The Builder Who Gave His All: Ustád Ismá'íl

A retelling drawn from 'Abdu'l-Bahá's tribute in Memorials of the Faithful. Short phrases in quotation marks are words preserved by the Master in that book.

The Báb foretold that in the Day of God "the abased shall be exalted and the exalted shall be abased" — that the world's measure of honour would be turned clean over. The life of Ustád Ismá'íl, the builder, whom 'Abdu'l-Bahá honoured in His Memorials of the Faithful, is that prophecy made flesh: a man who descended, by every outward sign, from prosperity to destitution, and rose, by every inward sign, into a peace and honour that nothing could touch.

Ustád Ismá'íl began at the top of his trade. He was the construction overseer for a great noble of Ṭihrán, "living happily and prosperously, a man of high standing, well regarded by all." He had position, security, and the respect of the city. Then he heard of the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh and "lost his heart to the Faith" — so wholly that "his holy passion consumed every intervening veil." He cast caution to the winds and became known throughout Ṭihrán as a pillar of the believers.

His noble patron protected him as long as he could, but at last warned him that the bloodthirsty Sháh had learned of him and would surely have him hanged, and that his only safety lay in flight. So Ustád Ismá'íl, "composed, happy," simply "gave up his work, closed his eyes to his possessions," and left Persia for 'Iráq, where he lived in poverty. He had lost his livelihood and his wealth at a stroke, and he did not look back.

Worse was to come. He had recently married, and loved his bride dearly. By a cruel deception her mother obtained his leave to take the young woman back to Ṭihrán for a visit — and there, on the pretext that he had abandoned his religion, had the marriage dissolved and his wife wedded to another man. When the news reached Ustád Ismá'íl in Baghdád, the Master records, this man who had now lost work, wealth, and bride alike did not weep. He laughed. "God be praised!" he said. "Nothing is left me on this pathway. I have lost everything, including my bride. I have been able to give Him all I possessed."

When Bahá'u'lláh was exiled onward and the believers of Baghdád were driven out as captives, Ustád Ismá'íl — by now old and feeble, "with no provisions for his journey" — set out once more on foot, "crossed over mountains and deserts, valleys and hills," and at length reached the prison of 'Akká. There he attained the presence of his Lord, and was then directed to Haifa to find a lodging. But in Haifa he "found no haven there, no nest or hole, no water, no grain of corn."

So this once-prosperous master builder of Ṭihrán made his home in a cave outside the town. He acquired a little tray, and on it he set out rings of earthenware, some thimbles and pins and small trinkets, and every day from morning till noon he wandered about peddling them. His earnings came to twenty or thirty paras a day, forty on his best days; then he would return to his cave and be content with a piece of bread.

By the world's accounting, here was a man utterly ruined — fallen from honour and plenty to a hole in the rock and a peddler's tray. But hear how Ustád Ismá'íl himself reckoned it. He was, the Master writes, "always voicing his thanks," forever saying: "Praise be to God that I have attained such favor and grace; that I have been separated from friend and stranger alike, and have taken refuge in this cave. Now I am of those who gave their all, to buy the Divine Joseph in the market place. What bounty could be any greater than this!"

He died in that condition — in poverty, in his cave, and in joy. And the seal set upon his life was this, in the Master's words: "Many and many a time, Bahá'u'lláh was heard to express His satisfaction with Ustád Ismá'íl. Blessings hemmed him round, and the eye of God was on him."

The Feast of Sharaf is the Feast of Honour. Ustád Ismá'íl lost every honour the world can give — rank, wealth, home, even love — and found, in a cave on the slope of Carmel, an honour the world can neither give nor take away: the good pleasure of his Lord. He had given his all, and considered himself, in that giving, the richest of men. In him the prophecy came true. The abased was exalted.

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/