The Forty Mornings of Mirza Yusuf

*A retelling for children of the life of Mirza Yusuf Vahid Kashfi, based on **Bahá'í Chronicles**, which draws on Ahang Rabbani's "The Family of Vahid Darabi."*

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Mirza Yusuf was born in 1864 in the town of Istahbanat, in Persia. He was the nephew of Vahid, a learned man who had given his life for the Faith of the Báb fifteen years before Mirza Yusuf was born.

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At sixteen he was sent to Shiraz to finish his schooling, and he soon mastered Arabic grammar, logic and other subjects. There, in 1880, he became friends with a scholar later known as Fadil Shirazi, who first told him about the Faith and about what his uncle had done. Mirza Yusuf was interested, but he did not yet become a believer.

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For years he went on studying. In Yazd he spent time with his cousin, a son of Vahid. He visited his uncles in Isfahan and Burujird, and studied with well-known teachers in Karbala and Najaf. In Kirman he met another cousin, who had travelled with Vahid on his last journey, and learned much more from him. The Bahá'í writings he read moved him deeply, but still he could not feel certain.

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In 1884 he went to Mashhad. To settle his mind, he decided to say a special prayer every morning after his daily prayer, for forty mornings in a row. His biographers record that on the fortieth morning, as he spoke one phrase of the prayer, it was as if every veil had been lifted from his eyes. He stood up at once and recited a Tablet of Visitation that Bahá'u'lláh had revealed in honor of his uncle Vahid. From that day he was certain.

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In the years that followed he taught Arabic and Persian at the American College in Tihran, where he also learned English, and he became known to princes, one of whom gave him a title of honor.

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In 1902 he received a Tablet from 'Abdu'l-Bahá. In it the Master wrote, "The field of service is wide open." Mirza Yusuf resigned his post, sold his belongings and set out to serve the Faith.

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First he went to 'Akká. For nineteen days he was in the presence of the Master, and every day he visited the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh. Because he spoke English well, 'Abdu'l-Bahá asked him to go to the United States. He travelled by way of Egypt, Italy, France and England, crossed the ocean to Quebec, and went on to Boston and New York.

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For more than a year he travelled among the Bahá'ís of the eastern states and as far west as Missouri, helping them understand the Faith more deeply. He worked from very early in the morning until several hours into the night. At Green Acre in Maine he gave talks on the teachings, the history of the Faith and the station of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and many people became Bahá'ís. After two years his health failed, and with 'Abdu'l-Bahá's approval he went home to Persia.

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There he taught the Faith openly, even to his own students. Many years later, when Martha Root visited Persia in 1929, he travelled with her as her translator. In one of the many Tablets he received, 'Abdu'l-Bahá gave him the name Vahid, in memory of his uncle, and asked him to serve the Cause with the same self-sacrifice his uncle had shown. He died in 1959, at the age of ninety-four, and was buried in Tihran.

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*This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see ["Mirza Yusuf Vahid Kashfi"](/stories/bc-mirza-yusuf-vahid-kashfi).*

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