The Verse at the Shrine

A retelling based on a teaching story 'Abdu'l-Bahá told, as recorded in the 1906 pilgrim notes of Ali-Kuli Khan. Pilgrim notes are a pilgrim's personal record of what was said; they do not carry the authority of the Bahá'í Writings. The narrative below is retold in our own words. Read the original notes for the full account.

'Abdu'l-Bahá once told the story of a man named Ḥájí Muḥammad-Taqí, who lived in Karbilá in the early days of the Faith. He was a man everyone admired — known across the city for his faithfulness, his generosity to the poor, his upright and blameless character. And he had come to believe in the Báb, and longed to join his fellow believers who had gathered to defend their faith at the fort of Shaykh Ṭabarsí.

The Muslim clergy of the city were dismayed. Here was one of the most respected men they knew, about to throw in his lot with what they were certain was a dangerous error. So they reasoned with him, and pressed him, and at last proposed what seemed a safe and pious test: let him go to the Shrine of Ḥusayn, open the Qur'án at random, and accept whatever verse appeared as God's own guidance on the matter. Surely, they thought, the holy Book would turn him back.

He agreed. He went to the shrine and opened the Qur'án. And the verse that met his eyes was this: Whoever turns aside from My Admonition, verily, he shall lead a miserable life.

The clergy scrambled to explain it away, to read it in some other sense. But Ḥájí Muḥammad-Taqí saw straight through to its meaning. For the Báb had called Himself the Admonition of God — and here was the Book warning, in plain words, against turning aside from exactly that. The test the clergy had devised to stop him had instead confirmed his heart's conviction.

He set out for Persia to join the believers. He was arrested on the way, taken to Tihrán, and there gave his life for the Cause he had recognized.

It is a story about how the very obstacles placed in a seeker's path can become, in God's hands, the confirmations of his faith. The learned men meant the verse to close a door; it opened one instead. And a good man, already rich in virtue, found the one thing his goodness had been reaching toward all along — and held to it, all the way to the end.

This account is retold for the Bahai Story Library; it is a paraphrase of a pilgrim's record, not an authoritative text. See the 1906 pilgrim notes of Ali-Kuli Khan for the original.

Khan, A.. (1906). *Pilgrim Notes of Ali-Kuli Khan (1906)*. Bahá'í Library Online. https://bahai-library.com/ali-khan_pilgrim-notes_1906