Memorial of Ḥájí Mírzá Ḥaydar-'Alí (the Angel of Carmel)

Among the most beloved figures in *Memorials of the Faithful* is Ḥájí Mírzá Ḥaydar-'Alí, the great teacher of Iṣfáhán whose life encompassed the entire arc of Bahá'u'lláh's exile, the ministry of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and a portion of the early years of the Faith's expansion into Africa.

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Ḥájí Mírzá Ḥaydar-'Alí was born in Iṣfáhán to a family of modest means. He recognised the Cause in his early youth and became, in the decades that followed, one of its most untiring teachers in the Persian provinces. His preaching was not the preaching of contention. It was the patient, warm, story-laden exposition that drew the listener into the world of the Cause through love rather than argument. The Master records that *in whatever land he was, he was the joy of the believers and the light of the gathering.*

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His life was punctuated by long periods of imprisonment and exile. His most famous trial was the Sudanese period. In the later years of the nineteenth century the Persian government, acting in concert with the Ottoman authorities, ordered his deportation to the remote southern provinces of the Ottoman empire. He was sent to Khartoum, in the central Sudan, where he remained in exile for some nine years.

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The Sudanese period — which the Master treats at length — was, by ordinary measure, a sentence to be borne. Ḥájí Mírzá Ḥaydar-'Alí transformed it into a teaching mission. He learned the local conditions, established small contacts among the merchant community, and began the patient work of introducing the Bahá'í teachings into the Sudanese cities. The small Bahá'í community of Khartoum, which by the mid twentieth century would be the cradle of an established Sudanese Faith, traces its origins to the imprisoned teacher of those years.

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After his eventual release, Ḥájí Mírzá Ḥaydar-'Alí made his way to 'Akká and entered the presence of Bahá'u'lláh. The years of suffering had not embittered him. The Master records that he came into the presence *with the same smiling face with which he had set out on the road of exile* many years before.

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After Bahá'u'lláh's ascension, Ḥájí Mírzá Ḥaydar-'Alí remained in the Holy Land in the service of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. He divided his last years between 'Akká and the slope of Mount Carmel, where the Master gave him quarters near the rising shrine of the Báb. It was during this period that 'Abdu'l-Bahá conferred on him the title *the Angel of Carmel.*

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He died, full of years, in Haifa. The Master records the passing as a *gentle ascent* befitting the long quiet life of service that had preceded it. *His was a soul that had passed through the fires of trial and emerged as gold.*

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The grave of Ḥájí Mírzá Ḥaydar-'Alí, in the early Bahá'í cemetery at the foot of Mount Carmel, is among the small sites visited by Bahá'í pilgrims.

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