Sequential excerpts from the book ‘God Passes By’, written in 1944 by Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith

3/24/24

Some early tributes to Táhirih

Indeed the wondrous story of her life propagated itself as far and as fast as that of the Báb Himself, the direct Source of her inspiration.

  • “Prodige de science, mais aussi prodige de beauté” is the tribute paid her by a noted commentator on the life of the Báb and His disciples.
  • “The Persian Joan of Arc, the leader of emancipation for women of the Orient … who bore resemblance both to the mediaeval Heloise and the neo-platonic Hypatia,” thus was she acclaimed by a noted playwright whom Sarah Bernhardt had specifically requested to write a dramatized version of her life.
  • “The heroism of the lovely but ill-fated poetess of Qazvín, Zarrín-Táj (Crown of Gold) …” testifies Lord Curzon of Kedleston, “is one of the most affecting episodes in modern history.”
  • “The appearance of such a woman as Qurratu’l-‘Ayn,” wrote the well-known British Orientalist, Prof. E. G. Browne, “is, in any country and any age, a rare phenomenon, but in such a country as Persia it is a prodigy—nay, almost a miracle.… Had the Bábí religion no other claim to greatness, this were sufficient … that it produced a heroine like Qurratu’l-‘Ayn.”
  • “The harvest sown in Islamic lands by Qurratu’l-‘Ayn,” significantly affirms the renowned English divine, Dr. T. K. Cheyne, in one of his books, “is now beginning to appear … this noble woman … has the credit of opening the catalogue of social reforms in Persia…”
  • “Assuredly one of the most striking and interesting manifestations of this religion” is the reference to her by the noted French diplomat and brilliant writer, Comte de Gobineau. “In Qazvín,” he adds, “she was held, with every justification, to be a prodigy.” “Many people,” he, moreover has written, “who knew her and heard her at different periods of her life have invariably told me … that when she spoke one felt stirred to the depths of one’s soul, was filled with admiration, and was moved to tears.”
  • “No memory,” writes Sir Valentine Chirol, “is more deeply venerated or kindles greater enthusiasm than hers, and the influence which she wielded in her lifetime still inures to her sex.”
  • “O Táhirih!” exclaims in his book on the Bábís the great author and poet of Turkey, Sulaymán Názim Bey, “you are worth a thousand Násiri’d-Dín Sháhs!”
  • “The greatest ideal of womanhood has been Táhirih” is the tribute paid her by the mother of one of the Presidents of Austria, Mrs. Marianna Hainisch, “… I shall try to do for the women of Austria what Táhirih gave her life to do for the women of Persia.”

Many and divers are her ardent admirers who, throughout the five continents, are eager to know more about her. Many are those whose conduct has been ennobled by her inspiring example, who have committed to memory her matchless odes, or set to music her poems, before whose eyes glows the vision of her indomitable spirit, in whose hearts is enshrined a love and admiration that time can never dim, and in whose souls burns the determination to tread as dauntlessly, and with that same fidelity, the path she chose for herself, and from which she never swerved from the moment of her conversion to the hour of her death. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’, chapter 5)