September 22. On this date in 1898, The first Western pilgrims left America for Palestine. Led by Ibrahim George Kheiralla, 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.

 

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 Getsingersits second from right. Standing in the left is Robert Turner.

September 22. On this date in 1898, The first Western pilgrims left America for Palestine. Led by Ibrahim George Kheiralla, 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.