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.*

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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.

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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."

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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.

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

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> "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!"

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

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

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*This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see ["The Time for Deeds"](/stories/ch-the-time-for-deeds).*

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