Ṭáhirih 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 recorded in the book.

Ṭáhirih was a poet and a scholar, and one of the very first followers of the Báb. She was the only woman among the eighteen disciples He called the Letters of the Living.

Once she came to stay for a short time at the house of Bahá'u'lláh's family in Tihrán. Bahá'u'lláh's son 'Abbás was a little boy then. Ṭáhirih often took Him on her knee and talked with Him. When He grew up He was known as 'Abdu'l-Bahá. Many years later He said of her, "I admired her most deeply."

One day Ṭáhirih was sitting with the boy on her knee in His mother's room. The door was open, with a curtain hanging over it. From the other side of the curtain they could hear a learned man, Siyyid Yaḥyá, asking Bahá'u'lláh many questions and arguing with Him. Siyyid Yaḥyá had already met the Báb and believed in Him.

Ṭáhirih spoke up so that he could hear her through the curtain:

"O Siyyid, this is not the time for arguments, for discussions, for idle repetitions of prophecies or traditions! It is the time for deeds! The day for words has passed!"

She told him that if he had courage, now was the time to show it, by telling everyone that the Promised One had come.

'Abdu'l-Bahá remembered that moment very clearly, and the eager look on her "lovely, radiant face" as she spoke.

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