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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."
45 stories on this theme.
In *The Chosen Highway* Lady Blomfield records the recollection of how, in the late 1830s, the young Ásíyih Khánum — daughter of a Persian noble and rare beauty of her age — was married to the young Mírzá Ḥusayn-ʿAlí, and how the household of Núr received its new bride with quiet ceremony.
In *The Chosen Highway* Lady Blomfield gives a quiet description, written from her 1922 pilgrimage to Haifa, of the Greatest Holy Leaf in old age — a small bent figure in white, whose eyes, Lady Blomfield writes, were *charged with memories* of a Cause she had carried since the age of six.
In *The Chosen Highway* the Greatest Holy Leaf recounts the bitter winter journey, in early 1853, by which the family was exiled from Tihrán to Baghdád — three months on horseback through deep snow, the children weeping with cold, and the small graves of those who did not survive the road.
In *The Chosen Highway* Bahíyyih Khánum recounts the night in August 1852 when soldiers of the Sháh seized her father in the village of Lavásán and carried Him to the Síyáh-Chál — and the long vigil her mother kept in their plundered house with the children clinging to her skirts.
In *The Chosen Highway* Lady Blomfield describes a pilgrim's stay in the small house in 'Akká where Bahá'u'lláh and His family had lived for twelve years — thirteen people sometimes sleeping in a single room — and a Western visitor's testimony that the chamber once occupied by Ásíyih Khánum was filled, even decades later, with a benign atmosphere that could be felt at night.
A young noblewoman of Tihrán, so lovely she was called the Daughter of the Beautiful, was married long ago — and the gift she gave that mattered most was not her jewels, but her own faithful heart.
A visitor came to a quiet house in Haifa and met a small, gentle woman in a white veil whose eyes seemed to hold a whole lifetime of memories.
One winter long ago, a family had to leave their home and travel for three months through deep snow — and a little girl never forgot how brave they all had to be.
On a frightening night, soldiers came and took away the children's father — and their brave mother gathered them close and would not let them be afraid.
A visitor slept one night in a tiny old room in 'Akká, and woke up sure that the love of the family who once lived there was still in the air.
Bahíyyih Khánum, the Greatest Holy Leaf, was a small child when soldiers seized her Father and stripped her home. From that day she shared every exile and every imprisonment of the Holy Family, set aside the ordinary hopes of a woman of her time, and gave her whole long life to service. Lady Blomfield's *The Chosen Highway* preserves the memory of that quiet, unbroken renunciation.
On Friday the 25th of November 1921, 'Abdu'l-Bahá attended the noon prayer, gave alms to the poor, and that afternoon received the notables of Haifa. Two nights later, surrounded by His family, He spoke His last quiet words and passed peacefully in the small hours of the 28th of November.
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed in 1921, His grandson and appointed successor, Shoghi Effendi, was a grief-stricken young man not yet able to take up his burden. In that hour the Greatest Holy Leaf, Bahíyyih Khánum — who had served the Cause since she was a child of six — steadied the whole community and held its affairs in her hands.
Bahá'u'lláh bestowed upon His eldest Son a constellation of titles unique in religious history — the Most Great Branch, the Master, and, most mysterious of all, Sirru'lláh, the Mystery of God. Shoghi Effendi unfolds what these names mean, and how the One on whom they were conferred chose, in the end, to be known by a single humble name of His own.
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed in Haifa in 1921, some ten thousand people — Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Druze; the High Commissioner and the poor of the lanes alike — climbed the slopes of Mount Carmel behind His coffin, and nine speakers of three faiths rose in turn to mourn Him. The majesty of that day was not borrowed from any office He held, for He held none; it was the grandeur a life of pure love had quietly built.
The Power that had banished Bahá'u'lláh to the worst prison in its empire could not keep Him there. In His last years the walls of 'Akká opened, and the once reviled Prisoner lived out His days in a mansion at Bahjí, honoured by pilgrims and notables alike — having shown, His family recalled, how to glorify God in abasement and how to glorify Him again in honour.
In the late 1830s, the young Bahá'u'lláh married Ásíyih Khánum, a noblewoman of rare beauty and gentleness whom He would name Navváb. The Chosen Highway preserves her daughter's loving portrait of her, and the story of how the open-handed generosity of the young couple was already known to the poor of Tihrán long before the days of exile.
When Bahá'u'lláh entered the Garden of Riḍván on 22 April 1863, His family could not follow Him at once: the Tigris had risen in flood and made the crossing impassable. Only on the ninth day, when the waters fell, did the Holy Family cross the boat-bridge to join Him — which is why the ninth day of Riḍván is itself a holy day.
When Bahá'u'lláh crossed the Tigris into the Garden of Riḍván on that April afternoon in 1863, His eldest Son crossed with Him — 'Abdu'l-Bahá, then a young Man of eighteen, who had already given the whole devotion of His life to His Father, and who in the Garden stood at the threshold of the Cause He would one day be appointed to lead.
When a commission of the Ottoman government arrived in 'Akká empowered to recommend His exile or execution, 'Abdu'l-Bahá met the threat without a trace of fear. He declared His readiness to submit to any sentence they chose, refused a consul's offer of escape, and went on planting trees and presiding at a wedding feast — until the empire that menaced Him collapsed and He was set free.
The recollections of the Holy Family, preserved in The Chosen Highway, tell of Mírzá Mihdí — the gentle younger brother of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, known as the Purest Branch — who fell through a skylight while pacing the prison roof of 'Akká wrapped in prayer. Mortally hurt and offered by his Father whatever he might wish, he asked not to be healed but that his death be accepted as a ransom, so that the pilgrims barred from Bahá'u'lláh's presence might one day attain it.
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá was still a small boy, He was taken to His father's country estate in Mázindarán, where the shepherds of a great flock came to honour Him. Told that a landlord's son should leave the shepherds a gift, and having nothing of His own to give, the child gave them the sheep themselves — every one. Bahá'u'lláh, hearing of it, laughed and said a guardian would have to be appointed to protect the boy from his own generosity.
When pilgrims from the West reached 'Abdu'l-Bahá in the prison-city of 'Akká, they found themselves seated at His table beside believers of other nations, races, and stations — and were told plainly why. At this table, the Master said, we are joined in spiritual relationship; we are all of one family. It was the oneness of humankind, made visible over a shared meal.
Through the long years in 'Akká, 'Abdu'l-Bahá was surrounded not only by friends but by enemies — men who slandered Him, plotted against Him, and even schemed for His death. The recollections preserved in The Chosen Highway show how He answered them: with unfailing courtesy, with help sent quietly to their households, and with kindness returned for every injury — the perfection of a character that would not let another's evil change its own goodness.
Mírzá Muḥammad-Qulí, a loyal younger brother of Bahá'u'lláh, spent his whole life within the shelter of the Blessed Beauty — and shared every stage of His exile from Persia to the prison-fortress of 'Akká. In 'Abdu'l-Bahá's own reminiscence, he accepted all that came his way — comfort and torment, hardship and respite, sickness and health — in one and the same spirit, returning thanks with a free heart and a face that shone like the sun.
For forty years 'Abdu'l-Bahá was a prisoner of the Ottoman state, and through every threat of exile to the deserts of North Africa and every renewed tightening of His confinement He remained serene, accepting each turn as the will of God. When in 1908 the gates of 'Akká at last swung open and He walked free, He met the long-awaited liberation with the very same tranquillity He had shown in captivity.
Bahíyyih Khánum, the Greatest Holy Leaf, shared every exile, imprisonment, and bereavement that fell upon the Holy Family across nearly eighty years — the loss of her childhood home, the death of her little brother in the prison of 'Akká, the passing of her Father and then of her beloved Brother. Through all of it she remained, in the testimony of those who knew her, the very emblem of radiant submission to the will of God.
Ásíyih Khánum — the lady Bahá'u'lláh named Navváb — was born to wealth and rank, a Persian noblewoman of such beauty she was called the Daughter of the Beautiful. When the storms of persecution stripped her household of everything, she let it all go without complaint and embraced a lifetime of poverty, exile, and loss at her Husband's side, accepting each stage of the descent as the will of God.
Through the long years of His confinement in the prison-city of 'Akká, 'Abdu'l-Bahá made the care of the poor and the sick His own daily work — a Friday almsgiving at the gate, a warm garment each winter for every one of the city's poor, and morning rounds to the bedsides of the feeble, the forgotten, and the dying.
When Bahá'u'lláh entered the Garden of Riḍván outside Baghdád in April 1863, His daughter Bahíyyih Khánum — the Greatest Holy Leaf, then a girl in her teens — remained behind with the household, kept on the far bank by the flooding Tigris. On the ninth day the waters fell and she crossed at last to rejoin her Father in the Garden of Paradise.
Among the household of Bahá'u'lláh in the Riḍván days of 1863 was His younger son Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, then a gentle boy. The recollections preserved in The Chosen Highway let us picture him among the family on the near bank of the Tigris, waiting through the flood, and crossing on the ninth day to be gathered with his Father in the Garden of Paradise.
Why was the Holy Family's crossing to the Garden of Riḍván delayed until the ninth day? Drawing on Esslemont's Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era, this retelling follows the swollen Tigris of the spring of 1863 — the river in flood, the bridge of boats made impassable — and the morning the waters fell at last and let the household cross into the Garden of Paradise.
When Bahá'u'lláh crossed the Tigris on the afternoon of 22 April 1863 to enter the Garden of Riḍván, the river ran so high that His wife and household could not follow Him. For nine days they waited on the far bank; then, on the Ninth Day, they crossed at last and were reunited with Him among the roses. The Ninth Day of Riḍván commemorates that homecoming of the Holy Family.
When Bahá'u'lláh crossed the Tigris to enter the Garden of Riḍván in April 1863 and declared His mission, the eldest of the sons at His side was 'Abdu'l-Bahá, then a youth of eighteen. He had grown up in the shadow of His Father's exile and had already, as a child, recognized His station. The Ninth Day of Riḍván, when the rest of the family joined them in the Garden, gathers the whole household around that declaration.
Ásíyih Khánum — the noble lady Bahá'u'lláh named Navváb — had shared with Him the loss of their home, the winter exile from Persia, and ten years in Baghdád. When He entered the Garden of Riḍván in 1863 the flooded Tigris kept her on the far bank; on the Ninth Day she crossed at last to join Him. The Ninth Day of Riḍván honours that reunion of the wife and mother of the Holy Family with the One whose every exile she had shared.
The family that joined Bahá'u'lláh in the Garden of Riḍván on the Ninth Day was no ordinary household. They had shared His imprisonment in the Síyáh-Chál, the plundering of their home, banishment from Persia, and ten years of exile in Baghdád. Esslemont's account of those sufferings sets in relief the joy of their reunion in the Garden — and explains why the Faith keeps that reunion as a holy day.
Each morning of the twelve days of Riḍván, the gardener heaped fresh roses in Bahá'u'lláh's tent until those seated on one side could not see those on the other; and from that abundance He sent roses, by His companions' hands, to the friends across the river. The image speaks to the heart of the Ninth Day, when the swollen Tigris was crossed and His own family was at last gathered to Him in the Garden.
For nearly sixty years the remains of the martyred Báb were carried in secret from hiding place to hiding place, guarded through every danger. On the morning of Naw-Rúz 1909, after a labour of ten years to build the tomb, 'Abdu'l-Bahá with His own hands laid them to rest in the spot on Mount Carmel that Bahá'u'lláh Himself had chosen — and wept upon the sarcophagus.
An official set over the prisoners of 'Akká repaid 'Abdu'l-Bahá's every kindness with slander, fresh restrictions, and harassment. Yet when the man demanded the Master's coat, 'Abdu'l-Bahá gave him the only one He owned — and promised to buy him a better — forgiving all the wrong done to Himself even as it was being done.
In the prison-city of 'Akká, where disease festered in the damp and the poor died unattended, 'Abdu'l-Bahá made the care of the sick His personal calling. He brought physicians to the bedsides of the destitute, paid for their medicines, sat with the dying, and ministered to the bodies and spirits of the people the city had abandoned — winning, by mercy alone, the love of an entire town.
Through exile, imprisonment, famine, and bereavement, Bahíyyih Khánum — the Greatest Holy Leaf, daughter of Bahá'u'lláh — made herself the tender refuge of everyone around her: nursing the sick, consoling the grieving, sharing what little the household had with the poor, and binding up the sorrows of a whole community with a mercy that asked nothing for itself.
The recollections gathered in The Chosen Highway preserve a way of living that astonished every visitor to 'Abdu'l-Bahá's household: He treated servants as honoured family, received the poorest as cherished guests, and accepted no deference for Himself. To the people the world overlooked, He gave the one thing they were never given — dignity. It is a portrait of honour not claimed but bestowed.
In *Stories of Bahá'u'lláh* Mr. Furutan preserves the household recollection of the small house in Baghdád where Bahá'u'lláh lived in the 1850s — and the standing instruction He had given the family that no one who came to the door, of any creed or condition, was ever to be sent away without food.
Among the household recollections Mr. Furutan preserves in *Stories of Bahá'u'lláh* is the simple memory of how Bahá'u'lláh, in His own house, would set aside His writing to receive the children — would ask after their small concerns, would laugh at their jokes, and would send them away with blessings they remembered to the end of their lives.
In *Stories of Bahá'u'lláh* Mr. Furutan preserves the household memory of how Bahá'u'lláh, during the years in Bahjí, would step out into the small garden each afternoon with a handful of grain in His hand for the wild pigeons of the plain — and the gentleness of a creature who, in His own words, *did not wish to disappoint* the birds.