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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."
12 stories where trustworthiness appears.
In the *Epistle to the Son of the Wolf*, Bahá'u'lláh devotes a substantial passage to the spiritual significance of trustworthiness — naming it as the foundation of the Cause's standing in the world and as the mark by which the true believer is recognised.
'Abdu'l-Bahá's tribute to Ḥájí Amín — the Trustee of Ḥuqúqu'lláh, whose lifetime of patient travel through the Persian provinces, collecting and disbursing the offerings of the believers, sustained the financial life of the Cause for fifty years.
In the shrine-city of Karbilá, the Báb gave one of His devoted followers a promise that asked everything of him: that he would live to behold "Him Whom God shall make manifest," but must tell no one, and must wait. Shaykh Ḥasan-i-Zunúzí let the years pass in patient detachment, holding fast to that word — until the day in Karbilá when he beheld Bahá'u'lláh and the promise came true.
A travelling believer of such transparent honesty that Bahá'u'lláh named him Amín — the Trusted One — and entrusted to him the sacred funds of the Faith. For nearly half a century, on foot and on horseback across Persia and beyond, Ḥájí Abu'l-Ḥasan-i-Ardikání carried that trust without a shadow upon it.
Before He was known to the world, the Báb kept a merchant's shop. A man once left goods in His care to be sold at a set price. The Báb sold them for far more — and then, against every custom of the bazaar, insisted on handing the owner the whole of the larger sum, refusing to keep a single coin that was not his by right.
For some forty years Shaykh Salmán walked, once each year, from Persia to the Holy Land and back — carrying the believers' letters to Bahá'u'lláh and bearing His Tablets home again, never losing a single one. In Memorials of the Faithful, 'Abdu'l-Bahá honours him as a courier without equal, a living thread of the Covenant binding the scattered friends to their Lord.
Before He declared His mission, the Báb spent His youth as a merchant in the port of Búshihr. Those who traded with Him never forgot the beauty of His character — His perfect honesty, the charm of His manners, His refusal to cheat even when custom invited it. From clerics to shopkeepers, all who knew Him were drawn to praise Him.
Late in His ministry, from the neighbourhood of 'Akká, Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Kalimát-i-Firdawsíyyih — the "Words of Paradise" — a Tablet of luminous leaves of counsel on the fear of God, the building of a just society, education, the trustworthiness that adorns the human race, and the world-renewing power of His Word.
In the bazaars of Iṣfáhán two brothers built one of the most prosperous trading houses in the city — yet they were renowned not for their wealth but for their character: trustworthy, honest, compassionate, and so generous that they fed the starving in famine and quietly sustained Bahá'u'lláh's exiled company. They came to be called the King and the Beloved of Martyrs, "shining embodiments of all Bahá'í ideals."
Ḥájí Abu'l-Ḥasan-i-Amín — the Trustee of the Right of God — spent some fifty years travelling the length of Persia on foot and by mule, sustaining the financial life of the Cause and carrying nothing of his own. Twice imprisoned for his open faith, he bore each captivity with the very same calm and good cheer with which he bore the endless roads, and after every release returned quietly to his work — content, in 'Abdu'l-Bahá's tribute, with whatever the will of God appointed for him.
Isfandíyár had been a servant in the household of Bahá'u'lláh, freed when Bahá'u'lláh emancipated His father's slaves. When persecution scattered the family and the Sháh's officers hunted him, he had every chance to flee — yet he refused, because he owed money to the shopkeepers of Ṭihrán and would not let it be said that a servant of Bahá'u'lláh had taken goods without paying. Half a century later, 'Abdu'l-Bahá called him a perfect man.
An unlettered villager of no rank or wealth, Shaykh Salmán walked on foot from Persia to Baghdád, to Adrianople, and to the prison of 'Akká once every year for some forty years, carrying the letters of the believers and the Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh — until 'Abdu'l-Bahá declared there had never in history been a courier so worthy of trust.