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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."
128 stories where perseverance appears.
Nettie Tobin, who was not well off, brought a builder's rejected stone to the Wilmette Temple site by baby carriage, streetcar and a borrowed wagon, and the Master used it at the dedication of the land.
In the years after ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s passing, Shoghi Effendi often withdrew to Switzerland to recover his health and strength, walking for many hours and climbing in the Bernese Alps.
After a sleepless night on the train, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá reached Denver on 23 September 1912. Within hours He was meeting reporters, and that evening He spoke to a crowded gathering at the home of Mrs. Roberts.
On 13 May 1912, ill with a high fever, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá still went to speak at the New York Peace Society’s meeting at the Hotel Astor, telling Juliet Thompson that He worked by the confirmations of the Holy Spirit.
After three fruitless years teaching the Faith in Jamestown, New York, Doris and Willard McKay were urged by Dorothy Baker to say the invocation “Yá Alláh El-Mustagáth”; Doris later saw in those prayers the beginnings of the Jamestown Assembly.
Praise be to God! that ye are gathered in one assembly like unto the stars of the Pleiades, are illumined with the light of the knowledge of God and through the outpouring of the cloud of the love of God …
A biography of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, from His childhood in Tehran and long years of exile and imprisonment to His ministry as Center of the Covenant, His journeys to the West, His writings and His passing in Haifa in 1921.
Early in his Guardianship, Shoghi Effendi used the gift of an Iraqi Bahá’í, Haji Mahmud Qassabchi, to add three rooms to the Shrine of the Báb, and named a door of the Shrine after him.
For decades Ḥájí Abu’l-Ḥasan Ardikání carried the Ḥuqúqu’lláh and the believers’ letters to Bahá’u’lláh, met Him in the public bath at ‘Akká, became trustee of the Ḥuqúqu’lláh, and served on into the ministry of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
Born in Charleston to formerly enslaved parents, Louis G. Gregory became a Bahá'í in 1909, was seated by 'Abdu'l-Bahá at His right in Washington, gave decades to teaching and race unity, and was posthumously named a Hand of the Cause.
Mírzá ‘Abdu’lláh Faráhání, a master of Persian classical music and a believer in Tihrán, was encouraged by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to preserve the old melodies; he recorded them and was still teaching when he died in 1918.
Muḥammad Labíb survived the 1903 persecution in Yazd, founded a children's savings company that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá blessed, helped Effie Baker photograph the Faith's historic sites in Iran, and later pioneered to Japan and Rhodes.
I deeply appreciate your sympathy. My loss is tremendous and my sorrow so profound.
The many evidences of your increasing zeal and activities in the service of our beloved Cause, have to a great measure, relieved my sorrow-laden heart.
I am moved to add a few words with my own pen, to what has been written on my behalf, renewing my plea to you and through you, to each member of your beloved community, to prosecute, with undiminished vigour the enterprise which you have so splendidly inaugurated.
The Fund associated with the beloved name of the Greatest Holy Leaf has been launched.
After the construction of the Báb’s Shrine on Mount Carmel, it was the wish and intention of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá—may our lives be sacrificed for His holy dust—to open a path that would lead directly from the Shrine to the German Avenue.
ENTREAT SORROW STRICKEN AMERICAN BELIEVERS NEVER ALLOW CONSCIOUSNESS THEIR AGONIZING LOSS PARALYZE DETERMINATION PROSECUTE AN ENTERPRISE ON WHICH ADORED OBJECT OUR MOURNING CENTRED HER BRIGHTEST HOPES.
Esslemont records that Persian believers who walked to 'Akká to see Bahá'u'lláh were refused entry to the city, and stood on the plain outside the third moat, from where they could see the windows of His quarters.
Even when the imprisonment was at its worst, the Bahá’ís were not dismayed, and their serene confidence was never shaken.
In order that we may attain the spiritual condition in which conversation with God becomes possible, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says:— We must strive to attain to that condition by being separated from all things and from the people of the world and by turning to God alone.
A Persian pilgrim in Haifa in 1920 describes how 'Abdu'l-Bahá, burdened with countless letters, signed stacks of registered mail, replied at a bench piled with letters, and dictated answers while walking in the garden.
Unable to give money for the Temple, the Chicago seamstress Nettie Tobin hauled a discarded building stone to the Temple site in 1908; on May 1, 1912, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá used it when He dedicated the ground.
In Baghdad in 1862 the Báb's eldest uncle, still doubtful of his Nephew's claim, brought his questions to Bahá'u'lláh, Who answered them in two days and two nights with the Kitáb-i-Íqán, the Book of Certitude.
A fable for children: Beebird's endless song keeps the other animals awake, so he looks for a way to sing softly, and becomes the humming Hummingbird.
In 1912 Nettie Tobin, a Chicago Bahá'í with little money, hauled a stone a builder had rejected all the way to the House of Worship site, where 'Abdu'l-Bahá used it at the dedication.
After a summer storm, Kevin and Laura find sea stars stranded all along a beach and a boy carrying them back to the water. They decide to help him.
Shaykh Ahmad becomes sure from the Qur'an that the Promised One will soon appear. He travels far and wide to tell people, and at last asks Siyyid Kazim to carry on his work.
While 'Abdu'l-Bahá was again confined to 'Akká, Corinne True brought Him a petition signed by over a thousand American believers asking to build a House of Worship. He held it high with joy and told her to make a beginning.
In 1847 the Báb was taken from Iṣfáhán toward Ṭihrán and then sent to the fortress of Máh-Kú, and later to Chihríq. At both prisons the wardens and the people of the district came to revere Him, and at Máh-Kú He wrote the Persian Bayán.
In 1850 Ḥujjat and his companions took refuge in the fort of 'Alí-Mardán Khán at Zanján and held out for months against the Sháh's regiments. Nabíl tells of the women who served beside them, of the maiden Zaynab, and of Ḥujjat's death.
At forty, Shaykh Aḥmad-i-Aḥsá'í left his home in Baḥrayn to prepare the way for the promised One. Nabíl records that he recognized the meaning of Bahá'u'lláh's birth in 1817 and later entrusted his mission to Siyyid Káẓim.
In his last years at Karbilá, Siyyid Káẓim-i-Rashtí sent Mullá Ḥusayn on a mission to Iṣfahán, described to his students the signs of the Promised One, and urged them to scatter far and wide in search of Him.
Nabíl records Siyyid Káẓim's last days: his urging his students to scatter in search of the Promised One, an Arab shepherd's dream foretelling his death, and his passing at Karbilá at the close of 1843.
Pioneering to South America, Elizabeth Cheney met illness, failed funds and broken travel plans. When her river boat sank at night, she clung to a floating log and gave the Message to the woman who shared it.
After an afternoon of long conversations with Professor Ignaz Goldziher and other notable visitors, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá reached a public meeting in Budapest barely able to speak, yet He delivered a powerful talk.
Returning late at night after an exhausting day of speaking in America, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had to be almost carried to His room, yet within fifteen minutes He was calling for His secretary with renewed energy.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum describes how, in 1922–24, Shoghi Effendi wrestled with doubts about his own worthiness to succeed ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, as his letters from those years reveal.
Longing to answer the Guardian’s call for pioneers to South America, the convalescent Grace Ober fell and ended up in a wheelchair, where she met guests from Chile, Argentina, Peru and Brazil and gave them the Message.
Florence Khánum recalls two sayings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: “Be patient, be as I am,” and, to someone discouraged about acquiring every virtue, “Little by little; day by day.”
In 1948 Shoghi Effendi personally directed the cutting away of rock behind the Shrine of the Báb, on his feet from early morning until dark for months, so that the work would be done quickly and economically.
During the Second World War the Guardian wrote God Passes By, his review of the first Bahá'í century, racing to finish it in time for the Centenary. Rúhíyyih Khánum, who proofread it with him late into the night, recorded what the work cost him.
Ḥájí Muḥammad Khán, a Balúch dervish, searched far and wide for a true guide and found none until he attained the presence of Bahá'u'lláh in the Most Great Prison. He went back to share the news with his old friends, then settled near Bahá'u'lláh.
Shoghi Effendi sent Keith Ransom-Kehler to Persia to appeal for the entry of Bahá'í literature. The Shah refused to receive her, and she wrote of her failed mission and of a forget-me-not she had picked in Bárfurúsh before she died in Isfáhán.
In Dublin, New Hampshire, in August 1912, the minister Howard Colby Ives spent a Sunday with 'Abdu'l-Bahá and said he would never doubt again. He later wrote that he had spoken many months too soon.
In 1903 the Bahá'ís of Chicago asked 'Abdu'l-Bahá's permission to build a House of Worship in America. Shoghi Effendi traces the forty years, through economic crisis and war, until its eighteen outer steps were set in place in December 1942.
Nabíl-i-A'zam tells how, as a young shepherd of Zarand, he first heard of the Báb in a village mosque, and how his search led him to Qum and Tihrán just as the struggle at the fort of Tabarsí ended.
'Abdu'l-Bahá wished to open a path from the Shrine of the Báb down to the German Avenue, but a settler's house and landowners holding out for a fortune blocked it for years. The Greatest Holy Leaf tells how the way was opened.
The Guardian fixed the site of the International Archives on Mount Carmel with strings on the ground, planted its gardens first, and had the builders raise it from the rear with five metres to work in. It was completed in 1957.
Pilgrims who had walked from Persia were refused entry to 'Akká and could only glimpse Bahá'u'lláh at a window from beyond the moat. Another pilgrim, Ustád Ismá'íl-i-Káshí, gazed for hours, but his sight was too weak to see His face.
On 1 May 1912 'Abdu'l-Bahá dedicated the site of the first Bahá'í House of Worship in the West at Wilmette, laying as its first stone a discarded block brought by Nettie Tobin.
On His third visit to Paris, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was often too weak to go to meetings in the Bahá’ís’ homes, yet He kept receiving visitors at His hotel, saying that Bahá’u’lláh had trained Him to shoulder the burdens of others.
Longing to be perfect yet despairing of his own weakness, Howard Colby Ives asked ‘Abdu’l-Bahá how he could ever reach so high a goal. The Master answered that it is accomplished little by little.
When a car given to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá reached port as a weekend began, Shoghi Effendi went to officials' homes for their signatures and had it at the Master's door though it was not a business day.
With only an hour ashore in Manila, Loulie Mathews tucked Bahá'í pamphlets onto library shelves. Months later the man who found them wrote asking for more, and a Bahá'í community grew there that regathered after the war.
In the years after the Master’s passing, Shoghi Effendi would set out from Interlaken before dawn to walk and climb in the mountains, usually alone and often for ten to sixteen hours, as he later told Rúḥíyyih Khánum.
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá was eight, His father was imprisoned and the family lost everything. Sent to His aunt's house for money, He was chased and pelted with stones, and reached home too exhausted to speak.
Mírzá 'Abdu'lláh, a master of Persian music, kept teaching though mobs attacked his school. 'Abdu'l-Bahá called him "Divine musician" and encouraged him to preserve the old melodies by writing them down.
Mirza Yusuf, nephew of the martyr Vahid, searched for years before becoming a Bahá'í. In 1902 'Abdu'l-Bahá sent him to teach in America, and later gave him his uncle's name.
Muḥammad Labíb started a savings company for schoolchildren that 'Abdu'l-Bahá blessed. Later he travelled across Persia with Effie Baker as she photographed the places of early Bahá'í history.
The Báb was sent to a far-off mountain castle so that His followers could not reach Him. Instead, the warden and the townspeople came to love Him, and the same thing happened at a second prison.
At forty, Shaykh Aḥmad left his home in Bahrayn to prepare people for the coming of the Promised One. In Ṭihrán he understood the meaning of Bahá'u'lláh's birth, and before he died he passed his work to Siyyid Káẓim.
Siyyid Káẓim gave his students clues about the Promised One and, near the end of his life, urged them to scatter far and wide in search of Him. Mullá Ḥusayn went, and found the Báb.
Near the end of his life, Siyyid Káẓim urged his students to go and search for the Promised One. A shepherd's dream foretold the day of his death, and soon afterwards Mullá Ḥusayn found the Báb.
Nettie Tobin wanted to give something for the new temple, so she brought a rejected stone from Chicago in an old baby carriage. 'Abdu'l-Bahá chose it as the cornerstone.
'Abdu'l-Bahá's gardener said grass would not grow in that land, but Shoghi Effendi kept sending for seed until his lawns grew.
On 1 May 1912 'Abdu'l-Bahá dedicated the site of the first Bahá'í House of Worship in the West. For the cornerstone He chose a rejected building stone that Nettie Tobin had brought from Chicago by baby carriage and streetcar.
'Abdu'l-Bahá remembers Mullá Ṣádiq of Khurásán, Ismu'lláhu'l-Aṣdaq, who was led by a halter through Shíráz with Quddús, survived capture at Fort Ṭabarsí, and taught the Faith cheerfully all his life.
Shoghi Effendi sent the American believer Keith Ransom-Kehler to Persia to plead for the freedom of the persecuted Bahá'ís there. The Sháh never received her, but she stirred the Persian community, and when she died in Iṣfáhán in 1933 the Guardian called her the first American martyr.
After the Great War lifted the danger to His life, 'Abdu'l-Bahá spent His last three years receiving pilgrims, revealing Tablets and helping the poor, until He passed away in November 1921.
The House of Worship at Wilmette began with a petition from the Chicago believers in 1903. 'Abdu'l-Bahá laid its dedication stone in 1912, and the American Bahá'í community built it over the next three decades, finishing the exterior in 1942.
Between 1948 and 1953 Shoghi Effendi raised an arcade, drum and golden dome around the plain stone Shrine 'Abdu'l-Bahá had built for the Báb on Mount Carmel. When it was finished he called it the "Queen of Carmel."
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.
Every year for some forty years Shaykh Salmán walked from Persia to Bahá'u'lláh with the believers' letters and carried His Tablets home, never losing one. After the ascension he served 'Abdu'l-Bahá in the same way.
After Siyyid Káẓim's death, Mullá Ḥusayn refused his fellow disciples' offer to accept him as the promised One, spent forty days in prayer and fasting at the mosque of Kúfih, and set out on the search that led him to the Báb.
Shaykh Aḥmad-i-Aḥsá'í gave his life to preparing people for the coming of the Promised One and chose Siyyid Káẓim-i-Rashtí to carry on his work. Before he died, Siyyid Káẓim urged his disciples to scatter far and wide in search of Him.
During her long visits to 'Akká between 1904 and 1906, Laura Clifford Barney put her questions to 'Abdu'l-Bahá at His table. His answers became Some Answered Questions, which includes His talk on the four ways people seek to understand the truth.
A doctor at a Bournemouth sanatorium first met the Bahá'í teachings in December 1914 and set out to write a book about them. 'Abdu'l-Bahá corrected part of the manuscript, and Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era appeared in 1923.
How Mullá Muḥammad-'Alí of Zanján, called Ḥujjat, accepted the Báb after reading His writings, and how the believers of Zanján, besieged by the army, were at last deceived by oaths sworn on the Qur'án and put to death.
As financial secretary of Bahai Temple Unity, Corinne True of Chicago gathered gifts from across America and the East for the House of Worship at Wilmette. She lived to see it dedicated in 1953 and was known as the Mother of the Temple.
From 1919 until her death in Honolulu in 1939, Martha Root travelled four times around the world teaching the Bahá'í Faith, from South American cities to the palace of Queen Marie of Romania. Shoghi Effendi called her the foremost Hand of the first Bahá'í century.
In 1920 the American Bahá'ís chose Louis Bourgeois's design for the House of Worship at Wilmette. He then showed his drawings to 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who called the design "the most beautiful in the world."
Shaykh Aḥmad-i-Aḥsá'í and his successor Siyyid Káẓim-i-Rashtí spent their lives preparing disciples for the Promised One. Before he died in 1843 the Siyyid urged them to scatter and seek Him, and within months Mullá Ḥusayn found the Báb in Shíráz.
Mullá Ṣádiq, a revered divine of Khurásán, was scourged and led by a halter through Shíráz, among the first believers persecuted in Persia. He survived Ṭabarsí and taught the Faith for the rest of his life.
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.
Fred Mortensen, a former street tough, rode under and on top of railway trains to reach Green Acre and meet ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who, on hearing how he had come, kissed his cheeks and his dirty hat.
On His third visit to Paris in 1913, though His strength had suffered greatly, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá kept receiving visitors at His hotel, and said that Bahá’u’lláh had trained Him to shoulder the burdens of others.
In Scotland, 'Abdu'l-Bahá came to an evening meeting looking very tired after speaking that afternoon; after sitting a few moments in silence, He rose with joyous animation and spoke with great power.
Walking behind ‘Abdu’l-Bahá on the sands near ‘Akká, Lua Getsinger placed her feet in His footprints. A scorpion’s sting, and the Master’s words afterwards, taught her what it means to walk in His footsteps.
'Abdu'l-Bahá's gardener said lawns would not grow in Palestine. Shoghi Effendi cabled friends and relatives and finally wrote to seed firms himself, and in time had lawns that satisfied him.
15 Rue Greuze, Paris, November 10th ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: Tonight I will speak of the evolution or progress of the spirit.
Aḥmad of Yazd lived near Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdád and later set out to reach Him in Adrianople. In Constantinople he received the Tablet of Aḥmad, and instead of going on, he returned to Persia to teach.
Question.—In the Gospel Christ said: “Many are called, but few are chosen,” and in the Qur’án it is written: “He will confer particular mercy on whom He pleaseth.”
This Remembrance is indeed the glorious Remnant of the Light of God, and He will be best for you, if ye in very truth remain faithful to God, the Most Exalted...
Among the greatest of all services that can possibly be rendered by man to Almighty God is the education and training of children, young plants of the Abhá Paradise, so that these children, fostered by grace in the way of salvation …
The Sunday school for the children in which the Tablets and Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are read, and the Word of God is recited for the children is indeed a blessed thing.
O thou sincere and loyal handmaid of the Lord! I have read thy letter. Thou art truly attached to the Kingdom and devoted to the All-Glorious Horizon.
O ye blessed souls!
O ye respected souls! From the continual imitation of ancient and worn-out ways, the world had grown dark as darksome night.
O thou blossom on the Tree of Life!
O handmaids of the beauty of Abhá! Your letter hath come, and its perusal brought great joy.
O handmaids of the Lord! The spiritual assemblage that ye established in that illumined city is most propitious.
Rúhíyyih Khánum describes Shoghi Effendi as a small, sensitive and mischievous child who grew into a man of iron constitution and will, and recalls his hazel eyes and wonderfully expressive face.
Aḥmad of Yazd set out from Baghdád to reach Bahá'u'lláh in Adrianople. In Constantinople he received the Tablet revealed for him, and instead of going on he returned to Persia to teach.
In 1914 'Abdu'l-Bahá advised Agnes Alexander to go to Japan. Her 1916 letter from Tokyo, printed in the Star of the West, tells of her weekly meetings, the students who came to her, and the Esperantists who helped spread the teachings.
In a 1922 talk printed in the Star of the West, Martha Root remembered Mírzá Ḥaydar-'Alí, who endured years of prison, set out as a very old man from the Holy Land for Persia without even a donkey, and was called the Angel of the believers.
In 1916 the Star of the West printed the Tablet in which 'Abdu'l-Bahá urged Agnes Alexander to go directly to Japan, and her letter from Tokyo about the weekly Friday meetings and Fukuta San, the first Japanese Bahá'í in Japan.
In April 1919 the Star of the West printed part of a letter Elizabeth H. Stewart wrote in Tehran in November 1918, describing teaching meetings, a luncheon to which every Persian man brought his wife, and the hardships of the war years.
On September 8, 1916, in the middle of the First World War, the Star of the West printed five Tablets from 'Abdu'l-Bahá to the Bahá'ís of the Northeastern, Western, Southern and Central States and of Canada, the first of the Tablets of the Divine Plan to reach America.
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 thou beloved and benevolent daughter of the Kingdom of God!
O thou bird of the Rose-garden of the Kingdom! In appearance there hath some time elapsed since news hath been received from thee, but in spirit the arrival of the news is uninterrupted.
O thou bright pearl! Endeavor, and spare no effort, and hasten to the Kingdom of thy Lord, the Lord of the shining and clear evidences and arguments.
O thou maid-servant of the Blessed Perfection! Thy letter was received. It was written in Persian. I was very much pleased.
O thou my dear friend, my associate and companion! The times of (our) meeting are still remembered and the sweetness of thy company is lastingly established in the recess of (my) life.
O thou servant who art near and dear to the Glorious Threshold!
O thou spiritual youth! Japan hath made wonderful progress in material civilization, but she will become perfect when she also becometh spiritually developed and the power of the Kingdom becometh manifest in her.
O thou who art advancing unto the Face of God!
O thou who art directed unto God! Thy revered wife, Mrs. ........, is indeed confirmed by the fragrances of the spirit and rendered victorious by the hosts of the Kingdom.
O thou who seekest for the Will of God! Give thanks to God that thou entered the divine Kingdom and knowest the heavenly Lord of Hosts!
O ye two pilgrims of the Holy Shrine! The news of your protected and safe arrival in Paris, France, reached here and made me glad and happy.
O ye who are chosen! O ye who are firm! O ye who are calling! O ye who are sincere!
Leroy Ioas recalls the evening Shoghi Effendi shared news that a discouraged pioneer on a Pacific island, whom he had urged again and again to stay, now had two spiritual assemblies.
In an essay written as a student in Beirut in 1914–15, the young Shoghi Effendi argues that well-conducted sports and athletics refresh the body, enlighten the mind and develop moral character.
A portrait of L. L. Zamenhof, reprinted in Star of the West: an oculist who struggled to support his family, sought neither profit nor power from Esperanto, and worked tirelessly to spare humanity the suffering of dissension and war.
When the lease on Thomas Breakwell's grave lapsed, his remains were moved to the cemetery's charnel house; later the French Bahá'ís placed a simple stone on the vacant site, which has become a focal point of pilgrimage.
Arriving to find that a revolution had scattered the men she carried letters to, Elizabeth Cheney prayed as she walked the streets until she stopped at a garden fence, where a gardener led her to one of them in hiding.
Keith Ransom-Kehler, sent by Shoghi Effendi to Persia, pleaded the cause of its persecuted Bahá'ís before the authorities and died in Iṣfáhán in 1933. The Guardian called her the American believers' first and distinguished martyr.