Shoghi Effendi at School in Beirut

*A retelling for children, based on **The Priceless Pearl** by Rúḥíyyih Khánum.*

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Shoghi Effendi was the eldest grandchild of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. He was born in 1897 in the old prison-city of 'Akká. When he was still small, he went to live in Haifa with his nurse, who had looked after him since he was a baby. His first foreign language was French.

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School was hard for him. In Haifa he went to the best school in the city, but he was very unhappy there. So 'Abdu'l-Bahá sent him to a boarding school in Beirut, and he was unhappy there too. Sometimes he would not go to school for days, and he grew thin. When 'Abdu'l-Bahá heard this, He arranged for Shoghi Effendi to go to a different school, the Syrian Protestant College. Today it is called the American University of Beirut.

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Shoghi Effendi was never really happy at school. But he had a reason to keep studying. Everything he learned, he learned for one purpose: to be able to serve his grandfather, to interpret for Him, and to translate His letters into English. In the holidays he went home to Haifa to be near 'Abdu'l-Bahá as often as he could.

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Even as a schoolboy, he followed the Master's work closely. When 'Abdu'l-Bahá travelled across America, Shoghi Effendi asked for every copy of the Bahá'í magazine *Star of the West* that told about the journey. He drew a map of the United States and asked for the list of cities his grandfather had visited, so that he could mark each one on it. He took part in the meetings of the Bahá'í students at his college. In his notebooks he wrote down the Bahá'í calendar, copies of Tablets, and careful lists, even of the days ice was delivered to his house.

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He was a good student, and one year he won first prize in a contest for first- and second-year students. But he never said he had been a brilliant student.

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In a letter to his grandfather he wrote that he was doing his utmost "to acquire that which will benefit and prepare me to serve the Cause in the days to come."

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In 1918 he finished his studies and went home to Haifa, where he worked at 'Abdu'l-Bahá's side, writing down and translating His letters.

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Years later Shoghi Effendi learned something he had not known as a boy. When he was only about nine or ten years old, 'Abdu'l-Bahá had written in one of His Wills that Shoghi Effendi would be the Guardian of the Faith. No one knew this until after 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away, when His Will and Testament was read.

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*This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see ["Shoghi Effendi's School Years in Beirut"](/stories/pp-shoghi-at-school-in-beirut).*

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