Ten Thousand Mourners on Mount Carmel: The Funeral of 'Abdu'l-Bahá

‘Abdu’l-Bahá ascended at His home in Haifa in the early hours of November 28, 1921. He had returned from the Shrine of the Báb the evening before, and had spoken with the family late into the night. By morning the news was carried through the town — and from the town out into the surrounding hills.

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Of His funeral, on the following day, Shoghi Effendi and Lady Blomfield wrote one of the most often-quoted accounts in early Bahá’í literature, *The Passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.* Around ten thousand people gathered. They came from every community of Palestine: Sunní and Shí‘ih Muslims, Eastern and Western Christians, Jews from the colonies and from the old city, Druze from the hills above Haifa, and a small body of Bahá’ís from many lands.

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The cortege moved slowly up Mount Carmel. The coffin, the chronicle records,

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> was borne to its last resting-place on the shoulders of His loved > ones.

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Behind it,

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> the long train of mourners, amid the sobs and moans of many a > grief-stricken heart, wended its slow way up the slopes of Mt. > Carmel to the Mausoleum of the Báb.

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When at last the procession reached the Shrine, *nine speakers, who represented the Muslim, the Jewish and Christian Faiths,* stood in turn beside the coffin and delivered their funeral orations. Each spoke from within his own tradition; each tried in his own language to name what the city had lost.

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> The coffin was then removed to one of the chambers of the Shrine, > and there lowered, sadly and reverently, to its last resting-place > in a vault adjoining that in which were laid the remains of the > Báb.

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The High Commissioner of Palestine, Sir Herbert Samuel, was present, and observed afterwards that the mourners came

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> sorrowing for His death, but rejoicing also for His life.

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The Governor of Jerusalem, Sir Ronald Storrs, said he had

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> never known a more united expression of regret and respect than was > called forth by the utter simplicity of the ceremony.

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The day after, in the streets of Haifa, the houses of the poor ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had quietly fed for years remained dark with grief. He had distributed food and warmth among them all through the war years and beyond. Many learned, only that morning, that the friend who had helped them was the same Master they had sometimes seen walking, in His white turban, along the seashore.

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Bahá’ís observe the Ascension at one o’clock in the morning on the 28th of November — the hour, by tradition, of His passing. Work is not suspended on this day, in keeping with the spirit of the Master Himself, who lived His life in the service of others and asked, in His Will, that even His death not interrupt that service.

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