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Birth and Childhood
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Pages 51-52
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Birth and Childhood
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1 |
Abbás Effendi, Who afterwards assumed the title of `Abdu'l-Bahá
(i.e. Servant of Bahá), was the eldest son of Bahá'u'lláh.
He was born in Tihrán before midnight on the eve of the 23rd
of May, 1844,
[1]
the very same night in which the Báb declared
His mission.
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2 |
He was nine years of age when His father, to Whom even
then He was devotedly attached, was thrown into the dungeon
in Tihrán. A mob sacked their house, and the family were
stripped of their possessions and left in destitution. `Abdu'l-Bahá
tells how one day He was allowed to enter the prison
yard to see His beloved father when He came out for His daily
exercise. Bahá'u'lláh was terribly altered, so ill He could
hardly walk, His hair and beard unkempt, His neck galled and
swollen from the pressure of a heavy steel collar, His body
bent by the weight of His chains, and the sight made a never-
to-be-forgotten impression on the mind of the sensitive boy.
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3 |
During the first year of their residence in Baghdád, ten years
before the open Declaration by Bahá'u'lláh of His Mission, the
keen insight of `Abdu'l-Bahá, Who was then but nine years of
age, already led Him to the momentous discovery that His father
was indeed the Promised One Whose Manifestation all the
Bábís were awaiting. Some sixty years afterwards He thus described
the moment in which this conviction suddenly overwhelmed
His whole nature: --
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4 |
I am the servant of the Blessed Perfection. In Baghdád
I was a child. Then and there He announced to me the
Word, and I believed in Him. As soon as He proclaimed
to me the Word, I threw myself at His Holy Feet and implored
and supplicated Him to accept my blood as a sacrifice
in His Pathway. Sacrifice! How sweet I find that
word! There is no greater Bounty for me than this! What
greater glory can I conceive than to see thick neck chained
for His sake, these feet fettered for His love, this body
mutilated or thrown into the depths of the sea for His
Cause! If in reality we are His sincere lovers -- if in reality
I am His sincere servant, then I must sacrifice my life,
my all at His Bless Threshold. -- Diary of Mírzá Ahmad
Sohrab, January 1914.
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5 |
About this time He began to be called by His friends, "The
Mystery of God," a title given to Him by Bahá'u'lláh, by which
He was commonly known during the period of residence in
Baghdád.
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6 |
When His father went away for two years in the wilderness,
Abbás was heartbroken. His chief consolation consisted in
copying and committing to memory the Tablets of the Báb,
and much of His time was spent in solitary meditation. When
at last His father returned, the boy was overwhelmed with joy.
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Notes
1. [Thursday, 5th Jamadi I, 1260 A.H.]
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