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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."
115 stories on this theme.
Nettie Tobin, who was not well off, brought a builder's rejected stone to the Wilmette Temple site by baby carriage, streetcar and a borrowed wagon, and the Master used it at the dedication of the land.
When Ḥájí Amín brought the believers' offerings to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Master said something was missing. Praying in his room, Ḥájí Amín found a poor woman's coin in the lining of his coat, and the Master said it was worth more than all the rest.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá remembers Hájí Mírzá Muhammad-Taqí, the Afnán, who believed after one reading of the Kitáb-i-Íqán, gave nearly all he owned to build the first Bahá’í House of Worship in ‘Ishqábád, and died near the Shrine of the Báb.
When Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, died in 'Akká in 1870, Shaykh Maḥmúd asked for the honour of washing his body while the grieving Most Great Branch kept watch outside the tent. He was buried beyond the city walls.
Jináb-i-Muníb, a gifted calligrapher and singer from Káshán, walked beside Bahá’u’lláh’s howdah from Baghdád to Constantinople; later, gravely ill on the exile to ‘Akká, he was put ashore at Smyrna, where his grave lies.
Bahá’u’lláh’s son Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, fell through a skylight in the ‘Akká barracks in 1870 and offered his life so that the believers might attain his Father’s presence; in 1939 Shoghi Effendi reburied him on Mount Carmel.
In Nayríz, Vaḥíd's doorkeeper Mullá Muḥammad-Riḍá led six companions out to scatter the mob massed around Vaḥíd's house. That night Vaḥíd told his wife he had built the house so that it might be demolished in the path of the Cause.
A prosperous builder in Ṭihrán left his work and possessions for the Faith, lost even his bride, walked on foot to the Most Great Prison singing an ode Bahá’u’lláh had written down for him, and ended his days content in a cave near Haifa.
Shoghi Effendi's tribute to Bahíyyih Khánum records the cost of the Adrianople exile to her own body — a winter of exceptional severity, a poor and unhealthy lodging, and dire financial distress that left her, as a young woman, with a permanent loss of vitality and a shadow on her face that would remain until the end of her life.
Shoghi Effendi's tribute to Bahíyyih Khánum preserves a single small image from her childhood in Tihrán: when Bahá'u'lláh was thrown into the Síyáh-Chál and the family's wealth was seized within the space of a single day, Navváb — the mother — placed a handful of dry flour into the hand of her young daughter as the substitute for daily bread.
Abbás Effendi, Who afterwards assumed the title of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (i.e.
Esslemont records that Persian believers who walked to 'Akká to see Bahá'u'lláh were refused entry to the city, and stood on the plain outside the third moat, from where they could see the windows of His quarters.
Esslemont quotes Bahá'u'lláh's own description, from the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, of the dungeon in Tihrán where He was held for four months in 1852, with nearly a hundred and fifty fellow-prisoners.
Arrested on the way to Fort Shaykh Ṭabarsí and brought before the clergy of Ámul, Bahá’u’lláh interceded for His companions and offered Himself to receive the bastinado in their place.
Two pilgrims in ‘Akká argued over which kind of martyrdom was best. When they entered ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s room, His words, spoken without any notice of their arrival, affirmed first one choice and then the other.
In June 1870 Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, fell through a skylight while praying on the roof of the barracks in 'Akká. Offered recovery by Bahá'u'lláh, he asked instead that his life be accepted as a ransom so that the believers might enter His presence.
Moved to tears by verses Nabíl read to him, the unruly youth Áqá Buzurg walks to 'Akká, meets Bahá'u'lláh twice, receives the name Badí, and is given the task of carrying His Tablet to the Sháh.
The youth Buzurg of Nayshábúr walks to 'Akká, is named Badí by Bahá'u'lláh, and carries His Tablet on foot to Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, giving his life rather than betray his fellow believers.
In 1912 Nettie Tobin, a Chicago Bahá'í with little money, hauled a stone a builder had rejected all the way to the House of Worship site, where 'Abdu'l-Bahá used it at the dedication.
A children's story with invented characters, based on events in Yazd in 1982: when an official comes to seize the Bahá'ís' furniture, a carpenter and his neighbors gladly give it all up for the sake of God.
A cleaning woman, ashamed of her rough, work-worn hands, meant only to touch 'Abdu'l-Bahá's robe and slip away. He took her hand, raised her up, looked at it with deep love, and said one word: “Sacrifice!”
On 9 July 1850 in Tabríz, the first volley fired at the Báb and Anís cut only their ropes, and the Báb was found back in His room finishing a conversation. A second regiment carried out the execution.
In 1844 the Báb sailed with Quddús from Búshihr to Arabia. On the road to Mecca a Bedouin stole His writings, and beside the Black Stone He declared His station to the Shaykhí scholar Mírzá Muḥíṭ-i-Kirmání.
After two young Bábís tried to kill the Sháh in August 1852, Bahá'u'lláh was chained for four months in the Síyáh-Chál, the underground dungeon of Ṭihrán. There, in a dream, He heard the words that announced His mission.
In 1850 Ḥujjat and his companions took refuge in the fort of 'Alí-Mardán Khán at Zanján and held out for months against the Sháh's regiments. Nabíl tells of the women who served beside them, of the maiden Zaynab, and of Ḥujjat's death.
In July 1848, at the Báb's bidding, Mullá Ḥusayn left Mashhad wearing the Báb's green turban, with the Black Standard carried before him, and led his companions to the shrine of Shaykh Ṭabarsí in Mázindarán.
Before dawn on 2 February 1849, Mullá Ḥusayn led a sortie from the fort of Shaykh Ṭabarsí, was shot in the breast, and was carried back to the fort, where he died after a last conversation with Quddús.
In 1849 the defenders of Fort Ṭabarsí came out on a prince's oath sworn on the Qur'án. The oath was broken, and Quddús was handed over to his enemies in his native town of Bárfurúsh and killed in its public square.
In 1850 Vaḥíd and his companions held the fort of Khájih near Nayríz against the governor's forces until the besiegers, swearing on a sealed Qur'án, drew him out of the fort, betrayed him and put him to death.
Writing a century after the death of Mirza Mihdi, the Purest Branch, the Universal House of Justice recalls his dying plea to his Father and the words in which Bahá’u’lláh revealed the meaning of his sacrifice.
The chief divine of Núr sent two of his ablest doctors, Mullá 'Abbás and Mírzá Abu'l-Qásim, to overcome Bahá'u'lláh in argument. They heard Him, gave up their pulpits and standing, and served His Cause; the divine himself declined to debate Him.
Each summer Milly Collins gave Shoghi Effendi a sum of money and begged him to spend it on himself. The Guardian, who travelled third class and lived by strict economy, used a small part of it as she wished and spent the rest on the gardens, the Holy Places and the Archives.
In the prison of Chihríq, after months of grief for the martyrs of Shaykh Tabarsí, the Báb named His attendant Sayyáh, the Traveller, and sent him to visit their resting-place on His behalf. On the way back, in the depth of winter, Sayyáh came to Bahá'u'lláh's house in Tihrán.
At Badasht each believer received a new name without knowing who had given it. Hájí Mullá Ismá'íl-i-Qumí, named there Sirru'l-Vujúd, missed the defence of Tabarsí through illness and later died in Tihrán as one of the Seven Martyrs.
In December 1939 Shoghi Effendi moved the remains of the Purest Branch and of his mother, Navváb, from their graves in 'Akká to Mount Carmel, near the resting-place of the Greatest Holy Leaf.
Shoghi Effendi sent Keith Ransom-Kehler to Persia to appeal for the entry of Bahá'í literature. The Shah refused to receive her, and she wrote of her failed mission and of a forget-me-not she had picked in Bárfurúsh before she died in Isfáhán.
In December 1939 Shoghi Effendi moved the remains of the Purest Branch and his mother, Navvab, from their graves in 'Akka to Mount Carmel, placing the remains in new coffins with his own hands and carrying them on his shoulder.
In Baghdad a secret midnight audience with Bahá'u'lláh was requested. The reply was a verse He had composed in the wilderness of Kurdistan, and it told plainly what coming to Him would cost.
Two brothers died on the same night in the barracks of 'Akká. The guards demanded payment to bury them, and the exiles had no money, so Bahá'u'lláh gave the prayer carpet that had been placed beneath His feet to be sold.
Badí', a youth of seventeen, carried Bahá'u'lláh's Tablet to Náṣiri'd-Dín Sháh on foot from 'Akká to Ṭihrán, delivered it to the king, and was tortured and put to death for it.
On His way to join the besieged Bábís at Shaykh Ṭabarsí, Bahá'u'lláh was arrested at Ámul. He offered Himself to be punished in place of His companions, was beaten until His feet bled, and was stoned by a mob.
In 1870 Mírzá Mihdí, Bahá'u'lláh's son, fell through a skylight in the barracks of 'Akká. Offered his recovery, he asked instead that his life be a ransom for the believers kept from Bahá'u'lláh's presence.
On a drive through Montreal in 1912, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stopped at the quiet Roman Catholic cathedral and went in. There He spoke of the sacrifice of Christ’s disciples, which had carried their faith so far, and urged His companions to follow in their footsteps.
With four months left in the Nine Year Plan, Dr Muhájir sent Jenabe Caldwell to Germany. A letter from the National Assembly drew forty-five German volunteers, who joined fifteen Alaskans in street teaching that succeeded once they prayed for loving hearts.
Mírzá Mihdí, the youngest son of Bahá'u'lláh, fell through a skylight in the prison of 'Akká and, as he lay dying, asked that his life be accepted as a sacrifice so that pilgrims could reach his Father.
In Tabríz in 1850 a regiment fired at the Báb and His young follower Anís, but the bullets only cut their ropes. The Báb was found in His room, calmly finishing a conversation.
The Báb sailed for two months with Quddús to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. On the way a thief took His writings, and in Mecca He told a well-known scholar who He was.
In 1850 Ḥujjat and his fellow believers took shelter in an old fort in the city of Zanján and held out against the Sháh's soldiers for many months.
At the Báb's request, Mullá Ḥusayn set out from Mashhad wearing the Báb's green turban, with a black flag carried before him, and led his companions to the shrine of Shaykh Ṭabarsí.
Before dawn on a winter morning in 1849, Mullá Ḥusayn, the first to believe in the Báb, rode out of the fort of Shaykh Ṭabarsí at the head of his companions. He was wounded and died in the fort beside Quddús.
Quddús, the leader of the believers at Fort Ṭabarsí, was betrayed by a broken promise and killed in his home town. On his last day he prayed for the people who hurt him and spoke of his death as his wedding.
In 1850 Vaḥíd and his companions held a small fort near Nayríz against a large army, until the army's leaders tricked him with a promise sworn on the Qur'án and then broke it.
On His way to help Bábís trapped in a fort, Bahá'u'lláh was arrested in the town of Ámul. He asked to be punished in place of His companions, and He alone was beaten.
When he was very young, people thought of ‘Abdu’lláh Baghdádí as a libertine, solely devoted to pleasure.
Two brothers of Pahlaván Riḍá, brought as captives to 'Akká, died on the same night in each other's arms. Bahá'u'lláh gave the prayer carpet from beneath His feet to be sold to pay the guards, and the brothers share one grave.
Jináb-i-Muníb, a calligrapher, poet and singer of Káshán, walked beside Bahá'u'lláh's howdah from Baghdád to Constantinople. Gravely ill on the voyage to 'Akká, he was put ashore at Smyrna, where his grave lies.
Ḥájí Mírzá Muḥammad-Taqí, the Afnán, a kinsman of the Báb, gave up his business and estates after Bahá'u'lláh's ascension and spent nearly all he owned building the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár of 'Ishqábád, the first Bahá'í House of Worship.
Shoghi Effendi sent the American believer Keith Ransom-Kehler to Persia to plead for the freedom of the persecuted Bahá'ís there. The Sháh never received her, but she stirred the Persian community, and when she died in Iṣfáhán in 1933 the Guardian called her the first American martyr.
The poet Varqá and his twelve-year-old son Rúḥu'lláh were imprisoned in Ṭihrán. After the Sháh's assassination in 1896, the Ḥájibu'd-Dawlih killed Varqá before the boy's eyes, then had Rúḥu'lláh strangled when he refused to recant.
During the siege of Zanján a village girl named Zaynab disguised herself as a man and fought at the barricades. Ḥujjat recognised her and granted her request. She fought for five months until she was killed.
Badíʻ, a seventeen-year-old believer, asked Bahá'u'lláh for the honour of carrying His Tablet to Náṣiri'd-Dín Sháh. He walked alone to Ṭihrán, brought it to the king, and was tortured and killed. Bahá'u'lláh named him the Pride of Martyrs.
The Báb sent Mullá ʻAlíy-i-Bastámí, one of the Letters of the Living, to Najaf and Karbilá, telling him he would be the first to suffer for God's sake. He proclaimed the new Revelation, was denounced, chained, tried in Baghdád and sent away as a prisoner, never to be seen again.
Mírzá Qurbán-ʻAlí, a dervish revered by many, was arrested in Ṭihrán in 1850. Officials pleaded for his life and the Amír-Niẓám was loath to condemn him, but he would not deny the Báb, and he became one of the Seven Martyrs of Ṭihrán.
Mullá Ḥusayn, the first to believe in the Báb, led the defence of the shrine of Shaykh Ṭabarsí. Before dawn on 2 February 1849 he rode out against the besieging army, was shot, and died in the fort after a last conversation with Quddús.
Vaḥíd, the learned divine whom Muḥammad Sháh sent to investigate the Báb, became His follower. In 1850 he taught openly in Nayríz, was besieged in the Fort of Khájih, and was killed after his enemies broke an oath sworn on the Qur'án.
How Mullá Muḥammad-'Alí of Zanján, called Ḥujjat, accepted the Báb after reading His writings, and how the believers of Zanján, besieged by the army, were at last deceived by oaths sworn on the Qur'án and put to death.
'Abdu'l-Bahá remembers Mullá Ṣádiq, Ismu'lláhu'l-Aṣdaq: led through Shíráz with a halter for teaching the Báb's Faith, starved at Fort Ṭabarsí, rescued from execution, and a teacher of the Faith for the rest of his life.
In 1870 Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, fell through a skylight while praying on the roof of the barracks of 'Akká. Dying, he asked Bahá'u'lláh to accept his life as a ransom for the believers who could not reach His presence.
Arrested in Ṭihrán in 1852, Ḥájí Sulaymán Khán refused to recant and was allowed to choose how he would die. He asked that lighted candles be set in wounds in his flesh, and walked through the bazaar praising the Báb.
In Iṣfahán in 1879 two merchant brothers known for their honesty and generosity were denounced as Bábís by a cleric who owed them money. They refused to recant and were beheaded. Bahá'u'lláh mourned them in His Tablets for years.
In 1852 Ṭáhirih, held in the house of the Kalantar of Ṭihrán, dressed in white silk and told her hostess that her death was near. That night she was taken to a garden outside the city and strangled with a silken kerchief she had set aside for the purpose.
Ashraf was born in the besieged fort of Zanján. Years later, when he was condemned for his faith, his enemies brought his mother to persuade him to recant. She urged him to stand firm instead, and Bahá'u'lláh praised her in a Tablet.
Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid ʻAlí, the uncle who had raised the Báb, was among fourteen believers arrested in Ṭihrán in 1850. He refused a ransom and the Grand Vazír's offer of freedom, and asked to be the first of the Seven Martyrs to die.
Mírzá Muḥammad-'Alíy-i-Zunúzí, called Anís, was confined by his stepfather for his love of the Báb. In a vision the Báb promised that he would share His martyrdom, and on 9 July 1850 he died beside Him in Tabríz.
After the martyrdom of the Báb in 1850, believers hid His remains in shrines and houses in Ṭihrán for nearly fifty years, then carried them to the Holy Land, where 'Abdu'l-Bahá laid them to rest on Mount Carmel in 1909.
Siyyid Ḥusayn-i-Yazdí, the Báb's amanuensis, spent His last night with Him in the barracks of Tabríz and was told not to confess his faith, so that he could later tell what he alone knew. In 1852 he was martyred in Ṭihrán.
After the martyrdom, the bodies of the Báb and His companion were left under guard beside the moat of Tabríz. Ḥájí Sulaymán Khán had them carried away by night, and at Bahá'u'lláh's instruction they were later brought to Ṭihrán and kept hidden.
On the night before His martyrdom, in a cell in the barracks of Tabríz, the Báb spoke with His companions with joy and cheerfulness, and chose the youth Mírzá Muḥammad-'Alí to share His martyrdom.
George Townshend, a Canon of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, became a Bahá'í in 1921 and served Shoghi Effendi as literary adviser. At seventy he renounced his orders in the Anglican Church, and in 1951 he was named a Hand of the Cause.
In 'Ishqábád, in Russian Turkistán, the Bahá'ís raised the first Mashriqu'l-Adhkár of the Bahá'í world, begun in 1902 under 'Abdu'l-Bahá's guidance, with a school, a travellers' house and a building for a hospital in its garden.
Ḥájí Mírzá Muḥammad-Taqí, the Vakílu'd-Dawlih, a cousin of the Báb, gave up his business and estates to build the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár of 'Ishqábád, the first Bahá'í House of Worship, spending almost everything he owned on it.
In November 1849, grieving for the martyrs of Shaykh Ṭabarsí, the Báb sent His attendant Sayyáh from Chihríq to visit their resting-place, asking him to return before Naw-Rúz, "the only one I probably shall ever see again."
In Iṣfáhán, a city famed for its divines, the first to accept the Báb's message was a sifter of wheat. Years later, sieve in hand, he set out to join the defenders of Shaykh Ṭabarsí, where he was martyred.
For eleven months in 1848–49, some three hundred followers of the Báb, most of them students, defended themselves at the shrine of Shaykh Ṭabarsí against a royal army. The siege ended only when the prince broke his oath on the Qur'án.
Mullá Ḥusayn's companions drew their swords only to defend their lives. When some of them mistakenly caused the death of a villager's mother near Shaykh Ṭabarsí, they grieved and apologized, and her son became their friend.
Fred Mortensen, a former street tough, rode under and on top of railway trains to reach Green Acre and meet ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who, on hearing how he had come, kissed his cheeks and his dirty hat.
Georgiana Dean had left California at ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s request to care for the blind Mrs. Dealy. Homesick, she took her trouble to Him; He asked her to stay as long as needed, and within days she was free to return.
Asked in Paris how a new civilization would come about, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá answered, “Through solidarity,” and recalled young locusts on Mt. Carmel that flung themselves into a stream so that the others might cross.
November 9th In the Gospel according to St John, Christ has said: ‘Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.’
Regarding the statement in The Hidden Words, that man must renounce his own self, the meaning is that he must renounce his inordinate desires, his selfish purposes and the promptings of his human self …
O ye roses in the garden of God’s love! O ye bright lamps in the assemblage of His knowledge! May the soft breathings of God pass over you, may the Glory of God illumine the horizon of your hearts.
O my well-beloved daughter of the Kingdom! The letter thou hadst written to Dr. Esslemont was forwarded by him to the Land of Desire [The Holy Land].
O ye blessed souls! The letter ye had written to Rahmatu’lláh hath been perused.
In a 1922 talk printed in the Star of the West, Martha Root remembered Mírzá Ḥaydar-'Alí, who endured years of prison, set out as a very old man from the Holy Land for Persia without even a donkey, and was called the Angel of the believers.
Keith Ransom-Kehler went to Persia in 1932 to appeal for the lifting of the ban on Bahá'í literature. She died of smallpox in Isfahán in October 1933, and the Guardian called her the American believers' first and distinguished martyr.
The first issue of the Star of the West, then called Bahai News, carried a photograph of Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, and an account of his fatal fall in the barracks of 'Akká and his one request to Bahá'u'lláh.
In April 1919 the Star of the West printed part of a letter Elizabeth H. Stewart wrote in Tehran in November 1918, describing teaching meetings, a luncheon to which every Persian man brought his wife, and the hardships of the war years.
O thou esteemed maid-servant of God! Be thou hopeful and be thou happy and rejoiced.
O thou faithful one!
O thou flower of the Rose-garden of God! Thou hast presented thy life. I have also accepted it, in order that thou mayest sacrifice thyself in the path of God and attain to the ultimate desire of the spiritual ones.
O thou lamp of the Love of God!
O thou who art attracted by the brilliant lights of the Merciful One, shining from the Supreme Kingdom!
O thou who art attracted to the Beauty of God! Thy letter was received. I ask from God, supplicating and entreating in the Threshold of Oneness, that thy utmost desire may become realized.
O thou who art attracted to the Fragrances of Holiness!
O thou who art cheerful in heart, by the Fragrances of the Merciful!
O thou who art controlled by the attraction of the Fragrances of God!
O thou who art desirous of the Kingdom of God! Thy letter was the cause of happiness and its contents were the proof of thy turning to the Shining Beauty.
O ye beloved ones! It is the moment of the ecstasy of the soul and consciousness and the season of running in the arena of sacrifice!
O ye dwellers of the Kingdom! Thank ye God that ye have turned your faces toward the Kingdom of Abha, and are yearning for the outpouring of the Exalted Realm.
O ye who are attracted! O ye who are firm! O ye who are zealous in the service of the Cause of God and are sacrificers of possessions and lives for the promotion of the Word of God!
“Today we will speak about Obedience! The Manifestation of God is a perfect example of real obedience. Like Him, we must sacrifice everything; every plan, every longing and ideal must be given up completely to the Will of God. We must…
Speaking through an interpreter to an early pilgrim, the Master rejoiced that the believers were becoming more united, and urged them to love one another and sacrifice themselves for each other.
While Bahá’u’lláh lived as a dervish in the mountains, His family in Baghdád sold their only rug to buy a donkey for a Bábí who set out to find Him; months later He came home.
In A Traveler's Narrative, 'Abdu'l-Bahá tells of the Báb's martyrdom in the barrack square of Tabríz in 1850. The first regiment's volleys left Him and His young companion unharmed; a second regiment then carried out the sentence.
In June 1870 Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, fell through an unguarded skylight in the barracks. Dying, he asked that his life be accepted as a ransom for those prevented from attaining the presence of their Beloved.