He Made Good Broth

A retelling based on 'Abdu'l-Baha in London, which reprints this interview from The Weekly Budget of 23 September 1911, with details from Baha'u'llah, The King of Glory by H. M. Balyuzi and Baha'u'llah and the New Era by J. E. Esslemont. Words in quotation marks are as preserved in those books.

The reporter had been told to come early, so he called at nine o'clock at the apartment in Cadogan Gardens. It was already midday for 'Abdu'l-Baha. He rose at four, and He had seen eighteen people before His breakfast at half past six. Representatives of many languages and nationalities were waiting for Him in the drawing room.

They sat in a circle facing Him, and He asked whether there were any questions they would like to ask. The reporter said his editor had sent him to find out something of His prison life. 'Abdu'l-Baha answered at once, the reporter wrote, "in a simple impersonal way."

At nine years of age, He said, He had gone with His Father, Baha'u'llah, into exile in Baghdad, with seventy of His Father's disciples. The exiles were moved from one place to another. When He was about twenty-five they were taken from Constantinople to Adrianople, and from there, under a guard of soldiers, to the fortress city of 'Akka.

Then He described the first summer. There was no communication with the outside world. Every loaf of bread was cut open by the guard to make sure it held no message. All the believers with them, men, women and children, were imprisoned together, one hundred and fifty of them in two rooms. No one was allowed out except four people who went to the bazaar each morning, under guard.

'Akka was a fever-ridden town. It was said that a bird attempting to fly over it would drop dead. The food was poor and insufficient, and the water was drawn from a fever-infected well. Even the people of the town fell ill. Many soldiers died, and eight out of ten of the guard set over the prisoners died. In the intense heat, malaria, typhoid and dysentery attacked the prisoners, until all of them, men, women and children, were sick at one time. There were no doctors, no medicines, no proper food, and no treatment of any kind.

'Abdu'l-Baha laughed as He said, "I used to make broth for the people, and as I had much practice, I make good broth."

At this point one of the Persians in the room explained to the reporter that it was because of 'Abdu'l-Baha's wonderful patience, helpfulness and endurance that He was always called "The Master." The reporter added his own impression: one could easily feel that mastership in His "absolute detachment from all that even a Turkish prison could inflict."

Others who lived through that season left their own accounts, which H. M. Balyuzi gathered in Baha'u'llah, The King of Glory. One of the exiles, Aqa Rida, said that they had never known such fevers. The Most Great Branch ('Abdu'l-Baha) was very careful of what He ate and drank, and He did not fall ill with the rest; He was always up and about, tending the sick and nursing them, and Baha'u'llah's brother Aqay-i-Kalim and Aqa Rida himself were able to help Him. Three of the exiles died. After that, though illness was still rife, there were no more deaths. Balyuzi writes that, according to Aqa Rida, for four months "a huge cauldron of broth was prepared for the sick, and at night plain rice, which the Most Great Branch doled out personally for each, according to his needs."

Then, Aqa Rida says, the Most Great Branch Himself fell sick, and so ill was He that the companions were greatly concerned. J. E. Esslemont, in Baha'u'llah and the New Era, writes that He had washed the patients, nursed them, fed them and watched with them, "taking no rest, until utterly exhausted, He Himself took dysentery, and for about a month remained in a dangerous condition." That passed too, and gradually all were restored to health.

The interview went on. 'Abdu'l-Baha told of the two years of strictest confinement, and of the house He was later allowed to find outside the prison walls but still within the fortifications. Some governors were lenient and let believers visit; others placed extra guards around the house, and pilgrims who had come from far away were often turned back.

He told, too, of a committee of investigation sent by Sultan 'Abdu'l-Hamid a year before he was dethroned. Its chairman, Arif Bey, tried to find proof enough to have 'Abdu'l-Baha sent to Fizan, a waterless caravan station, or thrown into the sea, and sailed away promising to return with an order to have Him hanged at the gate of 'Akka. Before anything could be done, the revolution in Constantinople came, and the political prisoners of the empire were set free. Someone in the room asked what had become of the committee. Of its four members, 'Abdu'l-Baha said, the chairman had been shot, the general exiled, and the next in rank had died, "and the third ran away to Cairo, where he sought and received help from the Baha'is."

The reporter asked how He had felt in prison. "I was thankful for the prison," 'Abdu'l-Baha answered, "and the lack of liberty was very pleasing to me, for those days were passed in the path of service, under the utmost difficulties and trials, bearing fruits and results."

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see 'Abdu'l-Baha in London, and the section "Life in the Barracks" in Baha'u'llah, The King of Glory by H. M. Balyuzi.

'Abdu'l-Baha. (1912). *'Abdu'l-Baha in London*. Baha'i Publishing Trust.