July 17. On this date in 1932, Shoghi Effendi wrote a letter to North American Bahá’ís, which became the last entry in his work Bahá’í Administration. The letter starts "A sorrow, reminiscent in its poignancy, of the devastating grief caused by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s sudden removal from our midst, has stirred the Bahá’í world to its foundations. The Greatest Holy Leaf, the well-beloved and treasured Remnant of Bahá’u’lláh entrusted to our frail and unworthy hands by our departed Master, has passed to the Great Beyond, leaving a legacy that time can never dim."
A sorrow, reminiscent in its poignancy, of the devastating grief
caused by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s sudden removal from our midst, has stirred
the Bahá’í world to its foundations. The Greatest Holy Leaf, the
well-beloved and treasured Remnant of Bahá’u’lláh entrusted to our
frail and unworthy hands by our departed Master, has passed to the
Great Beyond, leaving a legacy that time can never dim.
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The community of the Most Great Name, in its entirety and to
its very core, feels the sting of this cruel loss. Inevitable though
this calamitous event appeared to us all, however acute our apprehensions
of its steady approach, the consciousness of its final consummation
at this terrible hour leaves us, we whose souls have been
impregnated by the energizing influence of her love, prostrated and
disconsolate.
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How can my lonely pen, so utterly inadequate to glorify so
exalted a station, so impotent to portray the experiences of so sublime
a life, so disqualified to recount the blessings she showered
upon me since my earliest childhood—how can such a pen repay
the great debt of gratitude and love that I owe her whom I regarded
as my chief sustainer, my most affectionate comforter, the joy and
inspiration of my life? My grief is too immense, my remorse too
profound, to be able to give full vent at this moment to the feelings
that surge within me.
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Only future generations and pens abler than mine can, and will,
pay a worthy tribute to the towering grandeur of her spiritual life,
to the unique part she played throughout the tumultuous stages of
Bahá’í history, to the expressions of unqualified praise that have
streamed from the pen of both Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the
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Center of His covenant, though unrecorded, and in the main unsuspected
by the mass of her passionate admirers in East and West,
the share she has had in influencing the course of some of the chief
events in the annals of the Faith, the sufferings she bore, the sacrifices
she made, the rare gifts of unfailing sympathy she so strikingly
displayed—these, and many others stand so inextricably interwoven
with the fabric of the Cause itself that no future historian of the
Faith of Bahá’u’lláh can afford to ignore or minimize.
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How well I remember her recall, at a time when her faculties
were still unimpaired, the gnawing suspense that ate into the hearts
of those who watched by her side, at the threshold of her pillaged
house, expectant to hear at any moment the news of Bahá’u’lláh’s
imminent execution! In those sinister hours, she often recounted,
her parents had so suddenly lost their earthly possessions that within
the space of a single day from being the privileged member of one
of the wealthiest families of Ṭihrán she had sunk to the state of a
sufferer from unconcealed poverty. Deprived of the means of subsistence,
her illustrious mother, the famed Navváb, was constrained
to place in the palm of her daughter’s hand a handful of flour and
to induce her to accept it as a substitute for her daily bread.
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And when at a later time this revered and precious member of
the Holy Family, then in her teens, came to be entrusted by the
guiding hand of her Father with missions that no girl of her age
could, or would be willing to, perform, with what spontaneous joy
she seized her opportunity and acquitted herself of the task with
which she had been entrusted! The delicacy and extreme gravity
of such functions as she, from time to time, was called upon to
fulfill, when the city of Baghdád was swept by the hurricane which
the heedlessness and perversity of Mírzá Yaḥyá had unchained, as
well as the tender solicitude which, at so early an age, she evinced
during the period of Bahá’u’lláh’s enforced retirement to the mountains
of Sulaymáníyyih, marked her as one who was both capable of
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sharing the burden, and willing to make the sacrifice, which her high
birth demanded.
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How staunch was her faith, how calm her demeanor, how
forgiving her attitude, how severe her trials, at a time when the
forces of schism had rent asunder the ties that united the little
band of exiles which had settled in Adrianople and whose fortunes
seemed then to have sunk to their lowest ebb! It was in this period
of extreme anxiety, when the rigors of a winter of exceptional
severity, coupled with the privations entailed by unhealthy housing
accommodations and dire financial distress, undermined once for all
her health and sapped the vitality which she had hitherto so thoroughly
enjoyed. The stress and storm of that period made an
abiding impression upon her mind, and she retained till the time of
her death on her beauteous and angelic face evidences of its intense
hardships.
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Not until, however, she had been confined in the company of
Bahá’u’lláh within the walls of the prison-city of ‘Akká did she
display, in the plenitude of her power and in the full abundance of
her love for Him, more gifts that single her out, next to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,
among the members of the Holy Family, as the brightest
embodiment of that love which is born of God and of that human
sympathy which few mortals are capable of evincing.
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Banishing from her mind and heart every earthly attachment,
renouncing the very idea of matrimony, she, standing resolutely by
the side of a Brother whom she was to aid and serve so well, arose
to dedicate her life to the service of her Father’s glorious Cause.
Whether in the management of the affairs of His Household in
which she excelled, or in the social relationships which she so
assiduously cultivated in order to shield both Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,
whether in the unfailing attention she paid to the every day
needs of her Father, or in the traits of generosity, of affability and
kindness, which she manifested, the Greatest Holy Leaf had by that
time abundantly demonstrated her worthiness to rank as one of the
noblest figures intimately associated with the life-long work of
Bahá’u’lláh.
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How grievous was the ingratitude, how blind the fanaticism,
how persistent the malignity of the officials, their wives, and their
subordinates, in return for the manifold bounties which she, in close
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association with her Brother, so profusely conferred upon them!
Her patience, her magnanimity, her indiscriminating benevolence,
far from disarming the hostility of that perverse generation, served
only to inflame their rancour, to excite their jealousy, to intensify
their fears. The gloom that had settled upon that little band of
imprisoned believers, who languished in the Fortress of ‘Akká, contrasted
with the spirit of confident hope, of deep-rooted optimism
that beamed upon her serene countenance. No calamity, however
intense, could obscure the brightness of her saintly face, and no
agitation, no matter how severe, could disturb the composure of her
gracious and dignified behaviour.
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That her sensitive heart instantaneously reacted to the slightest
injury that befell the least significant of creatures, whether friend
or foe, no one who knew her well could doubt. And yet such was
the restraining power of her will—a will which her spirit of
self-renunciation so often prompted her to suppress—that a superficial
observer might well be led to question the intensity of her emotions
or to belittle the range of her sympathies. In the school of adversity
she, already endowed by Providence with the virtues of meekness
and fortitude, learned through the example and exhortations of the
Great Sufferer, who was her Father, the lesson she was destined
to teach the great mass of His followers for so long after Him.
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Armed with the powers with which an intimate and long-standing
companionship with Bahá’u’lláh had already equipped her,
and benefiting by the magnificent example which the steadily widening
range of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s activities afforded her, she was prepared
to face the storm which the treacherous conduct of the Covenant-breakers
had aroused and to withstand its most damaging onslaughts.
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Great as had been her sufferings ever since her infancy, the
anguish of mind and heart which the Ascension of Bahá’u’lláh
occasioned, nerved her, as never before, to a resolve which no upheaval
could bend and which her frail constitution belied. Amidst
the dust and heat of the commotion which that faithless and rebellious
company engendered she found herself constrained to
dissolve ties of family relationship, to sever long-standing and
intimate friendships, to discard lesser loyalties for the sake of her
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supreme allegiance to a Cause she had loved so dearly and had
served so well.
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The disruption that ensued found her ranged by the side of
Him Whom her departed Father had appointed as the Center of His
Covenant and the authorized Expounder of His Word. Her venerated
mother, as well as her distinguished paternal uncle, Áqáy-i-Kalím—the twin pillars who, all throughout the various stages of
Bahá’u’lláh’s exile from the Land of His Birth to the final place of
His confinement, had demonstrated, unlike most of the members of
His Family, the tenacity of their loyalty—had already passed behind
the Veil. Death, in the most tragic circumstances, had also robbed
her of the Purest Branch, her only brother besides ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,
while still in the prime of youth. She alone of the family of
Bahá’u’lláh remained to cheer the heart and reinforce the efforts
of the Most Great Branch, against whom were solidly arrayed the
almost entire company of His faithless relatives. In her arduous
task she was seconded by the diligent efforts of Munírih Khánum,
the Holy Mother, and those of her daughters whose age allowed
them to assist in the accomplishment of that stupendous achievement
with which the name of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá will forever remain
associated.
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With the passing of Bahá’u’lláh and the fierce onslaught of the
forces of disruption that followed in its wake, the Greatest Holy
Leaf, now in the hey-day of her life, rose to the height of her great
opportunity and acquitted herself worthily of her task. It would
take me beyond the compass of the tribute I am moved to pay to
her memory were I to dwell upon the incessant machinations to
which Muḥammad-‘Alí, the arch-breaker of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh,
and his despicable supporters basely resorted, upon the
agitation which their cleverly-directed campaign of misrepresentation
and calumny produced in quarters directly connected with
Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd and his advisers, upon the trials and investigations
to which it gave rise, upon the rigidity of the incarceration
it reimposed, and upon the perils it revived. Suffice it to say that
but for her sleepless vigilance, her tact, her courtesy, her extreme
patience and heroic fortitude, grave complications might have ensued
and the load of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s anxious care would have been considerably
increased.
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And when the storm-cloud that had darkened the horizon of the
Holy Land had been finally dissipated and the call raised by our
beloved ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had stirred to a new life certain cities of the
American and European continents, the Most Exalted Leaf became
the recipient of the unbounded affection and blessings of One Who
could best estimate her virtues and appreciate her merits.
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The decline of her precious life had by that time set in, and
the burden of advancing age was beginning to becloud the radiance
of her countenance. Forgetful of her own self, disdaining rest and
comfort, and undeterred by the obstacles that still stood in her path,
she, acting as the honoured hostess to a steadily increasing number
of pilgrims who thronged ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s residence from both the
East and the West, continued to display those same attributes that
had won her, in the preceding phases of her career, so great a
measure of admiration and love.
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And when, in pursuance of God’s inscrutable Wisdom, the ban
on ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s confinement was lifted and the Plan which He, in
the darkest hours of His confinement, had conceived materialized,
He with unhesitating confidence, invested His trusted and honoured
sister with the responsibility of attending to the multitudinous details
arising out of His protracted absence from the Holy Land.
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No sooner had ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stepped upon the shores of the
European and American continents than our beloved Khánum found
herself well-nigh overwhelmed with thrilling messages, each betokening
the irresistible advance of the Cause in a manner which, not
withstanding the vast range of her experience, seemed to her almost
incredible. The years in which she basked in the sunshine of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s spiritual victories were, perhaps, among the brightest
and happiest of her life. Little did she dream when, as a little girl,
she was running about, in the courtyard of her Father’s house in
Ṭihrán, in the company of Him Whose destiny was to be one
day the chosen Center of God’s indestructible Covenant, that such
a Brother would be capable of achieving, in realms so distant,
and among races so utterly remote, so great and memorable a
victory.
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The enthusiasm and joy which swelled in her breast as she
greeted ‘Abdu’l-Bahá on His triumphant return from the West, I
will not venture to describe. She was astounded at the vitality of
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which He had, despite His unimaginable sufferings, proved Himself
capable. She was lost in admiration at the magnitude of the forces
which His utterances had released. She was filled with thankfulness
to Bahá’u’lláh for having enabled her to witness the evidences of
such brilliant victory for His Cause no less than for His Son.
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The outbreak of the Great War gave her yet another opportunity
to reveal the true worth of her character and to release the latent
energies of her heart. The residence of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Haifa was
besieged, all throughout that dreary conflict, by a concourse of
famished men, women and children whom the maladministration,
the cruelty and neglect of the officials of the Ottoman Government
had driven to seek an alleviation to their woes. From the hand of
the Greatest Holy Leaf, and out of the abundance of her heart,
these hapless victims of a contemptible tyranny, received day after
day unforgettable evidences of a love they had learned to envy and
admire. Her words of cheer and comfort, the food, the money, the
clothing she freely dispensed, the remedies which, by a process of
her own, she herself prepared and diligently applied—all these had
their share in comforting the disconsolate, in restoring sight to the
blind, in sheltering the orphan, in healing the sick, and in succoring
the homeless and the wanderer.
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She had reached, amidst the darkness of the war days, the high
water-mark of her spiritual attainments. Few, if any, among the
unnumbered benefactors of society whose privilege has been to allay,
in various measures, the hardships and sufferings entailed by that
Fierce Conflict, gave as freely and as disinterestedly as she did; few
exercised that undefinable influence upon the beneficiaries of their
gifts.
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The ascension of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, so tragic in its suddenness, was
to her a terrific blow, from the effects of which she never completely
recovered. To her He, whom she called “Áqá,” had been a refuge
in times of adversity. On Him she had been led to place her sole
reliance. In Him she had found ample compensation for the
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bereavements she had suffered, the desertions she had witnessed, the
ingratitude she had been shown by friends and kindreds. No one
could ever dream that a woman of her age, so frail in body, so
sensitive of heart, so loaded with the cares of almost eighty years of
incessant tribulation, could so long survive so shattering a blow.
And yet history, no less than the annals of our immortal Faith, shall
record for her a share in the advancement and consolidation of the
world-wide community which the hand of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had helped
to fashion, which no one among the remnants of His Family can
rival.
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Which of the blessings am I to recount, which in her unfailing
solicitude she showered upon me, in the most critical and agitated
hours of my life? To me, standing in so dire a need of the vitalizing
grace of God, she was the living symbol of many an attribute I
had learned to admire in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. She was to me a continual
reminder of His inspiring personality, of His calm resignation, of
His munificence and magnanimity. To me she was an incarnation
of His winsome graciousness, of His all-encompassing tenderness
and love.
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It would take me too long to make even a brief allusion to those
incidents of her life, each of which eloquently proclaims her as a
daughter, worthy to inherit that priceless heritage bequeathed to her
by Bahá’u’lláh. A purity of life that reflected itself in even the
minutest details of her daily occupations and activities; a tenderness
of heart that obliterated every distinction of creed, class and
color; a resignation and serenity that evoked to the mind the calm
and heroic fortitude of the Báb; a natural fondness of flowers and
children that was so characteristic of Bahá’u’lláh; an unaffected
simplicity of manners; an extreme sociability which made her accessible
to all; a generosity, a love, at once disinterested and indiscriminating,
that reflected so clearly the attributes of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s
character; a sweetness of temper; a cheerfulness that no amount of
sorrow could becloud; a quiet and unassuming disposition that
served to enhance a thousandfold the prestige of her exalted rank;
a forgiving nature that instantly disarmed the most unyielding
enemy—these rank among the outstanding attributes of a saintly
life which history will acknowledge as having been endowed with a
celestial potency that few of the heroes of the past possessed.
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No wonder that in Tablets, which stand as eternal testimonies to
the beauty of her character, Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá have paid
touching tributes to those things that testify to her exalted position
among the members of their Family, that proclaim her as an example
to their followers, and as an object worthy of the admiration of all
mankind.
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“To my honored and distinguished sister do thou convey the
expression of my heartfelt, my intense longing. Day and night she
liveth in my remembrance. I dare make no mention of the feelings
which separation from her has aroused in my heart, for whatever
I should attempt to express in writing will assuredly be effaced by
the tears which such sentiments must bring to my eyes.”
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Dearly-beloved Greatest Holy Leaf! Through the mist of tears
that fill my eyes I can clearly see, as I pen these lines, thy noble
figure before me, and can recognize the serenity of thy kindly face.
I can still gaze, though the shadow of the grave separate us, into
thy blue, love-deep eyes, and can feel, in its calm intensity, the
immense love thou didst bear for the Cause of thine Almighty
Father, the attachment that bound thee to the most lowly and
insignificant among its followers, the warm affection thou didst
cherish for me in thine heart. The memory of the ineffable beauty
of thy smile shall ever continue to cheer and hearten me in the
thorny path I am destined to pursue. The remembrance of the
touch of thine hand shall spur me on to follow steadfastly in thy
way. The sweet magic of thy voice shall remind me, when the
hour of adversity is at its darkest, to hold fast to the rope thou
didst seize so firmly all the days of thy life.
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Bear thou this my message to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, thine exalted and
divinely-appointed Brother: If the Cause for which Bahá’u’lláh
toiled and labored, for which Thou didst suffer years of agonizing
sorrow, for the sake of which streams of sacred blood have flowed,
should, in the days to come, encounter storms more severe than those
it has already weathered, do Thou continue to overshadow, with
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Thine all-encompassing care and wisdom, Thy frail, Thy unworthy
appointed child.
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Intercede, O noble and well-favoured scion of a heavenly Father,
for me no less than for the toiling masses of Thy ardent lovers,
who have sworn undying allegiance to Thy memory, whose souls
have been nourished by the energies of Thy love, whose conduct has
been moulded by the inspiring example of Thy life, and whose
imaginations are fired by the imperishable evidences of Thy lively
faith, Thy unshakable constancy, Thy invincible heroism, Thy great
renunciation.
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Whatever betide us, however distressing the vicissitudes which
the nascent Faith of God may yet experience, we pledge ourselves,
before the mercy-seat of thy glorious Father, to hand on, unimpaired
and undivided, to generations yet unborn, the glory
of that tradition of which thou hast been its most brilliant exemplar.
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In the innermost recesses of our hearts, O thou exalted Leaf of
the Abhá Paradise, we have reared for thee a shining mansion that
the hand of time can never undermine, a shrine which shall frame
eternally the matchless beauty of thy countenance, an altar whereon
the fire of thy consuming love shall burn forever.
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