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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."
35 stories on this theme.
Regarding the “two wings” of the soul: These signify wings of ascent.
In man five outer powers exist, which are the agents of perception, that is to say, through these five powers man perceives material beings.
...By materialists, whose belief with regard to Divinity hath been explained, is not meant philosophers in general, but rather that group of materialists of narrow vision that worship that which is sensed, that depend upon the five…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá remembers Mírzá Ḥasan, the great Afnán, a learned kinsman of the Báb who settled near Bahjí, studied the stars by night, and did not long survive the passing of Bahá’u’lláh.
Training in arts, sciences, crafts and useful professions is regarded as important and necessary.
In Káshán the learned Siyyid ‘Abdu’l-Báqí heard the Báb revealing verses yet was unmoved and never asked who He was; when he learned days later, the Báb had gone, and he lived out his days in seclusion.
As a child of five or six on a visit to Beirut, Shoghi Effendi watched Dr. Baghdadi dissect a wildcat and afterwards repeated the main points of the lesson word for word.
As a youth visiting Núr, Bahá'u'lláh explained a question that a famous mujtahid's two hundred students could not answer. The mujtahid then told his students of two dreams he had had about Him.
The divines gathered at Káẓimayn sent an envoy to Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdád to ask for a miracle. He agreed, on condition that they choose one miracle together and put their promise in writing. They let the matter drop.
Tahirih taught the Bab's Faith openly in Karbila until guards were set on her house. In Baghdad she silenced a delegation of Shi'ih, Sunni, Christian and Jewish leaders, and was lodged in the Mufti's house, where she defended her faith.
Mírzá Aḥmad-i-Azghandí gathered more than twelve thousand traditions into a book for the Cause of the Báb. In Yazd a hostile cleric borrowed it and threw it into a pond, and Mírzá Aḥmad talked his angry uncle out of revenge.
In London in 1911 'Abdu'l-Bahá told a society's representative that knowledge must be put into practice, and told of a learned man who said he understood the Bahá'í teachings but flared in anger at a single question.
Visiting Haifa at thirteen in 1919, Margaret (Bahíyyih) Randall was told by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá that her name means light, but that there is no light without something within. Asked how she could serve, He answered, “Study. Study. Study.”
Mírzá Ḥasan, a relative of the Báb, was a merchant and scholar who came to love Bahá'u'lláh deeply. He settled near Bahjí to be close to Him, and died soon after Bahá'u'lláh's passing.
Before the Báb declared His mission, Bahá'u'lláh stopped to listen to the celebrated mujtahid of Núr and explained a theory none of his disciples could. Afterwards the mujtahid told his students of two dreams about Bahá'u'lláh.
After Siyyid Káẓim's death, Mullá Ḥusayn refused his fellow disciples' offer to accept him as the promised One, spent forty days in prayer and fasting at the mosque of Kúfih, and set out on the search that led him to the Báb.
When the scholar Nabíl-i-Akbar came on pilgrimage to 'Akká around 1873–74, Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Tablet of Wisdom in his honour. In it He answers Nabíl's question about the origin of creation, speaks of the sages of Greece, and counsels him on how to teach.
In 1920 Shoghi Effendi entered Balliol College, Oxford, to perfect his English so that he could better translate the Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. The Master's passing in November 1921 cut his studies short.
A Paris lawyer who heard of the Faith in 1901 became the first French Bahá'í. He left the law to study Persian and Arabic, translated the Writings into French, travelled widely for the Faith and served 'Abdu'l-Bahá in Paris.
Shaykh Aḥmad-i-Aḥsá'í gave his life to preparing people for the coming of the Promised One and chose Siyyid Káẓim-i-Rashtí to carry on his work. Before he died, Siyyid Káẓim urged his disciples to scatter far and wide in search of Him.
During her long visits to 'Akká between 1904 and 1906, Laura Clifford Barney put her questions to 'Abdu'l-Bahá at His table. His answers became Some Answered Questions, which includes His talk on the four ways people seek to understand the truth.
A doctor at a Bournemouth sanatorium first met the Bahá'í teachings in December 1914 and set out to write a book about them. 'Abdu'l-Bahá corrected part of the manuscript, and Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era appeared in 1923.
Áqá Muḥammad-i-Qá'iní, the one disciple Shaykh Murtaḍá raised to the rank of mujtahid, met Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdád and became Nabíl-i-Akbar. He spent the rest of his life teaching the Faith, hunted and poor, and died far from home.
Alain Locke, the first Black Rhodes Scholar and a Harvard-trained philosopher, played a major role in the Harlem Renaissance. After becoming a Bahá'í he served for years on the Faith's race amity committees.
In Paris in 1913 'Abdu'l-Bahá asked the teacher Stanwood Cobb what he taught, then asked, "Do you teach the spiritual things?" Cobb counted it his most important interview with the Master.
Quddús, the last of the eighteen Letters of the Living, went with the Báb on His pilgrimage to Mecca. Held captive in Sárí and later besieged at Shaykh Ṭabarsí, he wrote a vast commentary on a single letter of the Qur'án.
Ṭáhirih's learning made her father wish she had been a son. 'Abdu'l-Bahá recalls how she studied, debated, recognized the Báb through a dream, and taught His Cause in Karbilá and Baghdád.
Muḥammad Sháh sent Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí, the most learned divine in Persia, to investigate the Báb. After three meetings in Shíráz he became a believer, and the Báb named him Vaḥíd.
Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl, head of a religious college in Ṭihrán, became a Bahá'í in 1876 and spent the rest of his life teaching the Faith, from Egypt to Paris to Green Acre, yet he wept when believers praised him.
O thou sincere and loyal handmaid of the Lord! I have read thy letter. Thou art truly attached to the Kingdom and devoted to the All-Glorious Horizon.
O thou true friend! Read, in the school of God, the lessons of the spirit, and learn from love’s Teacher the innermost truths.
O maid-servant of God, thou who hast given up thy life to the service of the Kingdom of God!
O servant of God! What thou hast written and that which thou hast retained in mind are evident. Appreciate Mrs. ...... who reminds you of God and explains His divine mysteries.
In A Traveler's Narrative, 'Abdu'l-Bahá tells how Siyyid Yaḥyá of Dáráb, sent by Muḥammad Sháh to investigate the Báb, met Him three times in Shíráz and was won over when the Báb wrote a commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar in his presence.
A woman who had enjoyed a talk by 'Abdu'l-Bahá in America complained that He repeated Himself; smiling, He asked her what it was He repeated, and she could not tell Him.