The Scholar Who Never Met Bahá’u’lláh

Mirza Abu’l-Fadl Gulpaygani was born in 1844 in Gulpaygan, in central Iran. His given name was Muhammad. His father was a prominent religious Muslim leader in the town. After his father’s death in 1871 he attended religious colleges and pursued his interests in philosophy and mystical philosophy. He learned from Buddhist scholars and European instructors, and within a short time he became the head of the religious college (Madrasih Hakim Hashim).

In 1876 he had several encounters with Baha’is. Upon meeting several Baha’is over the course of several months, he read two of Bahá’u’lláh’s tablets: the Suriy-i-Ra’is and Lawh-i-Fu’ad. These tablets prophesied the downfall of the Ottoman Sultan and of his minister.

The Sultan was deposed and killed in 1876, and on September 20 of that year Mirza Abu’l-Fadl became a Baha’i.

Mirza Abu’l-Fadl was imprisoned three different times. When he was last released from prison Bahá’u’lláh sent him several letters asking him to travel and teach the Baha’i faith. He had chosen for himself the epithet Abu’l-Fadl (which means progenitor of virtue). He helped spread the Bahá’í Faith in Egypt, Turkmenistan, and the United States. Laura Clifford Barney went to Egypt in 1901 so as to bring Mirza Abu’l-Fadl with her to Paris.

From Paris he went to America, and in 1903 he went to Green Acre, which later became a Baha’i institution, and lectured there. His lectures at Green Acre brought in professors of philosophy from Harvard and Columbia with artists and men and women of affluence and influence. His knowledge, his intellect, the range of his awareness and his approach both amazed and enlightened the audience.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá asked him to return to the Middle East, which he did. He became ill and died in Cairo on January 21, 1914. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá named one of the exterior doors of the Shrine of the Báb after Mirza Abu’l-Fadl.

He was one of the few Apostles of Bahá’u’lláh who never actually met Bahá’u’lláh.

Source: Peter Smith, A Concise Encyclopedia of the Bahá’í Faith, and other secondary sources, as compiled by Bahá'í Chronicles (https://bahaichronicles.org/mirza-abul-fadl/). His conversion through these Tablets is told in Adib Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, vol. 3, pp. 91–104.

editors, B. C.. *Bahá'í Chronicles*. https://bahaichronicles.org/mirza-abul-fadl/