The First Builder of a House to Unify Man

A retelling based on Memorials of the Faithful by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who devotes a chapter to Ḥájí Mírzá Muḥammad-Taqí, the Afnán. Short phrases in quotation marks are the words of 'Abdu'l-Bahá as set down in that book.

Among the believers whom 'Abdu'l-Bahá remembered with particular love was a cousin of the Báb — an "offshoot of the Holy Tree," as the Master called him — named Ḥájí Mírzá Muḥammad-Taqí, the Afnán. He bore the title Vakílu'd-Dawlih. His story, as 'Abdu'l-Bahá tells it in Memorials of the Faithful, is the story of how the first Bahá'í House of Worship in the world came to be built, and of the kind of soul it took to build it.

He had recognized Bahá'u'lláh in an instant. He was, the Master records, among those who "after one reading of the Book of Íqán" became believers, "bewitched by the sweet savors of God." His joy was so great that he cried out, "Lord, Lord, here am I!" and left Persia to hasten to 'Iráq, speeding "over the mountains and across the desert wastes" until he reached Baghdád and attained the presence of Bahá'u'lláh. The friends in 'Iráq, struck by the radiance of his face, gave him a name: they called him "the Afnán of all delights." He was, by every account, an uncommonly happy man. "Whenever I was saddened," 'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote of him, "I would meet with him, and on the instant, joy would return again."

For years he lived in the city of Yazd, outwardly a merchant occupied with commerce, inwardly occupied with one thing only — "to exalt the Word of God." His honesty and his goodness were such that even his enemies bore witness to them, saying there was none to compare with him for trustworthiness and strong faith. Many times Bahá'u'lláh expressed His satisfaction with the Afnán, so that those around Him grew certain "that he would in future initiate some highly important task." They were right.

The task came after the ascension of Bahá'u'lláh. The growing community of Bahá'í exiles and emigrants at 'Ishqábád — a frontier town in Russian Central Asia, beyond the reach of the persecutions that raged in Persia — was uniquely placed to attempt something no Bahá'í community had ever attempted: to build a Mashriqu'l-Adhkár, a House of Worship, a "Dawning-Place of the Praise of God." The Vakílu'd-Dawlih took the work upon himself. "He gave up his comfort, his business, his properties, estates, lands," the Master records, "hastened away to 'Ishqábád and set about building the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár." 'Abdu'l-Bahá weighs the deed with deliberate emphasis: "this was a service of very great magnitude, for he thus became the first individual to erect a Bahá'í House of Worship, the first builder of a House to unify man."

It was not done quickly, nor easily. "For a long period in 'Ishqábád, he had no rest," the account says. "Day and night, he urged the believers on." And the believers responded; they "made sacrifices above and beyond their power," and so, stone upon stone, "God's edifice arose, and word of it spread throughout East and West." The cost to the man himself was very nearly total. "The Afnán expended everything he possessed to rear this building," 'Abdu'l-Bahá writes, "except for a trifling sum." And then He adds the sentence that is the heart of the whole chapter: "This is the way to make a sacrifice. This is what it means to be faithful."

When the work was done, the Vakílu'd-Dawlih did not stay to enjoy the honour of it. He journeyed to the Holy Land, and there, "in the shelter of the Shrine of the Báb," he passed his last days in prayer, "holy and pure, supplicating and entreating the Lord." Close by that Shrine he died, and his loss, the Master confesses, "deeply grieved 'Abdu'l-Bahá."

His monument is not chiefly the marble of his grave in Haifa. It is the nine-sided dome that rose on the steppe of Central Asia and that became, for a generation, the model and the inspiration for every House of Worship the Bahá'í world would afterward raise. The Cause teaches that the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár is to stand at the centre of community life, ringed about by a school, a hospital, a home for the poor — a place where worship and service meet. The first of them all was built by a joyful man who emptied his purse to the last coin so that his fellow believers might have a House to gather in. He showed, once and for all, what it costs to build, and what it means to be faithful.

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see Memorials of the Faithful by 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

'Abdu'l-Bahá. (1915). *Memorials of the Faithful*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/abdul-baha/memorials-faithful/