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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."
223 stories where humility appears.
A Cherokee elder was teaching his children about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to them. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity,…
A story is recounted by Haji Mirza Haydar-'Ali when he was staying at a khan[2] with some believers in one of the towns of Persia. He describes how two people knocked on his door at night out of curiosity to find out about the beliefs of…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá inspired the creation of a Local Spiritual Assembly in New York City. Loulie Mathews, one of those present when the friends met to form their first local institution, recalled that they had very little idea of how to proceed.…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s humility did not stem from any weakness. Once when a child asked Him why all the rivers of the earth flow into the ocean, He said, ‘because it sets itself lower than them all and so draws them to…
In *The Advent of Divine Justice* (1939), Shoghi Effendi laid before the American Bahá'ís the work that would prove central to their century: the task of overcoming racial prejudice. White believers were called to abandon their inherited sense of superiority; minority members were to be unhesitatingly given priority — not for sentiment, but for the health of the Faith.
Another one of the qualities that you found in Shoghi Effendi, and which rather astonished me, was humility. I had studied a lot in the writings about humility. I had read a lot in the religious teachings about being humble, and I thought…
Know that the conditions of existence are limited to the conditions of servitude, of prophethood, and of Deity, but the divine and the contingent perfections are unlimited. When you reflect deeply, you discover that also outwardly the…
As to the seven qualifications (of the divinely enlightened soul) of which thou hast asked an explanation, it is as…
The spiritual love of God maketh man pure and holy and clotheth him with the garment of virtue and purity. And when man attacheth his heart wholly to God and becometh related to the Blessed Perfection, the divine bounty will dawn. This…
TO THE ASSEMBLIES AND MEETINGS OF THE BELIEVERS OF GOD AND THE MAID-SERVANTS OF THE MERCIFUL IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA: Upon them be Bahá’u’lláh El-Abhá!…
After Haji Mirza Musay-i-Javahari died in 1881, his son, Haji Mirza Musa inherited a portion of the estate. He owned the house where Baha’u’llah lived and was extremely happy to present it to Him as a gift. ** Haji Mirza…
Gregory was instrumental in arranging for two major speaking engagements for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Washington DC to an audience of more than a thousand in Rankin Chapel at Howard University, and that evening to a large gathering of the Bethel…
This honored man was successful in converting a multitude. For the sake of God he cast all caution aside, as he hastened along the ways of love. **Mu****lla`Ali-Akbar Shahmirzadi (Haji…
Shaykh Hasan recognized in the Báb all those attributes his master had predicted, and he became His devoted disciple, travelling far and wide to be close to the newest Manifestation of God on earth. When the ulama of Isfahan issued the…
On my arrival I found that Husayn Khan, who in the meantime had been searching for me, was eager to know whether I had fallen a victim to the Bab's magic influence. `No one but God,' I replied, `who alone can change the hearts of men, is…
He was made a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. ** William Sutherland…
129 Both in the Persian and Arabic Writings of the Primal Point—may the life of all men be offered up for Him—there are several, nay indeed numerous passages in which He directs His plea to the exalted court of Him Whom God shall make…
6 Dear and deeply spiritual sister! At morn and eventide, with the utmost ardour and humility, I supplicate at the Divine Threshold, and offer this, my…
183 The Ancient Beauty, the Most Great Name, has, through the splendours of His grace in this most glorious of all ages, made this world of dust to radiate light. The loving counsels of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá have turned the beloved of the Lord…
In *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era*, Esslemont preserves 'Abdu'l-Bahá's recollection of His Father's boyhood: by the age of thirteen or fourteen, the young Mírzá Ḥusayn-'Alí had already become known across the scholarly circles of the Núrí district for being able to converse on any subject and resolve any problem put to Him.
In *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era*, Esslemont preserves the famous 1890 account by the Cambridge orientalist Edward Granville Browne — the only Westerner ever to record his impressions of meeting Bahá'u'lláh. The short paragraph was written in plain academic English. It has never been surpassed.
In *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era*, J. E. Esslemont preserves the small, heartbreaking image of Persian believers who walked thousands of miles to the prison-city of 'Akká, were refused admittance at the gates, and contented themselves with standing on the plain beyond the third moat, looking up at the windows of the Blessed Beauty's quarters.
Even when the imprisonment was at its worst, the Bahá’ís were not dismayed, and their serene confidence was never shaken. While in the barracks at Akká, Bahá’u’lláh wrote to some friends, “Fear not. These doors shall be opened. My tent…
Before ‘Abdu’l-Bahá completed His earthly mission, He had laid a basis for the development of the administrative order established in Bahá’u’lláh’s Writings. To show the high importance to be attributed to the institution of the…
In *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era,* J. E. Esslemont preserves the testimony of those who heard 'Abdu'l-Bahá in London in 1911 — that the Master's manner was *quiet, untheatrical, most convincing,* and that the simplicity of His speaking, more than any rhetoric, carried the weight of His Father's revelation.
It has been the general characteristic of religion that organization marks the interruption of the true spiritual influence and serves to prevent the original impulse from being carried into the world. The organization has invariably…
One day, when Lua Getsinger was in 'Akká she noticed a Western woman was telling 'Abdu'l-Bahá all about her troubles.
Karbila, circa 1930s In the following incident Nabil gives an example of Siyyid Kazim’s efforts to prepare his disciples to gradually remove the veils of age-old erroneous understandings and…
A short paraphrase from the Baha'i Stories Blog about a brief encounter on a Chicago streetcar: the Master, traveling in the ordinary way among ordinary people, and the small Bahá'í child who recognised Him before her mother did.
In about 1848, four years after recognizing the Báb and becoming His first believer, and receiving the title of Bábu’l-Báb (the Gate of the Gate), Mulla Husayn left the city of Mashhad, in the…
circa 1930s: The castle of Máh-Kú He [‘Alí Khán, the warden in charge of the castle of Máh-Kú] discharged his functions with the utmost severity and refused to allow any of the avowed disciples of…
The life of 'Abdu'l-Baha is very significant among the lives of the past heavenly educators.
A little under two years had passed since Bahá'u'lláh's confinement in the barracks, when suddenly a most tragic event occurred.
A short paraphrase from the bahaistories.com archive on the daily evening walks of 'Abdu'l-Bahá along the slopes of Mount Carmel — the small habitual route, the people of every faith who would join the procession, and the steady greeting He gave to each.
A brief paraphrase from the bahaistories.com archive on the small recurring practice of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in His American cities: the warm conversation with each cab driver who carried Him, the personal inquiry into the driver's family, and the larger tip than the fare required.
A short paraphrase from the bahaistories.com archive on the characteristic shape of the dining table in the household of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in 'Akká: every visitor at the same level, no servants treated as inferior, the Master Himself rising to refill the cup of any guest who needed it.
A short paraphrase from the bahaistories.com archive on the steady, almost invisible presence of Bahíyyih Khánum, the Greatest Holy Leaf, at the elbow of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in 'Akká: the running of the household, the receiving of women pilgrims, the small reassurances the Master Himself relied on.
Suppose you and I had been born in Persia more than a hundred years ago. Suppose we had grown up as Muslim children, hearing the beautiful words of the Qur'an.
In Bahá'í World Faith, a short passage of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's writings sets out one of His characteristic teachings: the same sun shines on every object, but the mirror that has been polished receives the light, and the mirror that is dusty does not. Spiritual receptivity, the Master insists, is a matter of the inward instrument we have made ourselves.
In *The Chosen Highway* Lady Blomfield records an afternoon in September 1911 when 'Abdu'l-Bahá visited a poor district of east London — a settlement house among the dock-workers' families — and spoke to a hall of children who had never before heard a man speak as one of them.
During the two years Bahá'u'lláh lived unknown in the mountains of Kurdistán, He came upon a child crying by the road — punished at school, his writing-book destroyed. What this hidden King of Glory did next, He did for one small, frightened boy. A retelling from Lady Blomfield's The Chosen Highway.
In the weeks following Mullá Ḥusayn's recognition of the Báb in Shíráz in May 1844, seventeen further disciples of Siyyid Káẓim arrived from various provinces. Each came expecting to be tested. Each was, instead, recognised by the Báb Himself before they had spoken. They became the Letters of the Living — and one place remained reserved.
Among the most distinguished early converts to the Báb's Cause was Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí — known later as Vaḥíd, the Peerless. Sent from the court of Muḥammad Sháh to investigate the new movement, he came as a sceptic; the Báb's revealed commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar undid his scepticism in a single afternoon.
For long weeks and months, it was not clear whether He would go to California or not. In April, Bahá’ís on the West Coast feared that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá would not be visiting them, so they went to visit Him . . . Filled with humility and…
Shoghi Effendi's account, in *God Passes By*, of how 'Alí Khán — the warden ordered to keep the Báb in strictest confinement at the fortress of Máh-Kú — was so moved by a strange vision that he relaxed his discipline, and how the people of the village then began to come every morning hoping for a glimpse of the Prisoner's face.
When Bahá'u'lláh passed away, His Son could have borne any title in the world. He asked to be known by only one: the Servant of Bahá.
Harry Randall's wife, Ruth, had tuberculosis in both lungs and, having been intensely affected by his first meeting with ‘Abdu’l- Bahá, Harry decided to ask ‘Abdu’l-Bahá for help. On Sunday, 28 August, Harry went to the home of Maria…
Howard Ives wrote, ‘In all of my many opportunities of meeting, of listening to and talking with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá I was impressed, and constantly more impressed, with His method of teaching souls . He never argued, of course. Nor did He press…
On April 10, 1911, in Alexandria, Egypt, Louis G. Gregory — the African American lawyer from Washington who would later be named a Hand of the Cause — entered 'Abdu'l-Bahá's reception room for the first time. His pilgrimage notes preserve the kiss on the head, the question about his health, and the silence into which a long journey suddenly settled.
In *A Heavenly Vista* Louis Gregory describes the morning he ascended the slope of Mount Carmel with a small party of believers to the Shrine of the Báb — the small low building the Master had completed only two years before — and the silence in which he stood, an African American lawyer from Washington, in the presence of the remains of the Persian Herald of the Bahá'í Cause.
I wish to tell you the story of two martyrs; one was a Persian nobleman, a favorite at court, possessed of much wealth and known throughout all the country. When it was discovered that he was a follower of Bahá'o'llah, this glorious man…
In those days when the friends in Persia were aflame with the fire of love, and at the same time, they were, with a spirit of forbearance, burning in that fire of envy and hatred, of calumny and slander created by the people of malice and…
It was the custom of Shoghi Effendi to walk on Mount Carmel, and at times he invited the Persian men believers to walk with him. They would walk a few paces behind him, out of respect. Ali-Kuli Khan was a member of one of these groups of…
On an April night in 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá came to the Bowery Mission to address three hundred of New York's destitute men — and then stood at the door and pressed a coin and a gaze into the hand of every one of them. A retelling from the Diary of Juliet Thompson.
At a glittering embassy dinner in Washington, a skeptical diplomat sat across from 'Abdu'l-Bahá with tears in his eyes. A solemn question about spiritual power drew from the Master a reply that made the whole table smile. A retelling from the Diary of Juliet Thompson.
In June 1912 in New York, the painter Juliet Thompson was given an unprecedented privilege: 'Abdu'l-Bahá agreed to sit for her. The Diary preserves the moment He stopped her on the street, took her hand, and said *come tomorrow and paint;* and the cramped basement studio where He asked her to paint not the man but the *Servitude.*
In *The Diary of Juliet Thompson* the painter records a small scene in New York in 1912 when, having confessed to the Master one of her own besetting sins, she expected reproof — and received instead the quiet laughter that, in His mouth, was the most disarming form of mercy.
A wealthy nobleman in Baghdád loved nothing more than to sit humbly at the feet of the Purest Branch — and one day his family had the chance to give away a very special house.
A man named Mullá Hasan was chosen for a very special job, but deep down he felt he was not good enough — and his quiet, humble heart has been remembered ever since.
'Abdu'l-Bahá crossed the whole city of London to visit poor children no one important ever bothered with — and one little girl gave Him a gift she had held in her hand all afternoon.
One by one, eighteen seekers came to the Báb expecting a hard test — and one by one, He knew them before they could say a single word.
A famous scholar planned the hardest question in the world to test the Báb — and kept it a secret inside his own mind. Then something happened he could never explain.
A stern guard was ordered to keep the Báb a prisoner high in the mountains — until something he saw changed his heart, and soon a whole village climbed up just to glimpse the Prisoner's face.
When everyone wanted to give 'Abdu'l-Bahá the grandest title in the world, He picked the humblest name He could find — and made it beautiful.
An old woman could not walk, and she longed and longed to meet 'Abdu'l-Bahá. She thought she never would — until one day there was a knock at her own front door.
Leaving a grand mansion full of important guests, 'Abdu'l-Bahá asked to see someone else first — the cooks and the maids who worked behind the scenes.
On a great ship crossing the wide Atlantic Ocean, 'Abdu'l-Bahá sailed all the way to America to meet His friends — and to share the truth with a whole new land.
One believer carried a plain little stone all the way to a cold, muddy field — and 'Abdu'l-Bahá chose her stone to begin a great House of Worship.
At a fancy gathering in Brooklyn, a famous explorer who had reached the North Pole turned to 'Abdu'l-Bahá and asked Him to speak — and with no notes at all, He held the whole room spellbound.
In a huge, busy city, 'Abdu'l-Bahá went looking for a little corner where He could sit, eat, and talk with people in the language of His old home.
When mealtime came on His big American journey, 'Abdu'l-Bahá did something His guests never expected — He served them with His own hands, and cleared the dishes too.
Many people sent stones for the very first stone of a great temple — but on the big day, only the stone a poor seamstress had dragged across the whole city had actually arrived.
Lua crossed a whole ocean hoping to do something great for 'Abdu'l-Bahá — and the small, hard task He gave her turned out to be the greatest thing of all.
A minister in Brooklyn loved listening to 'Abdu'l-Bahá so much that one Sunday he invited Him to speak from his very own pulpit — and his church was never the same again.
On the evening before 'Abdu'l-Bahá sailed away from America, a man named Howard sat close to Him and heard the most important thing he would ever try to remember.
A man climbed the stairs of a tall hotel with a long list of hard questions in his pocket — and discovered that the answer he truly needed was waiting for him in a single, warm hello.
A man knelt for one last blessing and placed 'Abdu'l-Bahá's hand on his own head — and what he felt taught him what true greatness really is.
A young woman from Canada crossed the whole world to marry the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith — in the smallest, quietest wedding you can imagine.
In one small room in Haifa, with a typewriter and a lamp, Shoghi Effendi answered letters far into the night — and from that desk he guided friends all over the world.
A boy named Shoghi Effendi went far away to school in Beirut, where he studied hard and learned new languages — and was being made ready for something great he could not yet see.
A young man named Shoghi was studying far from home when sad news arrived — and only later did he learn that a special task had been waiting just for him.
Mahmúd's Diary records the long Atlantic crossing of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and His small party aboard the S.S. Cedric in March and early April 1912 — the ten days at sea during which the Master, in His sixty-eighth year, prepared for the great American tour by simple devotions and long conversations with His attendants.
Mahmúd's Diary records that on May 1, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá travelled from Chicago to the small lakeside village of Wilmette to dedicate the cornerstone of the future House of Worship of the Western world. He laid the stone with His own hand and invited each delegate of the gathering to place upon it a stone of his own.
Mahmúd's Diary preserves the moment in early June 1912 at a Unity Club gathering in Brooklyn when Admiral Robert E. Peary, the polar explorer, unexpectedly invited 'Abdu'l-Bahá to address the room — though the Master had been there only as a guest. The talk, given without notes, brought the distinguished gathering to a complete stillness.
An elderly woman, unable to walk, longed with all her heart to meet 'Abdu'l-Bahá. When He heard of it, He did not wait for her to be carried to Him — He went, Himself, to her door. A retelling from Mahmúd's Diary.
Leaving a great mansion in California, 'Abdu'l-Bahá did not say His farewells to the wealthy guests first. He called for the cooks, the maids, and the butler — and the room of elegant onlookers fell silent. A retelling from Mahmúd's Diary.
Mahmúd's Diary records that during the New York stays of 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá would occasionally direct His carriage to the small Syrian-Lebanese quarter of Lower Manhattan, where He would dine in modest immigrant restaurants and speak Arabic with the proprietors and patrons.
Mahmúd's Diary preserves, alongside the public talks, the ordinary domestic hours of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's American journey: the meals He ate, the way He served the friends with His own hand, the laughter He brought to a tired room, the way He cleared the table afterwards.
On May 1, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá traveled north of Chicago to lay the cornerstone of the first Bahá'í House of Worship in the West. Many stones had been sent from Bahá'í communities for the ceremony. Only one — found in a builders' rejection pile and dragged to the site by Nettie Tobin, a Chicago seamstress — had actually arrived. The Master asked for hers.
Mahmúd's Diary records the brief stop of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's party at Omaha on September 21, 1912 — a single afternoon in the great cattle-and-rail city of the central plains, with a brief talk in the parlour of a downtown hotel and the next morning's departure westward.
Mahmúd's Diary records the long train journey of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and His party from Salt Lake City to Portland in early October 1912 — the steady westward crossing of the Rockies and the Cascades, the Master's hours of conversation in the parlour car, and the slow preparation for the Pacific coast portion of the journey.
Mirza Abu’l-Fadl was an outstanding Bahá’í scholar. Early in this century the Master sent him to the United States of America both to teach and to help the believers to deepen. ‘After his return, he and a number of American pilgrims were…
'Abdu'l-Bahá's tribute to Áqá Ḥusayn-i-Áshchí — the household cook of Bahá'u'lláh through the long years of exile, whose patient service in the kitchen sustained the daily life of the prophetic Household for decades.
'Abdu'l-Bahá's tribute to Áqá Riḍá of Shíráz — the steadfast companion who served the household of Bahá'u'lláh through the years of exile from Baghdád to 'Akká, never failing in his attendance on his Lord.
In *Memorials of the Faithful* 'Abdu'l-Bahá portrays His own paternal uncle, Mírzá Músá — known as Áqáy-i-Kalím — the loyal full brother of Bahá'u'lláh, who shared in His every exile, sought without success to restrain the rebellion of their half-brother Mírzá Yaḥyá, and bore witness to the moment the fame of the Cause of God reached as far as Díyárbakr.
'Abdu'l-Bahá's tribute to Mírzá Maḥmúd-i-Furúghí — the gentle believer of Khurásán whose lifetime of patient service in the countryside, never seeking notice, brought the Cause of God into many small Khurásání villages.
'Abdu'l-Bahá's tribute to Shaykh Muḥammad-'Alí — the scholar of Khurásán who, after years of distinguished ecclesiastical study in Najaf and Karbalá, embraced the Cause and became, in his maturity, one of the great teachers of the Faith in eastern Persia.
Pidar-Ján of Qazvín was a poor old man who emigrated to Baghdád to be near Bahá'u'lláh, and there gave his days and nights to prayer. So absorbed was he in the remembrance of God that thieves once lifted the goods from his open hands while he chanted, and he did not notice. 'Abdu'l-Bahá remembered him as a soul who walked the earth but travelled the heights of Heaven.
At the end of the great funeral on Mount Carmel in 1921, 'Abdu'l-Bahá was laid to rest not in a tomb of His own but in a chamber of the Shrine of the Báb — the very Shrine He had laboured for years to raise over the remains of His Lord's Forerunner. The Builder of that holy House became one of its treasures.
Bahá'u'lláh's loyal full brother, Mírzá Músá, shared in His every exile and carried, in silence, the burdens no one else would bear. The title by which the believers knew him — Áqáy-i-Kalím, drawn from the ancient name of Moses, "He Who conversed with God" — honoured a man who sought no rank and shone, in 'Abdu'l-Bahá's words, like a bright lamp within the holy Household.
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.
In His Will and Testament 'Abdu'l-Bahá named His grandson Shoghi Effendi the Guardian of the Cause of God — "the sign of God," "the chosen branch," "the priceless pearl that doth gleam from out the Twin Surging Seas." The young man who received this towering station asked only to be known by the simple name his Grandfather had used, and signed himself, in lifelong humility, the servant of the threshold.
Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl was reckoned among the most learned men of Persia — head of a great religious college, master of philosophy and theology. The proofs of the new Faith could not move him. What moved him, in the end, was a plain question from an unlettered believer that all his learning could not answer — and through it he came to recognise the glory of Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation.
When His father the Vazír died, the young Bahá'u'lláh was offered the ministerial post the family had long held — an honour the court pressed upon Him. He declined it. God Passes By preserves the moment, and the words of the Prime Minister who, baffled and impressed, sensed that this young Nobleman was destined for something the world could not yet name.
In the green province of Mázindarán, in the ancestral district of Núr, the young Bahá'u'lláh was known and loved long before His ministry began. The Dawn-Breakers remembers a Nobleman of singular wisdom and kindness whom the people of His homeland honoured and cherished — a love that prepared the way for the day He would bring them the greatest of all gifts.
In His youth, before the Báb had declared His mission, Bahá'u'lláh paused one day to listen to a famous divine of Núr lecturing to his disciples — and resolved in a few words a question none of them could answer. The learned man was left troubled, and then was visited by two dreams that told him, in images he could not mistake, Who the young Nobleman really was.
Among the recollections Lady Blomfield gathered for *The Chosen Highway* is the testimony of the Báb's own family — that the relatives who lived closest to Him, His uncles and aunts, were conscious of His exalted nature and revered Him long before He made any claim. His greatness was felt in His own home before it was ever proclaimed to the world.
Years before His Declaration, the young Báb came as a pilgrim to Karbilá and sat quietly among the students of Siyyid Káẓim. When His eyes fell upon that Youth, the great teacher fell silent — and pointed to a ray of sunlight resting on the Báb's lap, saying the Truth was now more manifest than that light, though he dared not speak the Promised One's name aloud.
The friends longed to keep 'Abdu'l-Bahá's birthday as a festival of His own. He refused — that day, the twenty-third of May, belonged wholly to the Declaration of the Báb — and turned their devotion instead toward the Covenant, giving them the fourth of Qawl as the day of His appointment as its Centre. Years later, Star of the West would carry word of a Convention of the Covenant in which that same redirection of love bore extraordinary fruit.
In the summer of 1844, weeks after the Báb declared His mission in Shíráz, a youth named Mullá Muḥammad-'Alíy-i-Bárfurúshí arrived footsore from the north. He was the eighteenth and last to find the Báb of his own seeking — and the youngest. He spoke few words, yet the Báb raised him above all the other Letters of the Living and named him Quddús, "the Most Holy."
As Bahá'u'lláh prepared to leave for the Garden of Riḍván, the great and the powerful of Baghdád came to do Him honour. Officials, men of rank, even the governor of the city paid their respects to the departing exile — and, in Nabíl's words, heads on every side bowed to the dust at the feet of His horse.
In His own writings the Báb called Himself "a letter out of that most mighty book and a dewdrop from that limitless ocean," and pointed always to One yet to come. 'Abdu'l-Bahá's A Traveler's Narrative records how that promise ripened — until, in a garden by the Tigris, the Ocean the Báb had heralded appeared.
When his teacher Siyyid Káẓim died, Mullá Ḥusayn — already among the most learned of his generation — did not stay to claim the empty seat. He withdrew for forty days of fasting and prayer, purified his heart, and set out to find the Promised One whose nearness his teacher had foretold. The search ended at the gate of Shíráz, where the knowledge he carried met the Knowledge it had been seeking.
Late in His life in the Holy Land, Bahá'u'lláh answered a question put to Him by the learned Bábí scholar Nabíl-i-Akbar about the place the philosophy of Greece and Persia should hold among the believers. The reply, the Tablet of Wisdom, surveys the great philosophers by name, traces the lineage of their light, and sets out the proper relation between human inquiry and divine Revelation — a charter for the life of the mind.
Before the world knew he would be the Guardian, Shoghi Effendi went to Oxford with one private purpose: to perfect his English so that he might serve 'Abdu'l-Bahá as His translator. In quiet rooms at Balliol, with English literature, a dictionary, and a notebook, he forged the very instrument by which the Sacred Writings would later reach the Western world — a lifetime's labour of learning poured out in service.
A young American woman travelled again and again to the prison-city of 'Akká, sat at 'Abdu'l-Bahá's table, and asked Him question after question — about God, the soul, the prophets, the meaning of the Scriptures. Out of three years of patient asking came *Some Answered Questions,* a book that includes the Master's teaching on the four ways human beings try to know the truth — and why only one of them is sure.
He was the most favoured disciple of the foremost religious teacher of his day, the one student raised to the rank of mujtahid, "a universal man, in himself alone a convincing proof." Then Áqá Muḥammad-i-Qá'iní met Bahá'u'lláh — and the scholar who had mastered theology, philosophy, and mysticism found a knowledge before which all his learning bowed.
A Harvard-trained teacher, proud of the Latin, algebra, and geometry he drilled into his pupils, met 'Abdu'l-Bahá and was asked one quiet question that exposed the great gap in modern education. Stanwood Cobb spent the rest of his long life — he lived to 101 — trying to put back what his schooling had left out.
On pilgrimage to 'Akká, Lua Getsinger longed to serve 'Abdu'l-Bahá. He gave her the chance — and sent her to a poor, sick, friendless man in the filthiest quarter of the city. When she recoiled from the squalor, the Master taught her the hardest and most beautiful lesson of her life: whoever would serve God must serve his fellow man, for in every human being is the image and likeness of God.
On Christmas night of 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá went to a shelter in Westminster where about a thousand of London's homeless and friendless men had gathered for a Christmas meal. He told them that His company had ever been with the poor, that He counted Himself one of them, and that in the sight of God poverty was greater than wealth — and He left money so the men might feast again on New Year's night.
For two years Bahá'u'lláh withdrew alone into the wilderness of Kurdistan, asking nothing, claiming nothing, known to no one but as a wandering dervish. Yet the sheer beauty of His character and wisdom could not stay hidden — the shaykhs and divines of Sulaymáníyyih were drawn to Him in wonder and love, until His fame at last revealed where He was.
An eminent Swiss scientist, long an unbeliever, sent his deepest questions about God and the soul to 'Abdu'l-Bahá. The reply — one of the last great Tablets of the Master's life — answered him so fully that Auguste Forel, near the end of his days, embraced the Faith whose Word had reached him.
Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí was the most learned, most eloquent, and most influential divine in all Persia — a man who had committed thirty thousand traditions to memory and before whom whole assemblies fell silent. Sent by the Sháh himself to examine the Báb and expose Him, this perfected scholar found instead that true greatness of mind lies not in what one knows but in the humility to bow before the truth.
Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl had perfected nearly every branch of human knowledge — theology, philosophy, history, the sciences — and headed a renowned college before he was thirty. When he became a Bahá'í, he did not lay his learning aside; he laid it at the feet of the Cause, becoming its peerless scholar and carrying its proofs from Cairo to Paris to Green Acre, where Harvard and Columbia professors came to listen.
Mullá Ṣádiq-i-Khurásání was a famous, austere, and exacting divine — a man who had spent his life among the learned and was not easily moved. When word of the Báb reached Iṣfahán, he did not accept it on rumour, nor reject it from pride. He put it to the test. He set the young Quddús a hard examination of proofs — and when the answers came, the proud scholar was undone, and became one of the most steadfast heralds of the new Day.
Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí, called Vaḥíd, was sent by the Sháh himself to examine the Báb and report on His claim. The most learned man in Persia came armed with the hardest questions he could devise. Across three audiences his doubts were answered one by one — until in the last, the Báb fulfilled the very test Vaḥíd had silently resolved to set Him, and the great scholar's questioning ended in certitude.
Howard Colby Ives was a Unitarian minister with a restless, questioning mind and a heart full of unanswered longing. When he first encountered 'Abdu'l-Bahá in 1912, he did not believe — he struggled, argued inwardly, and held back for months. His memoir, Portals to Freedom, is the honest record of a thinking man's doubts slowly giving way, not to argument, but to a love that answered the questions beneath his questions.
A Scottish doctor heard of the Bahá'í Faith in 1914 and did what a careful physician does with any new claim: he investigated it methodically. He read, he learned Persian, he wrote out what he understood — and then he travelled to Haifa and laid his manuscript before 'Abdu'l-Bahá Himself for correction. The book that resulted, Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era, has since carried answers to seekers in some sixty languages.
Darvísh Ṣidq-'Alí was a wandering Sufi, free and detached, who roamed the path of the mystics in search of God. When he found Him in Baghdád in the person of Bahá'u'lláh, he laid down his old independent life at once and begged only to walk beside the caravan of exile as a humble groom — tending the horses by night, singing his Lord's praises by day, and counting that lowly service the highest sovereignty.
The first American to embrace the Faith did not rest in the distinction. For the next eighteen years Thornton Chase quietly built the institutions of a young community — chairing the Chicago House of Spirituality, founding its publishing work, and writing the patient circular letters that knit the scattered believers of a continent together. 'Abdu'l-Bahá named him Thábit, the Steadfast.
The festival of Riḍván was made ready by loving hands. Drawing on The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, this retelling honours the companions who served the Holy Family through the twelve days outside Baghdád — pitching the tent, gathering and tending the roses, keeping watch through the nights — and who helped the household across the Tigris on the ninth day.
In 1844, while Bahá'u'lláh was still veiled from the eyes of men, a wandering dervish cooking his food by a brook in the district of Núr was, in a single brief conversation, "changed completely" — and recognised the Light that no one else yet saw. Leaving his cooking-pots behind, he rose and followed on foot, chanting a love-song whose refrain has outlived his name: "Thou art the Light of Truth."
A Unitarian minister who had spent his life hungry for a reality his own theology could not give him met 'Abdu'l-Bahá in New York in 1912. Recognition did not strike him like lightning; it dawned, slowly and against his own resistance, over months of inner struggle — until the light he had been looking for all his life rose at last, and he walked out of one ministry into another.
The Báb was sent to a bleak mountain prison on the frontier of Persia, chosen for its remoteness and the supposed hostility of its people, so that His influence might be extinguished. Instead the light could not be walled out: the hostile warden himself was transformed, the discipline relaxed, and the Kurdish villagers below began to climb the mountain each dawn for a single glimpse of His face.
On a Sunday evening in September 1911, after forty years of imprisonment and exile, 'Abdu'l-Bahá rose in the pulpit of the City Temple in London and gave the first public address of His life in the Western world — a few quiet sentences, proclaimed before a crowded congregation, that opened the teaching of the Cause in the West.
The most learned divine in Persia was sent by the king himself to examine the young Báb and report Him a pretender. He came armed with all his scholarship and a secret final test no one could have known. In a single sitting that test was answered before he spoke it — and the proudest scholar of the realm bowed his head. A story of the power of God over the learned heart.
Withdrawing alone into the mountains of Kurdistán to spare His companions from discord, Bahá'u'lláh lived for two years among proud and warlike tribes and the learned of Sulaymáníyyih as a nameless stranger. He asked nothing of them and pressed His claims on no one; yet His gentleness, wisdom, and unfailing kindness so won their hearts that the whole region came to revere Him — and grieved to lose Him when at last He was called back.
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.
Mírzá Muḥammad was a man of gentle birth and high learning, accustomed to being waited upon. For the love of Bahá'u'lláh he left every comfort behind, walked to the prison of 'Akká, and spent himself as a servant at the believers' hospice — he who had been the master was now the servant, and counted it the highest honour of his life.
From the prison-city of 'Akká, Bahá'u'lláh addressed the supreme spiritual sovereign of the West — Pope Pius IX, who reigned over the Catholic world from Rome. In the Lawḥ-i-Páp He called the Pontiff to leave his palace, sell the jewelled ornaments of his office for the sake of God, and arise to recognize the Day of God. It was a summons from a Prisoner with nothing to a prelate with everything — and within a few years the Pope's own temporal kingdom had vanished from the earth.
One of the last pilgrims to visit ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the Holy Land in 1921 was Anna Kunz, the daughter of a Swiss theologian who lived in Zurich in Switzerland. She later recalled, ‘As I think of him now. I always love to think, first, of his…
One well-known story involves teaching Mountfort Mills how to pray: when ‘Abdu’l- Bahá was in New York, He called to Him an ardent Bahá’í and said, "If you will come to me at dawn tomorrow, I will teach you to pray." Delighted, Mr. M…
Lua Getsinger had crossed an ocean to sit at the feet of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in the prison-city of 'Akka. She longed to serve Him — and the task He gave her was not the one she expected. A retelling from Howard Colby Ives's Portals to Freedom.
In *Portals to Freedom* Howard Colby Ives describes the Sunday morning in 1912 when he invited 'Abdu'l-Bahá to speak from his own Unitarian pulpit in Brooklyn — and the strange experience of standing in his own church and watching his own congregation be addressed by the man whose presence had reorganised his ministry from within.
In one of the closing chapters of *Portals to Freedom,* Howard Colby Ives describes the gathering on December 2, 1912, in the days before 'Abdu'l-Bahá sailed from America. The Master's parting counsel — to manifest complete love and to count no soul beneath one's own — fell on Ives, he writes, like a *stream of spiritual energy* he could almost not bear.
In *Portals to Freedom* Howard Colby Ives describes the first morning in April 1912 when, summoned to the Ansonia Hotel in New York, he climbed the stair and entered the room where 'Abdu'l-Bahá was receiving — and found that all the arguments of his Unitarian ministry suddenly fell silent.
At the last farewell aboard the ship, Howard Colby Ives knelt and placed 'Abdu'l-Bahá's hand upon his own head. What he felt in that hand — and saw in that face — became his lasting picture of true humility. A retelling from Portals to Freedom.
A woman watching from her inn window saw 'Abdu'l-Bahá call back a shabby old man from the street — and quietly give away the clothes off His own body. A retelling from Howard Colby Ives's Portals to Freedom.
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum tells the story of her own marriage to Shoghi Effendi in the spring of 1937 — a private ceremony in the room of the Greatest Holy Leaf, witnessed by a handful of family members, that joined two streams of the Cause and was deliberately kept free of fanfare.
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum describes the small household office from which Shoghi Effendi guided the Bahá'í world for thirty-six years — a room with a typewriter, a stack of cables, a Hebrew-Arabic-Persian shelf of dictionaries, and a Guardian who answered each letter himself in the long hours after Haifa had gone to sleep.
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum recounts the months Shoghi Effendi spent at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1920–1921, perfecting his English so that he might one day serve 'Abdu'l-Bahá as His translator — a small private programme of self-discipline that would, only months later, bear an unimaginable wider fruit.
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum recounts the years the young Shoghi Effendi spent at the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut — later the American University of Beirut — where the grandson of 'Abdu'l-Bahá met the West for the first time inside a Western classroom, and was prepared, without knowing it, for the office that lay ahead.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum's *The Priceless Pearl* preserves a moment from Shoghi Effendi's boyhood in 'Akká: a small barefoot figure in a doorway, eyes on his grandfather, and 'Abdu'l-Bahá's slow nod of recognition that the bond between them was not only physical, but something else.
In Rúḥíyyih Khánum's biography *The Priceless Pearl* she describes the moment in November 1921 when a young Shoghi Effendi, reading the cable in Major Tudor Pole's London office, learned that 'Abdu'l-Bahá had passed — and how, only on his return to Haifa, the opening of the Master's Will revealed an office he had never imagined for himself.
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum describes the months in 1922 and after when the young Shoghi Effendi, crushed by the weight of his appointment, withdrew to the Alps — walking long mountain paths, praying, gathering the strength he would need to take up the task the Master's Will had laid on him.
Monday, November…
On April 19, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá addressed the men of the Bowery Mission in lower Manhattan — several hundred of New York's poorest, many homeless, gathered in the Mission hall for the evening service. The Master spoke to them as the equals of any king and gave them, at the close of the address, a silver quarter from His own hand.
On June 15, 1912, in a home on West Seventy-eighth Street in New York, 'Abdu'l-Bahá explained the kind of distinction He wished for the Bahá'ís — not financial or worldly eminence, but a distinction of love, character, and steadfast service.
At Green Acre on August 16, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá enumerated the four fallible standards of human knowledge — sense, intellect, tradition, and inspiration — then turned, in the same talk, to love as the binding force of all phenomena, and ended with a prayer for Sarah Farmer, the founder of the Green Acre Conferences.
On the morning of May 6, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá arrived by train at the Cleveland Union Station and was received by the small Cleveland Bahá'í community. He addressed them on the platform itself with a brief but characteristic speech: that the spirit of the Cause is carried not in great gatherings but in the small, faithful community of two or three friends.
At the Hotel Plaza in Chicago on May 2, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá explained the difference between Bahá'í consultation and parliamentary debate — drawing on the example of the early disciples of Christ to show what spiritual conference looks like.
At the Parsons home in Washington, D.C., on April 22, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá recounted a Persian historical episode of a Zoroastrian high priest whose prejudice melted when he saw the spiritual authority of the very Arabs his nation had despised — drawing the parallel to His own day.
Adib Taherzadeh's account, in *The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh*, of the *Lawḥ-i-Ḥikmat* — the *Tablet of Wisdom* — addressed by Bahá'u'lláh to Nabíl-i-Akbar in Egypt, in which He surveys the lineage of Greek and Persian philosophy and the proper relation between divine Revelation and human inquiry.
In the beginning of the eleventh chapter of the Revelation of St. John it is…
Question.—Is the ablution of baptism useful and necessary, or is it useless and unnecessary? In the first case, if it is useful, why was it abrogated? And in the second case, if it is useless, why did John practice…
In *Some Answered Questions*, 'Abdu'l-Bahá addresses Laura Clifford Barney's question on the creation of the human being — distinguishing the *species* from the *individual* and explaining the eternal pre-existence of humanity in the divine knowledge.
In *Some Answered Questions*, 'Abdu'l-Bahá presses the case that humanity, left to itself, does not by some natural process improve. It *requires* an educator of universal scope — and the Manifestations of God are precisely the educators sent for that purpose.
Question.—In the Holy Books there are some addresses of reproach and rebuke directed to the Prophets. Who is addressed, and for whom is the…
Let Me set forth some rational arguments for thee. If someone desireth to embrace the Faith of Islám today, would the testimony of God prove conclusive for him? If thou dost contend that it would not, then how is it that God will…
Since all men have issued forth from the shadow of the signs of His Divinity and Lordship, they always tend to take a path, lofty and high. And because they are bereft of a discerning eye to recognize their Beloved, they fall short of…
Twelve hundred and seventy years have elapsed since the declaration of Muḥammad, and each year unnumbered people have circumambulated the House of God [Mecca]. In the concluding year of this period He Who is Himself the Founder of the…
O thou dear handmaid of God! Praise thou God, because thou art favoured at His Holy Threshold, and cherished in the Kingdom of His might. Thou art the head of an assembly which is the very imprint of the Company on high, the…
O captive of the love of God! The letter which thou didst write at the time of thy departure hath been received. It brought me joy; and it is my hope that thine inner eye may be opened wide, so that unto thee the very core of the divine…
O ye two faithful and assured souls! The letter was received. Praise be to God, it imparted good tidings. California is ready for the promulgation of the Teachings of God. My hope is that ye may strive with heart and soul that the sweet…
O ye sincere ones, ye longing ones, ye who are drawn as if magnetized, ye who have risen up to serve the Cause of God, to exalt His Word and scatter His sweet savours far and wide! I have read your excellent letter, beautiful as to…
O ye faithful friends, O ye sincere servants of Bahá’u’lláh! Now, in the midwatches of the night, when eyes are closed in slumber and all have laid their heads upon the couch of rest and deep sleep, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is wakeful within the…
In cycles gone by, each one of the Manifestations of God hath had His own rank in the world of existence, and each hath represented a stage in the development of humanity. But the Manifestation of the Most Great Name—may my life be a…
The prime requisites for them that take counsel together are purity of motive, radiance of spirit, detachment from all else save God, attraction to His Divine Fragrances, humility and lowliness amongst His loved ones, patience and…
O thou memento of him who died for the Blessed Beauty! In recent days, the joyful news of thy marriage to that luminous leaf hath been received, and hath infinitely gladdened the hearts of the people of God. With all humility, prayers…
In April 1918 the Star of the West relayed an account, from talks of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in the Holy Land in early 1914, of a former servant of Bahá'u'lláh's household named Esfandayár, who had remained quietly devoted to the family of the Blessed Beauty through years of persecution.
In an early issue of the Star of the West, Helen Goodall — the matriarch of the Oakland Bahá'í community — published her pilgrimage notes from her visit to 'Abdu'l-Bahá in 'Akká in 1908, preserving the Master's words on the equality of women and men in His own household.
In 1926 the Star of the West printed the obituary of Howard MacNutt, the early New York believer who had compiled and edited The Promulgation of Universal Peace from the stenographic records of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's American talks of 1912.
In April 1914 the Star of the West reprinted, from M. Holbach's article in the Christian Commonwealth, a striking observation about the pilgrims at Haifa: young Hindus of high caste were lodging in the same house, eating at the same table, with Zoroastrians, Jews, and Muslim pilgrims — *crossing the rubicon* of caste in a way no other movement in the East had achieved.
Juliet Thompson's diary entries, printed in the Star of the West in April 1917, preserve a small image from the Master's first days in New York in April 1912 — His insistence on distributing silver quarters from His own hand to the men of the Bowery Mission, with the brief direction: *Surely, give to the poor!*
In 1916 the Star of the West introduced its readers to the young Japanese Bahá'í Saichiro Fujita, who had come from Yamaguchi to study in California, found the Faith there, and would in time travel to Haifa to spend the rest of his life in the household of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi.
In June 1913 the Star of the West printed a brief obituary, written by Edward Theodore Hall, for Sarah Ann Ridgway of Manchester, England — a silk weaver who had given her quiet evenings, for years, to teaching the Faith in the working-class district of Pendleton.
In October 1912 the Star of the West printed the news of the death of Thornton Chase — the first American to embrace the Bahá'í Faith, who had passed in Los Angeles only weeks after meeting 'Abdu'l-Bahá on the Master's American journey. The Master called him *the first American believer.*
Stanwood Cobb took his 75-year-old father to see ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Boston. His father was sympathetic to Stanwood's attraction to the Bahá’í Faith, but claimed that he himself was too old to change. When his father met the Master, Stanwood…
Among the small images 'Abdu'l-Bahá used in conversation with the friends was the parable of a bird with a broken wing — a creature who, having tried every other refuge, at last laid itself in the hand of the One who had made it, and was healed.
'Abdu'l-Bahá would sometimes draw, in His talks with friends, on the great Persian-Turkish folk humour of Mulla Nasrudin — including the famous tale of a man searching for his key in the wrong place because the light there was better, and the searching lesson He drew from it.
Among the household stories 'Abdu'l-Bahá would tell was the account of why He no longer took sugar with His tea — because the believers in a certain Persian village had nothing but black tea, and He could not bring Himself to take a sweetness His friends could not share.
Among the Gospel images 'Abdu'l-Bahá would explain to inquirers was Christ's saying about the camel and the eye of the needle — the small *needle gate* in the wall of an ancient city, the kneeling of the camel, and what the image asks of the rich.
Among the small stories 'Abdu'l-Bahá would offer to teach the hidden dignity of the poor was the account of an old village woman who walked seven kos for a load of firewood — and a passing prince who learned, in a single conversation with her, what his court had not been able to teach him.
Among the conversion stories 'Abdu'l-Bahá would tell to illustrate the suddenness with which a heart can turn was the account of a thief who climbed to a holy man's roof with the intention of robbing him — and came down, before morning, a different man.
Among the parables 'Abdu'l-Bahá used in conversation with friends was the story of three ducks who set off across a meadow to find the great river of which their elders had spoken — and how their different ways of seeking shaped what each one finally found.
Among the parables 'Abdu'l-Bahá told to the friends was the brief story of a wise man and a fool who walked the same road in opposite directions — and the question of which of them was in fact going somewhere.
Glory be unto Thee, O my…
O thou faithful servant of the True…
O thou favored maid-servant of…
O thou sign of the Kingdom and the bird singing with the most wonderful melodies in the rose-garden of…
O thou that mirror in which the Light of Guidance is…
O thou who art attracted by the Breath of…
O thou who art confessing the Oneness of…
O thou who art favored in the Kingdom of the…
O thou who art ignited through the brilliant Flame which is blazing in this Blessed…
O thou who art submissive and humble before the Holy…
O thou who art turning to the divine…
O ye friends285 of this…
O ye273 servants of the True One and the maid-servants of the…
O ye58 sincere ones and ye who are attracted and moved by the breeze of the favor of…
Verily I approach Thee, O my God, in the darkest hour of this dark night, and pray Thee with my inmost heart, while I am moving by Thy fragrances, which are being diffused from Thy Kingdom of Abha, and say158…
Julia Grundy's pilgrim notes preserve the small ceremonial details of a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh at Bahjí — the shoes left at the door, the long Persian rugs underfoot, the kneeling at the marble threshold, and the tea served afterward by the women of the household.
In her 1905 pilgrim notes Julia Grundy preserves a meal at the Master's table — His Eastern way of eating with the fingers, His easy explanation to Western visitors, and His turning of the moment into a teaching about the food that brings life and the food that does not.
The first person singular seldom crept into the Master’s speech. He once told group of New York friends that in the future the words ‘I’ and ‘Me’ and ‘Mine’ would be regarded as profane. Lua Getsinger reported that one day she and…
The Master’s humility was shown in many ways. He desired no name or title except that of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá the Servant of God. He forbade pilgrims to fall at His feet. In the early days in Akka, He cooked for His fellow prisoners, and later,…
The Master’s life was centered on God, not on Himself. To do God’s will, to be His servant, were his concerns. He disliked photographs of Himself, permitting them only to satisfy His friends. ‘But to have a picture of oneself,’ He said,…
There was a man in Haifa who disliked ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Whenever he saw the Master, he crossed the street to avoid Him. Finally, one day he approached ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and said, ‘So You are called the Servant of God.’ ‘Yes,’ said ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,…
Touching the individual known as the Báb and the true nature of this sect diverse tales are on the tongues and in the mouths of men, and various accounts are contained in the pages of Persian history and the leaves of European…
When he reached Hamadán his character became known, and, as he was of the clerical class, the doctors vehemently pursued him, handed him over to the government, and ordered chastisement to be inflicted. By chance there fell out from the…
correspondence?” Then the Royal Command was issued that their Reverences the learned doctors and honorable and accomplished divines should write a reply to that epistle. But when the most expert doctors of the capital became aware of…
In *A Traveler's Narrative*, 'Abdu'l-Bahá relates the encounter between Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí — known as Vaḥíd, the most learned cleric of his generation in Persia — and the Báb. Three audiences. In the third, a request for a commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar; and the Báb's spontaneous, written reply that emptied the room of every doubt.
To Ethel Rosenberg, the first English woman to embrace the Bahá’í Faith in her native land, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, while she was on pilgrimage in the Holy Land in 1901, ‘We must strive to change our bad qualities into good ones, quick temper…
Whenever possible ‘Abdu’l-Bahá attempted to avoid unnecessary fanfare. Once, wealthy visitors from the West planned an elaborate pre-meal, hand-washing scene for Him it included a page boy, a clean bowl with ‘crustal water’ and even a…