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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
42 stories on this theme.
Áqá Muḥammad of Iṣfahán served the King of Martyrs and the Beloved of Martyrs for years, then emigrated to ‘Akká, where he swept the ground about Bahá’u’lláh’s house and, after His passing, wept and prayed there each dawn.
This servant, after that grievous event and great calamity, the ascension of His Holiness ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to the Abhá Kingdom …
This dire calamity, this great affliction, the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, may our lives be sacrificed for His meekness, has shaken us to the very depths.
Although that supreme calamity, that great ordeal, the ascension of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, put the torch to the harvest of our hearts, and brought down both our outer and inner beings, wedding us to grief and ceaseless pain, yet praised be God …
O God, my God! Thou seest me immersed in the depths of grief, drowned in my sorrow, my heart on fire with the agony of parting, my inmost self aflame with longing.
The ascension of Him Who was the Temple of the Covenant, the setting of Him Who was the Orb of harmony, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, may our lives be sacrificed for the wrongs He suffered, was the most dire calamity, and the most dread of ordeals.
That supreme affliction, the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, was the direst of ordeals; it was an anguish of mourning.
It is clear how that most dire of calamities, that most great disaster which was the ascension of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, may our souls be sacrificed for His meekness, has set our hearts on fire and dissolved our very limbs and members in grief.
The deep heart’s love and the longing of the soul of this wronged one for those spiritual beloved ones, and in particular for those who are kin to the peerless Holy Tree of sanctity and oneness, cannot be told in words …
A physician treats every illness with a certain remedy and to every painful sore he applies a specially prepared compound.
The letter that you wrote in your burning grief, on the passing of the world’s Beloved, the Orb of the Covenant—wrote with weeping eyes and a heart afire, has come.
Although the ascension of the beloved Centre of the Covenant was the ultimate calamity, the severest of ordeals, and the fire of that bereavement consumed our hearts and souls …
All praise be unto the Court of Holiness, that God has drawn certain blessed souls, entities delicate and pure, unto a realm where they have no desire save the good-pleasure of the Beloved; where …
It was sometime ago that I received your kind and encouraging letter through your honourable secretary.
82 ...The news of the Memorial Service you had held for the Greatest Holy Leaf gave him the assurance that the friends are faithfully sharing his grief and are demonstrating in a befitting manner their profound devotion to one whose…
Thus simply and serenely did Bahá’u’lláh pass the evening of His life on earth until, after an attack of fever, He passed away on the 29th of May, 1892, at the age of seventy-five.
In the last months of His life ‘Abdu’l-Bahá told of two dreams: in one He raised the call to prayer before a vast multitude and went out; in the other Bahá’u’lláh told Him, “Destroy this room.”
'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away in Haifa on 28 November 1921. At His funeral some ten thousand people of every religion and race followed His coffin up Mount Carmel to the Shrine of the Báb, where He was laid to rest.
'Abdu'l-Bahá tells how Nabíl-i-Zarandí, who had spent his life in the service of Bahá'u'lláh, was overwhelmed with grief when Bahá'u'lláh passed away in 1892, and could not bear to live on without Him.
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away in Haifa, about ten thousand people of every religion and race followed His coffin up Mount Carmel to the Shrine of the Báb.
Nabíl followed Bahá'u'lláh from 'Iráq to 'Akká, teaching His Cause wherever he went. When Bahá'u'lláh passed away in 1892, Nabíl's grief was more than he could bear.
In 1921 Shoghi Effendi, a student in England, walked into an office in London and read a cable on the desk telling of the passing of his grandfather, 'Abdu'l-Bahá.
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away in Haifa in November 1921, messages of sympathy came from Winston Churchill, Viscount Allenby and the ministers of 'Iráq, and the High Commissioner for Palestine walked in His funeral procession among ten thousand mourners.
In 1909 'Abdu'l-Bahá laid the remains of the Báb in the Shrine He had built on Mount Carmel. Twelve years later, after His own funeral, His coffin was lowered into a vault beside that of the Báb in the same Shrine.
After the Great War lifted the danger to His life, 'Abdu'l-Bahá spent His last three years receiving pilgrims, revealing Tablets and helping the poor, until He passed away in November 1921.
Dr J. E. Esslemont, who had been 'Abdu'l-Bahá's guest in Haifa, describes His peaceful passing and a funeral attended by about ten thousand people of many faiths, which he saw as proof that His life's work had not been in vain.
In November 1921 the Bahá'ís of Springfield, Massachusetts, cabled 'Abdu'l-Bahá for approval of a second race amity convention. He answered, "Approved; God confirms." The convention met on 5 and 6 December, a week after His passing.
On the Friday before His passing in November 1921, 'Abdu'l-Bahá went to the noonday prayer and afterward, despite great fatigue, gave alms to the poor of Haifa as was His custom.
About two months before His passing, 'Abdu'l-Bahá told His family of a dream in which He raised the call to prayer in a great mosque. Weeks later He dreamed that Bahá'u'lláh came and said to Him, "Destroy this room."
On Friday, 25 November 1921, 'Abdu'l-Bahá went to the noon prayer and gave alms to the poor. On Sunday, unable to leave the house, He received the Muftí and the Mayor of Haifa, and early on Monday He passed away.
After 'Abdu'l-Bahá's passing, Shoghi Effendi, stricken with grief, left the Holy Land for a time and placed the affairs of the Faith under the headship of the Greatest Holy Leaf, Bahíyyih Khánum, who administered them in consultation with the Holy Family.
'Abdu'l-Bahá's Will and Testament, written entirely in His own hand in three parts, was read aloud in January 1922. It named Shoghi Effendi the Guardian of the Cause of God and provided for the Universal House of Justice.
After Bahá'u'lláh's ascension, 'Abdu'l-Bahá asked the chronicler Nabíl to select passages from Bahá'u'lláh's Writings to form the Tablet of Visitation, the text now recited in the Shrines of Bahá'u'lláh and the Báb.
'Údí Khammár built the Mansion of Bahjí for his own family. After an epidemic, 'Abdu'l-Bahá rented it for Bahá'u'lláh, who lived there from 1879 until His ascension in 1892.
Túbá Khánum, a daughter of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, remembers Bahá'u'lláh's last illness at Bahjí, His farewell to the family, and the nine days of mourning in which the Master received more than five hundred guests and gave to the poor.
J. E. Esslemont tells how 'Abdu'l-Bahá arranged for Bahá'u'lláh to leave the prison-city of 'Akká for the countryside, how He lived simply at Bahjí, and how He passed away there on 29 May 1892.
Six days before His ascension in May 1892, Bahá'u'lláh called the believers and pilgrims at the Mansion of Bahjí to His bedside, thanked them for their services, and prayed that God would assist them to remain united.
Bahá'u'lláh wrote His Will and Testament, the Kitáb-i-'Ahd, in His own hand and entrusted it to 'Abdu'l-Bahá during His last illness. Opened nine days after His ascension, it directed His family and followers to turn to the Most Mighty Branch.
Bahá'u'lláh ascended at Bahjí at dawn on 29 May 1892. A telegram beginning "the Sun of Bahá has set" carried the news to the Sultan, and for a week mourners of many faiths gathered at Bahjí to grieve with His family.
In the last year of His life, Bahá'u'lláh addressed His last outstanding Tablet to a cleric of Iṣfahán whose father had condemned two beloved believers. He called him to repent and quoted many passages from His own earlier Writings.
On the Tuesday after 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away in Haifa in November 1921, no fewer than ten thousand people of every religion and race followed His coffin up Mount Carmel, where nine speakers of the Muslim, Jewish and Christian Faiths gave funeral orations.
On 29 November 1921 Shoghi Effendi, a student at Oxford, learned of the passing of 'Abdu'l-Bahá by reading the cable that lay open on a desk in Wellesley Tudor Pole's London office.