The first Western Bahá'í pilgrims, pictured in the winter of 1898. Ibrahim George Kheiralla is seated in the middle of the front row. Lua Getsinger sits second from right. Standing in the left is Robert Turner.
November 11. On this date in 1898, Ibrahim George Kheiralla, who led the first Western Bahá'í Pilgrims to Palestine, reached ‘Akká. The group included Phoebe Hearst, Lua Getsinger, May Maxwell, and Robert Turner. In ‘Akká, they witnessed first hand the conflict between `Abdu'l-Bahá and his brothers.
On November 11, 1849, Ibrahim George Kheiralla
was born to a Christian family in a village on Mount Lebanon. He later
studied medicine at the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut.
Ibrahim George Kheiralla
converted to the Bahá'í Faith while living in Egypt in 1889 when he met
Hájí `Abdu’l-Karím-i-Tihrání. Kheiralla went through Europe and
eventually came to the United States in late 1892 where he joined Anton
Haddad, the first Bahá'í to come to America. Initially, Kheiralla
settled in New York where he began teaching "Truth Seeker" classes. He
visited Charles Augustus Briggs and others, as well as the Syrian community in New York.
In 1894 Kheiralla moved on to Chicago following the interest fostered
by the World's Columbian Exposition's World Parliament of Religions. In
Chicago he taught "Truth Seeker" classes. One of the early converts
while Kheiralla was in Chicago was Thornton Chase,
who had read the presentation about the Bahá'ís at the Exposition, and
is generally considered the first Bahá'í convert in the West to have
remained in the religion. Other individuals had converted, but none
remained members of the religion.
Another to join the religion from Kheiralla's early classes was Howard MacNutt, who would later compile The Promulgation of Universal Peace,
a prominent collection of the addresses of `Abdu'l-Bahá during his
journeys in America. Both men were designated as "Disciples of
'Abdu'l-Bahá" and "Heralds of the Covenant" by Shoghi Effendi.
Another student of the classes and Disciple was Lua Getsinger, designated as the "mother teacher of the West".
Another who "passed" the class and joined the religion was the maverick Honoré Jackson. Kheiralla moved once again, to Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 1895, where a large Bahá'í community soon developed.
Because of his success promulgating the Bahá'í Faith in North
America, 'Abdu'l-Bahá titled Kheiralla "Bahá's Peter," "the Second
Columbus" and "Conqueror of America." 'Abdu'l-Bahá would write a Tablet
to Ibráhím George Kheiralla.
In 1898, Kheiralla undertook a Bahá'í pilgrimage to Palestine to meet
'Abdu'l-Bahá with other American pilgrims, including Phoebe Hearst, Lua
Getsinger and May Boles. In Akka, Kheiralla witnessed first hand the
conflict between 'Abdu'l-Bahá and his brothers. Upon his return to
America in 1899, Kheiralla began to announce his avowed leadership of
Western Bahá'ís independent of `Abdu'l-Bahá and authored a book, Beha'u'llah, wherein he states his belief that 'Abdu'l-Bahá was equal in rank to his brothers Mírzá Muhammad 'Alí,
Díyá'u'lláh, and Badi'u'lláh. Early after the return to America,
'Abdu'l-Bahá sent, first, Anton Haddad with a letter contesting the
definition of leadership, then Khieralla's initial teacher of the
religion, 'Abdu’l-Karím-i-Tihrání, to confront him.
The conflict made the newspapers. Ultimately, in the conflict between 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Mírzá Muhammad 'Alí, Kheiralla sided with the latter for which he was declared a Covenant-breaker.
Kheiralla would go on to form the "Society of Behaists," which would later be led by Shua Ullah Behai
and eventually become defunct. Kheiralla had three children, two
daughters who were named Nabeeha and Labiba, and a son named George
Ibrahim Kheirallah who converted Islam in the 1930s, becoming active in
the Islamic Society of New York, and translated and published some poems
of Khalil Gibran.
Ibrahim George Kheiralla died on March 6, 1929.
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