humility

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…

<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One day, when Lua Getsinger was in 'Akká she noticed a Western woman was telling 'Abdu'l-Bahá all about her troubles. This was a strange thing to do for usually when people enter the presence…

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.

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…

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.

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…