The Marriage of Ásíyih Khánum

In *The Chosen Highway* Lady Sara Louisa Blomfield gathers, from the Greatest Holy Leaf and from Munírih Khánum, the recollections of the Holy Family that would otherwise have been lost when the last of those generations passed away. One of the earliest such recollections concerns the marriage of Ásíyih Khánum — the lady who would become the first wife of Bahá'u'lláh and the mother of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Bahíyyih Khánum.

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Ásíyih Khánum belonged to a noble Persian family of high rank. She had grown up in Tihrán in considerable affluence — fine clothes, jewels, a household of servants, the customs of the court. She was, by the testimony of those who had known her in youth, of remarkable beauty.

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> So beautiful was she that she was called the Daughter of the > Beautiful.

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The marriage to the young Mírzá Ḥusayn-ʿAlí — who would later declare His station as the Manifestation of God known to the world as Bahá’u’lláh — was arranged in the manner customary to their station. The two families, both prominent in Tihrán society, had known one another for many years. The bride was introduced to the bridegroom only after the contracts had been exchanged.

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The wedding itself, the recollection records, was held with the quiet courtesies of the Persian noble tradition. Ásíyih Khánum brought with her a household of women, the customary trousseau, and the small jewels her family had laid up for her. None of the wealth would, in later years, prove finally relevant. The imprisonments and exiles that lay ahead would, in time, strip the household of all of it.

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What she brought that did matter, the recollection insists, was herself. She entered the marriage with the disciplined courtesy of her upbringing and with the patience that the difficult years would shortly demand of her. She did not know, at the time of her wedding, that her husband would soon be charged with a worldwide Cause; that she herself would be exiled across half a continent; that she would lose her young son Mírzá Mihdí to a fall from a roof in ‘Akká; that she would become the mother of the Master.

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Lady Blomfield writes of her, looking back across the long arc of her life, with the quietness due her stature:

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> Of all the wives of all the men of His station, she was the > one chosen.

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The marriage that began in the great houses of Tihrán would end in the small house of ‘Akká. The dowry of jewels would be sold, piece by piece, to feed the household. The dowry of person — the patient, beautiful, courteous, faithful person of Ásíyih Khánum — would carry the household through every subsequent storm.

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