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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 'Abdu'l-Bahá · 1886 · Cambridge University Press
Bahá'u'lláh's ministry (1853–1892) · public domain
'Abdu'l-Bahá's first-person account of the Báb and the Bábí movement, translated by E.G. Browne.
About 'Abdu'l-Bahá
Eldest son of Bahá'u'lláh and, by His Father's explicit Covenant, the appointed Centre of the Faith and authoritative interpreter of His Writings. Travelled to Egypt, Europe, and North America between 1911 and 1913, founding the Western Bahá'í community.
1844–1921 · Centre of the Covenant
Stories by era covered
Featured figures
“some other flight beneath His wing.”
From The Dawn of a New Day: What the Báb's Declaration Began
“erudite doctors and notable lawyers”
From They Unclosed Their Hands in Resistance: Ḥujjat and Zanján
“all put to the edge of the sword.”
From They Unclosed Their Hands in Resistance: Ḥujjat and Zanján
“In the case of such matters of conscience laceration causeth healing; censure”
“produceth increased diligence; prohibition induceth eagerness; and”
Memorials of the Faithful
Primary Source'Abdu'l-Bahá · 1915
Some Answered Questions
Primary Source'Abdu'l-Bahá · 1908
The Promulgation of Universal Peace
Primary Source'Abdu'l-Bahá · 1922
Paris Talks
Primary Source'Abdu'l-Bahá · 1912
Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Bahá Abbas
Primary Source'Abdu'l-Bahá · 1909
Bahá'í World Faith
Primary Source'Abdu'l-Bahá · 1943
'Abdu'l-Bahá in London
Primary Source'Abdu'l-Bahá · 1912
Selections from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá
Primary Source'Abdu'l-Bahá
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's own narrative remembers the young Bahá'u'lláh as a Nobleman who was never trained in the schools of the learned, yet whose wisdom astonished all who came near Him — and who, the moment the Báb's Cause arose, embraced it with His whole heart and became its devoted champion. A reflection on the early life that A Traveler's Narrative preserves.
In *A Traveler's Narrative*, 'Abdu'l-Bahá describes the Báb's youth in the plainest terms: a young Merchant of holy descent who traded in the Gulf port of Búshihr and was known among all who dealt with Him for godliness, devoutness, virtue, and piety — the quiet signs of a station the world had not yet guessed.
In *A Traveler's Narrative*, 'Abdu'l-Bahá records what all Shíráz knew of the Báb's early years: that He had sat in no scholar's circle and studied under no master, and yet, when He came forth, His knowledge confounded the most learned divines of Persia. The wisdom He carried had been His own from childhood.
In *A Traveler's Narrative*, 'Abdu'l-Bahá tells how a young Merchant of Shíráz, in His twenty-fifth year, began to declare the rank of Bábhood — proclaiming Himself the Gate to a greater One soon to come. With that declaration in 1844 a new cycle in the religious history of humanity began, and the long expectation of the Promised One started to be fulfilled.
In His own writings the Báb called Himself "a letter out of that most mighty book and a dewdrop from that limitless ocean," and pointed always to One yet to come. 'Abdu'l-Bahá's A Traveler's Narrative records how that promise ripened — until, in a garden by the Tigris, the Ocean the Báb had heralded appeared.
In 'Abdu'l-Bahá's own early history of the Faith, the upheaval at Zanján stands among the great trials of the believers. Led by the fearless scholar Mullá Muḥammad-'Alí — surnamed Ḥujjat, "the Proof" — the Bábís of the city, attacked and besieged at the decree of the clergy, held out through battle after battle until they were at last lured into surrender by oaths sworn upon the Qur'án, and put to the sword.
Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid ʻAlí was the merchant uncle who had reared the Báb from childhood and loved Him as his own son. When, as one of the Seven Martyrs of Ṭihrán in 1850, he was offered his life and a ransom by influential friends if he would merely disavow his Nephew, he refused — choosing instead to be the first of the seven to lay down his life, that he might join the One he had raised.
In A Traveler's Narrative, written for the world beyond Persia, 'Abdu'l-Bahá sets down the martyrdom of the Báb with the calm precision of a witness to sacred history: the order of the Grand Vizier, the Christian regiment ranged in three files, the volleys that severed the ropes, and the deep truth He draws from it — that persecution, in matters of conscience, only strengthens what it means to destroy.
Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí, called Vaḥíd, was sent by the Sháh himself to examine the Báb and report on His claim. The most learned man in Persia came armed with the hardest questions he could devise. Across three audiences his doubts were answered one by one — until in the last, the Báb fulfilled the very test Vaḥíd had silently resolved to set Him, and the great scholar's questioning ended in certitude.
Summoned from His mountain prison to be examined before the Crown Prince and the assembled clergy of Tabríz, the Báb was meant to be silenced and shamed. Instead, in that hostile hall, He openly affirmed the station He had come to proclaim — and the very tribunal convened to extinguish His Light became the stage on which it shone before the powers of the land.
In His own history of the Cause, 'Abdu'l-Bahá records a fact that astonished even the believers' enemies: through years of slaughter and plunder in Persia, with their numbers larger than ever, the followers of Bahá'u'lláh kept perfect order — none transgressed his bounds, none assailed anyone, all bore their afflictions patiently, looking unto God. It is one of history's quiet portraits of honour: dignity kept by the wronged who refused to become wrongdoers.
In A Traveler's Narrative, 'Abdu'l-Bahá looks back on the rise of the Faith and observes a strange law its enemies never understood: every blow the thrones rained down upon it only made it stronger. Persecution bred constancy, suppression bred eagerness, and the more the powers of the age tried to extinguish the Cause, the faster it spread. A reflection on the sovereignty of a Cause that no earthly power could quench.
In *A Traveler's Narrative*, 'Abdu'l-Bahá describes the morning of the Báb's martyrdom in the Tabríz barracks-square on the 9th of July, 1850 — the iron nail driven into the staircase, the two ropes by which He and His amanuensis were bound, the regiment that fired without harming Him, and the second regiment that did.
In *A Traveler's Narrative*, 'Abdu'l-Bahá recounts the Báb's confinement in the remote castle of Máh-Kú on the northwestern frontier of Persia — and describes how the warden 'Alí Khán's love for the family of the Prophet led him, despite official orders, to permit conversation between the prisoner and visiting believers.
In *A Traveler's Narrative*, 'Abdu'l-Bahá records the moment in 1844 when the young Merchant of Shíráz — twenty-five years old — began openly to declare His station: the Báb, the Gate, sent to prepare the way for the greater Manifestation soon to come.
Touching the individual known as the Báb and the true nature of this sect diverse tales are on the tongues and in the mouths of men, and various accounts are contained in the pages of Persian history and the leaves of European…
absolutism in [the conduct of] affairs: on his own decisive resolution, without seeking permission from the Royal Presence or taking counsel with prudent statesmen, he issued orders to persecute the Bábís, imagining that by overweening…
When he reached Hamadán his character became known, and, as he was of the clerical class, the doctors vehemently pursued him, handed him over to the government, and ordered chastisement to be inflicted. By chance there fell out from the…
correspondence?” Then the Royal Command was issued that their Reverences the learned doctors and honorable and accomplished divines should write a reply to that epistle. But when the most expert doctors of the capital became aware of…
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…
In *A Traveler's Narrative*, 'Abdu'l-Bahá relates the encounter between Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí — known as Vaḥíd, the most learned cleric of his generation in Persia — and the Báb. Three audiences. In the third, a request for a commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar; and the Báb's spontaneous, written reply that emptied the room of every doubt.
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