The Boy Who Travelled to Baghdad

*A retelling for children, based on the account of Aqa Mirza Ali-Muhammad (Ibn-i-Asdaq) in **Bahá'í Chronicles**, which quotes Adib Taherzadeh's **The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh**, volume 4.*

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Mírzá 'Alí-Muḥammad was the son of Mullá Ṣádiq-i-Khurásání, one of the most outstanding of the early believers. Bahá'u'lláh gave Mullá Ṣádiq the title Ismu'lláhu'l-Aṣdaq, which means "the Name of God, the most truthful." So the believers came to call his son Ibn-i-Asdaq, "the son of Asdaq."

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As the boy grew up, people could see that he had many of his father's good qualities.

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When he was still a young boy, he went with his father on the long journey to Baghdad, where Bahá'u'lláh was living. There father and son both came into Bahá'u'lláh's presence. The boy met Him several times. Those meetings stayed with him all his life and filled him with love for Bahá'u'lláh.

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While they were in Baghdad, Bahá'u'lláh revealed a prayer for the boy. In it He asks God to nourish him with His bounty, so that when he is older he may arise to serve the Cause of God. In the same prayer Bahá'u'lláh describes him as one who, in his tender years, had travelled a long distance to meet his Lord, and had reached Him.

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Ibn-i-Asdaq did grow up to serve. He often travelled with his father on teaching journeys through Persia. Near the end of His life, Bahá'u'lláh chose four of His followers to be Hands of the Cause of God, and Ibn-i-Asdaq was one of them.

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*This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see ["Aqa Mirza Ali-Muhammad (Ibn-i-Asdaq)"](/stories/bc-aqa-mirza-ali-muhammad-ibn-i-asdaq).*

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