Georgia Bahá'í School | Journey / Sulaymaniyyih

Salam and good afternoon to you worthy friends. I am Vahid a lowly Sufi. Allah has surely blessed me by allowing me to meet you today. It is very fortunate that we are traveling the same road past the shadow of the great Mount Sar-Galu.

Are you also on your way to Sulaymaniyyih?

I once met another traveler on this road. He was a dervish and had been living here in these mountains. As we walked along this very road he told me his story. He said that he and his family were sent into exile by Násirí'd-Din Shah. They had to travel for four months in the dead of winter from Tehran to Baghdad. They finally arrived in April, it had been an extremely difficult journey.

Upon arriving in Baghdad this traveler, who told me his name was Darvish Muhammad-i-Irani, said he became very disheartened. You see, he was a Babí, the other Babí's in Baghdad had become very disunified, the person they thought was meant to be leading them, Mirza Yahya, had gone into hiding, but when he did send messages to the Babí's much of what he said seemed to go against the teachings of the Bab. So, some of the believers became discontent. Many of them turned to Darvish Muhammad-i-Irani for guidance. But this made Mirza Yahya very angry. The Darvish did not want to be the cause of discord, so in April of 1854, unbeknownst to his family, he left Baghdad and traveled here to Mount Sar-Galu. He lived here for many months, leading the life of a simple dervish. He seemed very reluctant to speak of that time. His only companions were the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.

The people in this region eventually became aware of his presence and would come to visit him on occasion. Eventually the head of my order, Shakyh Isma'il, became aware of his presence and pleaded with him to come stay at our seminary in Sulaymaniyyih.

It was at this time that I met him on the road. He was such a kind and loving person and I greatly enjoyed the time we traveled together. In fact, when I travel this road thoughts of him always come to my mind. Darvish Muhammad-i-Irani stayed at our seminary for more than a year. Everyone in my order and many people in the town had the highest respect for him. He always showed great kindness to everyone he met.

One day he came across a little boy who was crying and very upset. The boy had lost his homework assignment , he was trying to learn the art of calligraphy, which is a very fancy style of writing, and was having much trouble. Darvish Muhammad-i-Irani took the boy aside and worked with him and showed him many techniques for doing calligraphy. The boy was so excited by his progress that he profusely thanked the Darvish and ran off to show his teacher his progress.

It was not long after this that the Darvish received a message from Baghdad, and decided to return to the city. We were all very sad to see him go.

It was not until nearly ten years later that we learned our esteemed visitor was in fact Bahá'u'lláh, the Promised One of God.