The Bride Who Brought Herself

A retelling for children, based on The Chosen Highway by Lady Blomfield, who gathered the memories of the Holy Family before they could be lost.

Long ago, in the city of Tihrán in Persia, there lived a young woman named Ásíyih Khánum. She came from a noble family — the kind of family that had fine clothes, sparkling jewels, and a whole household of servants to help with the daily work. She had grown up surrounded by beautiful things, in the grand houses of the city.

But the most beautiful thing about her, people said, was Ásíyih Khánum herself. Everyone who knew her as a young woman remembered how lovely she was. In fact, she was so beautiful that people gave her a special name.

So beautiful was she that she was called the Daughter of the Beautiful.

When Ásíyih Khánum was still young, her family arranged for her to be married, just as families did in those days. Her husband would be the young Mírzá Ḥusayn-ʿAlí — and one day the whole world would come to know Him by another name: Bahá'u'lláh.

The two families had known each other for many years, for both were important in the city. And here is something that may surprise you: Ásíyih Khánum did not meet Him until everything had already been arranged. That was the custom of their time and place. So she was stepping into a brand-new life, with a husband she had only just met, without knowing what lay ahead.

The wedding was held quietly and gently, with all the polite, careful manners of her people. When a noble daughter married, she brought gifts with her to her new home. So Ásíyih Khánum came with a group of women to help her, with lovely things for her household, and with the little jewels her family had saved up for her over the years.

Those jewels were precious. But in the end, they were not the things that mattered most.

For in the years to come, very hard times would arrive. Her husband would be given the greatest task in the world — to bring a message from God to all of humankind. Because of this, the family would be sent away from their home, forced to travel far across the land into one place of exile after another. The fine houses would be left behind. One by one, the precious jewels would be sold, just to buy food for the family. And there would be great sorrow, too: their young son, Mírzá Mihdí, would die after a fall from a rooftop in the prison-city of ʿAkká.

Ásíyih Khánum did not know any of this on her wedding day. She did not know she would travel across half a world, or lose her son, or one day become the mother of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, whom the friends would lovingly call the Master.

So what did she truly bring to her marriage — the gift that no hardship could ever take away?

She brought herself. She brought her patience. She brought her gentle, kind manners and her faithful, steady heart. When all the riches were gone, that was the treasure that remained. Through every storm, through every long journey and every sad goodbye, it was the patient, loving person of Ásíyih Khánum that held her family together.

Years and years later, when Lady Blomfield looked back over Ásíyih Khánum's whole long life, she wrote about her with deep respect:

Of all the wives of all the men of His station, she was the one chosen.

And so we remember her — not for the jewels she carried out of Tihrán, which were sold away one by one, but for the riches she carried inside her, which never ran out. The finest gift any of us can give is not something we own. It is the faithful, loving person we choose to be.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "The Marriage of Ásíyih Khánum".

Blomfield, L.. (1940). *The Chosen Highway*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust.