# Pilgrim Notes

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-22 — 1 clipping.*

---

> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Hassan Safa Baghdadi, Pilgrim Notes, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> Pilgrim Notes
> 
> Hassan Safa Baghdadi
> 
> 1974-?
> 
> Pilgrim Notes of Hassan Safa Baghdadi
> 
> At the request of the Universal House of Justice, as per circular from the
> Department of Publishing at the World Centre, sent to various European NSAs and
> to the Persian NSA asking for tape recorded and written memories of those who
> had had the great honour and privilege of meeting the Master Abdu'l-Baha.
> The NSA of France in its letter No. 5296 dated October 15, 1974 including a
> copy of the circular letter from the Department of Publishing dated September
> 2, 1974 also asked me to write these memories and to have them tape recorded
> with the aid of Mr. Diviod Ned Blackmer.
> 
> The undersigned Hassan Safa Baghdadi had the remarkable privilege of
> meeting the Master three times in his life-time: at the age of 3, at the age of
> 6 of which I very well recall certain details such as the breakfast taken by
> Abdu'l-Baha in company of the ladies of the house each morning after reading
> a prayer, the samovar was there steaming, the small cups of tea (istikans) were
> served together with whole-meal bread and white cheese. I see Abdu'l-Baha
> in the House of Abbud in a large room on the first floor surrounded by many
> Baha'is, and we children were sitting on the floor, the arms folded, etc.,
> and the third time (I met Him) at the age of 18, i.e. during 19 days from
> December 27, 1919 until January 15, 1920.
> 
> In Damascus, our residence, we took the train, my mother and I at 8
> o'clock in the morning, and arrived in Haifa at 7 p.m. Arriving to the
> Master's house my mother was ushered in, and accommodated in the house, and as
> there were a great deal of pilgrims present in Haifa, approx. 100, the eastern
> Pilgrim House close to the Shrine of the Bab was therefore completely full, so
> they put me up in a room of the Shrine contiguous to the Tomb of the Bab.
> That room is one of the six rooms of which the building of the Shrine was made
> at that time; my roommates were Fadel Mazindarani, the well-known teacher, and
> Subhi, the Master's secretary who left the Cause later on. What a good luck to
> have spent 19 days in close vicinity to this holy place! Did I deserve such a
> conspicuous honour? The next morning I went down to the Master's house and I
> was in the small basement room right underneath the Master's drawing-room
> together with 3 persons from Persia, and there we were, when unexpectedly the
> Master came in to visit us. He lovingly bade us welcome saying Marhaba!
> Marhaba! Welcome! Welcome! After a while, one of the Persian friends asked
> Abdu'l-Baha whether the hopes repeatedly claimed for in Europe's newspapers
> were well-founded, saying that the Versailles Treaty had put an end to the war
> for ever. Abdu'l-Baha had a smile, and replied no, since the Treaty of
> Versailles was containing the germs of the next war, and that that war would be
> so terrible that the 1914/18 war would seem like a child's play in comparison.
> In the course of days I saw the Master go down to the garden every morning to
> receive a nosegay of all colours from the gardener Ismail Aghe, and
> Abdu'l-Baha would give a flower to each one of the pilgrims standing in a
> line, bidding them Marhaba, Marhaba! We preciously kept these flowers in
> remembrance of our Master. Every evening at 8 o'clock there were meetings in
> the drawing-room where Abdu'l-Baha would talk to the friends about news
> received from the Baha'i world, and about questions of the hour. Every
> Sunday towards 4 o'clock the Master would call all the Baha'is -- pilgrims
> and residents -- together in the large middle room of the Shrine, on the
> Western side fronting the sea, where He would speak to the friends of various
> subjects, and where prayers would be chanted after which the Master would stand
> up and go towards the entry of the Tomb of the Bab, followed by all the
> friends present; there He would pour out rose water in the hands of each and
> then ask Shoghi Effendi to chant the Tablet of Visitation with his melodious
> voice, and that is how the Sunday afternoons would come to an end.
> 
> One evening on a meeting in the Master's drawing-room a high English
> official arrived. Abdu'l-Baha said to him "you see, I'm gathering all the
> friends here, with me, to protect them, and save them from spending all their
> evenings in the casinos".
> 
> One Sunday afternoon, during the gathering in the large middle hall of the
> Shrine of the Bab, Abdu'l-Baha declared to the friends present, pointing
> out with His finger at Haifa bay and Akka that He was seeing the bay full of
> ships loaded with pilgrims from all over the world, that the towns of Akka and
> Haifa would join together in one centre, that Mount Carmel will be covered with
> light, that crowds of pilgrims will walk up the steps leading to the Shrine of
> the Bab, and that even the kings will climb these steps, barefooted, carrying
> nosegays on their heads to come and render homage to His Highness the Bab.
> 
> On another day, all the pilgrims were taken to Bahji for the visit of
> Baha'u'llah's Sepulchre, and as usual, Abdu'l-Baha would water the
> friends' hands with rose water, and then in the midst of the crowd of pilgrims
> would chant Himself the Tablet of Visitation with His sonorous and captivating
> voice. What wonderful effect on the hearts and souls to see the Master before
> oneself, and to hear Him sing so wonderfully! One feels like being carried far
> away from this material level, and vibrate in a spiritual space! Besides, a
> very strong spirituality emanates from the surroundings of Bahji and of Mount
> Carmel, a phenomenon which is felt even by Non-Baha'is. I remember having
> read an article by Maurice De Kobra describing his visit to Mount Carmel in
> 1928. That writer was impressed by the deeply spiritual atmosphere of Mount
> Carmel, and was unable to explain himself the reason of this.
> 
> During that pilgrimage I met late Dr. J. Esslemont who had been staying in
> the Holy Land for some months in order to have his famous book reviewed by the
> Master. For reasons of discretion he was wearing an oriental red fez. I also
> saw my uncle Dr. Zia Bagdadi who arrived from the United States at the
> beginning of December 1919, and Mrs. A. Parsons from Washington with her son
> Jeffry. Dr. Zia who stayed with the Master in Haifa for 9 months wrote down
> from day to day the meaning/sense, not the text of Abdu'l-Baha's statements.
> Back in the United States in September 1920 he sorted out his notes and made
> two hand-written volumes of it in a very beautiful Arabic script. These books
> have never been printed since. When Dr. Zia died in 1937 in Georgia USA, his
> widow, my aunt, Zeenat Baghdadi, returned according to the beloved Guardian's
> instructions to the Middle East, came to visit us in Baghdad, and showed us the
> two hand-written books. I marvelled at all the accounts Abdu'l-Baha had
> given during nine months, most important questions, and a lot of very very
> amusing stories and anecdotes, for the Master liked very much to divert his
> guests and friends and make them laugh. I therefore immediately decided to
> copy these two books by hand, adding up to about 300 pages. After having done
> so, I returned the originals to my aunt Zeenat who now is a pioneer in Saida
> (Lebanon) half-way between Beyrouth and Akka. I had entrusted my family in
> Baghdad with my hand-written copies, since in the meantime living in Persia
> they had asked for them for the sake of reading them again. I believe they are
> with my sister Sarah Baghdadi, at present living in Baghdad. But owing to the
> persecutions which our community in Baghdad had to suffer, and to the
> confiscation of all the Baha'i literature since the beginning of 1973, and to
> the sentence end of 1973 and beginning of 1974 of 26 Baha'i persons for life
> imprisonment, 2 others for 15 years and 4 others for 10 years, and 12 persons
> sentenced to 500 Iraqi Dinars of fines, then released, after this terrible
> repression I fear these copies have been lost.
> 
> Among Abdu'l-Baha's statements noted by Dr. Zia re a future war there
> is this: My uncle asked the Master to confirm that it was correct that certain
> American Baha'is back from their pilgrimage in Haifa had told friends in the
> USA, attributing it to the Master, that there would be a terrible war which
> will destroy half of humanity. Is this correct? The reply was YES. Dr. Zia
> added in his notes: I was so terrified by the Master's reply who seeing the
> anguish of the friends present, changed the subject and turned to amusing
> stories. On another occasion, the Master said in reply to a question as
> whether there would be a war of religion that there will be an economic war but
> no religious war.
> 
> On October 28, 1974 the very spiritual friend Mr. David Ned Blackmer on a
> teaching trip in Tours, and made responsible by the NSA to tape record my
> memories had the kindness to do so, and except some slight alterations is about
> the same as the present written statement.
> 
> One day Abdu'l-Baha invited me with another friend to accompany Him in
> his afternoon walk. He slowly bent his steps to the German colony, and
> knocking at the door of a German family He asked after their health and said
> some encouraging words to them. A walk that took about one hour.
> 
> I may be excused if after 55 years I could not remember many things since
> with 19 years of age one picks up quite a lot of things, and I couldn't find my
> note book. In August 1923 I had the privilege of visiting our dear Guardian
> and the Holy Shrines at Bahji and on Mount Carmel.
> 
> METADATA
> 
> Views665 views since posted 2025-10-26; last edit 2025-10-26 02:16 UTC;
> 
> previous at archive.org.../baghdadi_pilgrim_notes
> Language
> English
> Permission
> author
> History
> Source unknown. Formatted and proofread by J. Winters, 2025.
> Share
> 
> Shortlink: bahai-library.com/7100
> Citation: ris/7100
> 
> select Collection:
> Archives
> Articles
> Articles-unpublished
> Audio
> Bibliographies
> BIC
> Biographies
> Books
> Chronologies
> Compilations
> Compilations-NSA
> Compilations-personal
> Documents
> East-asia
> Encyclopedia
> Essays
> Etc
> Excerpts
> Fiction
> Glossaries
> Guardian
> Histories
> Introductory
> Letters
> Maps
> Music
> Newspapers
> NSA-documents
> NSA-letters
> Personal
> Pilgrims
> Poetry
> Presentations
> Resources
> Reviews
> Scripts
> Software
> Statistics
> Study
> Talks
> Theses
> Transcripts
> Translations
> UHJ-documents
> UHJ-letters
> Video
> Visual
> Writings
> 
> home
> 
> sitemap
> 
> series
> 
> chronology
> 
> search:
> author
> 
> title
> 
> date
> 
> tags
> 
> adv. search
> languages
> 
> inventory
> 
> bibliography
> 
> abbreviations
> 
> links
> 
> about
> 
> contact
> 
> RSS
> 
> new
>
> — *Pilgrim Notes (Used by permission of the curator)*