The Dervish from Sístán

*A retelling based on **Memorials of the Faithful** by 'Abdu'l-Bahá. Words in quotation marks are from that account.*

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Ḥájí Muḥammad Khán was a Balúch, a native of Sístán. When he was very young, as 'Abdu'l-Bahá writes, he "caught fire and became a mystic." Following the dervish rule, he left his home as a wandering dervish, completely selfless, and travelled in search of his murshid, his perfect leader. He yearned, as the Qalandar dervishes would say, to discover that "priest of the Magi."

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He searched far and wide and spoke to everyone he met. What he longed for was the sweet scent of the love of God, and he could not find it in anyone, whether Gnostic, philosopher or member of the Shaykhí school.

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In the dervishes he saw only "their tufted beards, and their palms-up religion of beggary." From the Illuminati he heard "nothing but idle argument"; their grandiloquence, he observed, was not eloquence, and their learning did not bear the fruit of excellence. As for the Shaykhís, by then their essence was gone: "the kernel of them had vanished, leaving the shell behind."

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At the very moment he heard the call from the Kingdom of God, he shouted "Yea, verily!" and "he was off like the desert wind." He travelled over vast distances, arrived at the Most Great Prison, and attained the presence of Bahá'u'lláh. "When his eyes fell upon that bright Countenance he was instantly enslaved."

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He then returned to Persia to meet the friends of other days who were still seeking the Truth, and to deal with them as his loyalty and duty required. Going and returning, he called on each of them in turn and let each one hear "the new song from Heaven."

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When he reached his homeland, he set his family's affairs in order, providing for all of them and seeing to the security and comfort of each. Then he said goodbye. To his relatives, his wife, his children and his kin, he said:

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> Do not look for me again; do not wait for my return.

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He took up a staff and wandered away, over the mountains and across the plains, seeking out the mystics, his friends.

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On his first journey he called in Ṭihrán on Mírzá Yúsúf Khán, the Mustawfíyu'l-Mamálik. When the Ḥájí had said all he had to say, Yúsúf Khán expressed a wish: he wanted a son, and if that wish were granted, he would believe. The Ḥájí reported this to Bahá'u'lláh and received a firm promise in reply.

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On his second journey he found Yúsúf Khán with a child in his arms.

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"Mírzá," the Ḥájí cried, "praise be to God! Your test has demonstrated the Truth. You snared your bird of joy."

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"Yes," answered Yúsúf Khán, "the proof is clear. I am convinced." And he asked the Ḥájí, when he next went to Bahá'u'lláh, to implore His grace and favour for the child, so that it might be kept safe in the sheltering care of God.

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The Ḥájí then asked the King of Martyrs to intercede for him, so that he might be allowed to keep watch at the doorway of Bahá'u'lláh. The King of Martyrs sent the request by letter, and the Ḥájí came to the Most Great Prison and made his home in the neighbourhood of his "loving Friend." He enjoyed that honour for a long time, and later, in the garden of Mazra'ih, he was very often in Bahá'u'lláh's presence.

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After the ascension of Bahá'u'lláh the Ḥájí remained faithful to the Covenant. While 'Abdu'l-Bahá was away on His journeys to Europe and America, he made his way to the travellers' hospice beside the Shrine of the Báb, and there "he took his flight to the world above."

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'Abdu'l-Bahá closes His account with a prayer that God refresh his spirit with "the musk-scented air of the Abhá Paradise," and adds: "His bright tomb is in Haifa."

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*This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see **Memorials of the Faithful** by 'Abdu'l-Bahá.*

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