Memorials of the Faithful
Exported from Holy-Writings.com on 2026-06-20 - 1 clipping

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

Sh
ay
kh

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

Darví
sh

Sidq
-'Ali

Áqá

Mirzá

Mahmúd
and
Áqá

Ridá

Pidar-Ján
of
Qazvín

Sh
ay
kh

Sádiq
-i-Yazdi

Sh
áh
-Muhammad-Amin

Ma
sh
hadí

Fattah

Nabíl
of
Qá'in

Siyyid
Muhammad
-Taqi
Man
sh
adí

Muhammad
-'Ali
Sabbáq
of Yazd

`Abdu
'l-Ghaffar of
Isfahán

`Alí

Najaf-Ábádí

Ma
sh
hadí

Husayn
and
Ma
sh
hadí

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

Tafrí
sh
í

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

Kh
án

Áqá

Muhammad
-Ibrahim
Amír

Mirzá

Mihdíy-i-Ká
sh
ání

Mi
sh
kín-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

Jam
sh
íd
-i-Gurji

Hájí

Ja'far
-i-Tabrizi and His Brothers

Hájí

Mirzá

Muhammad
-Taqi, the
Afnán

`Abdu
'llah
Ba
gh
dádí

Muhammad
-Mustafa
Ba
gh
dádí

Sulaymán

Kh
án
-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

Sh
amsu'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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AB00002

Language

English

Permission

&copy; BIC, public sharing permitted. See sources
1
,
2
, and
3
.

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Proofread 2019-07 by Mike Thomas.

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-- Memorials of the Faithful (Used by permission of the curator)