Táhirih Speaks Up

A retelling for children, based on The Chosen Highway by Lady Blomfield (George Ronald), drawing on 'Abdu'l-Bahá's own childhood memories. The words in quotation marks are Táhirih's own, as the account records them.

Long ago there lived a woman named Táhirih, and she was remarkable. She was a poet whose words could fill a room, and a scholar so wise that even the most learned men could not out-argue her. She was the only woman among the Báb's very first followers, and she was brave all the way to the end of her life.

One day, in a house in Baghdád, Táhirih sat in a parlor with a little boy on her knee. The boy was named 'Abbás — and one day he would be known to the whole world as 'Abdu'l-Bahá. He never forgot her kind, shining face and the music of her voice.

In the next room, behind a curtain, some learned men were having a long discussion with Bahá'u'lláh — going back and forth, quoting this and debating that, the way scholars love to do.

Táhirih could hear them. And she could not stay quiet. She lifted her voice so it carried right through the curtain, and cut through all the back-and-forth with one bright, brave sentence:

It is the time for deeds!

This was not the moment for endless arguing, she was saying. The Promised One had come! What the world needed now was not more talk, but courage — people willing to stand up and do something about what they believed.

That was Táhirih. She teaches us that being clever is good, but being brave is better — and that there comes a time when we have to stop just talking about doing the right thing, and actually do it.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "The Time for Deeds".

Blomfield, L.. (1940). *The Chosen Highway*. George Ronald. https://bahai-library.com/blomfield_chosen_highway