Memorials of the Faithful
=========================

Exported from Holy-Writings.com on 2026-06-20
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters.
Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Abdu'l-Bahá, Memorials
of the Faithful, Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1971 [1915],
bahai-library.com.
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Memorials of the Faithful

Abdu'l-Bahá

Marzieh Gail, translator

Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1971 [1915]

Contents

Proem

Nabíl-i-Akbar

Ismu'lláhu'l-Asdaq

Mullá `Alí-Akbar

Shaykh Salmán

Mirzá Muhammad-'Ali, the Afnán

Hájí Mirzá Hasan, the Afnán

Muhammad-'Aliy-i-Isfahani

`Abdu's-Salih, the Gardener

Ustád Ismá'íl

Nabíl-i-Zarandi

Darvísh Sidq-'Ali

Áqá Mirzá Mahmúd and Áqá Ridá

Pidar-Ján of Qazvín

Shaykh Sádiq-i-Yazdi

Sháh-Muhammad-Amin

Mashhadí Fattah

Nabíl of Qá'in

Siyyid Muhammad-Taqi Manshadí

Muhammad-'Ali Sabbáq of Yazd

`Abdu'l-Ghaffar of Isfahán

`Alí Najaf-Ábádí

Mashhadí Husayn and Mashhadí Muhammad-i-Adhirbayjani

Hájí `Abdu'r-Rahim-i-Yazdi

Hájí `Abdu'llah Najaf-Ábádí

Muhammad-Hadiy-i-Sahhaf

Mirzá Muhammad-Quli

Ustád Báqir and Ustád Ahmad

Muhammad Haná-Sab

Hájí Faraju'lláh Tafríshí

Áqá Ibráhím-i-Isfahani and His Brothers

Áqá Muhammad-Ibrahim

Zaynu'l-Ábidín Yazdí

Hájí Mullá Mihdíy-i-Yazdí

His Eminence Kalím (Mirzá Músá)

Hájí Muhammad Khán

Áqá Muhammad-Ibrahim Amír

Mirzá Mihdíy-i-Káshání

Mishkín-Qalam

Ustád `Alí-Akbar-i-Najjar

Mirzá Muhammad, the Servant at the Travelers' Hospice

Mirzá Muhammad-i-Vakil

Hájí Muhammad-Riday-i-Shirazi

Husayn Effendi Tabrízí

Jamshíd-i-Gurji

Hájí Ja'far-i-Tabrizi and His Brothers

Hájí Mirzá Muhammad-Taqi, the Afnán

`Abdu'llah Baghdádí

Muhammad-Mustafa Baghdádí

Sulaymán Khán-i-Tunukabani

`Abdu'r-Rahman, the Coppersmith

Muhammad-Ibrahim-i-Tabrizi

Muhammad-'Aliy-i-Ardikani

Hájí Aqáy-i-Tabrízí

Qulám-`Alíy-i-Najjár

Jináb-i-Munib, upon him be the Glory of the All-Glorious

Mirzá Mustafá Naráqí

Zaynu'l-Muqarrabín

Azím-i-Tafrishi

Mirzá Ja'far-i-Yazdi

Husayn-Aqay-i-Tabrizi

Hájí `Alí-'Askar-i-Tabrizi

Áqá Alíy-i-Qazvíní

Áqá Muhammad-Baqir and Áqá Muhammad-Isma'il, the Tailor

Abu'l-Qásim of Sultán-Abad

Áqá Faraj

The Consort of the King of Martyrs

Shamsu'd-Duhá

Táhirih

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Proem

This is a book about people who were trying to get into prison
rather than to escape from it, because they were prisoners of a
great love. Their love was for Bahá’u’lláh, Whom the nineteenth
century world bound with chains and tried to silence by shutting Him,
ultimately, in the Crusaders’ stronghold at ‘Akká.
Like the eye of the storm, He is the center of these accounts,
but hardly appears in them—remaining, as the Guardian has
described Him, “transcendental in His majesty, serene, awe-inspiring,
unapproachably glorious.”

The reader will probably find himself in these pages, whether
he is the jeweler from Baghdad, one of the dishwashers, or the
professor who could not endure the arrogance of his compeers.
Mystic, feminist, cleric, artisan, merchant prince are here. Even
modern Western youth will be found here, for example in the
chapter on dervishes. For this is more than the brief annals of
early Bahá’í disciples; it is, somehow, a book of prototypes; and
it is a kind of testament of values endorsed and willed to us by
the Bahá’í Exemplar, values now derided, but—if the planet is
to be made safe for humanity—indispensable. These are short
and simple accounts, but they constitute a manual of how to
live, and how to die.

The task of putting these biographies into English was given
me by the Guardian many years ago, when I was on a pilgrimage to the
Bahá’í world center in Haifa. Shortly afterward the
Guardian sent me, to Ṭihrán, the text from which this translation was made.
According to its Persian title page, this was the
first Bahá’í book to be printed in Haifa under the Guardianship. A Persian
introduction states that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote the
book in 1915, and granted permission to M. A. Kahrubá’í to
have it published. The text, which is dated 1924, bears the seal
of the Haifa Bahá’í Assembly. A second title page, in English,
describes the work as “An account, from the pen of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, of the
lives of some of the early Bahá’í believers who
passed away during His lifetime,” although the work was actually recorded
from His utterances.

Here, then, almost half a century after His passing, is a new
book given to the world by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

We wonder how many of us, at the close of unbelievably
painful and arduous years, would devote the waning time not
to our own memories but to the lives of some seventy companions, many of them
long dead, to save them from oblivion.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá was present at many of these scenes, yet time after
time He effaces Himself to focus on some companion, often on
one so humble that the passing years would surely have refused
him a history. And if, to the cynical, these believers seem better
than ordinary men, we should remember that the presence of
the Manifestation made them so, and that they are being looked
at through the eyes of the Master—Who said that the imperfect eye beholds
imperfections, and that it is easier to please
God than to please people.

Thus the book is still another token of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's partiality for the
human race. The love He personified was not
blind but observant, not impersonal but warm and tender; it
was a continual attitude of unobtrusive care. Such love, from
such a Being, does not end with one life span. He left the world
half a century ago, and most of those who longed for Him so
much that the hostile said they were not Bahá’ís, but
`Abdu’l-Bahá’ís, are now vanished from our sight. But still, His love is
here, for new millions to find.

The translator

Keene, New Hampshire, December 1969

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Views25689 views since posted 1999-09-10; last edit 2026-01-14 22:03 UTC;

previous at archive.org.../abdul-baha_memorials_faithful;
URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org
Inventory #
AB00002
Language
English
Permission
© BIC, public sharing permitted. See sources 1, 2, and 3.
History
Proofread 2019-07 by Mike Thomas.
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    — Memorials of the Faithful (Used by permission of the curator)