One of the First Eighteen

A retelling for children, based on the account of Mírzá Hádí-i-Qazvíní in Bahá'í Chronicles.

A very long time ago, when the Báb first began to teach, the very first people to believe in Him were a small group of eighteen. He gave them a special name. He called them the Letters of the Living.

Imagine that for a moment. Eighteen people, at the very beginning of a story that would one day spread all around the world.

This is about the fifteenth of those eighteen. His name was Mírzá Hádí, and he came from a place called Qazvín.

He did not come from far away or from a family no one had heard of. His father was a learned man named Mullá 'Abdu'l-Vahháb. And Mírzá Hádí had a brother, Mírzá Muhammad-'Alí, who was part of this new community too. So here was a young man with a family who cared about God, who searched with his own heart, and who was counted among the very first to believe. It was a great honor — one of the greatest a person could be given.

But here is the part of the story that is honest, and a little sad.

Being chosen for something wonderful at the start does not always mean a person stays close to it forever. Over time, Mírzá Hádí stepped back. He moved away from the other believers, and he did not take on any large or important task among them. The bright beginning did not grow into the kind of life you might expect.

And yet he was not forgotten. Bahá'u'lláh, who would one day become the Founder of the Bahá'í Faith, wrote to him — not just once, but several times. Think of that. Even after Mírzá Hádí had drifted away, letters came to him, written with care, reaching out to bring him back. The door was never shut. The hand was always held out.

In the end, Mírzá Hádí chose a different path and followed someone else, and his name slipped quietly toward the edges of the story. On some old lists of the eighteen, his place is even given to another believer instead.

So what can we keep from a story like this one?

It tells us that a beautiful beginning is a gift, but it is not the whole of a life. What we do after the beginning matters just as much. And it reminds us of something gentle and hopeful too: that even when someone wanders far, kindness can keep reaching out for them, the way those letters kept arriving — patient, and waiting, and never giving up.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "Mírzá Hádí-i-Qazvíní".

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