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.

Imagine standing on a crowded wooden ship as it pulls away from the harbor, the land getting smaller and smaller behind you, with weeks of open sea ahead. That is how this journey began.

It was late in the year 1844. Only a few months earlier, the very first people had recognized the Báb in the city of Shíráz. Now He was setting out on a long pilgrimage to Mecca, the holiest city in all of Islam. He had a brave plan for this trip. He meant to stand in that holy place and tell everyone, openly, who He truly was. Going with Him was a young man named Quddús — the youngest of His earliest followers, and the companion He had chosen.

They left from a port called Búshihr, on the Persian Gulf, and sailed out into the water.

The voyage was hard — far harder than they could have guessed. The pilgrim ship was packed full of people. It was slow, and there was not nearly enough food and water for everyone aboard. Storms came and slowed them down even more. And then something frightening happened: for days and days, the drinking water ran out completely.

Think about how that would feel — out on the open sea, with no land in sight and nothing to drink. The Báb made do with the little He had. He later said:

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

But here is the part that everyone who saw them remembered most. Through all those long, thirsty, difficult weeks — about two whole months on that ship — the Báb and Quddús were never discouraged and never idle. One traveler said that any time he met them, by day or by night, he always found them together, both busy at their work.

At last the ship reached its destination, and they made their way to Mecca. There they put on the simple white garments that pilgrims wear and carried out the holy rites, just as countless pilgrims had done before them.

Then came a moment that tested them. Outside the great Sacred Mosque, a thief slipped quietly through the crowd and snatched away the Báb's saddlebag — and inside it were important writings. The Báb's companions were ready to chase after the man and get it back. But the Báb stopped them. He told them gently that if He had let them go, they could have caught the thief and punished him — but this was not meant to happen. It had been allowed by God.

It takes a special kind of strength to stay calm like that, and to choose not to fight back even when someone has wronged you.

Inside the Sacred Mosque, the Báb did the bold thing He had come all this way to do. There was a famous scholar there named Mírzá Muḥíṭ-i-Kirmání — a man many people looked up to. The Báb went straight to him and spoke to him face to face, telling him that the Promised One he and so many others had been waiting for was standing right in front of him. The scholar was unsure at first. Then he promised to follow the Báb — though, sadly, in the end he would not keep that promise.

From Mecca the little group journeyed north to another holy city, Medina. There, near the resting place of the Prophet Muḥammad, the Báb grew very still and quiet. By now He had begun to speak openly of something His friends found hard to hear. He knew that one day He would have to give His life. He said:

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.

His friends could hardly bear those words. And yet, six years later, in a far city called Tabríz, the very thing He had spoken of came true, exactly as He had said.

The Báb knew, almost from the start, how much His path would cost Him — the hard voyage, the long thirst, the loss, and one day far more than that. And He walked it anyway, with courage and with calm, never turning back. That is what real faith looks like: not pretending things will be easy, but staying true even when you know they will be hard.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "On the Altar of Devotion: 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/