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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."
60 stories where sincerity appears.
During 'Abdu'l-Bahá's visit to London in 1911, a painter asked Him whether art was a worthy vocation, and an actor raised the subject of the drama. His answers are recorded in 'Abdu'l-Bahá in London.
In this noblest of all ages the Sun of grace and loving-kindness has shone out from the divine day-spring with such resplendent glory and is casting His beams so bright and far …
The letter you have written was received with the utmost joy for it was to us not only a message of love and unity but a message of humble devotion and servitude at the divine Threshold.
To someone who asked whether prayer was necessary, since presumably God knows the wishes of all hearts, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá replied:— If one friend loves another, is it not natural that he should wish to say so?
He was then in His seventieth year, and His long and arduous labors, culminating in these strenuous Western tours, had worn out His physical frame.
In His Writings the Báb tells His followers that they must be distinguished by brotherly love and courtesy.
Riding in the country near Núr, Bahá’u’lláh came upon a lonely young dervish cooking by a brook. After a loving conversation the dervish, Mustafá, recognised His station and followed Him on foot, singing a love-song he had composed.
On pilgrimage to 'Akká in 1901, William and Wendell Dodge were told to bow, clasp their hands and avoid smiling before the Master. When they came in smiling instead, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá embraced them and told them to be natural.
On his first pilgrimage, around 1878–79, Varqá heard Bahá’u’lláh’s words recall a forgotten childhood dream, and later Bahá’u’lláh answered a doubt Varqá had never spoken aloud.
The great scholar Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl credited all his learning to Bahá'u'lláh, and when American pilgrims praised him in the presence of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, he wept, feeling unworthy of any praise.
Riding in the countryside, Bahá'u'lláh met a dervish who said he was cooking God. After Bahá'u'lláh spoke with him, the dervish left his cooking things behind to follow Him, chanting a love-song he had made in His praise.
Muḥammad Sháh sent the learned Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí to Shíráz to investigate the Báb. At their third meeting the Báb revealed, unasked, the commentary Siyyid Yaḥyá had silently resolved to request, and he embraced the Báb's Cause.
In the *Epistle to the Son of the Wolf*, Bahá'u'lláh recounts a vision in which Trustworthiness itself, standing on a pillar of light, declares that it is the most great ornament of the people of Bahá and the supreme instrument for the prosperity of the world.
Ḥájí Muḥammad Khán left home young as a wandering dervish in search of a true guide. He found what he sought in the presence of Bahá'u'lláh, told his family not to wait for his return, and later made his home near the Most Great Prison.
In Káshán a tradesman thought to be unlettered asked the Shaykhí leader Hájí Muhammad-Karím Khán to show him the Fourth Pillar that the Hájí's own book said every believer must know.
In the summer of 1911 Juliet Thompson met two professors from New York near 'Abdu'l-Bahá on Lake Geneva. One lunched with Him and asked his questions; the other stayed away and watched from a window.
In October 1912 'Abdu'l-Baha stayed three nights at Phoebe Hearst's house near Pleasanton, California. On the last evening she asked Him to speak to her relatives and guests about the Faith, and He read them a prayer in Arabic.
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.
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.
In Baghdad a secret midnight audience with Bahá'u'lláh was requested. The reply was a verse He had composed in the wilderness of Kurdistan, and it told plainly what coming to Him would cost.
In Washington in 1912, while Juliet Thompson waited at Mrs Parsons' house, 'Abdu'l-Bahá told her that her heart, not her eloquence, was what taught, and promised that her tongue would be loosed.
In New York in 1912 'Abdu'l-Bahá praised Juliet Thompson again and again for her truthfulness, and in November He tested whether her heart was still in the same state.
The sixty-ninth Persian Hidden Word — Bahá'u'lláh's call that holy words and pure and goodly deeds ascend unto the heaven of celestial glory, and that deeds be cleansed from the dust of self and hypocrisy.
The fifth Hidden Word in Persian — Bahá'u'lláh's warning that the most negligent of men is he that disputeth idly and seeketh to advance himself over his brother, and His counsel: Let deeds, not words, be your adorning.
Howard Colby Ives asked ‘Abdu’l-Bahá why he should believe in Bahá’u’lláh. After a long silence the Master spoke of the sincerity a minister's heart must have, and only months later did Ives realize his question had been answered.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá told the artist Juliet Thompson that, though she was not eloquent, she taught well, because her heart taught and her feeling made people ask what she had.
In ‘Akká, Juliet Thompson told ‘Abdu’l-Bahá she was afraid she was not dressed well enough to meet the Persian believers. He answered that they do not look at the dress but at the heart.
Sent by the king to test the Báb, the scholar Siyyid Yaḥyá silently resolved to ask for a commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar. At their third meeting the Báb offered to reveal exactly that.
In Chicago in 1912 young Leroy Ioas bought white carnations for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá but asked his father to present them. After the talk, the Master turned to the boy and gave him the red rose from His own coat.
J. E. Esslemont describes the young Báb as noted for beauty, charm of manner, piety and nobility of character, faithful in prayer and fasting, and living in the spirit of the Prophet's teachings as well as the letter.
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.
A Paris lawyer who heard of the Faith in 1901 became the first French Bahá'í. He left the law to study Persian and Arabic, translated the Writings into French, travelled widely for the Faith and served 'Abdu'l-Bahá in Paris.
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.
In Paris in 1913 'Abdu'l-Bahá asked the teacher Stanwood Cobb what he taught, then asked, "Do you teach the spiritual things?" Cobb counted it his most important interview with the Master.
In Ṭihrán in 1844 Mullá Ḥusayn gave a student from Núr a scroll to hand to Bahá'u'lláh at dawn. Bahá'u'lláh read it aloud, declared that its words had the same regenerating power as the Qur'án, and sent Mullá Ḥusayn a gift of tea and sugar.
While a prisoner in the mountain fortress of Máh-Kú, the Báb revealed the Dalá'il-i-Sab'ih, the Seven Proofs, in answer to a questioner. Shoghi Effendi calls it the most important of the Báb's polemical works.
In September 1921 'Abdu'l-Bahá answered a letter from the Swiss scientist Auguste Forel with a Tablet on the soul, the mind and the existence of God. Shoghi Effendi records that Forel was converted to the Faith through it.
Howard Colby Ives, a minister who had long searched for God without finding Him, met 'Abdu'l-Bahá in New York in 1912. His doubts did not end that day; certainty came months later, after the Master had left America.
In the summer of 1901 a young Englishman met May Bolles in Paris and within three days accepted the Bahá'í Faith. On pilgrimage to 'Akká he told 'Abdu'l-Bahá that the mill he worked for relied on child labour, and resigned at the Master's word.
In 1844, riding in the district of Núr, Bahá'u'lláh stopped to speak with a dervish cooking by a brook. The dervish left his utensils behind, followed Him on foot, and sang: "Thou art the Light of Truth."
Howard Colby Ives, an unhappy minister, met 'Abdu'l-Bahá in New York in 1912. Months of study and turmoil followed, and when his Brotherhood Church had to close, 'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote to him that it had happened to free him to call people to the Kingdom.
Georgiana Dean had left California at ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s request to care for the blind Mrs. Dealy. Homesick, she took her trouble to Him; He asked her to stay as long as needed, and within days she was free to return.
At the Central Congregational Church in Brooklyn in June 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá praised a pulpit open to every belief, and said that religious discord comes from ancestral imitations, not from the one reality all religions share.
At the Krug home on Park Avenue, New York, on July 15, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá contrasted thanks spoken by the tongue with thanks felt in the heart and shown in deeds, and asked the friends to love one another.
Question.—Those who are blessed with good actions and universal benevolence, who have praiseworthy characteristics, who act with love and kindness toward all creatures, who care for the poor …
The reason why privacy hath been enjoined in moments of devotion is this, that thou mayest give thy best attention to the remembrance of God, that thy heart may at all times be animated with His Spirit, and not be shut out as by a veil from thy Best Beloved.
Thy letter hath been perused. Were the truth of this Revelation to be fully demonstrated with elaborate proofs, all the scrolls that exist in the heaven and on the earth would be insufficient to contain them.
Verily God hath caused the people of the Bayán to be called into being through the power of Him unto Whom the Bayán was revealed, in preparation for the Day when they will return to their Lord.
Worship thou God in such wise that if thy worship lead thee to the fire, no alteration in thine adoration would be produced, and so likewise if thy recompense should be paradise.
Ye perform your works for God from the beginning of your lives till the end thereof, yet not a single act is for the sake of Him Who is the Manifestation of God, to Whom every good deed reverteth.
O thou handmaid afire with the love of God! I have considered thine excellent letter, and thanked God for thy safe arrival in that great city.
O thou advancer to God! Verily, I have read thy brilliant letter which is elegantly composed. I supplicate God to alleviate thy trials and look upon thee with the eye of His mercy under all aspects.
O thou at whose mention I am rejoiced! By God, the True One, verily pure hearts are as clear and brilliant mirrors which imprint the one on the other, and hearts discover the secrets of hearts.
O thou lamp glowing with the fire of the Love of God! Know that the garden drew near and the paradise hath been adorned with the sweet-basils of the knowledge of God.
O thou revered sincere one! Know thou, verily, the brilliant realities and sanctified spirits are likened to a shining crescent.
O thou servant of the Beauty of Abha! We considered all that thou hast written. It seems that the maid-servant of God, Mrs. ........., hath arisen to deliver (the truth).
O thou who art enkindled with the Fire of the Love of God! Thy letter was received and I was informed of the contents.
John David Bosch felt he could not be a speaker and instead circulated pamphlets and books. 'Abdu'l-Bahá assured him that he was doing better than talking, for with him it was the heart that spoke.
The Master told of a merchant who, seeing the crowds that came out to greet Him, asked to become a Bahá’í for the sake of his business, and was frankly told to remain as he was.