An Abiding Impression: Bahíyyih Khánum's Winter in Adrianople

The household of Bahá'u'lláh lived in exile in Adrianople — modern Edirne, in European Turkey — from 1863 to 1868. There He proclaimed His station to the kings and rulers of the world; there Mírzá Yaḥyá rose against Him; and from there the exiles were banished to 'Akká.

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In the tribute he wrote in July 1932, after the passing of Bahíyyih Khánum, Shoghi Effendi recalls her bearing in those years, when "the forces of schism had rent asunder the ties that united the little band of exiles":

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> How staunch was her faith, how calm her demeanour, how forgiving her attitude, how severe her trials ...

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He then records what that period cost her:

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> It was in this period of extreme anxiety, when the rigours of a winter of exceptional severity, coupled with the privations entailed by unhealthy housing accommodation and dire financial distress, undermined once for all her health and sapped the vitality which she had hitherto so thoroughly enjoyed.

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She was then about twenty. Born in Ṭihrán, she had already shared her Father's banishment to Baghdád and Constantinople.

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> 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.

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She lived for more than sixty years after leaving Adrianople — through the long confinement in 'Akká, the ministry of her brother 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and the first decade of Shoghi Effendi's Guardianship — without regaining the health she lost there.

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*A retelling based on Shoghi Effendi's tribute to the Greatest Holy Leaf (July 1932), in **Bahíyyih Khánum: The Greatest Holy Leaf**, compiled by the Bahá'í World Centre (1982). Quoted passages are his words.*

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