Mírzá Ḥaydar-'Alí, Angel of the Believers

In Issue 4 of Volume 13 of the *Star of the West,* dated the 17th of May, 1922, the editors reported the talks given at a gathering of the American Bahá'ís. Martha Root spoke on the subject "Apostles of the New Day and Their World Journeys," and among those she remembered was Mírzá Ḥaydar-'Alí, "the revered Bahai teacher," who had died in Haifa in 1920.

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She told how he had gone to Egypt and there been forced to spend long years in prison. She gave the figure as eleven years; Adib Taherzadeh's history records that he was sent to the Sudan as a prisoner and that it was about nine years before he gained his freedom, leaving Khartoum in 1877. During those years Bahá'u'lláh revealed a Tablet to him, and Martha Root read from it:

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> I have heard thy cries and am conscious of thy tears. Remember > in all times and in all places that God is faithful and do not > doubt this. Be patient, even though great calamities come upon > thee. Fear not! Be firm in the path of the Lord, as a mountain > unmoved, unchanging in thy steadfastness.

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Then she said:

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> When a very old man, this heroic character started out to > journey from the Holy Land to Persia without even the equipment > of a donkey.

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"Through faith," she went on, "ways and means were provided for his journey." He returned, and until the end of his life he was called the Angel of the believers. Western Bahá'ís knew him as the Angel of Carmel.

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She ended this part of her talk with the words: "With such heroic lives soon the problems of the world will be solved."

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*A retelling based on the **Star of the West**, Volume 13, Issue 4 (May 17, 1922), address by Martha Root, with dates from Adib Taherzadeh,* The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, *vol. 2. For the fuller account, see the original.*

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