Home from the Mountains
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When in Bahá'í history
Baghdád (today: Baghdad, Iraq)
Bahíyyih Khánum, the daughter of Bahá’u’lláh, told Myron Phelps of the night her father came home to the family in Baghdád from the mountains, where He had been living as a dervish:
Finally, four months having elapsed since our friend had departed, a message was one day received from him saying that he would bring my father home on the next day. The other members of the family could not credit the truth of this news, but it seemed to electrify my brother. He minutely questioned and examined the messenger, and became much excited. He quite believed that His father would return, but no one else did.
During the night following the next day, however, my father walked into the house. We hardly knew Him; His beard and hair were long and matted - He really was a Dervish in appearance. The meeting between my brother and His father was the most touching and pathetic sight I have ever seen. Abbas Effendi threw Himself on the floor before Him and kissed and embraced His feet, weeping and crying, 'Why did you leave us, why did you leave us?' while the great uncouth Dervish wept over His boy. The scene carried a weight not to be expressed in words.
The absence of my father had covered a little more than two years.
Source: Myron H. Phelps, Life and Teachings of Abbas Effendi (1903), pp. 23–24, from the account given him by Bahíyyih Khánum.
Collected from bahaistories.com (Subject: bahaullah-sulaymaniyyih).
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