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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."
By Various · Bahá'í World Centre
Compilation of letters and reminiscences about Bahíyyih Khánum.
Stories by era covered
Featured figures
“How staunch was her faith, how calm her demeanour, how forgiving her attitude, how severe her trials ...”
From An Abiding Impression: Bahíyyih Khánum's Winter in Adrianople
“The stress and storm of that period made an abiding impression upon her mind, and she retained till the time of her death on her beauteous and angelic face evidences of its intense hardships.”
From An Abiding Impression: Bahíyyih Khánum's Winter in Adrianople
“the forces of schism had rent asunder the ties that united the little band of exiles”
From An Abiding Impression: Bahíyyih Khánum's Winter in Adrianople
“With what spontaneous joy she seized her opportunity and acquitted herself of the task with which she had been entrusted!”
“the tender solicitude which, at so early an age, she evinced during the period of Bahá'u'lláh's enforced retirement to the mountains of Sulaymáníyyih.”
Selections from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá
Primary Source'Abdu'l-Bahá
Selections from the Writings of the Báb
Primary Sourcethe Báb
Bahá'í Chronicles
Secondary RetellingBahá'í Chronicles editors
Bahá'ís of the United States
Secondary RetellingBahá'ís of the United States editors
Recollections of Saichiro Fujita
Pilgrim Note / OralSaichiro Fujita
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.
O my well-beloved, deeply spiritual sister! Day and night thou livest in my memory. Whenever I remember thee my heart swelleth with sadness and my regret groweth more intense.
This servant, after that grievous event and great calamity, the ascension of His Holiness ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to the Abhá Kingdom …
Your touching words in connection with the sudden removal of the Greatest Holy Leaf from their midst have greatly alleviated the burden of sorrow that weighs so heavily upon their hearts and have demonstrated that in their great and …
May the Light of Union radiate with greater clearness and brilliancy day by day among the people in your great country—for to this country God has given much and much is expected from it.
O my well-beloved sister, O Most Exalted Leaf! Thou didst leave for Akká to remain but two days or so and then return, but now thou hast been gone from us for quite a while.
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 …
Your valued message brought strength and solace to my aching heart.
I deeply appreciate your sympathy. My loss is tremendous and my sorrow so profound.
O my dear sister! I have read what you wrote, and as I became aware of the content, I wept bitter tears. Then I carried the letter itself to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and He read it from beginning to end.
O thou my sister, my dear sister! Divine wisdom hath decreed this temporary separation, but I long more and more to be with thee again.
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 …
Concerning the remnants of the martyrs’ families, you have mentioned how eager they are to hear a word of commendation assuring them that this act of self-sacrifice and martyrdom will be acceptable in the sight of God.
86 ...He is eagerly awaiting to see the friends as ever burning with the desire to serve a Cause for the sake of which our departed Holy Leaf gave up her entire…
I greatly value your sympathy in my cruel, my irreparable loss.
My sister and beloved of my soul! Here on the slopes of Mount Carmel, by the cave of Elijah, we are thinking of that Most Exalted Leaf, and the beloved and handmaids of the Lord.
His loss is too immense to be adequately expressed in words.
My sister, for a considerable period, that is, from the day of Bahá’u’lláh’s ascension, had grown so thin and feeble, and was in such a weakened condition from the anguish of her mourning, that she was close to breakdown.
O leaf that has been stirred by the breeze of God! O victim of oppression in the path of the Abhá Beauty!—may my soul and the souls of the handmaids of God be offered up as a sacrifice for the dust of His Holy Shrine.
Your sweet and touching message imparted strength and solace to my heart.
All praise be to the Abhá Beauty, the Best-Beloved, the Desire of the world, for having enabled His well-assured leaves to remain firm in the Cause of God and steadfast in His love, even as immovable mountains …
My great love for the Greatest Holy Leaf and my attachment to each one of you prompt me to add these few words in person and to express to you my gratitude for the expression of your valued sympathy.
O my spiritual sister! Thou didst go away to Haifa, supposedly for only three or four days. Now it becometh apparent that the spiritual power of the Shrine hath brought thee joy and radiance, and even as a magnet is holding thee fast.
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 …
At the exalted Threshold of our Lord, the Best-Beloved of the world, I fervently beseech Him to graciously keep that assured leaf and the other handmaids of the Merciful safe and secure under the shelter of His bounty and grace.
O my spiritual sister! God be praised, through the Ancient Beauty’s grace and bounty, we have set foot safe and sound upon this shore, and arrived in this town ...
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 Leaf, that brightest fruit of the Eternal Tree.
The many evidences of your increasing zeal and activities in the service of our beloved Cause, have to a great measure, relieved my sorrow-laden heart.
O my affectionate sister! God be praised, through His grace and favour, my health and well-being are now restored, but it is very hard for me to bear thine absence.
On my return from Beyrouth I was sorry to find out that you had left for Italy and I missed seeing you before you left.
The Guardian’s anguish, because of this tragic occurrence, is such that it can neither be plumbed nor described in words.
Your highly impressive and touching message brought much relief to my weary soul.
Indeed, the Greatest Holy Leaf, the Trust of Bahá’u’lláh amongst us, was the emblem of His boundless grace, a luminary shining in the heaven of tender mercy and gracious providence …
O my dear sister!
O my dear sister! It is quite a while now, since thou hast left us, and gone away to Nazareth and Haifa. This journey hath lasted too long.
The passing of the Greatest Holy Leaf has filled my heart with unutterable sorrow.
O my cherished sister! Thou art never absent from my thoughts. I speak of thee and call thee to mind at all times.
O well-loved friend, The emotions that have possessed my grieving heart are such that they cannot be put into words, and tongue and pen are helpless to describe them.
The Festival of Ridván is come and the splendour of the light of God is shining from the invisible horizon of His mercy.
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.
I wish to add a few words in person as a token of my deepfelt appreciation of your loving message of sympathy in the great loss the family of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and myself have sustained.
O my sister in the spirit, and the companion of my heart! God willing, the climate of Haifa hath proved favourable.
The loss of the Greatest Holy Leaf will be bitterly felt by all those friends who had the pleasure and privilege to meet her.
You should not think that the record of those meetings can ever be blotted out from the pages of history or that the memory of those gatherings can fade from the face of the world.
And in this fervent plea, my voice is once more reinforced by the passionate, and perhaps, the last, entreaty, of the Greatest Holy Leaf, whose spirit, now hovering on the edge of the Great Beyond …
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.
O thou my affectionate sister! In the daytime and in the night-season my thoughts ever turn to thee. Not for one moment do I cease to remember thee.
The passing of the Greatest Holy Leaf, so cruel in the feelings of unalterable grief that it has evoked, is, indeed, a tremendous loss to us all and particularly to our Guardian.
Both in the Persian and Arabic Writings of the Primal Point—may the life of all men be offered up for Him—there are several …
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.
I am moved to add a few words with my own pen, to what has been written on my behalf, renewing my plea to you and through you, to each member of your beloved community, to prosecute, with undiminished vigour the enterprise which you have so splendidly inaugurated.
O thou Greatest and Most Merciful Holy Leaf!
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.
The passing of the beloved Khánum has plunged me in unspeakable sorrow.
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.
I greatly value the expression of your loving sympathy and am greatly relieved by the sentiments your message conveyed.
Weeks after the passing of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the Greatest Holy Leaf cabled the American believers (received 14 December 1921): now is a period of great tests; the friends should be firm and united in defending the Cause.
I wish to express to your distinguished assembly my gratitude for the action they have taken in reproducing in facsimile my humble tribute to the Greatest Holy Leaf.
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.
O ye who share my anguish and are my comforters in my distress and bereavement!
You should be very happy to have had the privilege of meeting her upon this physical plane of existence …
Moved by an unalterable devotion to the memory of the Greatest Holy Leaf, I feel prompted to share with you, and through you with the concourse of her steadfast lovers throughout the West …
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 world.
It was through the arrival of these pilgrims, and these alone, that the gloom which had enveloped the disconsolate members of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s family was finally dispelled.
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.
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 hearts.
Surely no matter what we say about her still we have not done justice to the abounding love she had and the services she rendered to Bahá’u’lláh and the Master.
In this day, those holy souls are divinely confirmed who stand firm in the most sacred Cause of the Abhá Beauty, those who are steadfast, and loyal to the Covenant and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
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 …
The Fund associated with the beloved name of the Greatest Holy Leaf has been launched.
BLESSED REMAINS PUREST BRANCH AND MASTER’S MOTHER SAFELY TRANSFERRED HALLOWED PRECINCTS SHRINES MOUNT CARMEL.
He fully appreciates the deep sorrow that you, as well as the other friends, feel for the passing away of the Greatest Holy Leaf.
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 …
Dear and deeply spiritual sister!
GREATEST HOLY LEAF’S IMMORTAL SPIRIT WINGED ITS FLIGHT GREAT BEYOND.
The ascension of the Greatest Holy Leaf is, indeed, an irreparable loss to us all and will continue to be deeply felt for many, many long years.
The letter in which that leaf had expressed the ardent longing of her heart and revealed the depth of her devotion has received my eager attention.
O loved ones of God, These two precious and most exalted treasures, these two keepsakes of the sacred Beauty of Abhá, have now been joined to the third trust from Him, that is, to the daughter of Bahá and His remnant, the token of the Master’s Remembrance.
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.
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 God …
He deeply appreciates your sincere, well-expressed reference, to the tribute he has written to the dearly beloved Greatest Holy Leaf.
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 …
70 ...as a further testimony to the majestic unfoldment and progressive consolidation of the stupendous undertaking launched by Bahá’u’lláh on that holy mountain, may be mentioned the selection of a portion of the school property…
106 ...He was deeply touched by the strong attachment of the friends to one who, besides being the beloved daughter of Bahá’u’lláh, exemplified perhaps more than anyone the true spirit that animates His teachings. His sincere hope is…
O faithful servant of the Best-Beloved, the Most Glorious! O steadfast friend, flourishing in the garden of His luminous Beauty!
O God, my God! Thou seest me immersed in the depths of grief, drowned in my sorrow, my heart on fire with the agony of parting, my inmost self aflame with longing.
The raising of this Edifice will in turn herald the construction, in the course of successive epochs of the Formative Age of the Faith, of several other structures...
The steps of her holy resting-place represent Local Spiritual Assemblies, not individual believers.
To the doves of faithfulness, ever since that most grievous of disasters, the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, this world of dust has become a cage, and a place of torment; and to the unrestrained nightingales it is only a prison, narrow and dark.
The ascension of Him Who was the Temple of the Covenant, the setting of Him Who was the Orb of harmony, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, may our lives be sacrificed for the wrongs He suffered, was the most dire calamity, and the most dread of ordeals.
We rejoiced greatly to learn of the unity among the friends, their staunchness, their ardour, and the fact that they have established a Spiritual Assembly.
That supreme affliction, the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, was the direst of ordeals; it was an anguish of mourning.
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 globe.
Dear sister, beloved of my heart and soul! The news of thy safe arrival and pleasant stay in the land of Egypt has reached me and filled my heart with exceeding gladness.
Despite our overwhelming sorrows and afflictions, our heart-burning and depth of woes, you are always in our thoughts and we call to mind your cheerful face.
GREATEST HOLY LEAF ASCENDED ABHÁ KINGDOM. OUR GRIEF IMMENSE, OUR LOSS IRREPARABLE. INFORM LOCAL ASSEMBLIES COMMEMORATE BEFITTINGLY SACRED EXPERIENCES SO RICH, SO SUBLIME, SO EVENTFUL A LIFE.
His grief is too immense and his loss too heavy to be adequately expressed in words.
All the virtues of humankind are summed up in the one word ‘steadfastness’, if we but act according to its laws.
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 grief.
All praise to the omnipotent Lord, that in this auspicious day He Who is the Sun of bounty has shone out so fair and bright as to light up the world of the hearts.
Indeed, you have adorned yourself with the qualifications of faithfulness and are striving to fulfil the requirements of servitude to the Abhá Threshold.
The deep heart’s love and the longing of the soul of this wronged one for those spiritual beloved ones, and in particular for those who are kin to the peerless Holy Tree of sanctity and oneness, cannot be told in words …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 Cause.
O steadfast ones, gathered beneath the Abhá Beauty’s standard of oneness, O faithful lovers of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá!
It is my earnest hope that you, His distinguished leaf, together with the other maidservants of the All-Merciful in that land …
O thou my loving, my deeply spiritual sister! I trust that by the grace and loving-kindness of the one true God thou art, and wilt be, kept safe and secure beneath the sheltering shadow of the Blessed Beauty.
O ye who burn in the flames of bereavement! By the Day-star of the World, my bereaved and longing heart is afire with a grief that is beyond my description.
The irreparable loss which the Faith has suffered through the passing of the Greatest Holy Leaf is too immense to be adequately expressed in words, and we cannot fully realize its significance at the present stage of the evolution of the Cause.
A physician treats every illness with a certain remedy and to every painful sore he applies a specially prepared compound.
I was very glad to know of your meeting with the Chinese students, and I am sure your effect and influence shall be great upon them because their fresh and receptive minds are ready to grasp the importance of this Manifestation …
We were delighted to receive your excellent letter ... and read it with joy.
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.
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 …
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 grace.
The Ancient Beauty, the Most Great Name, has, through the splendours of His grace in this most glorious of all ages, made this world of dust to radiate light.
After the construction of the Báb’s Shrine on Mount Carmel, it was the wish and intention of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá—may our lives be sacrificed for His holy dust—to open a path that would lead directly from the Shrine to the German Avenue.
At the Threshold of the Lord of Mercy we supplicate Him to grant perception and understanding to the ignorant …
Brethren and fellow-mourners in the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh! A sorrow, reminiscent in its poignancy, of the devastating grief caused by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s sudden removal from our midst, has stirred the Bahá’í world to its foundations.
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 Cause.
O exalted leaf, O distinguished friend! May the glory of God and His praise, His bounty and blessing rest upon you inasmuch as you have remained faithful to the Covenant of God and His Testament.
Regarding the Centre of Sedition and his scrolls of doubt, this individual, for a period of thirty years, both within and without the Cause, was busy with his mischief-making, and planting his seeds of contention and dissension.
Your letter has come, and I myself and the Holy Family were infinitely grieved to learn of the sufferings you have undergone, being made as you were the targets of such injustice, malevolence and aggression.
The sad news about the death of your husband has just reached us; we fully sympathize with you.
The letter you have written was received with the utmost joy for it was to us not only a message of love and unity but a message of humble devotion and servitude at the divine Threshold.
All praise be unto the Court of Holiness, that God has drawn certain blessed souls, entities delicate and pure, unto a realm where they have no desire save the good-pleasure of the Beloved; where …
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.
The cheque for the amount of two hundred pounds that you had sent as your contribution to the Temple Fund has been received and duly forwarded to Chicago.
It is clear and evident that the body of mankind in this day stands in dire need of such members and organs as are capable, useful and active, so that their movements and activities, their bearing and behaviour, their tender feelings …
We beseech God—exalted be His glory—to grant awareness and insight to the men of wisdom as well as to those who hold in their grasp the reins of power in Persia …
ENTREAT SORROW STRICKEN AMERICAN BELIEVERS NEVER ALLOW CONSCIOUSNESS THEIR AGONIZING LOSS PARALYZE DETERMINATION PROSECUTE AN ENTERPRISE ON WHICH ADORED OBJECT OUR MOURNING CENTRED HER BRIGHTEST HOPES.
May my life be sacrificed for those leaves who are steadfast in the Covenant of God—they whom the slander of the slanderer hinders not from holding fast to His divine Testament.
O Díyá! It is incumbent upon thee, throughout the journey, to be a close, a constant and cheerful companion to my honoured and distinguished sister.
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.
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.
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 …
Your kind and loving letter written with an unbounded love and a sincere devotion for our beloved ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and His Cause has been duly received.
Praise be to God that through the gracious assistance of the Abhá Kingdom those devoted friends have been enabled to achieve that which befits the glory of the Cause of God and the protection of the community of the followers of Bahá’u’lláh.
It was sometime ago that I received your kind and encouraging letter through your honourable secretary.
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 Pen of the divine Ordainer has so decreed that this house of sorrows should be encompassed by unending calamity and pain.
‘O God, My God! Thou hast lighted the lamp of Thy Cause with the oil of wisdom; protect it from contrary winds.
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 …
From this hallowed and snow-white Spot, this blessed, heavenly Garden, wherefrom the fragrance of God is diffused to all regions, I hail you with salutations, most tender, most wondrous, and most glorious, and impart to you the most joyful tiding.
O thou my affectionate sister! God be praised, according to what we hear the climate in that land hath proved not unfavourable.
82 ...The news of the Memorial Service you had held for the Greatest Holy Leaf gave him the assurance that the friends are faithfully sharing his grief and are demonstrating in a befitting manner their profound devotion to one whose…
The question of Avárih has surely come to your attention.
Praise be to God that through His gracious bounty you were enabled to visit His exalted, His sacred and luminous Threshold, to refresh and perfume your nostrils with the sweet-scented fragrances of God diffused from these imperishable, holy Places.
It is a very long time since we have had any news from you and we are quite longing to have one of your interesting and beautiful letters, that brings us always comfort because of your sincerity, your love for the Cause and your constant energy in the work for the Cause.
Your short and loving note of June 25th has been received.
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 America.
Your numerous letters written to the beloved Guardian and myself have all arrived and brought with them the sweet perfume of your devotion, sincerity, strong faith and active and beautiful services you are inexhaustibly rendering to the Cause of God.
From this hallowed Spot I send heavenly greetings to those two faithful servants of the holy Threshold of the Abhá Beauty.
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 man?
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 …
My heart is always cheered when I meet or hear from the dear friends in America, for the Beloved Master spoke so much to us about His visit to your land …
A number of your spiritual sisters, namely the handmaidens who have embraced His Cause, have arrived here from Paris and the United States on pilgrimage.
O my dear sister!
PRAY ASSURE AMERICAN BELIEVERS BEHALF HOLY FAMILY MYSELF ABIDING APPRECIATION NUMEROUS EVIDENCES THEIR VALUED SYMPATHY.
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 passed away.
At the holy Threshold of the Abhá Beauty we fervently pray at all times for outstanding success to attend that exalted body.
Your letter, laden with many a graceful phrase, many a wondrous inner meaning, has been received.
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.
During the Great War, Haifa was crowded with the destitute, the orphaned, and the sick. From the household at the foot of Mount Carmel, the Greatest Holy Leaf — already in advanced age — distributed daily food, money, clothing, and remedies she had herself prepared.
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.
In 1922, while Shoghi Effendi was away from Haifa, the Greatest Holy Leaf headed the affairs of the Faith. Her reply to one friend's letter asked for complete unity and looked for his return.
'Abdu'l-Bahá wished to open a path from the Shrine of the Báb down to the German Avenue, but a settler's house and landowners holding out for a fortune blocked it for years. The Greatest Holy Leaf tells how the way was opened.
After 'Abdu'l-Bahá's passing, Shoghi Effendi, stricken with grief, left the Holy Land for a time and placed the affairs of the Faith under the headship of the Greatest Holy Leaf, Bahíyyih Khánum, who administered them in consultation with the Holy Family.
Bahíyyih Khánum, the Greatest Holy Leaf, shared the sufferings of Bahá'u'lláh's family from early childhood until her passing in 1932. Shoghi Effendi's tributes describe the calm and trust in God with which she bore them.
Bahíyyih Khánum, daughter of Bahá'u'lláh, knew poverty and exile from early childhood. Shoghi Effendi recalls her kindness in 'Akká, her care for the hungry who came to 'Abdu'l-Bahá's house during the First World War, and the support she gave him after 'Abdu'l-Bahá's passing.
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