A Letter from the Greatest Holy Leaf

A retelling based on Bahíyyih Khánum: The Greatest Holy Leaf, a compilation from the Bahá'í sacred texts, the writings of Shoghi Effendi, and Bahíyyih Khánum's own letters, and on The Priceless Pearl by Rúḥíyyih Khánum. Words in quotation marks are quoted from those books.

'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away in November 1921. His Will and Testament named His grandson, Shoghi Effendi, then twenty-four and a student in England, as Guardian of the Cause.

In April 1922 the Guardian wrote to the Bahá'ís that, since the ascension of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, grief and pain and the troubles created by the enemies of the Cause had so overwhelmed him that he must go away for a time. Until he had regained his health and strength, he was leaving the affairs of the Cause, at home and abroad, under the supervision of the Holy Family and "the headship of the Greatest Holy Leaf."

Bahíyyih Khánum, the daughter of Bahá'u'lláh, was then about seventy-six. She had been a small child in Ṭihrán when her Father was imprisoned in the Síyáh-Chál, and she had shared His exiles to Baghdád, Constantinople, Adrianople and the prison-city of 'Akká. From the very beginning of his Guardianship, Rúḥíyyih Khánum writes in The Priceless Pearl, Shoghi Effendi had leaned very heavily on her, "whose character, station and love for him made her at once his support and his refuge."

He left Haifa for Europe on 5 April 1922, accompanied by his eldest cousin. The Greatest Holy Leaf organized an Assembly of those whom he had appointed, and on 8 April she wrote a general letter to the friends. "Since the ascension of our Beloved 'Abdu'l-Bahá Shoghi Effendi has been moved so deeply," she explained, "...that he has sought the necessary quiet in which to meditate upon the vast task ahead of him, and it is to accomplish this that he has temporarily left these regions." The letter was typewritten in English, signed in Persian "Bahá'íyyih" and sealed with her seal.

That autumn a friend who had once been a pilgrim in Haifa wrote to her, in a letter dated 12 October 1922. Her reply is preserved in the compilation. The letter, she wrote, had "refreshed in our memory the many beautiful days that you spent here when the Beloved Lord, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, was still on this earth." She added: "Those are days that many events of history could never efface from the hearts, nay rather the further we go in the scale of life the deeper become the impressions thereof within the meshes of our inner life."

She had read it "with full attention," she said, and as she read, the words of the Master were ringing in her ear, "words that have descended like showers on all souls and hearts that could understand." "Now is the time when we should forget everything and concentrate our thoughts upon the advancement of the Cause of God," she went on, and strive day and night that the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh and the words of the Master might find full expression in the hearts of the true friends.

When she thought over the history of the Cause and the difficulties its promoters had undergone, she wrote, she was convinced that the sincere friends who had watched those events would not lose a moment, and would sacrifice everything of worth for the sake of the Divine plan.

Then came her counsel for that year. "Have all your thoughts directed to the Master and heed not what you hear from here or there. We hope that soon beloved Shoghi Effendi will come back to Haifa and things will resume their natural course. What we need today is complete unity amongst the friends and this will attract the Divine assistance from the Abhá Kingdom."

She ended by saying that all the Holy Family remembered this friend and prayed for them at the Holy Shrines, and hoped to hear good news, since the Master had always wished to hear good news from them. "Convey my Abhá greetings to all the brothers and sisters there."

In that same autumn, Rúḥíyyih Khánum records, the Greatest Holy Leaf, deeply distressed by Shoghi Effendi's long absence, sent members of his family to find him and plead with him to come back to the Holy Land. His mother, who had come all the way from Palestine with another member of the Master's family, found him in the street of a small village in the mountains as he returned in the evening from one of his all-day walks. With tears she told him of the distress of Bahíyyih Khánum, the family and the friends, and persuaded him to return.

The compilation dates her reply 25 Rabí'u'th-Thání 1341, which is 15 December 1922. According to a notice in Star of the West, quoted in The Priceless Pearl, Shoghi Effendi returned to Haifa on the afternoon of Friday, 15 December, "in radiant health and happiness," and took up again the work of the Guardianship. Two days later he wrote to the believers in Germany that he had "returned to the Holy Land with renewed vigour and refreshed spirit."

Bahíyyih Khánum lived almost ten more years. After she passed away in 1932, a letter written on the Guardian's behalf described her as "the last Remnant of that Heroic age of the Cause that gave birth to so many noble and faithful souls."

This is a retelling. For the full text of her letters, see Bahíyyih Khánum: The Greatest Holy Leaf, published by the Bahá'í World Centre; for Shoghi Effendi's absence and return, see The Priceless Pearl, chapter 2.

Various. (1982). *Bahíyyih Khánum: The Greatest Holy Leaf*. Bahá'í World Centre.