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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 Shoghi Effendi · 1944 · Bahá'í Publishing Trust
Formative Age (1921–1957) · in copyright
Authoritative history of the Faith's first century. Use carefully — copyright; summaries permitted.
About Shoghi Effendi
Eldest grandson of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and, by His Will and Testament, the appointed Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith. Translated foundational Bahá'í texts into English; supervised the construction of the Shrine of the Báb on Mount Carmel; directed the global expansion of the Faith.
1897–1957 · Guardian
Stories by era covered
Featured figures
“Consider these nightingales. So great is their love for these roses, that”
From The Roses of Riḍván
“sleepless from dusk till dawn, they warble their melodies and commune with”
From The Roses of Riḍván
“burning passion with the object of their adoration. How then can those who”
From The Roses of Riḍván
“claim to be afire with the rose-like beauty of the Beloved choose to sleep?”
From The Roses of Riḍván
“in spite of the prevailing economic crisis, and during a period of unemployment unparalleled in American history.”
The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl's Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá'í Revelation
Cited in Authoritative HistoryNabíl-i-A'ẓam · 1932
The Chosen Highway
Secondary RetellingLady Blomfield · 1940
Portals to Freedom
Secondary RetellingHoward Colby Ives · 1937
The Diary of Juliet Thompson
Secondary RetellingJuliet Thompson · 1947
World Order
Secondary RetellingWorld Order Editors · 1935
The Promulgation of Universal Peace
Primary Source'Abdu'l-Bahá · 1922
In His last days 'Abdu'l-Bahá still gave alms to the poor, blessed a servant's wedding and received visitors. He passed away in the early hours of 28 November 1921, with two of His daughters beside Him.
During Bahá'u'lláh's twelve days in the Garden of Riḍván in 1863, roses were heaped so high in His tent that the companions could not see one another across them, and at night He spoke of the sleepless nightingales.
In Constantinople Bahá'u'lláh declined to call on the Ottoman ministers or seek their favour. Less than four months later He was banished to Adrianople, and He answered the edict with a Tablet sent to the Grand Vizir.
In 1925 a Muslim religious court in Upper Egypt annulled the marriages of three Baha'is and, in doing so, declared the Baha'i Faith an independent religion. The Baha'is used the judgment to seek recognition of their Faith.
In 1903 the Bahá'ís of Chicago asked 'Abdu'l-Bahá's permission to build a House of Worship in America. Shoghi Effendi traces the forty years, through economic crisis and war, until its eighteen outer steps were set in place in December 1942.
Pilgrims who had walked from Persia were refused entry to 'Akká and could only glimpse Bahá'u'lláh at a window from beyond the moat. Another pilgrim, Ustád Ismá'íl-i-Káshí, gazed for hours, but his sight was too weak to see His face.
In August 1868, exiled from Adrianople to Gallipoli with no one sure where they would be sent next, Bahá'u'lláh gave the departing escort officer a message for the Sultan and warned His companions of the hardships ahead.
Ordered to keep the Báb in strict confinement at Máh-Kú, the warden 'Alí Khán watched the local people come to love his Prisoner, and after a strange vision he relaxed his discipline and let pilgrims in.
Badí', a youth of seventeen, carried Bahá'u'lláh's Tablet to Náṣiri'd-Dín Sháh on foot from 'Akká to Ṭihrán, delivered it to the king, and was tortured and put to death for it.
On His way to join the besieged Bábís at Shaykh Ṭabarsí, Bahá'u'lláh was arrested at Ámul. He offered Himself to be punished in place of His companions, was beaten until His feet bled, and was stoned by a mob.
In Adrianople Bahá'u'lláh began to proclaim His Mission to the kings of the world in the Súriy-i-Mulúk and other Tablets, and from the prison of 'Akká He wrote to Napoleon III, Queen Victoria, the Czar and the Pope.
Thornton Chase became a Bahá'í in Chicago in 1894. 'Abdu'l-Bahá named him Thábit, the Steadfast, and in 1912 made a special journey to his grave in Inglewood, California.
On 1 May 1912 'Abdu'l-Bahá dedicated the site of the first Bahá'í House of Worship in the West at Wilmette, laying as its first stone a discarded block brought by Nettie Tobin.
In 1870 Mírzá Mihdí, Bahá'u'lláh's son, fell through a skylight in the barracks of 'Akká. Offered his recovery, he asked instead that his life be a ransom for the believers kept from Bahá'u'lláh's presence.
On the ninth day after Bahá'u'lláh's passing, His Book of the Covenant was unsealed and read aloud at His Tomb. In it He directed His family and followers to turn to 'Abdu'l-Bahá.
After Bahá'u'lláh's passing, His eldest Son set aside the exalted titles His Father had given Him and asked to be known only as 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the Servant of Bahá.
In November 1921 Shoghi Effendi, a student at Oxford, learned in London that 'Abdu'l-Bahá had passed away. In January 1922 the Master's Will was read, naming him Guardian of the Cause of God.
At the conference of Badasht in 1848, Ṭáhirih appeared unveiled before the assembled Bábís and proclaimed that a new Dispensation had begun, breaking openly with the laws of the past.
'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away in Haifa on 28 November 1921. At His funeral some ten thousand people of every religion and race followed His coffin up Mount Carmel to the Shrine of the Báb, where He was laid to rest.
In a garden outside Baghdád, roses were piled so high in Bahá'u'lláh's tent that His friends could not see one another across them, and at night the nightingales sang until dawn.
The warden of Máh-Kú was ordered to keep the Báb shut away. The people nearby came to love the Prisoner, and after a strange vision the warden himself became gentle and let visitors in.
On His way to help Bábís trapped in a fort, Bahá'u'lláh was arrested in the town of Ámul. He asked to be punished in place of His companions, and He alone was beaten.
From exile in Adrianople, and then from prison in 'Akká, Bahá'u'lláh wrote to the kings and rulers of the world, calling them to justice and to God.
Thornton Chase of Chicago became the first American Bahá'í in 1894. 'Abdu'l-Bahá called him Thábit, the Steadfast, and in 1912 visited his grave in California.
In 1912 'Abdu'l-Bahá laid the first stone of the House of Worship at Wilmette. The stone He used was one that builders had thrown away, brought there by a Chicago Bahá'í named Nettie Tobin.
After Bahá'u'lláh passed away, a document He had written and sealed was opened and read aloud. In it He told everyone to turn to His eldest Son, 'Abdu'l-Bahá.
After Bahá'u'lláh passed away, His eldest Son set aside the high titles He had been given and asked to be called by one name only: 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the Servant of Bahá.
Shoghi Effendi was a student in England when 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away. He hurried home to Haifa, and his grandfather's Will named him Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith.
At a gathering of the Báb's followers in the village of Badasht, Ṭáhirih appeared without her veil and announced that a new age of religion had begun.
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away in Haifa, about ten thousand people of every religion and race followed His coffin up Mount Carmel to the Shrine of the Báb.
Mírzá Asadu'lláh, a government official of Khuy, accepted the Báb after He described a dream Asadu'lláh had told no one. The Báb named him Dayyán and "the third Letter to believe in Him Whom God shall make manifest," and he later attained Bahá'u'lláh's presence in Baghdád.
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away in Haifa in November 1921, messages of sympathy came from Winston Churchill, Viscount Allenby and the ministers of 'Iráq, and the High Commissioner for Palestine walked in His funeral procession among ten thousand mourners.
In 1909 'Abdu'l-Bahá laid the remains of the Báb in the Shrine He had built on Mount Carmel. Twelve years later, after His own funeral, His coffin was lowered into a vault beside that of the Báb in the same Shrine.
After the Great War lifted the danger to His life, 'Abdu'l-Bahá spent His last three years receiving pilgrims, revealing Tablets and helping the poor, until He passed away in November 1921.
On the Friday before His passing in November 1921, 'Abdu'l-Bahá went to the noonday prayer and afterward, despite great fatigue, gave alms to the poor of Haifa as was His custom.
About two months before His passing, 'Abdu'l-Bahá told His family of a dream in which He raised the call to prayer in a great mosque. Weeks later He dreamed that Bahá'u'lláh came and said to Him, "Destroy this room."
On Friday, 25 November 1921, 'Abdu'l-Bahá went to the noon prayer and gave alms to the poor. On Sunday, unable to leave the house, He received the Muftí and the Mayor of Haifa, and early on Monday He passed away.
'Abdu'l-Bahá's Will and Testament, written entirely in His own hand in three parts, was read aloud in January 1922. It named Shoghi Effendi the Guardian of the Cause of God and provided for the Universal House of Justice.
Six days before His ascension in May 1892, Bahá'u'lláh called the believers and pilgrims at the Mansion of Bahjí to His bedside, thanked them for their services, and prayed that God would assist them to remain united.
Bahá'u'lláh wrote His Will and Testament, the Kitáb-i-'Ahd, in His own hand and entrusted it to 'Abdu'l-Bahá during His last illness. Opened nine days after His ascension, it directed His family and followers to turn to the Most Mighty Branch.
Bahá'u'lláh ascended at Bahjí at dawn on 29 May 1892. A telegram beginning "the Sun of Bahá has set" carried the news to the Sultan, and for a week mourners of many faiths gathered at Bahjí to grieve with His family.
Siyyid Káẓim addressed the young scholar of Qazvín as Qurratu'l-'Ayn, "Solace of the Eyes." At Badasht in 1848 Bahá'u'lláh gave her the name Táhirih, the Pure One, and the Báb addressed her by it.
Nabíl of Zarand left his home as a youth to teach the new Faith, wrote odes in praise of Bahá'u'lláh and travelled on His errands. From 1888 he wrote the chronicle published in English as The Dawn-Breakers.
In 1920 Hyde Dunn, then in his sixties, and his wife Clara answered 'Abdu'l-Bahá's call and settled in Australia. Working as a travelling salesman, he carried the Bahá'í message to hundreds of towns, and the couple became known as "Father" and "Mother" Dunn.
In Adrianople Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Súriy-i-Mulúk, the Súrih of Kings, in which He addressed the monarchs of East and West together for the first time, called them to justice, and described His own banishment.
On the Tuesday after 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away in Haifa in November 1921, no fewer than ten thousand people of every religion and race followed His coffin up Mount Carmel, where nine speakers of the Muslim, Jewish and Christian Faiths gave funeral orations.
The House of Worship at Wilmette began with a petition from the Chicago believers in 1903. 'Abdu'l-Bahá laid its dedication stone in 1912, and the American Bahá'í community built it over the next three decades, finishing the exterior in 1942.
About 1873, still a prisoner in 'Akká under a sentence of perpetual banishment, Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, which Shoghi Effendi calls the Mother Book of His Dispensation and the Charter of His New World Order.
On the night of His Declaration in Shíráz in May 1844, the Báb revealed in Mullá Ḥusayn's presence the first chapter of the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá', the book Bahá'u'lláh called the first, the greatest and mightiest of all books in the Bábí Dispensation.
On Naw-Rúz 1909, after the Báb's remains had been hidden and moved for decades, 'Abdu'l-Bahá laid them with His own hands in the Shrine He had built on Mount Carmel, and wept so that all who were present wept with Him.
In Baghdád in 1862 an uncle of the Báb brought Bahá'u'lláh his written questions about the promised Qá'im. In two days and two nights Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Kitáb-i-Íqán, the Book of Certitude, in reply.
On 22 April 1863, on the eve of His exile to Constantinople, Bahá'u'lláh crossed the Tigris to the Najíbíyyih Garden. During the twelve days He spent there He declared His mission to His companions.
In Baghdád and Adrianople Bahá'u'lláh revealed verses faster than they could be written down. Shoghi Effendi gathers the testimony of those who saw it, including the verses He had thrown into the Tigris.
In ten years of exile in Baghdád, Bahá'u'lláh's house became a refuge for people of every faith and class. When He left for Constantinople in 1863, crowds wept and pressed forward to embrace His stirrups.
Bahá'u'lláh was born at dawn in Tihrán on 12 November 1817. Shoghi Effendi traces His descent to Abraham, Zoroaster, the last Sasanian king and Jesse, and names the Promised One of each earlier faith whom He fulfils.
In Adrianople Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Súriy-i-Ghuṣn, the Tablet of the Branch, which extols 'Abdu'l-Bahá as the "Branch of Holiness" and the "Trust of God" and foreshadows His appointment as Centre of the Covenant.
In 1844 eighteen disciples came, each by their own search, to believe in the Báb. Before they dispersed He called them together, spoke of the greatness of the new Day, and gave each of them a task.
As Bahá'u'lláh left Baghdád for Constantinople in 1863, people of every class came to bid Him farewell. The Muftí and the governor visited Him in the Najíbíyyih Garden, and as He rode away crowds bowed to the dust before His horse.
Nabíl-i-A'ẓam, who was in the Garden of Riḍván in 1863, recalled the roses heaped each morning in Bahá'u'lláh's tent and the night Bahá'u'lláh spoke of the nightingales.
The Báb foretold the coming of "Him Whom God shall make manifest," pointing to the year nine and to a span of nineteen years. Shoghi Effendi shows how both were fulfilled, in the Síyáh-Chál and in the Garden of Riḍván.
The poet Varqá and his twelve-year-old son Rúḥu'lláh were imprisoned in Ṭihrán. After the Sháh's assassination in 1896, the Ḥájibu'd-Dawlih killed Varqá before the boy's eyes, then had Rúḥu'lláh strangled when he refused to recant.
In 1889 Ḥájí Muḥammad-Riḍáy-i-Iṣfahání was stabbed to death in the bazaar of ʻIshqábád. A Russian military court condemned his killers, and the Bahá'ís interceded for their lives, a deed Bahá'u'lláh praised.
Badíʻ, a seventeen-year-old believer, asked Bahá'u'lláh for the honour of carrying His Tablet to Náṣiri'd-Dín Sháh. He walked alone to Ṭihrán, brought it to the king, and was tortured and killed. Bahá'u'lláh named him the Pride of Martyrs.
Vaḥíd, the learned divine whom Muḥammad Sháh sent to investigate the Báb, became His follower. In 1850 he taught openly in Nayríz, was besieged in the Fort of Khájih, and was killed after his enemies broke an oath sworn on the Qur'án.
In 1870 Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, fell through a skylight while praying on the roof of the barracks of 'Akká. Dying, he asked Bahá'u'lláh to accept his life as a ransom for the believers who could not reach His presence.
In Iṣfahán in 1879 two merchant brothers known for their honesty and generosity were denounced as Bábís by a cleric who owed them money. They refused to recant and were beheaded. Bahá'u'lláh mourned them in His Tablets for years.
In 1852 Ṭáhirih, held in the house of the Kalantar of Ṭihrán, dressed in white silk and told her hostess that her death was near. That night she was taken to a garden outside the city and strangled with a silken kerchief she had set aside for the purpose.
In 1854 Bahá'u'lláh left Baghdád without a word and lived for two years in Kurdistan as Darvísh Muḥammad. The learned of Sulaymáníyyih came to revere Him, until a messenger from His family found Him and begged Him to return.
While a prisoner in the mountain fortress of Máh-Kú, the Báb revealed the Dalá'il-i-Sab'ih, the Seven Proofs, in answer to a questioner. Shoghi Effendi calls it the most important of the Báb's polemical works.
In January 1926 Martha Root sent Queen Marie of Romania a copy of Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era. The Queen read it into the small hours, received her two days later, and that year published three testimonies to the Bahá'í teachings.
During the First World War 'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote fourteen Tablets to the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada, giving them a mission to carry the Faith to every land. They were unveiled in New York in April 1919.
After the martyrdom of the Báb in 1850, believers hid His remains in shrines and houses in Ṭihrán for nearly fifty years, then carried them to the Holy Land, where 'Abdu'l-Bahá laid them to rest on Mount Carmel in 1909.
Forty days before He was taken from Chihríq to Tabríz, the Báb gave His writings, pen-case, seals and rings to Mullá Báqir, a Letter of the Living, to be passed through Mírzá Aḥmad to Bahá'u'lláh in Ṭihrán.
After the martyrdom, the bodies of the Báb and His companion were left under guard beside the moat of Tabríz. Ḥájí Sulaymán Khán had them carried away by night, and at Bahá'u'lláh's instruction they were later brought to Ṭihrán and kept hidden.
Mírzá Taqí Khán, the Amír-Niẓám, ordered the Báb's execution against the advice of his own counsellors. Within two years he lost the Sháh's favour and was put to death in the bath of Fín, near Káshán.
While the Sultán's commissions of inquiry threatened 'Abdu'l-Bahá with exile or death, He refused every offer of escape and went on serenely with His work, until the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 set Him free.
From 1919 until her death in Honolulu in 1939, Martha Root travelled four times around the world teaching the Bahá'í Faith, from South American cities to the palace of Queen Marie of Romania. Shoghi Effendi called her the foremost Hand of the first Bahá'í century.
In 'Ishqábád, in Russian Turkistán, the Bahá'ís raised the first Mashriqu'l-Adhkár of the Bahá'í world, begun in 1902 under 'Abdu'l-Bahá's guidance, with a school, a travellers' house and a building for a hospital in its garden.
In December 1898 the first of fifteen Western pilgrims, travelling in three parties arranged by Phoebe Hearst, reached 'Akká and met 'Abdu'l-Bahá. Shoghi Effendi saw in their visit the opening of a new epoch for the Faith in the West.
'Abdu'l-Bahá was eighteen when He crossed the Tigris with Bahá'u'lláh to the Garden of Riḍván in 1863. Shoghi Effendi records that He had recognized His Father's station while still a child.
Nabíl recalled that each morning in the Garden of Riḍván roses were heaped in Bahá'u'lláh's tent, and He sent them to His friends in Baghdád. A flooded river kept His family from joining Him there until the ninth day.
Confined in 1847 in the remote fortress of Máh-Kú, the Báb won the love of the people of the district, who looked each morning for a glimpse of Him, and of its stern warden, 'Alí Khán, who after a strange vision relaxed his discipline.
Sent by the Báb to Ṭihrán in 1844, Mullá Ḥusayn entrusted a scroll of the Báb's writings to a student from Núr, who carried it at dawn to Bahá'u'lláh. Bahá'u'lláh at once affirmed its truth, and the news brought the Báb great joy.
For nearly sixty years believers kept the remains of the Báb hidden from His enemies. On Naw-Rúz 1909 'Abdu'l-Bahá laid them with His own hands in a tomb on Mount Carmel, on the spot Bahá'u'lláh had chosen, and wept over the casket.
Returning to Paris from her 1898–99 pilgrimage to 'Akká, May Bolles established, at 'Abdu'l-Bahá's instruction, the first Bahá'í centre on the European continent, where Thomas Breakwell, Hippolyte Dreyfus and Laura Barney came to the Faith.
In Ṭihrán in 1850, fourteen followers of the Báb were told to recant or die. Seven recanted and went free; seven refused, among them the Báb's uncle and a revered dervish, and were put to death.
For eleven months in 1848–49, some three hundred followers of the Báb, most of them students, defended themselves at the shrine of Shaykh Ṭabarsí against a royal army. The siege ended only when the prince broke his oath on the Qur'án.
In Baghdád Bahá'u'lláh sent gifts to the poor, the disabled and the orphans of His neighbourhood. He stopped each day for an old woman who waited for Him, and when He left the city He provided for her for the rest of her life.
Bahá'u'lláh and about seventy companions were locked in the barracks of 'Akká, where nearly all fell sick and three died. Over the following years the hostility of the town gave way, step by step, to respect and reverence.
Robert Turner, Phoebe Hearst's butler, went with her party on the first Western pilgrimage to 'Akká. When he was missing from a gathering, 'Abdu'l-Bahá asked for him, rose to greet him and had him sit with the other pilgrims.
Napoleon III is reported to have flung down Bahá'u'lláh's first Tablet. From the barracks of 'Akká Bahá'u'lláh wrote again, warning that the Emperor's empire would pass from his hands. In 1870 he was defeated at Sedan and lost his throne.
When Bahá'u'lláh reached Constantinople in 1863, He would not make the calls on the Sultan's chief ministers expected of every government guest. The Persian Ambassador used this against Him, and within four months He was banished to Adrianople.
On the long journey from Baghdád to the Black Sea in 1863, officials and villagers received Bahá'u'lláh with honour in town after town. As the caravan neared Sámsún, He revealed the Tablet of the Howdah.
At noon on 3 May 1863 Bahá'u'lláh rode out of the Garden of Riḍván on a red roan stallion, the best His lovers could buy for Him. Crowds bowed at His horse's feet, and believers and unbelievers alike wept.
When Bahá'u'lláh left Baghdád in 1863, friends and strangers wept in the streets. On the day He rode out of the Garden of Riḍván, an eyewitness wrote, believers and unbelievers alike sobbed and lamented.
Shoghi Effendi calls Riḍván the holiest and most significant of all Bahá'í festivals. Its twelve days, which Bahá'u'lláh called the King of Festivals, ended at noon on May 3, 1863, when He rode out of the garden toward Constantinople.
Keith Ransom-Kehler, sent by Shoghi Effendi to Persia, pleaded the cause of its persecuted Bahá'ís before the authorities and died in Iṣfáhán in 1933. The Guardian called her the American believers' first and distinguished martyr.
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