Loading…
"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
Loading…
"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
67 stories where faithfulness appears.
In a 1974 talk in Wilmette, Hand of the Cause Abu’l-Qásim Faizí recalled ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s explanation that the earth is faithful, generous and patient while fire is greedy, and urged Bahá’í youth to be like the earth.
As to the seven qualifications (of the divinely enlightened soul) of which thou hast asked an explanation, it is as follows: KNOWLEDGE.
Mírzá Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání completed the first volume of his chronicle of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s 1912 journey in America at the end of 1913; at his sudden death the Guardian cabled that his outstanding services would shine evermore.
Shaykh Salmán slipped out of arrest in Tihrán when a stranger mistook him for someone else. Every year afterwards he walked from Persia to Bahá'u'lláh, carrying the believers' letters and bringing back His Tablets.
All the virtues of humankind are summed up in the one word ‘steadfastness’, if we but act according to its laws.
Under the inspired guidance of Shoghi Effendi the Bahá’í Cause grew steadily in size and in the establishment of its Administrative Order, so that by 1951 there were eleven functioning National Spiritual Assemblies.
While Bahá'u'lláh was imprisoned in the Síyáh-Chál, His servant Isfandíyár, though hunted by a hundred officers, found the scattered family and refused to flee until he had paid every debt of the household.
Imprisoned in Chihríq, the Báb was so grieved by news of the fate of the defenders of Ṭabarsí that He languished in sorrow for five months; He then wrote in praise of Mullá Ḥusayn, Quddús and their companions.
Bahá'u'lláh intended His niece Shahr-Banu Khanum to marry His eldest Son, but relatives in Tihran prevented the match and forced her into another marriage, which left her in lasting grief.
Bahá'u'lláh's family lives happily in Tihrán until the day He is arrested and cast into an underground prison, where He comes to know that God has given Him a mission for the whole world.
Jealous courtiers tell a king that his favoured servant creeps each night to a far room with a bundle. The king follows and learns the bundle holds the servant's old rags, which he wears each night so that he will always stay grateful.
Bahíyyih Khánum remembered the day in 1852 when a servant brought word that her father had been arrested, and the four months her mother spent in hiding with the children while He lay chained in the dungeon of Tihrán.
During ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s stay at the Parsons home in Washington in April 1912, the household was called together for His short talk and blessing, and He gave each servant a silk handkerchief.
Bahíyyih Khánum recalled that four days before the exiles left the garden outside Baghdád in 1863, Bahá’u’lláh told ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and then four others, that He was the One promised by the Báb, asking them to keep it secret.
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 'Akká in 1897 Dr Yúnis Khán asked 'Abdu'l-Bahá whether the one who would follow Him had already been born. 'Abdu'l-Bahá said it was true, and Yúnis Khán kept the answer to himself for many years.
Bahá'u'lláh granted Khadíjih-Bagum, the widow of the Báb, permission to make the pilgrimage to 'Akká. When danger closed the road through Shíráz, she fell ill and died with words of praise.
'Abdu'l-Bahá sent Sulaymán Khán to Qum with a letter promising the banished Prime Minister, Amínu's-Sultán, his return to power. The promise came true, but the Minister later failed to protect the believers of Yazd.
In August 1868, exiled from Adrianople to Gallipoli with no one sure where they would be sent next, Bahá'u'lláh gave the departing escort officer a message for the Sultan and warned His companions of the hardships ahead.
A pasha exiled to 'Akká from Yemen, near death, entrusted 'Abdu'l-Bahá with a bag of gold for his daughter. The Master paid for his funeral Himself and sent a dervish to Ṣan'á, who put the gold into her own hands.
In 1930 Queen Marie of Rumania sailed for Haifa, and the Greatest Holy Leaf waited hour after hour in the Master's house to receive her. The Queen was met at the boat and taken out of Palestine.
In a 1912 talk in Washington, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá recalled Isfandíyár, the black servant of Bahá’u’lláh, who, though hunted by the Sháh's officers while Bahá’u’lláh was in prison, would not flee until he had paid every debt of the household.
When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá heard in San Francisco in 1912 that Thornton Chase, the first Bahá’í in America, had passed away, He spoke of the fruitfulness of his life, and later prayed at his grave.
Muḥammad-‘Alí Ṣabbáq could not read or write, but he followed Bahá'u'lláh from Baghdád to Constantinople, Adrianople and ‘Akká. He spent his last years near Bahá'u'lláh's Shrine.
When Bahá'u'lláh was arrested and chained in a dark prison in Tihrán, His wife Ásíyih Khánum hid their three children and went out at night to learn whether He was still alive.
In London in 1957, Shoghi Effendi fell ill with the flu, kept working until he had finished his last map, and passed away peacefully in his sleep.
'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.
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.
In Adrianople, years before His ascension, Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Súriy-i-Ghuṣn, the Tablet of the Branch, which praises the station of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and calls Him "the Limb of the Law of God" and "the Trust of God."
Mírzá Músá, known as Áqáy-i-Kalím, was Bahá'u'lláh's brother and went with Him into every exile. 'Abdu'l-Bahá remembers his devotion and a day in Baghdád when Bahá'u'lláh called out to him in joy.
In His Will 'Abdu'l-Bahá named His grandson Shoghi Effendi "the sign of God, the chosen branch, the Guardian of the Cause of God." Shoghi Effendi asked the believers to call him only by the name his Grandfather had used.
Mullá Zaynu'l-'Ábidín, once the leading cleric of Najaf-Ábád, became a follower of the Báb and of Bahá'u'lláh, who named him Zaynu'l-Muqarrabín. His careful copies of Bahá'u'lláh's Tablets became a standard for checking published texts.
On Naw-Rúz 1909, after the Báb's remains had been hidden and moved for decades, 'Abdu'l-Bahá laid them with His own hands in the Shrine He had built on Mount Carmel, and wept so that all who were present wept with Him.
Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid 'Alí raised the Báb after His father's death, stood surety for Him before the governor of Shíráz, and in 1850 gave his life in Tihrán rather than deny Him.
In A Traveller's Narrative, 'Abdu'l-Bahá records the Báb's words calling Himself a dewdrop from a limitless ocean and pointing to One yet to come. Shoghi Effendi explains how the Declaration in the Garden of Riḍván fulfilled the Báb's prophecy.
The Báb foretold the coming of "Him Whom God shall make manifest," pointing to the year nine and to a span of nineteen years. Shoghi Effendi shows how both were fulfilled, in the Síyáh-Chál and in the Garden of Riḍván.
When the believers in 'Iráq were hiding their faith, Muḥammad-Muṣṭafá Baghdádí openly served Bahá'u'lláh, later hosted pilgrims in Beirut, and stayed firm in the Covenant, as 'Abdu'l-Bahá recalls in Memorials of the Faithful.
Ustád Báqir and Ustád Aḥmad, carpenter brothers from Káshán, followed Bahá'u'lláh into exile and worked at their craft in the prison of 'Akká. 'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote that they were never neglectful of duty, never at fault.
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.
Forty days before He was taken from Chihríq to Tabríz, the Báb gave His writings, pen-case, seals and rings to Mullá Báqir, a Letter of the Living, to be passed through Mírzá Aḥmad to Bahá'u'lláh 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.
Mírzá Muḥammad-Qulí, a younger brother of Bahá'u'lláh, served Him through every stage of His exile. 'Abdu'l-Bahá recalls that in the prison of 'Akká he accepted comfort and torment alike and gave thanks with a face that shone like the sun.
Bahíyyih Khánum, the Greatest Holy Leaf, shared the sufferings of Bahá'u'lláh's family from early childhood until her passing in 1932. Shoghi Effendi's tributes describe the calm and trust in God with which she bore them.
Ásíyih Khánum, whom Bahá'u'lláh called Navváb, came to her marriage with forty mule-loads of wedding treasures. Her daughter remembered how she sold them for the family's exile, did the hardest work in poverty and prison, and never uttered a word of complaint.
Ásíyih Khánum, whom Bahá'u'lláh called Navváb, lost her wealth and home when He was imprisoned in Ṭihrán, and shared His exile. In 1863 she and the rest of the family joined Him in the Garden of Riḍván on the ninth day.
For nearly sixty years believers kept the remains of the Báb hidden from His enemies. On Naw-Rúz 1909 'Abdu'l-Bahá laid them with His own hands in a tomb on Mount Carmel, on the spot Bahá'u'lláh had chosen, and wept over the casket.
In Washington in 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá told of Isfandíyár, a black servant of Bahá'u'lláh who, though hunted by the Sháh's officers, stayed in Ṭihrán for a month to pay the family's debts in full before he would leave.
Mishkín-Qalam, the leading calligrapher of Persia, set out to find Bahá'u'lláh and reached Him in Adrianople. Slandered as an agitator in Constantinople, he was held captive for years on Cyprus, and afterwards stayed loyal to the Covenant.
Bahá'u'lláh and about seventy companions were locked in the barracks of 'Akká, where nearly all fell sick and three died. Over the following years the hostility of the town gave way, step by step, to respect and reverence.
Every year for nearly forty years Shaykh Salmán walked from Persia to Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdád, Adrianople or 'Akká and back, carrying the believers' letters and His Tablets, and never lost one.
When Bahá'u'lláh's convoy left Baghdád for Constantinople in 1863, Muḥammad-Muṣṭafá Baghdádí remained in the city. 'Abdu'l-Bahá recalls how he stayed loyal, withstood the enemies of the Faith and taught it openly.
While in London in the autumn of 1957, Shoghi Effendi fell ill with Asiatic influenza, kept working on his last map, and died in his sleep early on 4 November. He was buried near London on 9 November.
O Peoples of the East and the West!
Writing home from Constantinople while her husband Ali-Kuli Khan was away, Florence Khan described with humour her quiet life, her devotion to him, and the ‘guardians’ he had set to watch over her.
In January 1927 the Star of the West printed the obituary of Howard MacNutt, the early New York believer who died on December 26, 1926, and who had compiled, at the request of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the Master's American addresses published as The Promulgation of Universal Peace.
Thornton Chase, the first American believer, died in Los Angeles on September 30, 1912, while 'Abdu'l-Bahá was travelling west to California. The Star of the West told of his last days, and less than three weeks later the Master visited his grave.
O my tender friend! Verily, the union between myself and thee is on a solid foundation and a well made basis. Neither the winds can remove it nor the events of time annihilate it.
O thou bird who art warbling in the Garden of the Guidance of God!
O thou faithful one!
O thou lamp of the Love of God!
O thou loving torch, flaming by the fire of the Love of God!
O thou who art partaking of the Heavenly Food!
O thou who art wholly advancing unto God!
O thou who hast approached the Kingdom of God and hast looked toward the Center of the Covenant!
O thou whose breast is dilated (with joy) for the Kingdom of Truth!
Dr Yúnis Khán recalls how ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, sensing a fragrance from one sealed envelope, had it opened first; it held a violet picked from Thomas Breakwell's grave, and the Master wept.