The Master with the Sick Pilgrim

The bahaistories.com archive collects, from a number of pilgrim memoirs and household recollections, the recurring small scene of Western pilgrims who fell ill in 'Akká during their visits and the manner in which 'Abdu'l-Bahá personally attended to them.

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The pilgrimages of the early Western friends were not easy. The journey from Europe or America to 'Akká could take several weeks. The sea passage and the strenuous overland travel exhausted bodies that were not used to it. The climate of the Levant and the unfamiliar food often produced fevers within the first few days of arrival.

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The Master's response, in every recollection that survives, was uniform. He would visit the sick pilgrim in person, sometimes several times a day. He would sit at the bedside in His simple white robe, often holding the pilgrim's hand. He would chant the Bahá'í healing prayers. He would speak in quiet conversation when the pilgrim was able. He would direct the household physician where one was available. He would, if the illness extended for days, write personally to the family back home — to wife or husband or aging parent — giving honest report of the condition and offering reassurance.

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> The pilgrim who falls sick on My doorstep is the family I > have been given to nurse.

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The phrase, paraphrased through several of the bahaistories.com pieces, named the Master's principle. The hospitality of His house extended through the small acts of greeting at the door. It extended also into the bedroom of the bedridden guest, and into the patient hours of the chanted prayer, and into the careful letter sent home in His own hand to a family member who would otherwise have been worried. The hospitality was the whole work, beginning to end.

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