The Sacrifice of the Purest Branch

*A retelling based on **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi, with details of his last hours from Adib Taherzadeh's **The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh**, vol. 3.*

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In 1868 Bahá'u'lláh, His family and His companions were exiled to 'Akká and confined in the city's barracks. Among them was His son Mírzá Mihdí, titled the Purest Branch, the younger brother of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. He had been with his Father since childhood, when he was brought from Ṭihrán to Baghdád, and he served as one of Bahá'u'lláh's amanuenses. At the time of these events he was twenty-two years old.

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Shoghi Effendi writes that he was pacing the roof of the barracks in the twilight one evening, "wrapped in his customary devotions," when he fell through the unguarded skylight onto a wooden crate standing on the floor below. The crate pierced his ribs. Taherzadeh adds that he was chanting one of Bahá'u'lláh's odes with his eyes closed, and that when Bahá'u'lláh asked him what had caused his fall, he said he knew where the skylight was and had always kept away from it, but this time he had forgotten.

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'Abdu'l-Bahá went to His Father and begged for his brother's recovery. Bahá'u'lláh then went to the bedside of His son. Taherzadeh records that He asked him whether he wished to live, and assured him that if he did, God would restore his health. Mírzá Mihdí instead begged Bahá'u'lláh to accept his life as a ransom, so that the believers who longed to enter the presence of their Lord, and were kept from it, might be able to come. Bahá'u'lláh accepted his sacrifice. He died on 23 June 1870, twenty-two hours after the fall.

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In a prayer revealed in his memory, Bahá'u'lláh wrote: "I have, O my Lord, offered up that which Thou hast given Me, that Thy servants may be quickened, and all that dwell on earth be united." Shoghi Effendi writes that this prayer exalts his death to the rank of the great acts of atonement associated with Abraham's intended sacrifice of His son, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the martyrdom of the Imám Ḥusayn.

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He was buried outside the city walls, near the shrine of Nabí Ṣáliḥ. Four months after his death, a mobilization of Turkish troops required the removal of Bahá'u'lláh and His companions from the barracks, and in time the restrictions were gradually relaxed. Seventy years later his remains, with those of his mother, were moved to Mount Carmel, near the grave of his sister and the Shrine of the Báb.

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*A retelling based on **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi and Taherzadeh's **The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh**. For the fuller account, see the originals.*

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