A VISIT TO ADRIANOPLE
BY MARTHA L. ROOT
SHOGHI EFFENDI has written: "Bahá’u’lláh said that while in Adrianople He had planted a seed under every stone.”
(Prefacing this article with a three paragraph historical introduction, it may be said that almost all places where Bahá’u’lláh sojourned have been visited later by pilgrims and written about fully, but no one, so far as I know, has visited Adrianople in our day to give to the world a description of this city—MADE SACRED BY H15 HOLY PRESENCE. We know from Professor Edward G. Browne’s books published by the Cambridge University Press, England, something of the life of Bahá’u’lláh in Adrianople during His exile there. We know He arrived with His family and friends on Saturday, December 12, 1863, and remained until Wednesday, August 12, 1868; He was forty-six years old when He came and His son, Abbas Effendi known as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, was a youth of nineteen years while His daughter, Bahíyyih Khánum, was a girl seventeen years old. How different was their journey from Constantinople to the present luxurious Oriental Express trip when the train speeds swiftly over the distance in exactly six hours’ time! Their journey to Adrianople, evidently hurried and enforced, for they were not prepared and were only thinly clad, took twelve days and was full of hardships as the weather was bitterly cold. Bahíyyih Khánum said long years after that she was a strong, well girl before those terrible exile journeys.
Their first lodging in Adrianople was in the Khán-i-‘Arab Caravanserai where they stayed three nights. All one knew about it was that it was near the house of Izzat Áqá. Then they lived for one week in a house in the Murád’iyyih quarter near the Takyiy-i-Mawlavi and then changed to a winter house close by. Twice Bahá’u’lláh lived in the house of Amr’u’lláh Big, which has been spoken of by Áqá Riḍa in his early account as a three-storey house to the North of Sulṭán Salím Mosque. Another house in which He lived was the home of Riḍá Big. Then He returned to the residence of Amr’u’lláh Big, but the last eleven months of His stay were spent in the home of ’Izzat Áqá. We know, too, that He was sometimes in the Murádiyyih Mosque and very often in the Sulṭán Salím Mosque where He met and spoke with thinkers.
Then after Bahá’u’lláh and His followers were settled in Adrianople, we know from “A Traveller’s Narrative”: “According to statements heard from travellers and from certain great and learned men of that city, they behaved and conducted themselves there also in such wise that the inhabitants of the district and the government officials used to eulogize them and all used to show them respect and deference. Bahá’u’lláh was wont to hold intercourse with the doctors, scholars, magnates and nobles, thereby attaining fame and celebrity throughout Roumelia. The materials of comfort were gathered together, neither fear nor dread remained, they reposed on the couch of ease and passed their time in quietude”—until a halfbrother, Subh-i-Ezel, the “Judas” of their own group, tried to poison Him. This with Subh-i-Ezel’s other weak and evil deeds led in the end to a still further exile, Bahá’u’lláh and His followers being sent to ‘Akká in Palestine, and the half—brother with his family and a few others being placed at Farmagusta, Cyprus. Thus in this "Land of Mystery” as Bahá’u’lláh called Roumelia, took place that great dividing of the good from the evil which since has proved a mighty blessing, though it was fraught with inconceivable suffering.)
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Miss Marion E. Jack, a Bahá’í who is a painter from Canada and the writer, a Bahá’í who is a journalist and magazine writer from the United States, came to Adrianople, on October 17, 1933, to look for "traces of the Traceless Friend.” Their quest was “to seek, to find and not to fail” to portray
Mosque of Sulṭán Salím, Adrianople, Turkey.
Interior of the Mosque.
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Adrianople to the Bahá’í
world . . . Miss Jack
through her brush and the writer through
her pen. Their visit simply told is as
follows: Coming into the main station of
Adrianople at eleven o’clock at night, they
were asked first to open all their bags at
the Customs. There in that room lighted by
one solitary lamp, the officials stood by and
the examiner, as he looked at Miss Jack’s
suitcases, picked up from the top tray of
one of them “The Bahá’í Weekly” published
in Lahore, India—never did that heading
look quite so large as when he turned it
up and down! He regarded it minutely,
commented to the others. Then when he
turned to my opened bag, first he picked
out from the cloth pocket under the upper
lid my card picture of the Greatest Name;
I explained it. Next he took up
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s photograph. I said: “Sir
‘Abdu’l-Bahá Abbas.” He replied, “ ‘Abdu’l-Baha.”
The next picture he took to inspect was a
snapshot of Shoghi Effendi and I said who
he is; the fourth photograph inspected was a
lovely likeness of Shoghi Effendi when he
was a child of two years. The incidents of
that entire baggage inspection proved
certainly that Bahá’í literature can be taken
into Turkey.
Everyone was kind, thorough and trustworthy. The porter, an old man, left the bags to take my arm and help me down the steps, calling to the others to bring the light. The chief who spoke French and all the others came out, chose a carriage for us, helped us into it, shook hands with us and said: “Hotel de l’Europe. Madame Marie!” This main station in Adrianople, as the Irish would say, is “out of it!” It is two and a half miles from the city proper and is called Kara-Agatch.
The beautiful road lighted by the moon was lined on each side with great poplar, plane and willow trees mystic with shadows, and as we came over the fine Maritza bridge the lights of the city gleamed a welcome in this “Land of Mystery.” We entered the only hotel that there is in Adrianople, Hotel de l’Europe, and in that moment the clock was striking midnight. All our arrangements with Madame were made behind her closed door, then a bright Turkish boy showed us to our rooms. Imagine our surprise next morning to find that our landlady was not Turkish, but was Austrian-Yugoslav-Italian! (For geographical divisions have been frequent in Central and Southeastern Europe during her lifetime.) She speaks French, German, Italian and Turkish.
This Adrianople, which the Turks call Edirne, was a city of two hundred thousand inhabitants before the Balkan wars and the world war. Now it numbers only forty thousand. It is on the direct Oriental Express route from Constantinople to Paris, and is also on the main motoring way from Central Asia to Western Europe. One remembers, too, that in 1360 Adrianople was made the capital of the great Turkish Empire and became the center from which radiated the light of Islám to a Western world. Its mosque architecture is extraordinarily beautiful. Adrianople is interesting, too, because it is so typically Turkish, much more so than is Constantinople, which is now considerably westernized.
What might seem to you, O readers, so easy to do—get an interpreter and in one-half day find all the houses where Bahá’u’lláh lived and the people who had met Him, was not easy at all: in fact, the Persian story of the Manjoon of love, searching for Laila his beloved, even in the dust, was not more circuitous and unusual than were our experiences in Adrianople. First we made friends, for why should the Turks who have been through four wars with Western enemies and had a few severe criticisms made of them by foreign journalists accept us until they knew why we had come? Also, we on our side did not know if they, Muḥammadans, would graciously accept Bahá’ís to write this historical sketch.
The first morning it rained. Down through the stone-cobbled streets the water poured in little torrents. Standing at our window, we saw the people of Adrianople trying to cross these fiercely flowing rivulets but none could do it without immersing their feet far down in the pools. However, after mid-day dinner the skies suddenly cleared, the streams disappeared leaving the cobble stones clean and white. The sun came out in glory, shedding its warmth generously, and we took a horse and carriage driven by a kind Turk whose name was Mustafa.
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Madame Marie told him we
wished to be taken to Murádiyyih Mosque.
We rode through Government Street, the principal thoroughfare, picturesque with its vistas of bazaars and its brightly colored rugs hanging outside the shops, but most interesting of all we passed some of the most beautiful mosques to be found anywhere in the world. We drove over the cobbled stones of some extremely narrow streets till we came into a more open road which led to the Murádiyyih district. Leaving Mustafa and the carriage at the foot of the hill, we walked up the steep, needle-eye road lined on each side with little shops and a mill where a horse goes round and round turning wheels to grind the olive into oil. The Murádiyyih Mosque crowns the slope and, just as we were coming, the muezzim came out on a parapet of the slender, graceful minaret and using his hand as funnel loud-speaker chanted the call to prayer.
When we reached the historic mosque we did not go in at once because a Hájí and some others were engrossed in their daily devotions. We walked about looking at this noble mass of splendid architecture, but most of all scanning the horizon to see where Bahá’u’lláh might have lived. Murádiyyih section in Bahá’u’lláh’s day was one of the most fashionable residential summer districts of Adrianople, even the Sultan had a summer palace in that quarter. The air is most pure and fresh on this mountain slope and the grapes there were world renowned. The route to Bulgaria and on to Central and Western Europe and the road to Constantinople wind like broad white ribbons through the plains below stretching on and on until out of sight.
We found the Takyiy-i-Mawlavi, a building for dervishes in the last century, it is just in front of the mosque—and we knew that Bahá’u’lláh’s houses, one at least, was very near to that. Miss Jack took her pencil and sketch book to draw this Takyiy-i-Mawlavi and the fountain in front of it where women were carrying away heavy pails of water hung on poles balanced over their shoulders. What Water of Life the women of Bahá’u’lláh’s time could have carried away when He was at that well!
I went into the mosque, for now it was quite empty except for the kindly old caretaker whose eyes were filled with peace. It is a beautiful interior, high and lofty and the blue faience, of various hues from the delicate Chinese green-blue of the East to the deep rich Sevres’ blue of the West, is marvelously colorful although now it is more than five hundred years old. No wonder a man from Poland famous in tile designing has just come to make a study of these tiles and that many come from the United States just to see this faience work. It was made by a Persian whom the Turks invited to come and decorate this mosque.
Quotations from the holy Qur’án illumined the walls. All colors were soft and harmonious, such rich old tones are seldom seen in our modern churches; but the outer things were almost as if I did not see them, so absorbed was I in the consciousness that this was a place where He had prayed and where God had spoken to Him as of old He had spoken to Moses in the Burning Bush! I was impressed how in all His exiles, Bahá’u’lláh seemed always to live close to the mosques—the symbols of the divine in the earth-plane. In His hours of prayer in these terrestrial edifices God certainly revealed to Him how the dead world was to be revivified. What wonderful Works were written by Bahá’u’lláh in Adrianople! There were fourteen that we know of, and among these were the Tablets to the Kings, the Prayers on Fasting, the first Tablet to Napoleon III. and the great Tablet to the Shah of Persia which have been translated into our Western languages.
Kneeling with forehead to the rugs in this memorable mosque, the writer felt with a throb of wonder how far Bahá’u’lláh had come to meet our Western world! Adrianople was His closest approach—in the outer plane—to our Occident: but all these thoughts dropped into subconsciousness as one bowed in silent love in His Living presence. He was there in that mosque! And the one listening heard anew that His Teachings, the Logos, carry in Themselves the Power that will make of this world of earth a high paradise. The moments there were sublime, not to be described but experienced!
Later when the writer lifted her eyes from devotion, she glanced once more about the
Governor and Mayor of Adrianople, Turkey, with Martha Root and Marion Jack, international Bahá’í teachers.
Muṣṭafá Big, 85 years old, who had seen Bahá’u’lláh in his boyhood home in Adrianople, which was close to the Amru’lláh House.
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mosque before arising from her knees. As
she saw the Verses from the Qur’án upon
the walls, she thought of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s
Words when He was asked what we in the
United States and Canada should do with the
Tablets He revealed to the United States and
Canada and sent to us in 1919. He replied
to put them into the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár in
Chicago, not into the vaults but upon the
walls. Our new Bahá’í temple in the West
and probably other Mashriqu’l-Adhkár in
various parts of the globe will become renowned later
as the great new architecture
and the new ideal of spiritual edifices conceived in
the twentieth century. The Bahá’í
architecture will reflect the essential traits of
our Bahá’í believers—universality, spiritual
solidarity, spiritual refinement, beauty,
joyousness, sincerity and light. More than any
other edifice in the world, the new
Mashriqu’l-Adhkár
in Chicago presents in concrete, in bronze,
in quartz a gleaming reflection of all these
inner qualities. How little
we realize that we, too, are building for the
centuries ahead in our new architecture, and
that the name of our Louis Bourgeois, who
designed this first Mashriqu’l-Adhkár
in the Americas, will be much more known and
praised five hundred years from now even
than it is today in the West. Sometimes it
is good to see the famous mosques of Sinan
and other Muḥammadan architects who lived
in the epoch of a former World Teacher; it
quickens in us a realization of the stupendous
spiritual age in which we ourselves are
living.
As the days went by we kept coming back to this Murádiyyih section so often, that Mustafa, our driver, said to the neighbors gathered about us to see the sketches, that we seemed to love Murádiyyih the best of all the places in Adrianople. Then after nearly two weeks’ time we found the sites of the two houses where Bahá’u’lláh had lived, how we found all the sites is as interesting as a novel, but space does not permit its telling.
An old man, Muḥammad Hilmi Big, a fine type of Turk, told us that he had been a neighbor, that his boyhood home had been just across the roadway from Bahá’u’lláh’s house and he showed us the old structure of his place. He explained that there had been two “Bahá’í Bigs”—one1 great Persian, who lived in the mansion just adjoining the entrance gate to the Murádiyyih Mosque, seldom went out, but the other one, ’Abbás Big, used to go everywhere and used to treat the boys with much friendliness; but the great Bahá’í Big, too, was good to the boys, He had pilau given to them. This man told us too, and showed us what an immense house had been the mansion of Bahá’u’lláh; it had eighteen rooms and a Turkish bath—one can see from the site that it had been a very great mansion. The house was demolished in the Russian war fifty years ago; a cheap house had been built twenty—five years ago on the part of the lot nearest to the entrance gate, but most of that, too, had been razed in the last Balkan war. Muḥammad Hilmi Big showed us that just beyond the wall of Bahá’u’lláh’s house was a stretch of land through which runs a brook, and the Bahá’ís also had that entire place which extended down to the river in that time. There were several different buildings including stables and a large, long garden. He told us that these Persians had beautiful Arabian horses and two donkeys. There had been a house rather larger than the others in this garden enclosure, situated at the lower bend of the grounds and several people told us that Bahá’u’lláh had also lived there for a short time. That house overlooked the summer palace of the Sultán which stood lower on an opposite slope still in the Murádiyyih section. Now there is only the site of Bahá’u’lláh’s house, all his houses were demolished in the wars. We think that Bahá’u’lláh might have lived in this lower house the first week as it was close to the Takyiy-i-Mawlavi, just as an early historian relates. It could be reached from Takyiy-i-Mawlavi and Murádiyyih Mosque by going down a steep, narrow pathway part of which is stone steps, or one could have approached it through the garden.
Muḥammad Hilmi Big told us there were more than fifty Persians living in these places and that very many visitors came; they, too, were entertained there. This genial man explained that one of the members of Bahá’u’llah’s
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1Perhaps Bahá’u’lláh did not go out much in those first winter months but wrote.
Ruins of Riḍá Big House.
Ruins of Amru’lláh House.
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family gave Persian lessons to the
head of the Mevlevi Cherleri dervishes.*
Our kind Adrianople friend, Muḥammad Hilmi Bey, at the end of our visit said very softly that perhaps we knew they were exiles because they changed religion, but he added most sincerely and with love straight from the heart: “They were very, very kind, they didn’t harm anybody and they did good to everybody!”
Then he said good—bye to us and with a questioning smile—before he started cane in hand to stride slowly down the hill to his house—this brave, true man who has seen three Balkan wars and the world war despoil Adrianople said to us: "How have you liked us Turks? Do you find Turkish folks don’t eat people from other countries!” Beloved Turkish brother whose boyhood home was close beside the house of Bahá’u’lláh, if only we could express to you how lovely we found you and how kind we found the citizens of Adrianople! And to learn from you and others that your citizens here were good to Bahá’u’lláh endears us forever to your historic city!
Home of Amr’u’lláh Big was the third residence where Bahá’u’lláh lived in Adrianople; this site was the easiest to find and was verified by the greatest number of citizens. This great house stood just near the main entrance to the magnificent Sultan Salim Mosque, only the street separated it from the mosque grounds. Thus as one comes out from this North Gate of Sultan Salim Mosque, the house stood across the thoroughfare just to the left. An old caretaker in the mosque pointed out the site to us. An old man who sold chocolates down the mosque road quickly pointed to this ruined lot when we asked for the house of
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*Dervishes no longer hold their services in these buildings at Takyiy-i-Mawlavi, but one man there who used to be dervish told us that B:ha’u’llah had lived in this lower house and then later in the one up by the entrance gate. He said that Bahá’ís had used the kitchen, the dining-room and the bathroom of the Takyiy-i-Mawlavi and showed us these rooms—and probably they did in those first few days until they could get established. The dervishes then were a large and flourishing group, they had four buildings right beside the mosque. Some of the photographs of earlier meetings show that they all wore the high taj headdress.
Amr’u’lláh Big. The neighbours said the same, and a man in a shop over by the Murádiyyih quarter told our driver Muṣṭafá of this same location when we had asked there. Also, a man in public life showed us this place—and walked with us on through two or three other streets and pointed out the sites of the houses of Riḍa Big and Izzat Aqá and the Khan-i-Aráb Caravanserai site very near the grounds of Izzat Aqá. We could see from the ruins that the three residences were all remarkably large mansions and we heard that all three hosts were distinguished men of Adrianople at that time.
Now this Amr’u’lláh Big lot, which is like one whole block—and the house covered all of it—is only a place of ruins; the ground is covered with crumbled stones, flowering thistles and weeds. Part of the old wall still stands and a large portion of an enormous old fireplaces which the Turks call the "kitchen.”
We heard of an old man, Muṣṭafá Big, eighty-five years old, who had seen Bahá’u’lláh. When he met him he told us that he had been a neighbor living near the house of Amr’u’lláh Big and that he had carried yogurt to "Bahá’í Big” (Bahá’u’lláh), and the latter always had pilau given to him to carry home. His eyes shone as he spoke of Bahá’u’lláh, and he tried to show us how noble He was: this kindly, sincere old man, a Turk, stood up and tried to make us understand how Bahá’í Big walked with such a dignity and power, and how He bowed to people who saluted Him—he told us that all people saluted Bahá’u’lláh, that every one loved and revered Him.
We were informed that Bahá’u’lláh had a kitchen for the poor.
This man told us, too, that Bahá’u’lláh had a great vineyard—from his description we think it was like a garden with an arbour in the center. He said that Bahá’u’lláh went there often, sometimes alone to spend the day, sometimes He went there with His friends and they walked up and down. When He would return at night with his cortege, this man told us, that Bahá’u’lláh’s twenty servants (followers) would all stand together outside the house to salute Him and He always returned their greeting so lovingly.
Ruins of ‘Izzatu’lláh House.
Site of the old Khán-i-‘Aráb Caravanserai.
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We took this good friend with us and
went out to vineyard site. He measured off
the distances and showed us where the entrance
gate had been. The grounds would
cover in area about three city blocks; the
land is on an elevation and the place is only
about seven minutes’ walk from Sultan Salim
Mosque. This vineyard was between the
Murádiyyih Mosque slope and Sultan Salim
Mosque; one could walk to it easily from
either location. Muṣṭafá Big said to us: “Oh,
how many grapes did we receive from the
hand of Bahá’í Big! He gave us so many
grapes always!” I heard that the grapes of
Adrianople were very celebrated then; later
in the wars the grapevines were all destroyed.
I was very impressed how in every place
Bahá’u’lláh lived in His exiles, He had a
garden.
One day when Miss Jack and I went again to the vacant lot where the house of Am’u’lláh Big had stood, Muṣṭafá Big came over to us, cane in hand, with the firm eager tread of one who knows and wishes us to know all the history of the place. He showed how one part was the quarter for the women, another the suites for the men and he pointed to the great fireplace in the rear where the cooking was done. However, he pointed to a two-story house with the middle portion three stories just across the street but a little further down, and he said that some of Bahá’u’lláh’s followers lived in that house, that most of the cooking was done over there. He said that generally the food was prepared and brought to Bahá’u’lláh at the Amr’u’lláh mansion—though I did understand him to say sometimes the cooking would all be done in the Amr’u’lláh “kitchen" fireplace and carried over to the green house where most of the Persian friends ate their meals. He told us that this old house, which was green in colour in Bahá’u’lláh’s time, has now been remodelled and is painted pink. He made it very clear that Bahá’u’lláh Himself never lived there. (A pretty Turkish girl came out from the pink house when we took a photograph and a sketch; she asked about the great Man whose friends had eaten in her home!)
This much at least we learned, that Bahá’u’lláh lived for a long time in the home of Amr’u’lláh Big; the old man told us He lived in Adrianople nearly five years. We know that when the Prince of Peace lived and walked in Adrianople He was an honoured member in three of the great Turkish families, He lived in some splendid mansions of that great former metropolis, and He was loved and reverenced by those who knew Him. Is it not significant that the one man in Adrianople who said: “I saw Bahá’u’lláh!” tells us that he received pilau and grapes and that Bahá’u’lláh loved the poor and had a kitchen for them!
It seems to me that it must have been in this house of Amr’u’lláh Big or in the house adjacent that Subh-i—Ezel poisoned the food of Bahá’u’lláh, for he was living there in the latter time of His stay, and then left this house and went to live in the home of Izzat Aqá for the last eleven months of His sojourn in Adrianople. Bahá’u’lláh was always a peacemaker and what He has said about this cruel and terrible event is very just and noble. His innocence is proved, too, by the fact that He continued to stay in the homes of these great men, loved by all and served by an ever increasing number of followers who came from Persia, from Mesopotamia and Constantinople. While Subh-i-Ezel, who had always been tenderly cared for by his older half-brother, Bahá’u’lláh, has told in his own writings that, after the poisoning when Bahá’u’lláh went out and dwelt in another house, that he was so deserted he and his little son had to go themselves to the bazaar to buy their bread. Certainly from all one can learn today, Bahá’u’lláh was held in high esteem from the day He arrived until the day He left Adrianople, whereas when we mentioned the name of Subh-i-Ezel* (also known as Mírzá Yaḥyá) in Adrianople, no one there had heard of him.
There is not very much to be said about the ruins of the houses of Riḍá Big and Izzat Aqá except that one can see from the old stone walls and baths and fireplaces what extraordinarily large mansions they were.
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*In passing, I may say that when I was in Haifa, Palestine, in March, 1925, I saw the two grandchildren of Subh-i-Ezel living in the home of ‘Abdu'l-Baha’s Family and both were Bahá’í believers.
Miss Jack said that she had met the son of Subh-i-Ezel at the Shrine of Bahi'u'llal1 at Bahjí, in March, 1931; he was then a follower of Bahá’u’lláh.
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Certainly from them one would
have a glorious view of the Sultan Salim Mosque. We
were told that the house of Izzat Aqá had
a very large library “where the Bahá’ís
studied”—perhaps they meant where
Bahá’u’lláh wrote or received the thinkers
and seekers. It was the room where the three
fireplaces are, the ruins of those three
fireplaces are shown in the photograph. The fact
that Bahá’u’lláh was living in the homes of
these three great citizens of Adrianople
proves in itself that He was loved and
honoured in their midst. We hope that others
coming after us will find out more about
these two houses.
Concerning the Khán-i-Aráb Caravanserai, we searched for that for nearly three weeks; in going to the old caravanserais we saw what luxurious hostelries they must have been in that epoch, but we were told later that the Khán-i-Aráb Caravanserai was not one of the great fashionable ones but was for the Aráb middle and poorer classes. Probably Bahá’u’lláh and His followers were taken there by the Turkish officials from Constantinople who brought them to Roumelia. There were said to be two Khán-i-Aráb caravanserais—or some persons said that one was called Khán-i-Aráb, or simply Aráb Caravanserai—there were great differences of opinion but both sites are now used for large schools. We took a photograph of the one they said was Khán-i-Aráb Caravanserai near to the house of Izzat Aqá, and a sketch of the other one which is not far from the Sultan Salim Mosque.
Sultan Salim Mosque, where Bahá’u’lláh often went, is considered to be the most beautiful mosque in Turkey and was designed
Ruins of house in Murádíyyih quarter.
by Sinan, the great Turkish architect. Certainly its wide cloisters would be ideal as a place to sit and speak of matters divine, and its interior is full of beauty. Miss Jack and I were each asked to write our impressions of this mosque to be used in a Turkish book and we did so.
Also, the writer sent to the Governor of Adrianople Province, Salim Ozdemir Big Effendi, an article “Seeing Adrianople With New York Eyes,” which was published on the front page of “Milli Gazete” on Monday, November 6th, 1933, the day we left. Both the painter and the writer had been guests of the Governor, the Mayor, the Prefect of Police and the Director of Mosques in the Municipal Building, at the tenth fete day
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of the Republic of Turkey,
held in Adrianople, on October 29th, 1933,
and this article gave her impressions of
the spirit of the Turkish people.
I had an interesting interview with His Excellency Governor Salim Ozdemir Big Effendi in Government House, on November 2nd, 1933. He told me that next year they hope to build a most modern hotel for tourists; he is President of the Touring Club of Adrianople, organized in 1932. I found him a keen, brilliant thinker and well read. During the hour I showed him "The Bahá’í World” Vol. IV., in which is given the list of houses where Bahá’u’lláh stayed in Adrianople and also the Books He wrote while there. The names of the Books were eagerly scanned. This statesman said that he knew the Bahá’í Movement well, that he has made a study of all religions and has read several of the Works of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Governor Salim Ozdemir Big assured me, too, that he considers the Bahá’í Cause a social religion whose aim is to unite all the religions; he made it very clear that any real religion is allowed in Turkey; there is complete freedom of conscience, but it is forbidden to make propaganda for any religion.
When I asked His Excellency if he would think it “propaganda” if I should send him a copy of this historical sketch, he smiled and replied: “No,” and he added with genuine sincerity that he would be very glad indeed to have the literature on this movement and know of its progress in the five continents. He asked me how many Bahá’ís we have in the United States, saying he heard we had a million and a half who are attracted to the Teachings.
It was thanks to the Government Office that the locations of the houses of Riḍá Big, ’Izẓát Aqá and the Khán-i-Aráb Caravanserai were verified for this historical sketch —and it is the first time since Bahá’u’lláh was in Adrianople that the Western world has known where and what kind of houses these were; furthermore it has opened the doors to greater research, for any more information that can be gathered will be sent to us. I feel happy that we could meet the man who had seen ’Abbás Big and knew the Murádiyyih house well, and that we had explained to us the Amr’u’lláh Big house and the Vineyard by a man who was a neighbor and who saw Bahá’u’lláh.
Every one was kind at Government House. One of the young secretaries, Miss Fikret Shukru, went with me to the Sultan Salim Mosque Library to see if there is any Bahá’í literature there. The librarian showed us this wonderful library adorned with great paintings by Riḍá Big, one of Mecca and the other of Medina—I have never been to Mecca or Medina, but these remarkable paintings were just next to seeing those holy shrines—this library would be very interesting to Westerners. After looking over the books, the gracious librarian opened another door which led out to a balcony in the mosque itself, and we could look down into the center of this great edifice where we saw a mulla and his pupil who is studying to be a mufti, and the young man was saying the whole Qur’án by heart, six hundred pages in three hours! It shows how hard the Eastern divinity student has to work to pass his examinations!
One citizen, who is a very learned scholar in Adrianople and has one of the finest private libraries there, one day brought for us to see, for he knew we were interested, a copy of a Turkish magazine called “Itchtihat,” dated February 15, 1922, which had ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s picture on the front cover and another picture of Him was on the first page. The article was one of a series of three giving in Arabic a history of the Bahá’í Movement. Part of it was a translation from the books of Professor Edward G. Browne of Cambridge University.
When I had the interview with the Mayor Ekram Bey Effendi on June 15, 1933, he said, among many other things, that he knew about the Bahá’í Movement, and I showed him “The Bahá’í World” Vol. IV. with the list of houses. He told me to leave my address with him and if he can find out any more about these houses he will send me further information. He also said that he would be interested in seeing the Bahá’í literature and this historical sketch.
I am sure the citizens of Adrianople would
be glad to know what became of the
distinguished Persian exiles who lived in
their city for more than four years.
A number were[Page 593]
extremely
interested in the photographs of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
and Bahíyyih Khánum and inquired if
they could get them;
they also asked if it would be possible to see
the photograph of Bahá’u’lláh. People were
intensely interested in the paintings of Miss
Jack; each time she went out to sketch they
gathered about her, and I know the artist
was pleased when the Turkish women would give her
shoulder a loving little pat and exclaim:
"Aferin! Aferin!” (Bravo! Bravo!) Children
flocked about her to see the picture
grow, and in the eyes of many men and
women and youth was the question: “Why
are these sites so dear to you?”
They are clear, because there the World Teacher for this new universal cycle, the Glory of God, Bahá’u’lláh, once lived! And to you, O readers, if you ask me I would say that any one who becomes “an Adrianople Háji”—that is, one who makes the pilgrimage to Adrianople—will attain through this visit a deeper spiritual insight: he will attract to his soul a new capacity and a new understanding of those “Seeds Planted Under Every Stone in That Vicinity!”
Views of the town and ruins of the castle of Máh-Kú, ‘Adhirbáyján, Persia, where the Báb was confined.
