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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."
298 stories in the library.
Another one of the qualities that you found in Shoghi Effendi, and which rather astonished me, was humility. I had studied a lot in the writings about humility. I had read a lot in the religious teachings about being humble, and I thought…
Aqa Husayn related that Shaykh Mahmud (whose wondrous story we shall shortly come by) told the Most Great Branch that he desired the honour of washing and shrouding the body of the Purest Branch, so that the guards should not lay their…
Munirih Khánum, wife of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who was the Greatest Branch of the Tree of Life had this to say: Five of my children died in the poisonous climate of `Akká. The bad air was, in truth, only the outside material reason. The inner…
On the first day of Muḥarram in the year 1235 of the Muslim calendar — the twentieth of October 1819 — a Son was born in a modest house in Shíráz to a family of merchants who traced their descent from the Prophet Muḥammad. The child was named Siyyid 'Alí-Muḥammad. The world would come to know Him as the Báb, the Gate of a new Day of God.
On March 25, 1911, at the behest of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Louis Gregory sailed from New York through Europe to Egypt and Palestine to go on pilgrimage. In Palestine, Gregory met with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi and visited the Shrine of…
On the [day] of the first Naw-Rúz (1909), which He celebrated after His release from His confinement, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had the marble sarcophagus transported with great labor to the vault prepared for it, and in the evening, by the light of a…
On the eve of the Báb's arrival at Kashan, Haji Mirza Jani, surnamed Parpa, a noted resident of that city, dreamed that he was standing at a late hour in the afternoon at the gate of Attar, one of the gates of the city, when his eyes…
One of the most striking examples of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s imperturbability was His reaction to possible personal tragedy, further exile or execution. His troubles stemmed from the Covenant-breakers, those Bahá’ís who did not accept…
Glory be unto Him Who knoweth all that is in the heavens and in the earth. Verily there is no God but Him, the sovereign Ruler, the Almighty, the…
Is there any Remover of difficulties save God? Say: Praised be God! He is God! All are His servants and all abide by His bidding! Footnotes 1.This is the first letter of ‘Thamárih’ which means ‘fruit’. Shoghi Effendi, in…
Siyyid ‘Abdu’l-Baqi sat and listened to the Báb. He heard His voice, watched His movements, looked upon the expression of His face, and noted the words which streamed unceasingly from His lips, and yet failed to be moved by their majesty…
Sometime later, I usually had the privilege of walking home with the Guardian after he left the pilgrims, and very often he talked further about the subject which we had been discussing at dinner, and gave further amplification, which, of…
The Báb answered and said: 'What you have witnessed is true and undeniable. You belittled this Revelation and have contemptuously disdained its Author. God, the All-Merciful, desiring not to afflict you with His punishment, has willed to…
swords be blunted, and their footsteps slip. I know not how long they shall ride the steed of desire and wander erringly in the desert of heedlessness and error. Of glory shall any glory endure, or of abasement any abasement? Or shall…
To the galling weight of these tribulations was now added the bitter grief of a sudden tragedy -- the premature loss of the noble, the pious Mirza Mihdi, the Purest Branch, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's twenty-two year old brother, an amanuensis of…
Upon His arrival in Jaddih, the Báb donned the pilgrim's garb, mounted a camel, and set out on His journey to Mecca [to perform His pilgrimage]. Quddus, however, notwithstanding the repeatedly expressed desire of his Master, preferred to…
We were all huddled together in one cell, our feet in stocks, and around our necks fastened the most galling of chains. The air we breathed was laden with the foulest impurities, while the floor on which we sat was covered with filth and…
When I first arrived in the Holy Land, there were two or three things about the Guardian that impressed me very much. And one was, particularly, the size of the Guardian. Now in the West, for you people who haven’t been in the West, we’ve…
When my father fell desperately ill in the winter of 1949-50 his condition was despaired of by his doctors. He reached a point where he seemed to have no conscious mind left, could not recognize me, his only and idolized child, at all, and…
While in Sari, Quddus frequently attempted to convince Mirza Muhammad-Taqi of the truth of the Divine Message. He freely conversed with him on the most weighty and outstanding issues related to the Revelation of the Báb. His bold and…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá spent His early years in an environment of privilege, wealth, and love. ** ‘Abdu’l-Bahá…
Aqa Husayn-i-Ashchi (Ashchi in Farsi means cook or maker of broth) was Baha'u'llah's cook. His father died on his way to ask for the hand of his brother's daughter to wed 'Abdu'l-Baha. Aqa Husayn-i-Ashchi's uncle Ustad Ismail raised him…
Not long after Shoghi Effendi assumed his stewardship as Guardian, it was possible for him, through the munificent assistance of a dedicated 'Iraqi Baha'i, Haji Mahmud Qassabchi, to carry out the arduous task, already referred to, of…
Haji Abu'l-Hasan Ardikani known as Haji Amin or Amin-i-Ilahi (the trustee of God). He was one of the prominent Bahá'ís of Iran and was appointed the trustee (amin) of the Huququ'llah as well as acting as a courier for conveying the letters…
The Bab's three uncles: Haji Mirza Siyyid Ali aka the Greatest Uncle - he was the middle brother, Haji Mirza Siyyid Muhammad aka the Greater Uncle - he was the eldest of the three brothers, and Haji Mirza Hassan Ali, the younger Uncle.…
Gregory was instrumental in arranging for two major speaking engagements for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Washington DC to an audience of more than a thousand in Rankin Chapel at Howard University, and that evening to a large gathering of the Bethel…
"he that was created by the light of Bahá" L: Mirza Mihdi with his brother ‘Abdu’l-Baha **Mírzá…
During the nineteen days that he remained there he drank his fill from the life-giving draught of the presence of the Master and on daily basis paid homage to the Sacred Shrine of Baha’u’llah. **Mirza Yusuf Vahid Kashfi Born:**…
Muḥammad showed a keen interest to learn and master this language. He moved to Qazvín, the birth place of Táhiríh, to teach at Tavakkul Bahá’í School in 1914. In 1916, he was nominated as the official representative of the World Esperanto…
In May 1878, his travel teaching took Siyyid Mustafa Rumi to Myanmar (Burma). There he would, not yet knowing the local language, together with Jamal Effendi and Haji Siyyid Mihdi, lay the foundation for the Burmese Bahá’í community.…
Although the young merchant's given name was Siyyid 'Ali-Muhammad, He took the name "Báb"…
"‘Abdu’l-Bahá recognized Chase as "the first American believer," and Shoghi Effendi later described him as "indeed the first to embrace the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh in the Western world." ** Thornton Chase, Disciple of…
From his years Billy Sears possessed an inordinate interest in God. He asked his parents, his grandfather, the preacher, the mayor, even the local people he met a myriad of questions: 'Did God have a wife? Where was His house? Could He…
He was made a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. ** William Sutherland…
73 Your touching words in connection with the sudden removal of the Greatest Holy Leaf from their74 midst have greatly alleviated the burden of sorrow that weighs so heavily upon their hearts and have demonstrated that in their great…
84 The letter dated 5 August 1932, from that spiritual friend has been received by the Guardian of the Cause of God, may our lives be sacrificed for him, and he has been informed of your receiving his telegram regarding the ascension…
85 What you had written concerning the memorial gatherings of men and women believers to mourn the Most Exalted Leaf, who was the peerless fruit of the Holy Tree, and to commemorate the ascension of her who was the most glorious trust…
19 O my spiritual…
88 The profound sorrow occasioned by the sudden passing of the Greatest Holy Leaf, as well as the unnumbered messages of sympathy received from friends and believers in East and West, all of which the Guardian acknowledged in person,…
89 The Guardian of the Cause of God has received your letter of 21 July 1932, telling of your and the other friends’ profound distress on receiving word of this calamity, this dire ordeal, that is, the ascension of the Most Exalted…
90 The Guardian’s anguish, because of this tragic occurrence, is such that it can neither be plumbed nor described in words. That sublime and gloried Leaf, that precious jewel of the Kingdom, was the one great solace of his life; she…
92 The Guardian trusts that the explanation he has given by wire regarding the suspension for a period of nine months of Bahá’í religious festivity has been made clear. The Nineteen Day Feast being of a quasi-administrative character…
26 O my sister in the spirit, and the companion of my…
93 The loss of the Greatest Holy Leaf will be bitterly felt by all those friends who had the pleasure and privilege to meet her. She always kept such a wonderful atmosphere of joy and hope around her that was bound to influence those…
94 Even though during these last years she was weak and most of the time confined to her room, yet she was a source of constant joy and inspiration to those that met her. The Guardian feels her loss tremendously because the greatest…
27 O thou Greatest and Most Merciful Holy…
95 The passing away of the Greatest Holy Leaf was a loss every Bahá’í will feel deeply if only he stops to think about it. She was such a precious soul and so radiantly happy and hopeful even under most adverse circumstances. Every…
96 Even though the Greatest Holy Leaf has left us in body she is with us in spirit, inspiring us in our work and beseeching for us God’s loving mercy and fatherly care. She will never forget her loving friends nor leave them in their…
97 Shoghi Effendi wishes me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated August 25th 1932 and to extend his deep appreciation for your kind words of sympathy. This loss is a thing that will be bitterly felt by every Bahá’í…
99 Surely there is nothing that will console the Guardian more than the happy news that the Cause for which the Greatest Holy Leaf lived and suffered is gradually spreading and embracing the whole of the people of the…
100 These nine months during which the Guardian has asked the friends to discard feast days, are meant to be months of mourning for the passing away of the Greatest Holy Leaf. The friends should also use it as a period of redoubled…
138 We thank you most sincerely for your kind letters of sympathy, and we appreciate your loving Messages, which are as comforting balm to our wounded…
102 Indeed it would have been for you such a joy to meet the Greatest Holy Leaf during her earthly life, but the Guardian does not wish you to feel depressed about it; this beloved soul will from the Heaven of her Almighty Father guide…
141 It is not unknown to those who stand firm in the Covenant and Testament of God that the centre of violation and his associates, from the day of the ascension of the Ancient Beauty, may His Great Name be ever exalted, have been…
142 This dire calamity, this great affliction, the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, may our lives be sacrificed for His meekness, has shaken us to the very depths. Our lives lie in ruins. In our hearts, the stars of happiness have set, the…
143 Although that supreme calamity, that great ordeal, the ascension of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, put the torch to the harvest of our hearts, and brought down both our outer and inner beings, wedding us to grief and ceaseless pain, yet praised be…
144 O faithful servant of the Best-Beloved, the Most Glorious! O steadfast friend, flourishing in the garden of His luminous Beauty! The brief but informative letter you had written to Shoghi Effendi, the Chosen Branch, the Guardian of…
71 The raising of this Edifice72 will in turn herald the construction, in the course of successive epochs of the Formative Age of the Faith, of several other…
160 That supreme affliction, the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, was the direst of ordeals; it was an anguish of mourning. The parting with mankind’s Beloved set fire to the hearts of all His lovers, and the souls of the believers dissolved…
162 The good news that the Word of God is being raised up, and His Cause glorified, and that His friends, on fire with love for Him, are arising to spread His sweet savours abroad—is coming in steadily from every quarter of the…
164 It is clear how that most dire of calamities, that most great disaster which was the ascension of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, may our souls be sacrificed for His meekness, has set our hearts on fire and dissolved our very limbs and members in…
168 The good news has come that the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, may our lives be sacrificed for His meekness, has been read at the meetings of the friends, and we here are rejoiced to learn of their unity and their…
169 In this noblest of all ages the Sun of grace and loving-kindness has shone out from the divine day-spring with such resplendent glory and is casting His beams so bright and far, that He has lit up all the earth and made the hearts…
170 The purport of your letter is highly indicative of your steadfastness in His Cause, of your unswerving constancy in the Covenant, of having set your face toward Shoghi Effendi, the authorized Point to whom all must turn, the Centre…
172 At this hour while yet the heart burns with the anguish of sorrow, and the gloom of bereavement still hangs low, my thoughts turn in loving remembrance to my sincere beloved sisters and brothers in the…
174 A physician treats every illness with a certain remedy and to every painful sore he applies a specially prepared compound. The more severe the illness, the more potent must be the remedy, so that the treatment may prove effective…
177 We were delighted to receive your excellent letter ... and read it with joy. It gladdens our hearts to witness from its contents the evidences of loyalty and sincerity and perfect steadfastness in the Cause of God, and unshakeable…
180 The letter that you wrote in your burning grief, on the passing of the world’s Beloved, the Orb of the Covenant—wrote with weeping eyes and a heart afire, has come. Once again, it brings back the full force of this calamity, and…
181 Although the ascension of the beloved Centre of the Covenant was the ultimate calamity, the severest of ordeals, and the fire of that bereavement consumed our hearts and souls, and there were no eyes but wept their tears of blood…
182 You have offered up thanks to the Lord for appointing the Centre of His Cause and the Guardian of His Covenant, and have voiced your gratitude and expressed your spiritual sentiments, for this favour and…
80 In these days, when we are all mourning the loss of our beloved Greatest Holy Leaf, Shoghi Effendi’s sole comfort is to see the friends as ever devoted and active and striving day and night to promote the teachings of the…
194 It has been demonstrated time and time again that whatever comes to pass only enhances the glory of God’s Faith, and further proclaims His Word. This time it will be the…
81 Your message of condolence and sympathy, dated July 22nd, 1932 which so fully conveyed your profound grief at the loss occasioned by the unexpected passing of the Greatest Holy Leaf was received and read with great interest. The…
198 Your letter of 12th October 1922 is just received and refreshed in our memory the many beautiful days that you spent here when the Beloved Lord, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, was still on this earth. Those are days that many events of history…
199 All praise to the beloved Abhá Beauty, that those nightingales of the gardens of knowledge, those doves of the fragrant bowers of certitude, are singing the holy verses on the boughs of grace and bounty, celebrating the praise and…
203 It was sometime ago that I received your kind and encouraging letter through your honourable secretary. And although in a joyless world, the love and unity of the friends in Yonkers imparted the utmost joy to this bereaved family.…
204 You quite well realize, I presume, that Shoghi Effendi has always cherished the fondest hopes for your services to the Cause of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and I am sure that your achievements will be great, shining brilliantly as a star. The…
205 The Pen of the divine Ordainer has so decreed that this house of sorrows should be encompassed by unending calamity and pain. Even before the dark clouds of one disaster are scattered, the lowering storm of yet a new grief takes…
206 ‘O God, My God! Thou hast lighted the lamp of Thy Cause with the oil of wisdom; protect it from contrary winds. The lamp is Thine and the glass is Thine, and all things in the heavens and on earth are in the grasp of Thy power.’207…
209 The tongue of this lowly and grief-stricken maidservant is powerless to praise those loved ones of God, and the words uttered by her are wholly inadequate to pay a worthy tribute to the staunch firmness and constancy, to the spirit…
211 The question of Avárih has surely come to your attention. In spite of the fact that last year, the first time that he visited this sacred Spot, he was shown the greatest kindness and love, and he was the object of every…
214 Your short and loving note of June 25th has been received. Its contents, though short, gave me and the ladies of the Household great joy, because they indicate that the dear friends have, with willing efforts, arisen to strengthen…
215 Your charming letter of June 20th has arrived and with it the spiritual waves of your love and devotion to the welfare of the Cause of God and to the prosperity of the dear friends throughout…
218 In this Day nothing is so important as service. Did not ‘Abdu’l-Bahá voluntarily call Himself the ‘Servant’ of Bahá, manifesting also in His life the perfections of servitude to God and…
219 It always cheers my heart to hear from the dear friends whose hearts are so full of love and devotion, and desire to serve this Blessed Cause which has been proclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh to all the world, so that all national, racial,…
83 The letter from that spiritual friend has reached the beloved Guardian, and he is aware of your bitter grieving over the calamitous news that a most glorious fruit of the Holy Tree, the Most Exalted Leaf, the Remnant of Bahá, has…
Under the inspired guidance of Shoghi Effendi the Bahá’í Cause grew steadily in size and in the establishment of its Administrative Order, so that by 1951 there were eleven functioning National Spiritual Assemblies. At that point the…
During His own lifetime Bahá’u’lláh appointed a few tried and trusted friends to assist in directing and promoting the work of the Movement, and gave them the title of Ayadiyi-Amru’lláh (lit. “Hands of the Cause of God”). ‘Abdu’l-Bahá…
Even when the imprisonment was at its worst, the Bahá’ís were not dismayed, and their serene confidence was never shaken. While in the barracks at Akká, Bahá’u’lláh wrote to some friends, “Fear not. These doors shall be opened. My tent…
He was then in His seventieth year, and His long and arduous labors, culminating in these strenuous Western tours, had worn out His physical frame. After His return He wrote the following pathetic Tablet to the believers in East and…
Before ‘Abdu’l-Bahá completed His earthly mission, He had laid a basis for the development of the administrative order established in Bahá’u’lláh’s Writings. To show the high importance to be attributed to the institution of the…
It has been the general characteristic of religion that organization marks the interruption of the true spiritual influence and serves to prevent the original impulse from being carried into the world. The organization has invariably…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá appointed His eldest grandson, Shoghi Effendi, to the responsible position of “Guardian of the Cause” (Valiyy-i-Amru’lláh). Shoghi Effendi is the eldest son of Diya’íyyih Khánum, the eldest daughter of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. His…
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá was only a small boy, His family lost almost everything — and one frightening errand showed how brave and gentle He already was.
A young cook named Husayn tried to save every little piece of coal — and one day Bahá'u'lláh let him know that even his quiet, careful kindness had been noticed.
A kind man from Iraq gave a wonderful gift so that three new rooms could be added to the holy Shrine of the Báb on the side of a mountain.
A farmer's son from a small Persian town became one of the most trusted helpers of his time, carrying letters and gifts across whole countries — and earning a name that meant 'the one you can trust.'
The Báb had three uncles, and each one came to believe in his own way and his own time — one early and bravely, one after his deepest questions were answered, and one last of all.
Born to a family freed from slavery, Louis Gregory grew up to find the Bahá'í Faith — and 'Abdu'l-Bahá once gave him the seat of honor when others wanted to keep him apart.
A gentle young man in a faraway prison made the bravest wish of his whole life — and because of it, people who longed to see Bahá'u'lláh finally could.
A man named Mirza Yusuf searched for the truth for many years, and when he finally found it, he gave up everything to travel the world and share it.
A boy named Muḥammad started a little company so children could save money for the future — and grew up to take photographs of holy places for a famous book.
1.For the author of The Dawn-Breakers, see Nabíl-i-Zarandí.2.Cf. Nabíl, The Dawn-Breakers, p. 395, note 1.3.Cf. Qur’án 19:98.4.Qur’án 3:91.5.Qur’án 54:55.6.1849–1850.7.1853; 1892.8.Áqá Ján. Cf. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p.…
Bahá'u'lláh bestowed upon His eldest Son a constellation of titles unique in religious history — the Most Great Branch, the Master, and, most mysterious of all, Sirru'lláh, the Mystery of God. Shoghi Effendi unfolds what these names mean, and how the One on whom they were conferred chose, in the end, to be known by a single humble name of His own.
Bahá'í Chronicles preserves the biographical record of John Ebenezer Esslemont — the Aberdeen physician who, after encountering the Cause in 1914, wrote the introductory work *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era,* moved to Haifa to serve at the Master's side, and was named by Shoghi Effendi a Hand of the Cause after his early death in 1925.
Bahá'í Chronicles preserves the biographical record of May Bolles Maxwell — one of the first pilgrims to 'Akká, the woman who established the Bahá'í community of Paris and of Montreal, the mother of Rúḥíyyih Khánum, and the travel-teacher whom Shoghi Effendi would name a martyr of the Faith after her death in Buenos Aires in 1940.
One day, in the course of one of His riding excursions into the country, Bahá’u’lláh, accompanied by His companions, saw, seated by the roadside, a lonely youth.
circa 1930:Imarat-i-Khurshid No sooner had the Mu’tamíd [Manuchihr Khan, the Governor] been informed of the condemnation pronounced by the ‘ulamás of Isfáhán than he determined, by a plan which he…
We soon joined her [Táhirih] at Badasht, where We rented a garden for her use, and appointed the same Muhammad-Hádí who had achieved her deliverance, as her doorkeeper.
Town of Ámul, circa 1935 About nine miles from Fort Tabarsi, where Baha’u’llah had planned to join the heroic believers, He and His companions were arrested by the soldiers of the acting governor of…
It was during Bahá’u’lláh’s nine-month exile to Karbilá in 1851, on the order of the Persian Prime Minister, that He “encountered, as He was walking through the streets, Shaykh Hasan-i-Zunúzí, to…
View of Káshán On the eve of the Báb’s arrival at Káshán, [1847] Hájí Mírzá Jání, surnamed Parpa, a noted resident of that city, dreamed that he was standing at a late hour in the afternoon at the…
The news of the approaching arrival of the Báb at Tabríz bestirred the believers in that city. They all set out to meet Him, eager to extend to so beloved a Leader their welcome.
The night before his [Mullá Husayn's] arrival at Máh-Kú, which was the eve of the fourth Naw-Rúz after the declaration of the Mission of the Báb, and which fell in that year, the year 1264 A.H.,…
The other story surprised me - and enlightened me - very much; I heard it more than once: Shoghi Effendi said that one day he was driving back from Alexandria to Ramleh with the Master in a rented…
Throughout our pilgrimage [1941] we visited the Shrines of the Báb and 'Abdu'l-Baha in the company of the beloved Guardian.
A certain man confided to His [the Báb’s] care a trust, requesting Him to dispose of it at a fixed price.
One day, when the Báb had dismounted close to a well [on His way to Mecca] in order to offer His morning prayer, a roving Bedouin suddenly appeared on the horizon, drew near to Him, and, snatching…
When Bahá’u’lláh was still a child, the Vazír, His father, dreamed a dream. Bahá’u’lláh appeared to him swimming in a vast, limitless ocean.
Taking refuge from the attacks of the people of Barfurúsh and neighbouring villages at the persistent instigation of the vindictive leading divine of that district, Mulla Husayn and his companions…
Karbila, 1932 (Wikipedia) Three days later, I saw that same Youth [the Báb] arrive and take His seat in the midst of the company of the assembled disciples of Siyyid Kázim.
Baha’u’llah’s first imprisonment took place in Tihran when He was informed of the plight of a number of companions and supporters of Táhirih who were brought as prisoners to the Capital from Qazvin.
One day Mírzá Ahmad conducted me [Nabil, he was then about 19 years old] to the house of Bahá’u’lláh, whose wife, the Varaqatu’l-’Ulya, [the Most Exalted Leaf] the mother of the Most Great Branch,…
Mulla Sadiq In 1845 Mulla Sadiq, whom posthumously was appointed by ‘Abdu’l-Baha as a Hand of the Cause, together with Quddus were arrested in Shiraz as a result of a commotion that was stirred up in…
“‘Abdu’l-Bahá,” writes Dr. J.E. Esslemont, “tells how one day He was allowed to enter the prison-yard to see His beloved Father when He came out for His daily exercise.
“For three days and three nights,” Nabíl has recorded in his chronicle, “no manner of food or drink was given to Bahá’u’lláh. Rest and sleep were both impossible to Him.
Tihran, circa 1808 A remarkable event, which may be unique in religious history, took place in the very early years of the Bábí-Bahá’í Faith.
One day, as he [Hájí Mírzá Aqásí, the Grand Vazír of Muhammad Sháh] was passing through the village of Quch-Hisar, which belonged to Bahá’u’lláh, he was so impressed by the charm and beauty of that…
The whole province of Khurásán was in those days [1848] in the throes of a violent agitation.
Mulla Sadiq-i-Muqaddas, was an outstanding believer who was entitled Ismu'llahu'l-Asdaq (The name of God, the Most Truthful) by Baha’u’llah.
This is the story of Mulla Aliy-i-Bastami, one of the Letters of the Living, "the first to leave the House of God (Shiraz) and the first to suffer for His sake…" (The Báb, quoted by Shoghi Effendi,…
The news of the tragic fate which had befallen the heroes of Tabarsí brought immeasurable sorrow to the heart of the Báb.
Karbila, circa 1930s In the following incident Nabil gives an example of Siyyid Kazim’s efforts to prepare his disciples to gradually remove the veils of age-old erroneous understandings and…
Louis G. Gregory was one of the first African-Americans in the United States to embrace the Baha'i Faith. He was later named a Hand of the Cause of God posthumously by Shoghi Effendi.
In the “Taríkh-i-Jadíd,” Muhammad Big is reported to have related the following account to Hájí Mírzá Jání: “So we mounted and rode on till we came to a brick caravanserai distant two parsangs from…
During the time when the Báb was in Shiraz, one night in a gathering with three of the believers, He turned suddenly to Mullá ‘Abdu’l-Karím and said: “‘Abdu’l-Karím, are you seeking the…
In about 1848, four years after recognizing the Báb and becoming His first believer, and receiving the title of Bábu’l-Báb (the Gate of the Gate), Mulla Husayn left the city of Mashhad, in the…
When Siyyid Kazim died in Karbila, Iraq, on December 31, 1843, his enemies became emboldened and renewed their hurtful activities to further discredit his teachings and ridicule those who followed…
Here is a brief story of the early life of Mulla Husayn whose amazing station is summarized below by the beloved Guardian: “Mulla Husayn, the first Letter of the Living, surnamed the Bábu'l-Báb (the…
Before Mulla Husayn met the Báb and became His first believer, he was a disciple of Siyyid Kázim, one of the two forerunners of the Báb – the other was Siyyid Kázim’s teacher, Shaykh Ahmad.
We know from the Baha’i Writings that Quddus, in addition to being the last Letter of the Living and the chosen companion of the Báb during His pilgrimage to Mecca, has a high station.
When ‘Abdu'l-Bahá was saying farewell amid the tears, lamentations and sadness of the friends and members of the Holy Family who watched their beloved's departure, one of Abdu'l-Bahá's daughters,…
In 1919, 'Abdu'l-Baha, The Center of the Covenant of Baha’u’llah, sent Tablets (letters) to America outlining a great plan for a spiritual divine civilization for the whole world.
Tabriz, 19th Century [The day before His martyrdom]: Deprived of His turban and sash, the twin emblems of His noble lineage, the Báb, together with Siyyid Ḥusayn, His amanuensis, was driven to yet…
On the day after the Báb’s arrival, Hájí Muhammad-Taqíy-i-Milání, a noted merchant of the city, ventured, together with Hájí ‘Alí-‘Askar, to interview the Báb.
The leader of that escort, a member of the Núsayrí community, better known as the sect of ‘Alíyu’lláhí, related the following: Having completed the third stage of our journey to Búshihr, we…
circa 1930s: The castle of Máh-Kú He [‘Alí Khán, the warden in charge of the castle of Máh-Kú] discharged his functions with the utmost severity and refused to allow any of the avowed disciples of…
It was the end of June, 1848. Outside the village of Badasht, located about 400 Km northeast of Tehran, Persia, on the other side of the Elburz Mountains in the Province of Semnan, there was a great…
We were awakened one night, ere break of day, by Mírzá ‘Abdu’l-Vahháb-i-Shírází, who was bound with Us to the same chains.
In the concluding passages of the Tablet which He [the Báb] was addressing to Hájí Mírzá Jání, He prayed in his behalf, supplicated the Almighty to illumine his heart with the light of Divine…
Mulla Husayn was still in Mashhad during the conference of Badasht as a guest of the Governor-General of the province of Khurasan - where he was treated with courtesy and consideration.
Hand of the Cause Mr Furutan 1953 Early in 1941, during the Second World War, means were miraculously provided for me and my family to go on pilgrimage.
On that same night, [the night when the Báb arrived in Káshán] Siyyid Husayn-i-Yazdí, who had previously, in accordance with the directions of the Báb, come to Káshán, was invited to the house of…
At the time of the Báb, Isfahan, a central city in Persia, was known among cities for the great learning of its clergy.
My grandfather had many colored maids and servants. When the Blessed Perfection became the head of the family He liberated all of them, and gave them permission to leave or stay, but if they desired…
Tehran circa 1930s Mírzá Músá, Áqáy-i-Kalím, the brother of Bahá’u’lláh, recounted to me [Nabil] the following: “I have heard Mullá Muhammad-i-Mu’allim, a native of Núr, in the province of…
Upon their return from Karbila, [circa 1848] Tahirih and her few companions were falsely accused of having been involved in the murder of her husband, Mullá Taqí, who was a fiercest opponent of the…
In the whole range of Bahá'u'lláh's Writings, the Kitáb-i-Íqán (The Book of Certitude) has most importance, with the exception of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas (The Most Holy Book).
A little under two years had passed since Bahá'u'lláh's confinement in the barracks, when suddenly a most tragic event occurred.
Dr. Baghdadi [an intimate of the Holy family who years later wrote a book about the time he spent with the family of Abdu’l-Baha] recounts how, on one of these visits [to Beirut] when Shoghi Effendi,…
Mirza Aqa Jan embraced the religion of the Báb when he was about sixteen years old and became instantly “aflame with devotion.” He was neither learned nor rich and made his living in his hometown of…
Bedroom of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, where He passed away Two months before His ['Abdu'l-Baha's] passing He told His family of a dream He had had.
Aqa Jan Khan-i-Khamsih who carried out the order for the execution of the Báb The circumstances pertaining to the execution of the Báb provide us with many lessons to reflect on.
One night, aware that the hour of her death was at hand, she put on the attire of a bride, and anointed herself with perfume, and, sending for the wife of the Kalantar, she communicated to her the…
Autumn was in the air in Ontario! The breeze tasted crisp and clean to Jim as he ran across his Family's farmland to the edge of the field.
Background: [Baha'u’llah left Baghdad to travel alone in the mountains of Kurdistan for two years. He did not tell anyone there who He was.
On November 28, 1921, 'Abdu'l-Bahá ascended at His home in Haifa. The next day, before a procession of ten thousand mourners — Muslims, Christians, Jews, Druze — He was carried up the slopes of Mount Carmel to the Shrine of the Báb, where nine speakers from three faiths delivered His funeral orations.
A doctor who was often sick spent seven whole years writing one clear little book about the Faith — and it went on to travel farther than he ever could.
A young woman from America heard of a new Faith in Paris, journeyed across the sea to meet the Master, and spent the rest of her long life helping others find Him too.
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away in Haifa, ten thousand people of every kind walked together up Mount Carmel to say goodbye to the friend they all loved.
At family meals in 'Akká, the children watched and waited for one special spoonful that always tasted better than anything else — because it was given with love.
Years before His passing, in days of great danger, 'Abdu'l-Bahá set down in His own hand a Will and Testament. Opened after His ascension in 1921, it appointed Shoghi Effendi as Guardian, provided for the Universal House of Justice, and laid the foundations of the Administrative Order — His parting gift to a community He would not leave unguided.
An Aberdeen physician in failing health, trained to weigh evidence and trust nothing he could not examine, found a small pamphlet about the Bahá'í Faith in a sanatorium. He did not simply believe it. He studied for years, learned Persian late in life to read the Writings in the original, and wrote the careful introduction by which the English-speaking world would come to know the Cause.
From the Holy Land, during the dark years of the First World War, 'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote a series of Tablets to the Bahá'ís of North America summoning them to carry the Faith to the ends of the earth. Unveiled in New York in 1919, these Words transformed a small community into a teaching force that would belt the globe.
A Scottish doctor heard of the Bahá'í Faith in 1914 and did what a careful physician does with any new claim: he investigated it methodically. He read, he learned Persian, he wrote out what he understood — and then he travelled to Haifa and laid his manuscript before 'Abdu'l-Bahá Himself for correction. The book that resulted, Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era, has since carried answers to seekers in some sixty languages.
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum describes a small ritual at the family table in 'Akká: Bahíyyih Khánum, the Greatest Holy Leaf, would spoon a small bite from her own plate — *the mouthful of Khánum* — to one of the grandchildren, and the grandchildren would watch for whose turn it was.
Glory be unto Thee, O my…
O my Lord!279…
‘Abdu'l-Bahá sent for me. I went to Him in the little room where He writes. He said, “Be strong! Be firm! You are not leaving Me; it is only your body that is going away. Your spirit will always be here. I shall always see you. There is…
Before there were Bahá'í books, pamphlets, periodicals—before there were, properly speaking, Bahá'í administrative institutions; before ‘Abdu'l-Bahá made His historic voyage to America; before Shoghi Effendi transmitted to the English…
A number of times during his life, particularly in the years immediately following the Ascension of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi retired to Switzerland to regain health, energy and self-confidence. He lived a very physically rigorous life…
A young Bahá 'i lady pioneered to Bolivia in the 1930 s to open it to the Faith. Having no success in teaching anyone, she began to write to the Guardian expressing feelings of failure. With each passing month she wrote and he replied…
In *The Advent of Divine Justice* (1939), Shoghi Effendi laid before the American Bahá'ís the work that would prove central to their century: the task of overcoming racial prejudice. White believers were called to abandon their inherited sense of superiority; minority members were to be unhesitatingly given priority — not for sentiment, but for the health of the Faith.
Although Shoghi Effendi was extremely busy during this vacation and barely spent time in Oxford, yet spring was the season he would begin to play tennis, a game he loved and in which he excelled. He played tennis with many students during…
And yet, as you know, when he passed away in England, I had many cables from him, many letters from him letting me know the things he wanted to be done, the things he wanted finished by the time he got back because of the things he wanted…
Another time he came over for dinner and he was rather disturbed. He had some cables from America about certain matters, and some actions had been taken, and he was a little disturbed at the actions which were taken, actually, and he…
As he would go about, he would always be complimenting someone. The gardeners, even the gardeners taking care of the garden, he would say, “You planted that very beautifully. Your flowers are very beautiful. I am very pleased with the way…
At first, on going to her aunt's, my mother would take me with her; but one day, returning unusually late, we found Abbas Effendi surrounded by a band of boys who had undertaken to personally molest him. He was standing in their midst as…
At the time my father was invited by the Guardian to come and live with us in the Holy Land, after my mother's unexpected death in Argentina in March 1940, Shoghi Effendi decided, for reasons of his own, to go to England. For those who…
Over his mother's signature, but drafted by the Guardian, the following cable was sent to America: “Announce Assemblies celebration marriage beloved Guardian. Inestimable honour conferred upon handmaid of Baha'u'llah Ruhiyyih Khanum Miss…
Bahá'í Chronicles records the establishment of the South African Bahá'í community in the early 1950s — when Shoghi Effendi's Ten Year Crusade brought pioneers to the apartheid-era cities, and the first declarations were made by a handful of Black, white, and Indian South Africans who had found in the Faith the answer to the racial question their country had not yet faced.
Bahá'í Chronicles preserves the biographical record of Martha Root — the small, quiet Pennsylvania newspaperwoman who, in the years between 1919 and her death in 1939, travelled four times around the world as a Bahá'í teacher, met queens and presidents, and was named by Shoghi Effendi *the foremost Hand of the Cause* of the Western world in his time.
Hand of the Cause John Robarts recalled the following during his pilgrimage in 1955: Audrey and I had brought a kaross to the Guardian from Bechuanaland [today part of South Africa] -- a mat made…
A short paraphrase from the Baha'i Stories Blog about a letter the young Guardian sent in early 1922 to the small Bahá'í community of Australia, then concentrated in Sydney and Melbourne — one of the first messages sent in the new ministry, encouraging the friends to hold steadily through the change.
In the ‘Priceless Pearl’ Ruhiyyih Khanum tells us how in 1920 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá sent Shoghi Effendi abroad for his studies, in the company of Lotfullah Hakim who was returning to England after his first…
Ruhiyyih Khanum often described her first encounter with the youthful Guardian [when she was 13 years old].
Shoghi Effendi was sometimes subject to vivid and significant dreams, both pleasant and unpleasant.
A short paraphrase from the Baha'i Stories Blog about a letter Shoghi Effendi sent in the late 1930s to the small Bahá'í community of Germany, then under increasing harassment from the National Socialist regime — a brief message of love, encouragement to steadfastness, and assurance that the prayers of the world's believers were with them.
In his recollections of those early years one of the Bahá'ís has written that one day Shoghi Effendi entered the Master's room, took up His pen and tried to write.
As the neighborhood was preparing for the Muslim Fast of Ramadan, one household near the prison of 'Akka was already celebrating a happy event.
Cobb wrote that Shoghi Effendi said that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had the power of intuition, the power of the soul, available in its totality. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá would commonly end the conversation by saying that there wasn't time for a fuller answer, but…
Corinne True had desperately wish to meet ‘Abdu’l- Bahá when He landed in New York, but her son Davis was critically ill. When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá finally arrived in Chicago, one of the first things He did on the morning of 30, April was to go…
Dr. Bagdadi states that when Shoghi Effendi was only five years old he was pestering the Master to write something for him, whereupon ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote this touching and revealing letter in His own hand: He is God! O My Shoghi, I have no…
During one or two of those summers early in Shoghi Effendi's ministry he told me he had bought a bicycle and cycled over many passes. His bicycle--the poor man's car--became a favourite of Shoghi Effendi. He sometimes climbed the highest…
Economic justice, even in small matters, was important to the Master. Once in Egypt ‘Abdu’l-Bahá obtained a carriage in order that He might offer a ride to an important Pasha, who was to be His luncheon guest. When they reached their…
Every time one goes into the details of any particular period in the Guardian's life one is tempted to say "this was the worst period", so fraught with strain, problems, unbearable pressures was his entire ministry. But there is a pattern,…
Five years after Grace told me these stories she went on an extensive teaching trip through the nearsouthern states. For three of these five years she had been very ill - most of the time very close to the Open Door. Finally, when she was…
From early morning until dark, often more than eight hours on his feet, day after day and month after month he directed the work. It was certainly not his work to do this, but he was determined to ensure it was done not only quickly, but…
Shoghi Effendi's own narration, in *God Passes By*, of the events of late 1921 and early 1922 — the Master's passing, the discovery of the Will and Testament naming the young Shoghi as Guardian, and the formal beginning of the Formative Age of the Faith.
He wasn’t interested in the man. He wasn’t interested in his clothes. All he was interested in was interested in was his character and his devotion to the Cause. Someone knocked on the door of the Western pilgrim house, and I opened the…
Here’s a story of Ugo Giachery (a Hand of the Cause) who went through the process while on pilgrimage: The first time I beheld the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh, I was overcome by deep emotion and, as I walked close to it, trepidation and…
How many stories are there of the Hands of the Cause who were shocked by their appointment because knew how unworthy they were? John Robarts thought the telegraph was for his wife. When William Sears was appointed, he wrote back to the…
I had in mind that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá would give me the honor of . . . calling together the great conclave which would elect the Universal House of Justice. And I thought in His Will and Testament that that was probably what He was instructing…
I remember the Guardian telling me of how (I believe it must have been in early 1920) one of the old American Baháis had sent a gift to the Master of a Cunningham automobile; notice of its arrival at the quayside in port came just as the…
I remember we were speaking one night, and I said, “Shoghi Effendi, you know the way that the way that the administrative order in America grew and developed, and I know the matchless way in which you did this thing, it was almost the work…
I want to give you just one day in the Guardian’s life so you can appreciate a little bit more what it is to be the head of a faith like the Bahá’í Faith. Shoghi Effendi usually arose in the morning about 5:30. And then he had his period…
In reading over my diaries - so very little of which I have quoted out of hundred of pages written off and on throughout the years - it seems strange to me there is practically no reference to the World War raging everywhere during almost…
In the 1970’s I met Inez Greeven. She went on Pilgrimage during the days of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in 1920 and again in 1921. She told me that during her Pilgrimage the Master asked her, “Where is your husband?” She said, “This was the one thing…
In the days of Shoghi Effendi's childhood it was the custom to rise about dawn and spend the first hour of the day in the Master's room, where prayers were said and the family all had breakfast with Him. The children sat on the floor,…
In the early summer of 1923 Shoghi Effendi again left Haifa and sought some restoration of health and solace in the solitude of the high mountains of Switzerland. But, unlike later years, when he continued to keep in constant touch with…
Interlaken is in the heart of the Bernese Oberland and the starting point for innumerable excursions into the surrounding mountains and valleys. Often long before sunrise Shoghi Effendi would start out, dressed in knee breeches, a Norfolk…
It may sound disrespectful to say the Guardian was a mischievous child, but he himself told me he was the acknowledged ringleader of all the other children. Bubbling with high spirits, enthusiasm and daring, full of laughter and wit, the…
It seems almost inconceivable that Mr. Ioas could render any more extraordinary services, but he did. There was one service that meant more than any other, to Shoghi Effendi. An apartment building in which the Covenant-breakers lived,…
It was the custom of Shoghi Effendi to walk on Mount Carmel, and at times he invited the Persian men believers to walk with him. They would walk a few paces behind him, out of respect. Ali-Kuli Khan was a member of one of these groups of…
A curious girl from Canada who could not stop reading and learning grew up to do something nobody expected — and to serve the whole world.
In a faraway land where the law kept people apart, a small group of new friends decided to meet together for prayer — even when meeting together was against the rules.
Martha Root packed two suitcases and a typewriter, and she traveled all the way around the whole world four times to tell people about the Bahá'í Faith.
A young man far away at school received sad news, hurried home, and discovered that a sealed letter had named him to care for the whole Bahá'í Faith.
On a quiet mountain slope full of pine trees, one man walked back and forth for years, imagining a great curving path and beautiful buildings that did not exist yet.
A young woman from Canada crossed the whole world to marry the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith — in the smallest, quietest wedding you can imagine.
When it was time to build a beautiful crown over the Shrine of the Báb, Shoghi Effendi turned to a famous architect who happened to be his own father-in-law.
In a small hotel in London, a beloved leader called the Guardian grew ill and passed away — and the woman who loved him most was there beside him.
In one small room in Haifa, with a typewriter and a lamp, Shoghi Effendi answered letters far into the night — and from that desk he guided friends all over the world.
In quiet rooms at a great English college, a young man taught himself English so perfectly that he could one day serve 'Abdu'l-Bahá — never guessing how much that quiet work would one day matter.
A boy named Shoghi Effendi went far away to school in Beirut, where he studied hard and learned new languages — and was being made ready for something great he could not yet see.
A small barefoot boy stood in a doorway watching his grandfather, 'Abdu'l-Bahá — and the gentle nod he was given held a secret no one could quite put into words.
A young man named Shoghi was studying far from home when sad news arrived — and only later did he learn that a special task had been waiting just for him.
A young man was given the hardest task in the whole Bahá'í world, and before he could carry it, he went up into the high mountains to walk, and think, and pray.
Standing in the light of a golden dome, Shoghi Effendi asked the Bahá'ís of the world to do something that sounded impossible — and they said yes.
A young man stepped into a quiet London office, saw a message lying open on a desk, and read the hardest news of his life — all alone.
Everyone said grass could never grow on the dry mountain — but Shoghi Effendi worked and worked until green gardens grew where no one believed they could.
Night after night in a quiet house in Haifa, Shoghi Effendi sat at his desk and turned a great old book from Persian into English, so the whole world could read it.
Shoghi Effendi sat at a quiet desk and turned a beautiful little book of holy words into English, working one tiny line at a time until it was just right.
May Maxwell, the mother of Rúhíyyih Khánum, died only a few weeks after pioneering to South America, and was declared a martyr by Shoghi Effendi. (Her story can be read in the Bahá’í World, Vol. VIII, pp. 631-642.) There is no question…
My mother was the one who had first known Shoghi Effendi as a child, when she came to the Holy Land at the end of the last century; she had come again, in 1909, with my father but I do not know how much contact, if any, they had at that…
Now, people have asked, “Did the Guardian have any conception that he was going to pass away? Did he have fore-knowledge, being divinely guided, that he was going to pass away? Again, friends, the answer to the question is that we don’t…
Keith Ransom-Kehler was a gifted American lecturer who could have spent her later years in comfort. When the Guardian asked her to undertake a long, hard teaching journey to Persia on behalf of her persecuted fellow believers, she accepted at once — with no Persian, no pioneering experience, and not in robust health. She gave the rest of her life to it, dying in Iṣfáhán in 1933, and Shoghi Effendi named her the first American Bahá'í martyr.
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed in 1921, His grandson and appointed successor, Shoghi Effendi, was a grief-stricken young man not yet able to take up his burden. In that hour the Greatest Holy Leaf, Bahíyyih Khánum — who had served the Cause since she was a child of six — steadied the whole community and held its affairs in her hands.
In His Will and Testament 'Abdu'l-Bahá named His grandson Shoghi Effendi the Guardian of the Cause of God — "the sign of God," "the chosen branch," "the priceless pearl that doth gleam from out the Twin Surging Seas." The young man who received this towering station asked only to be known by the simple name his Grandfather had used, and signed himself, in lifelong humility, the servant of the threshold.
Already past sixty, a travelling salesman named Hyde Dunn and his wife Clara left America to carry the Bahá'í message to a continent where it had never been heard. Town by town across Australia they planted the Faith, and Shoghi Effendi gave them the names by which they are remembered — "Father" and "Mother" Dunn, and Australia's "spiritual conqueror."
In 1953 the golden dome of the Shrine of the Báb was at last raised over Mount Carmel, completing the monument Shoghi Effendi loved to call the "Queen of Carmel" — a structure of surpassing majesty over the remains of a Prophet whom His own land had martyred in obscurity.
Before the world knew he would be the Guardian, Shoghi Effendi went to Oxford with one private purpose: to perfect his English so that he might serve 'Abdu'l-Bahá as His translator. In quiet rooms at Balliol, with English literature, a dictionary, and a notebook, he forged the very instrument by which the Sacred Writings would later reach the Western world — a lifetime's labour of learning poured out in service.
The vast ocean of Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation lay almost entirely in Persian and Arabic, beyond the reach of the growing communities of the West. Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Faith, set himself to gather from that ocean and to render its waters into a stately, faithful English — producing, in *Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh*, a book through which the West could at last drink directly from the Word.
A quiet American newspaperwoman, Martha Root, placed the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá into the hands of Queen Marie of Romania. The Word so moved the Queen that she became the first reigning monarch to embrace the Faith, and published her testimony to it in newspapers across the world.
Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith, brought to everything he touched a standard of exactness and beauty that those closest to him never forgot. The Priceless Pearl preserves the portrait: a young man who taught himself English to perfection in quiet Oxford rooms, then laboured year after year by lamplight to render the Sacred Writings in cadenced, faultless prose — showing that the patient pursuit of excellence can itself be a form of worship.
An Irish clergyman who rose to be Canon of St. Patrick's Cathedral and Archdeacon of Clonfert spent decades wrestling with a single question: was the long-promised Day of God already here? He had recognized the Bahá'í Faith as true as early as 1921, yet it took him until old age to follow that conviction all the way — resigning his orders and declaring openly what he had quietly believed.
A slight, quiet newspaperwoman from western Pennsylvania, Martha Root gave the last twenty years of her life to a single errand of service — carrying the message of Bahá'u'lláh to the whole world. Between 1919 and her death in 1939 she circled the globe four times, living out of a suitcase, often ill, often with little money, planting the Cause in lands where it had never been heard. Shoghi Effendi called her the foremost Hand raised up in the West in His time.
For thirty-six years Shoghi Effendi carried the cares of the entire Bahá'í world from a small room in Haifa. The Priceless Pearl preserves the compassion at the heart of that labor — a Guardian who felt the believers' sorrows as his own, answered each in his own hand, and spent his strength without stint to comfort and protect them.
On one occasion two young boys, Shoghi Effendi and his first cousin, Ruhi Effendi, entered the presence of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The Master looked at them thoughtfully and then remarked to Ruhi Effendi, 'If you can't wear a happy, pleasant…
On the night of 20 August, a horrifying young man came to a meeting at the Kinney's house. From head to foot he was covered with soot. His blue eyes stared out from a dark gray face. This was Fred Mortensen, a reformed criminal. When…
“One evening the western pilgrims were gathered together as usual with the Guardian. All was quiet when Shoghi Effendi suddenly said: “Prayer is useless.” An embarrassed silence followed. Shoghi Effendi said nothing. He paused and a moment…
In *The Promised Day Is Come*, Shoghi Effendi surveys the decline of the established religious authorities — Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Sunní, Shi'í — across the early twentieth century, reading the decline as the parallel of the political collapses that had been visible since 1914.
In *The Promised Day Is Come*, Shoghi Effendi surveys the fall of the great monarchies of Europe and the Middle East during the cataclysm of the First World War — reading the collapses as the historical fulfilment of the warnings Bahá'u'lláh had sent to those same monarchs in the Adrianople period.
In *The Promised Day Is Come* (1941), with Europe in flames and the world at war for the second time in a generation, Shoghi Effendi diagnosed the upheavals of the twentieth century as a single judgment-and-redemption: a tempest unprecedented in its violence, unimaginably glorious in its ultimate consequence.
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum recounts how Shoghi Effendi, walking the slope of Mount Carmel year after year, conceived and laid out the great Arc of buildings — the International Archives, the Universal House of Justice site, the Centre for the Study of the Texts, the Teaching Centre — on which the world administrative institutions of the Faith would in time stand.
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum tells the story of her own marriage to Shoghi Effendi in the spring of 1937 — a private ceremony in the room of the Greatest Holy Leaf, witnessed by a handful of family members, that joined two streams of the Cause and was deliberately kept free of fanfare.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum's *The Priceless Pearl* recounts how, in 1942, Shoghi Effendi asked his own father-in-law — the celebrated Canadian architect William Sutherland Maxwell, then resident in Haifa — to design the arcade and superstructure of the Shrine of the Báb on Mount Carmel. The colonnade of Baveno granite and the Chiampo arches were the answer.
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum gives the most reliable account of her husband's last days — a brief illness in a London hotel, the flu that turned to a heart attack, and the night of the fourth of November 1957 when the Guardian of the Cause of God passed from the world at the age of sixty.
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum describes the small household office from which Shoghi Effendi guided the Bahá'í world for thirty-six years — a room with a typewriter, a stack of cables, a Hebrew-Arabic-Persian shelf of dictionaries, and a Guardian who answered each letter himself in the long hours after Haifa had gone to sleep.
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum recounts the months Shoghi Effendi spent at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1920–1921, perfecting his English so that he might one day serve 'Abdu'l-Bahá as His translator — a small private programme of self-discipline that would, only months later, bear an unimaginable wider fruit.
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum recounts the years the young Shoghi Effendi spent at the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut — later the American University of Beirut — where the grandson of 'Abdu'l-Bahá met the West for the first time inside a Western classroom, and was prepared, without knowing it, for the office that lay ahead.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum's *The Priceless Pearl* preserves a moment from Shoghi Effendi's boyhood in 'Akká: a small barefoot figure in a doorway, eyes on his grandfather, and 'Abdu'l-Bahá's slow nod of recognition that the bond between them was not only physical, but something else.
In Rúḥíyyih Khánum's biography *The Priceless Pearl* she describes the moment in November 1921 when a young Shoghi Effendi, reading the cable in Major Tudor Pole's London office, learned that 'Abdu'l-Bahá had passed — and how, only on his return to Haifa, the opening of the Master's Will revealed an office he had never imagined for himself.
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum describes the months in 1922 and after when the young Shoghi Effendi, crushed by the weight of his appointment, withdrew to the Alps — walking long mountain paths, praying, gathering the strength he would need to take up the task the Master's Will had laid on him.
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum describes the moment in the spring of 1953 when Shoghi Effendi, looking out from the newly completed Shrine of the Báb on the centenary of its Founder's enthronement, summoned the Bahá'í world to the most ambitious teaching plan in its history — to settle believers in every remaining unopened country and territory of the planet.
A young man at Oxford stepped into a London office one November day in 1921, glanced at an open telegram lying on a desk — and learned, alone and unprepared, that his grandfather had passed and his whole life had changed. A retelling from Rúhíyyih Rabbání's The Priceless Pearl.
Everyone told the young Guardian that grass would never grow on the dry slopes of Mount Carmel. Shoghi Effendi set out to prove them wrong — and the gardens that surround the Shrine of the Báb today are his answer. A retelling from Rúhíyyih Rabbání's The Priceless Pearl.
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum describes the years of patient nightly labour by which Shoghi Effendi rendered Nabíl's Persian chronicle of the Bábí period into the cadenced English that became *The Dawn-Breakers* — the volume that, more than any other, made the heroic story of the Báb's followers available to the Western world.
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum describes the slow, exacting labour by which Shoghi Effendi rendered Bahá'u'lláh's *Hidden Words* into the English in which generations of Western believers have come to know them — a translation built one aphorism at a time, in the silent hours of his Haifa office.
Shoghi Effendi completely dedicated his whole life to the Cause of God. He had no other thought. He ate, he slept, he was awake, he worked, every minute, day and night, was for the Cause of God. He thought of nothing else. Nothing else was…
Shoghi Effendi was a small, sensitive, intensely active and mischievous child. He was not very strong in his early years and his mother often had cause to worry over his health. However, he grew up to have an iron constitution, which,…
Shoghi Effendi was a very remarkable young man, and of course, he just worshipped ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. And when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá passed away, the whole world became dark for him. All light had gone out. When he returned to the Holy Land, he had in…
Shoghi Effendi was of an infinitely kind and loving nature. Before meeting him, many Bahá’ís, sensitive to his station in the Cause, were fearful. But they were immediately put at ease by his warmth and affection, and shortly, as Leroy…
In 1925 the *Star of the West* carried the announcement of the formation of the first National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada — the inaugural national institution of the American Faith, elected in convention at the Wilmette Temple grounds.
In 1922 the Star of the West printed Mountfort Mills' account of his visit to Haifa in the months following 'Abdu'l-Bahá's passing — the first encounter of a Western pilgrim with the new Guardian of the Cause, Shoghi Effendi, then only twenty-five years old and already, in Mills' words, *the center of the world today.*
Surely the simplicity of the marriage of Shoghi Effendi - reminiscent of the simplicity of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's own marriage in the prison-city of 'Akká - should provide a thought-provoking example to the Bahá’ís everywhere. No one, with the…
The great kindness that was such a prominent feature of Shoghi Effendi's character is shown in the manner in which he conveyed to Khánum the news of the death of her beloved mother, May Maxwell: The devastating news of May Maxwell's…
The Guardian came over one evening. He was very happy and very enthused. He said, “We have some wonderful cables today.” So he read this cable, and it was from one of the islands in the Pacific. The pioneer who had been there had had been…
The word sport is a contracted form of “disport” which means to amuse, to divert one’s self. It includes play, amusement, entertainments or recreation. It is a word which signifies the outdoor recreations, the athletic work as contrasted…
There was a pilgrim from the United States, a Mrs.True, the American Bahá’ís who are here, of course, remember her very well. One of the early of the Cause and one of the great workers for the Bahá’í temple, and one of the great pillars of…
There was one of the pilgrims from Canada who was a member of the National Assembly, and it was the night of her departure before returning home to Canada. And she was talking to him about translating the Bahá’í literature into the Eskimo…
Today the car was stolen! [A gift to Shoghi Effendi from Roy Wilhelm. The Guardian had had no car for years as the old one was sold during the war owing to no spare parts.] My God what a day! At 2:30, as Gladys and I sat over our coffee at…
When my father fell desperately ill in the winter of 1949-50 his condition was despaired of by his doctors. He reached a point where he seemed to have no conscious mind left, could not recognize me, his only and idolized child, at all, and…
When Shoghi Effendi completed the construction of the Shrine of the Báb on Mount Carmel, he decided to place a piece of plaster from the cell in which the Báb had been imprisoned in the Castle of Mah-Ku, where he had been denied even a…
When Shoghi Effendi was beginning to write The Advent of Divine Justice he was one day expatiating on this theme and suddenly stated that the United States was the most corrupt country politically in the world. I was simply stupefied by…
*World Order* magazine carried, in a historical profile, the story of Keith Ransom-Kehler — the American Bahá'í pioneer who died in Iṣfáhán in 1933 of smallpox contracted during her teaching tour of Persia, and who was named by Shoghi Effendi the first American Bahá'í martyr.
In *The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh*, Shoghi Effendi insisted on a single, load-bearing distinction: the administration of the Cause is *an instrument and not a substitute* for the Faith. To separate the spiritual teachings from the institutions, he warned, would be to mutilate the body of the Cause itself.
You can’t feel the precision of mind. I’ve dealt in America with high executives all of my business life. Men who have a problem, and they size it up, and they see the meat and heart of it and seize the situation immediately, but they pale…