The Knighthood: 'Abdu'l-Bahá Honoured by the British Crown

In the spring 1920 issue of the *Star of the West* the American Bahá'í readership received the news that 'Abdu'l-Bahá had been formally invested by the British Government as a Knight of the British Empire. The investiture had taken place earlier in the year at the British Mandate headquarters in the Holy Land, with full ceremonial attended by the senior British authorities of the post-Ottoman administration.

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The honour had been conferred not for any political contribution but for the practical humanitarian service the Master had rendered to the population of Haifa and the surrounding districts during the food crisis of the latter years of the First World War. The Ottoman provisioning of the Palestinian coast had collapsed under the pressure of the war. By 1917 the population of Haifa, including the Bahá'í community and a considerable surrounding non-Bahá'í population, was facing severe food shortage.

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The Master had foreseen the crisis. In the years preceding the war He had quietly arranged, on the agricultural lands of the Bahá'í community in the Jordan Valley near Tiberias, the planting of substantial grain reserves. Through the worst year of the war, those reserves were brought up by caravan and quietly distributed — not only to the Bahá'í community but to the general hungry population of Haifa, without distinction of religion, of social standing, or of ethnic origin. Christians, Muslims, and Jews of the Haifa-'Akká region all received provisions from the Master's quiet provisioning.

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The British military administration, when it took over the Haifa region in 1918, learned of the work. The British military governor, General Allenby's local representative, called personally on the Master and offered, on behalf of the British Crown, to recommend His Holiness for the formal recognition that the Crown reserved for outstanding civilian service.

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The Master, the *Star's* report records, accepted the proposed honour with His characteristic modesty. He explained that the work had been done because it was the work that needed doing; that the credit was God's; but that He would receive the British honour as an acknowledgement, on behalf of the larger Bahá'í community, of the principle that humanitarian service is a recognised duty of the Faith.

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The investiture took place at the British Mandate's ceremonial. The Master attended in His habitual robe and turban. He received the honour quietly, without speech, and returned to the small house in Haifa where He continued, the following day, the same work of the Cause He had been performing the day before.

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The American friends, reading the news in the *Star,* were proud — and instructed. The Master had taught them, by His acceptance of the British honour, that the visible acknowledgement of the Faith's humanitarian service was a part of the Faith's public witness, and was not to be disdained.

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