The Man Who Asked to Be a Martyr

A retelling for children, based on Bahá'í Chronicles, "Haji Muhammad Tihir Malmiri."

Imagine a small house in the city of Yazd, in Persia, with the lamps still burning long after midnight. Inside, a man named Haji Muhammad Tihir is talking — and a roomful of guests are leaning in, not wanting him to stop.

He was a weaver by trade. He earned his living working with his hands at a loom, thread by thread, and he was never rich. But when he opened his mouth to speak about God, something remarkable happened: people forgot how late it was.

Haji Muhammad Tihir had filled his mind with the holy books of the great religions. He could recite almost half of the Qur'an from memory, along with hundreds of sayings he had learned by heart. He knew the Bible well, and the books of other faiths too. And he could speak for hours about all of this without ever getting tired — and, somehow, without ever boring anyone. His listeners were caught up in the joy of his conversation, which could leap from a funny little story one moment to something deep and serious the next.

Here is the most astonishing part. Sometimes people who hated the Faith would sneak into his evening gatherings, pretending to be honest seekers, with weapons hidden in their pockets and dark plans in their hearts. But once they sat in front of this kind, dignified man and felt the force of who he was, their anger melted away. They changed their minds completely. And a couple of them — imagine it — ended up loving the very Faith they had come to harm.

When his work and his gatherings were done, he still did not waste the night. If he came home early, he would stay awake into the small hours, pacing the courtyard of his little house in prayer, or sitting up to read and write. His pen was as busy as his voice. He wrote whole books, including a history of the believers of Yazd who had given their lives for their faith, so that their courage would never be forgotten.

The greatest treasure of his life came in the year 1878. He was given the rare honor of traveling to 'Akká and entering the presence of Bahá'u'lláh, and he stayed there for about nine months.

Something tender and surprising happened during those visits. Haji Muhammad Tihir was so overcome by the greatness before him that he could barely lift his eyes or speak a single word. So he found another way. He later wrote that whenever he came into Bahá'u'lláh's presence and had a question, he would simply ask it silently, in his heart — "and He would answer me—invariably." He sat there, he said, completely still, as if he had forgotten his very self.

One day he gathered his courage and made a request. He begged that he might be allowed to give his life as a martyr for the Faith — the highest gift he could imagine offering. But the answer came at once, and it was not the one he expected:

"You shall live long to teach the Cause."

And that is exactly what happened. Haji Muhammad Tihir lived to be a hundred years old, and he spent those long years teaching and serving with all his heart. Years later he was blessed with a second journey to the Holy Land, where for four months he basked in the love of 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

But teaching was not the only way he served. There came a terrible time when many Bahá'ís in Yazd were killed simply for what they believed, and Haji Muhammad Tihir himself lost three of his own children. It was a grief almost too heavy to bear. Afterward, 'Abdu'l-Bahá gave him a special task: to care for the frightened families the martyrs had left behind. For years he threw himself into it — organizing help for the poor, comforting those who were sad, looking after the sick, and raising and teaching the children.

He had so little for himself, yet he could not stop giving. Whenever he managed to gather a bit of grain or food for his own family, no one was allowed to touch it until he had first set a generous share aside for the poor of the town, and for the widows and orphans of the martyrs. His home and his table were open to everyone.

Hard things followed him all his life — insults, danger, sorrow, and near the very end, even chains and prison, which he accepted joyfully alongside his friends. But none of it broke him. Instead, it seemed only to make his faith stronger and shinier, the way fire makes iron strong.

When at last he was very old and worn out, he laid down his work gently and passed away in peace at his own home, in the year 1953. In his final wishes he gave everything he owned to the Faith he had loved his whole life.

Haji Muhammad Tihir once dreamed of one grand way to serve God. He was given a different way instead — a long, faithful, everyday kind of service. And it turned out that living for something, day after day after day, can be every bit as brave as anything else. That is the gift he gave the world.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "Haji Muhammad Tihir Malmiri".

editors, B. C.. *Bahá'í Chronicles*. https://bahaichronicles.org/haji-muhammad-tihir-malmiri/