The Man Who Chose a New Name

A retelling for children, based on Bahá'í Chronicles, "Mirza Abu’l-Fadl."

In a town in the middle of Iran, long ago, there lived a boy named Muhammad. His father was an important religious teacher, and Muhammad grew up loving books more than almost anything.

He studied and studied. He learned from teacher after teacher. By the time he was a grown man, he knew so much that he became the head of a whole college, where other people came to him to learn. He was clever, and people admired him for it.

But even with all his learning, something inside him was still looking for an answer.

One day he met some people who were Bahá'ís. They talked together over many months. And then they showed him two letters that Bahá'u'lláh had written. In those letters, written down beforehand, were words that told what was going to happen to certain powerful rulers — and then those very things came true, just as the letters had said.

Muhammad, the great scholar, could not explain it away. He looked, and he listened, and at last he believed. He became a Bahá'í.

After that, his life was not easy. Three different times he was put in prison for his new faith. But he did not give it up. When he was let out of prison the last time, Bahá'u'lláh sent him letters asking him to go out and teach people about the Faith.

And here is a lovely thing he did. He gave himself a brand-new name: Abu’l-Fadl. It means something like "the father of doing good." Out of all the names a famous man could have chosen, he picked one that was about being good and helping others — not about being clever or important.

So Mirza Abu’l-Fadl set out to teach. He traveled far from home — to Egypt, and even farther, helping people learn about the Bahá'í Faith wherever he went. A kind woman named Laura Clifford Barney came all the way to Egypt to bring him to Paris. From there he sailed across the ocean to America.

In America he gave talks, and you would not believe who came to listen. University professors, artists, and important people filled the room — and they were amazed by how much this gentle man knew and how kindly he shared it.

Later, 'Abdu'l-Bahá asked him to come back to the Middle East, and he went. When he passed away, 'Abdu'l-Bahá gave him a special honor: one of the outer doors of the Shrine of the Báb was named after him.

Mirza Abu’l-Fadl had spent his whole life learning. But the most important thing he ever found was not in his books — it was a new faith to believe in, and a new name that reminded him, every single day, to do good.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "Mirza Abu’l-Fadl".

editors, B. C.. *Bahá'í Chronicles*. https://bahaichronicles.org/mirza-abul-fadl/