Sharing the Burden: Bahíyyih Khánum in Baghdád

In January 1853 Bahá'u'lláh, released from the Síyáh-Chál of Ṭihrán, was banished with His family to Baghdád. His daughter Bahíyyih was then about six years old.

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In April 1854, grieved by the dissension that Mírzá Yaḥyá and his associates were stirring up among the Bábís of Baghdád, Bahá'u'lláh left the city. He withdrew to the mountains of Sulaymáníyyih, in Kurdistan, and lived there for two years as a dervish. His wife Navváb, His son 'Abdu'l-Bahá, then about ten, and Bahíyyih, about eight, remained in Baghdád and for most of that time did not know where He was. He returned in March 1856.

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In his tribute to the Greatest Holy Leaf, written after her passing in 1932, Shoghi Effendi remembers "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."

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He also records that later, in her teens, she was entrusted by her Father "with missions that no girl of her age could, or would be willing to, perform," and he adds:

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> With what spontaneous joy she seized her opportunity and acquitted herself of the task with which she had been entrusted!

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The Guardian does not say what those missions were. He places them in the years "when the city of Baghdád was swept by the hurricane which the heedlessness and perversity of Mírzá Yahyá had unchained," and draws this conclusion:

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> The delicacy and extreme gravity of such functions as she, from time to time, was called upon to fulfil, when the city of Baghdád was swept by the hurricane which the heedlessness and perversity of Mírzá Yahyá had unchained, as well as 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, marked her as one who was both capable of sharing the burden, and willing to make the sacrifice, which her high birth demanded.

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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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