bahá’u’lláh, and pumped water there until He was too stiff to walk away.
Shoghi Effendi told how a coachman at Ramleh demanded an exorbitant fare from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and pulled Him roughly by His sash. The Master stayed calm, refused to give in, and paid exactly what He owed, without the tip.
When a car given to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá reached port as a weekend began, Shoghi Effendi went to officials' homes for their signatures and had it at the Master's door though it was not a business day.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum recalls that the Guardian as a small boy was the high-spirited ringleader of the children, and that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá once wrote a short sentence about how much he ran about.
At noisy family lunches in the Master's house, the children watched for the mouthful of food the Greatest Holy Leaf would give to one of them. Shoghi Effendi usually got it.
At Oxford, the young Shoghi Effendi worked day and night to perfect his English so that he could translate the holy writings, until the news of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's passing called him home.
While ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was staying at the Maxwell home in Montreal in 1912, little Mary Maxwell slipped into His room as He rested, pushed up His eyelids, and He took her in His arms.
Shoghi Effendi once described to Rúḥíyyih Khánum the noisy family lunches of his childhood, when the grandchildren watched for the mouthful of food the Greatest Holy Leaf would give to one of them. It usually went to him.
In 1920 Shoghi Effendi went to Balliol College, Oxford, to perfect his English so that he could translate the sacred writings. His studies ended in November 1921 with the news of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's passing.
Unhappy at school in Haifa and Beirut, the young Shoghi Effendi was moved by 'Abdu'l-Bahá to the Syrian Protestant College, where he aimed all his studies at serving the Master and translating His letters into English.
In 'Akká in 1899 the American pilgrim Ella Goodall Cooper watched the small Shoghi Effendi walk up to 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who greeted him with a silent nod; the boy kissed the hem of His robe and ran off to play.
In the years after ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s passing, Shoghi Effendi often withdrew to Switzerland to recover his health and strength, walking for many hours and climbing in the Bernese Alps.
In May 1940 the Guardian, Rúḥíyyih Khánum and her father tried to reach England from Italy. A British Consul who remembered ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stamped their passport, and after anxious days at St Malo they sailed for Southampton.
Mary Maxwell of Montreal married Shoghi Effendi on 25 March 1937 in a simple, private wedding; as Rúḥíyyih Khánum she later served as a Hand of the Cause and travelled to 185 countries and territories.
The Montreal architect William Sutherland Maxwell, husband of May Maxwell, spent his last years serving Shoghi Effendi in Haifa and designed the superstructure of the Shrine of the Báb.
On her first pilgrimage in 1923, the twelve-year-old Mary Maxwell stood guard at the door of her sleeping mother, May Maxwell, only to learn that the visitor she had challenged was Shoghi Effendi.
In 1952 Shoghi Effendi directed the levelling of land around the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh, changed his design after viewing it from a ruined building's roof, and then moved his meetings to the edge of the new garden out of respect for the Shrine.
On a summer rest-cure, and again in London in the last days of his life, Shoghi Effendi worked for hours on his own maps of the Ten Year Crusade, filling in their details by hand.
In Egypt a coachman seized 'Abdu'l-Bahá by His sash to force an unjust fare while the boy Shoghi Effendi watched. As Guardian, Shoghi Effendi added up every bill he paid and pointed out undercharges as well as overcharges.
Leroy Ioas describes Shoghi Effendi’s day in Haifa: prayer from 5:30 in the morning, his vast mail, the pilgrims from East and West and the International Bahá’í Council, until late at night, every day of the week.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum found almost no mention of the Second World War in her diaries, though it threatened the World Centre and the Guardian himself. She saw that silence as a measure of the pressures he carried in those years.
In the years after the Master’s passing, Shoghi Effendi would set out from Interlaken before dawn to walk and climb in the mountains, usually alone and often for ten to sixteen hours, as he later told Rúḥíyyih Khánum.
Mary Maxwell, who grew up in Montreal, married Shoghi Effendi in Haifa in 1937 with no celebration and no elaborate ceremony. Known afterwards as Rúḥíyyih Khánum, she served the Faith for the rest of her life.
In 1937 Mary Maxwell of Montreal married Shoghi Effendi in Haifa. Almost no one knew beforehand, and there was no celebration, no wedding dress and no reception.
In London in 1957, Shoghi Effendi fell ill with the flu, kept working until he had finished his last map, and passed away peacefully in his sleep.
Letters poured in to Shoghi Effendi from all over the world. He decided to keep writing back to individual believers, and he wrote and typed his own books himself.
Soon after he became Guardian, Shoghi Effendi went away for a time to gather his strength, walking for long hours, usually alone, in the mountains of Switzerland, while the Greatest Holy Leaf looked after the Faith.
Shoghi Effendi planned a ten-year Crusade to carry the Faith to 131 new countries and territories, and in its very first year Bahá'ís settled in one hundred of them.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum recalls how her mother, May Maxwell, was broken by grief after the passing of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and how a pilgrimage to Haifa in 1923 to meet Shoghi Effendi restored her.
Shoghi Effendi went to Oxford to perfect his English for translating the sacred Writings. In 1935 he published Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, a selection of passages he had translated, which Professor Norman Bentwich and Queen Marie of Romania, among others, praised.
Shoghi Effendi went to Oxford to perfect his English so that he could translate the Bahá'í writings. Rúḥíyyih Khánum describes his notebooks, his reading and the care with which he chose every word.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum recalls her marriage to Shoghi Effendi on 25 March 1937: a visit to the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh, a simple ceremony in the room of the Greatest Holy Leaf, and no celebration at all.
While in London in the autumn of 1957, Shoghi Effendi fell ill with Asiatic influenza, kept working on his last map, and died in his sleep early on 4 November. He was buried near London on 9 November.
Faced with a flood of letters from all over the world, Shoghi Effendi chose to keep answering individual believers. He kept copies of his cables to the end and typed his own manuscripts with two fingers.
In November 1921 Shoghi Effendi, a student at Oxford, learned from a cable in a London office that 'Abdu'l-Bahá had passed away; back in Haifa, the Master's Will told him he had been appointed Guardian.
Overwhelmed by grief and by his appointment as Guardian, Shoghi Effendi left Haifa in April 1922 with the Greatest Holy Leaf in charge, and in the early years of his ministry sought healing in long, solitary walks in the Swiss mountains.
Shoghi Effendi made public the Ten Year Crusade at the start of the Holy Year in 1952 and launched it at four Intercontinental Teaching Conferences in 1953; in its first year one hundred new territories were opened to the Faith.
Rúhíyyih Khánum describes Shoghi Effendi as a small, sensitive and mischievous child who grew into a man of iron constitution and will, and recalls his hazel eyes and wonderfully expressive face.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum recalls her marriage to Shoghi Effendi on 25 March 1937: a quiet visit to the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh, a ring, and no celebration, flowers or wedding dress.
When cables brought news of May Maxwell's death in Argentina, Shoghi Effendi broke it to her daughter, Rúḥíyyih Khánum, with great tenderness, and comforted her until she was laughing through her tears.
In Haifa in 1948 thieves stole the Guardian’s newly arrived Buick. Shoghi Effendi stayed calm, and a chance conversation in a Herzl Street shop led the police to the car, which was recovered.
When Sutherland Maxwell lay near death in the winter of 1949–50, Shoghi Effendi insisted he should not die and had him taken to Switzerland, where he recovered so completely that the Guardian called it miraculous.
As he began writing The Advent of Divine Justice, Shoghi Effendi made a remark about America that Rúḥíyyih Khánum found hard to accept; he told her to swallow it, and over the years she came to see the truth in it.