The Long Voyage to Mecca

A retelling for children, based on The Dawn-Breakers by Nabíl-i-A'ẓam, the chapter telling of the Báb's pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina.

In 1844, a few months after the first people recognized Him in the city of Shíráz, the Báb set out on the pilgrimage to Mecca, the holiest city of Islam. Quddús, the last of His first eighteen disciples, went with Him, and so did the Báb's Ethiopian servant.

They sailed from Búshihr, a port on the Persian Gulf. The ship was slow, the sea was stormy, and many of the pilgrims fell sick. The voyage lasted about two months. For days at a time there was hardly any water to drink. The Báb later wrote:

For days we suffered from the scarcity of water. I had to content myself with the juice of the sweet lemon.

A man who traveled on the same ship remembered that whenever he met the Báb or Quddús, by day or by night, he found them together, working. The Báb was speaking the words of prayers and letters, and Quddús was writing them down. Even in the storms they stayed calm.

At last the ship reached Jaddih, on the coast of Arabia. The Báb put on the pilgrim's clothes and rode toward Mecca on a camel. Quddús walked beside Him the whole way, holding the camel's bridle.

One morning the Báb got down near a well to say His prayers. A Bedouin came up, grabbed the saddlebag lying on the ground beside Him, and ran off into the desert. Inside the bag were the Báb's writings. The servant started to chase him, but the Báb, still praying, waved His hand to stop him. Afterwards He told the servant kindly that he would surely have caught the thief, but that this was not meant to be. The writings in that bag would reach places they could never have reached otherwise. It was the will of God.

In Mecca the Báb carried out all the rites of the pilgrimage. He bought nineteen lambs for the sacrifice, and gave all the meat to the poor.

On His last day in Mecca, the Báb saw a well-known scholar, Mírzá Muḥíṭ-i-Kirmání, standing by the sacred Black Stone. The Báb took his hand and told him plainly that He was the Gate through whom people could come to know God. Mírzá Muḥíṭ must either accept His Cause or openly reject it. The scholar was confused and afraid. He promised to follow the Báb and not to leave the city of Medina until he had kept his promise. But he soon left Medina without keeping it.

From Mecca the Báb traveled to Medina, where the Prophet Muḥammad is buried. Nabíl, who wrote this history, imagines the spirits of the early heroes of Islam asking the Báb to stay there, safe from His enemies at home. He tells us the Báb's spirit answered:

I am come into this world to bear witness to the glory of sacrifice... Rejoice, for both I and Quddús will be slain on the altar of our devotion to the King of Glory.

Within six years both had given their lives: Quddús in 1849, and the Báb in Tabríz in 1850.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "The Báb's Pilgrimage to Mecca".

Nabíl-i-A'ẓam. (1932). *The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl's Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá'í Revelation*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.bahai.org/library/other-literature/historical/dawn-breakers/