A Tie Far Deeper: Young Shoghi Approaches the Master
Rúḥíyyih Khánum, The Priceless Pearl, (1969), Bahá'í Publishing Trust
When in Bahá'í history
'Akká (today: 'Akká, Israel)
In the household at ‘Akká, Rúḥíyyih Khánum recounts in The Priceless Pearl, an ordinary morning would sometimes carry the shape of something larger than itself. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá would be at His writing. He would look up, smile, ask a daughter — Ḍíyá’íyyih Khánum perhaps — to chant a prayer.
On one such morning a small figure appeared in the open doorway opposite Him: a beautiful boy, with his cameo face and his soulful, appealing, dark eyes, his shoes already left at the threshold. The child stepped barefoot into the room, his eyes fixed on the Master’s face.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá returned the gaze with what Rúḥíyyih Khánum describes as a look of loving welcome. But — and this is the moment her account holds carefully — He did not rise to embrace the boy. He sat perfectly still. He nodded His head, slowly, two or three times, in a way the household understood meant something it could not put into words.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum reads the gesture as a quiet declaration:
This tie connecting us is not just that of a physical grandfather but something far deeper and more significant.
The little boy walked the length of the room, slowly, toward the divan where the Master sat. The household was already, perhaps without knowing it, watching the early shaping of the future Guardian of the Cause of God. The bond was not yet announced. It was only expressed in a nod, a long mutual look, the silence of a room that already held both the past and the future of the Faith in the same gaze.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum’s biography is full of such small images. They add up, across the volume, to a portrait of a child being prepared, quietly and without fanfare, for an office that would not be revealed to him for many years.
Paraphrased from The Priceless Pearl (Rúḥíyyih Khánum, Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1969); see original for full text.
Cite this story
Khánum, R.. (1969). *The Priceless Pearl*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust.
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