First to Rise for Morning Prayers

Kindness lies at the heart of loving discipline. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá dearly loved His little grandson, Shoghi, but he needed to learn to be on time.

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In those days of Shoghi Effendi’s childhood, Rúḥíyyih Khánum writes, “it was the custom to rise about dawn and spend the first hour of the day in the Master’s room, where prayers were said and the family all had breakfast with Him. The children sat on the floor, their legs folded under them, they would chant for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá; there was no shouting or unseemly conduct. Breakfast consisted of tea, brewed on the bubbling Russian brass samovar and served in little crystal glasses, very hot and very sweet, pure wheat bread and goat’s milk cheese.”

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Shoghi learned to be on time very early in his life, as Dr Zia Baghdadi, an intimate of the family, recalled, “after receiving one good chastisement from no other hand than that of his grandfather!” He then became the first to get up for the family prayers and breakfast.

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*Sources: Honnold, Annamarie, Vignettes from the Life of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, no. 9, “Getting up in the morning”, p. 47; Rúḥíyyih Rabbani, The Priceless Pearl, p. 8*

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