The Teachers of Máhfurúzak

A retelling for children, based on the lives of ‘Alavíyyih Khánum and Mullá ‘Alí Ján as told in Bahá'í Chronicles, from the Bahá'í Encyclopedia Project.

Hamídih was born in about 1855 in Máhfurúzak, a village in the province of Mázindarán in northern Iran. Her family was descended from the Prophet Muḥammad and the Imám ‘Alí, so she was called ‘Alavíyyih Khánum.

Her cousin, Mullá ‘Alí Ján, was born in 1846 in the nearby village of Ríkandih. His parents died when he was young. His uncle, Áqá Mírzá Áqá Ján, who was ‘Alavíyyih Khánum's father, helped him complete his studies as a mullá, a Muslim religious teacher, and later brought him to Máhfurúzak to be the village's prayer leader. When the uncle died about three years later, his last wish was that his daughter should marry Mullá ‘Alí Ján. The cousins were married in 1871, when ‘Alavíyyih Khánum was sixteen.

While he was a student in the town of Bárfurúsh, Mullá ‘Alí Ján had learned of the Bahá'í Faith and become convinced that it was true. For his first three years as prayer leader he told no one, and in that time the whole village came to love and respect him. After his uncle's death he began to speak of his faith to his wife and her family, and they all became Bahá'ís. Then he taught it openly from the pulpit. Because the villagers thought so highly of him, most of them soon became Bahá'ís. He also travelled to the villages around, and many people there became Bahá'ís too.

The couple then set about ordering the life of the village on a spiritual basis. They asked each family to set aside a room for prayer. Every morning and evening the family would gather there to pray, wearing clean clothes instead of their work clothes. They opened two schools, one for girls and one for boys, so that every child in the village could have an elementary education. These seem to have been the first Bahá'í schools in Iran. They also started a cooperative so that the farmers could get better prices for their fruit and rice, arranged for people to learn crafts, and began a new trade in cleaning and carding cotton to sell to Russian and Armenian merchants.

The Muslim clergy in the nearby city of Sárí told the governor that the people of Máhfurúzak were planning a rebellion. Government officials came to look and found nothing wrong, but the clergy kept sending their accusations to the Sháh until an order was given to arrest Mullá ‘Alí Ján.

At dawn on 29 April 1883, about four hundred horsemen rode into the village. They looted houses and arrested Mullá ‘Alí Ján and seven other men. Later that day fifty more horsemen arrested ‘Alavíyyih Khánum, five other women and two men, and took away all of the couple's books and belongings. Their daughter Baqá'íyyih, who was six, would not be parted from her mother and was taken along with the prisoners. After a time they were released.

Mullá ‘Alí Ján was taken to Tihrán. The men arrested with him were kept in a dungeon for two years, but he was put to death in a public square in June 1883. Two Bahá'í women, at great risk to themselves, took his body away and buried it. Bahá'u'lláh revealed a Tablet of Visitation, a prayer to be read at his grave, in his honour.

‘Alavíyyih Khánum was twenty-eight. Three years later her two children fell ill and died. From then on she gave her whole life to the Faith. She carried on the work she and her husband had begun, above all the education of girls and boys, and became the most prominent Bahá'í in Máhfurúzak. She began to travel to teach, first to nearby villages and towns such as ‘Arabkhayl, Bihnamír, Bárfurúsh and Sárí, and many people became Bahá'ís through her.

Later, at ‘Abdu'l-Bahá's request, she travelled much farther. In 1901 she went to the province of Khurásán and on to ‘Ishqábád in Russian Turkistán. After that journey she visited ‘Abdu'l-Bahá in the Holy Land.

Early in 1903, while she was in Mashhad, a letter from ‘Abdu'l-Bahá asked her to go to Yazd with her nephew and a Bahá'í teacher, Mírzá Ḥusayn Zanjání. While they were on the road with a caravan, a violent persecution of the Bahá'ís broke out in Yazd. When the news reached the caravan, the other travellers turned on ‘Alavíyyih Khánum and her companions and mistreated them. A crowd gathered to attack them when they reached Yazd, but the authorities sent it away. She went on to the town of Ábádih in Fárs, stayed there a few months, and then went home by way of Tihrán.

In her last years she became blind and could no longer leave Máhfurúzak. Before she died, in about 1918, she gave her house to be a Bahá'í centre and a place of worship. ‘Abdu'l-Bahá gave her the title Amatu'l-Bahá, "Maidservant of Bahá," and revealed a Tablet of Visitation for her.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "‘Alavíyyih Khánum and Mullá ‘Alí Ján".

editors, B. C.. *Bahá'í Chronicles*. https://bahaichronicles.org/alaviyyih-khanum-and-mulla-ali-jan/