Carried Up the Mountain

A retelling based on The Priceless Pearl by Ruhiyyih Khanum, with details from God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi.

"Twilight has fallen on Mount Carmel and the veils of dusk have deepened over the bay of 'Akka." So Ruhiyyih Khanum began the account she wrote at the time. A group of men waited by the gate beneath the steps. Then there was a stir; the gardener ran to light the entrance, and in the white shafts of light a small procession appeared. A man dressed in black carried a coffin on his shoulder. It was the Guardian of the Cause, and he was bearing the remains of the Purest Branch, the son of Baha'u'llah.

The Purest Branch was Mirza Mihdi, 'Abdu'l-Baha's younger brother and an amanuensis of his Father. In 1870, when he was twenty-two, he was pacing the roof of the barracks in 'Akka at twilight, absorbed in his devotions, and fell through an unguarded skylight onto a wooden crate below. He died twenty-two hours later. His dying plea to Baha'u'llah was that his life might be accepted as a ransom for those who were prevented from attaining the presence of their Beloved. Baha'u'llah's Pen described him as one "created of the light of Baha." He was laid to rest outside the city walls, near the shrine of Nabi Salih. The burial was hurried, for Baha'u'llah was then strictly confined in the prison barracks.

His mother, Navvab, had shared Baha'u'llah's exiles from the beginning. He had entitled her the "Most Exalted Leaf," and for almost forty years, Shoghi Effendi writes, she showed a fortitude and devotion that earned her Baha'u'llah's tribute as His "perpetual consort in all the worlds of God." She too was buried in 'Akka.

Their daughter, Bahiyyih Khanum, the Greatest Holy Leaf, had long wished to lie near her mother. When she passed away in 1932, however, she was buried on Mount Carmel near the Shrine of the Bab, and Shoghi Effendi raised a white marble monument over her grave. He then conceived the idea of bringing her mother and brother, "so unsuitably buried in Akka," to lie near her. In 1939 he ordered from Italy twin monuments in the same style. The war had begun, but the marble reached Haifa safely.

The transfer itself proved extremely difficult. While the new vaults were still being cut from the rock of the mountain, a protest reached the government from relatives who had long been enemies of 'Abdu'l-Baha. Once the civil authorities understood the facts, they approved the Guardian's plan and issued the papers for the exhumations. Two days later, without risking further delay, he went to 'Akka himself.

He set out after daybreak with a few believers. There was a real danger that the opponents might gather supporters and try to stop the exhumations by force, and that local Muslims, who held the opening of a grave to be the greatest desecration, would take their side. Ruhiyyih Khanum adds that simply to stand by while a grave is opened is a harrowing experience.

When the earth was cleared from the coffin of the Master's mother, the wood was still whole except at the bottom, and he had the lid gently lifted. He told Ruhiyyih Khanum afterwards that her figure lay so clearly outlined in its shroud that one could almost make out her features, and that at the first touch it fell into dust and bones. He went down into the grave and with his own hands helped to lay the remains in the new coffin. Then they drove to the second cemetery. The Purest Branch had lain in the ground two decades longer than his mother, and his coffin had disintegrated entirely. Again Shoghi Effendi gathered up with his own hands the few bones and the dust that were left, and placed them in the coffin waiting beside the grave. It took many hours before he could start back to Haifa.

So it was dusk when he came up the path with the Purest Branch on his shoulder, to a humble room beside the resting-place of the Greatest Holy Leaf. A servant ran ahead with a rug and candelabra from the Shrines. The coffin was set down facing Bahji. Then the Guardian and his companions went back down to the gate and climbed the path again with the body of the wife of Baha'u'llah, the mother of the Master.

On 5 December the American believers received his cable: "Blessed remains Purest Branch and Master's mother safely transferred hallowed precincts Shrines Mount Carmel. Long inflicted humiliation wiped away." He signed it with his full name, as wartime censorship required.

The two coffins stayed in that room for three weeks. On Christmas Eve, again on the Guardian's shoulder, they were carried into the Shrine of the Bab to lie in state, side by side, with candles at their heads. At sunset the next day the believers gathered in the Shrine, and the coffins were borne out through the lighted garden and onto the moonlit road, held high, Shoghi Effendi never letting go of his burden. He went down into the carpeted vault himself, eased the coffin of the Purest Branch into its place and strewed it with flowers, then laid the Master's mother in the vault beside it. When the masons had sealed the tombs he sprinkled attar of rose over them and chanted the Tablets Baha'u'llah had revealed to be read at their graves.

All this took place less than two months after he had risen from one of the most serious illnesses of his life. Seventy years after the Purest Branch's death, mother and son lay near the Greatest Holy Leaf, under the shadow of the Shrine of the Bab.

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see The Priceless Pearl by Ruhiyyih Khanum, chapter 11, and God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi, chapters VII, XI and XXII.

Khanum, R.. (1969). *The Priceless Pearl*. Baha'i Publishing Trust.