ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's journeys to the West
Upon the death of his father in 1892, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá had been appointed as the successor, authorized interpreter of Bahá'u'lláh's teachings, and Center of the Covenant of the Baháʼí Faith.
At the time of his release, the major centres of Baháʼí population and scholarly activity were mostly in Iran,[2] with other large communities in Baku, Azerbaijan,[3] Ashgabat, Turkmenistan,[4] and Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
[1] In succeeding decades after his visit the American community substantially grew[7] and then spread across South America, Australasia, Subsaharan Africa and the Far East.
Earlier on that day he had accompanied two pilgrims to the Shrine of the Báb, and then he headed down to the port in the city where at around 4pm he set sail on the steamer "Kosseur London" and then telegrammed the Baháʼís in Haifa that he was in Egypt.
He boarded the SS Corsican, an Allan Line Royal Mail Steamer[15][16] towards the port of Marseilles, France accompanied by secretary Mírzá Mahmúd, and personal assistant Khusraw.
The purpose of these trips was to support the Baháʼí communities in the West and to further spread his father's teachings,[19] after sending representatives and a letter to the First Universal Races Congress in July.
In Vevey ʻAbdu'l-Bahá offered a talk on the Baháʼí point of view on the immortality of soul and relationship of worlds and on the subject of divorce.
Juliet Thompson, an American Baháʼí and artist who had also come to visit ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, shared comments of Hippolyte who heard Soltan's stammering apology for past wrongs.
[31] Back in London Alice Buckton visited Abdu'l-Bahá once again, and he went to Church House, Westminster to see a Christmas mystery play titled Eager Heart that she had written.
[17] From 23 to 25 September, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá went to Bristol where he met with many leading individuals including David Graham Pole, Claude Montefiore, Alexander Whyte, Lady Evelyn Moreton among others.
[10] In the following year, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá undertook a much more extensive journey to the United States and Canada, ultimately visiting some 40 cities, to once again spread his father's teachings.
[19] Several people, including ʻAbdu'l-Bahá himself, Allan L. Ward, author of 239 Days, and critic Samuel Graham Wilson have taken note of the uniqueness of this trip.
During his nine months on the continent, he met with David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University; Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise of New York City; the inventor Alexander Graham Bell; Jane Addams, the noted social worker; the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, who was touring America at the time;[50] Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress; the industrialist and humanitarian Andrew Carnegie; Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor; the Arctic explorer Admiral Robert Peary; as well as hundreds of American and Canadian Baháʼís, recent converts to the religion.
[1] The American Baháʼí community had sent thousands of dollars urging ʻAbdu'l-Bahá to leave the Cedric in Italy and travel to England to sail on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic.
Percy Stickney Grant, through association with Juliet Thompson, invited ʻAbdu'l-Bahá to speak at Church of the Ascension on the evening of 14 April.
[73] The event caused a stir because, while there were rules in the Episcopal Church Canon forbidding someone of another ordination from preaching from the pulpit without the consent of the bishop, there was no provision against a non-ordained person offering prayer in the chancel.
[76] Mary Williams noted that she was impressed with ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's generosity of spirit in bringing people of social standing to the Bowery as well as that he then gave money to the poor.
[85][86][87][88] ʻAbdu'l-Bahá also welcomed William Sulzer, then a Democratic Congressman and later Governor from New York, as well as Champ Clark, then Speaker of the House of Representatives.
[96] Robert Sengstacke Abbott, an African American lawyer and newspaper publisher, met ʻAbdu'l-Bahá when covering a talk of his during his stay in Chicago at Jane Addams' Hull House.
After the conference, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá returned to New York City, where he stayed until the 22nd, leaving to the Boston area for four days including a trip to Worcester, Massachusetts on the 23rd.
[133] It is at this event that Lua Getsinger intentionally walked through poison ivy hoping to make her incapable of leaving the presence of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá when he asked her to travel ahead of him to California.
He left to Boston and then rode to Montreal where he arrived near midnight on 30 August 1912 at the Windsor train station on Peel Street and was greeted by William Sutherland Maxwell.
Therefore, it is my hope that these revered nations may become prominent factors in the establishment of international peace and the oneness of the world of humanity; that they may lay the foundations of equality and spiritual brotherhood among mankind; that they may manifest the highest virtues of the human world, revere the divine lights of the Prophets of God and establish the reality of unity so necessary today in the affairs of nations.
[148][149] In Salt Lake City, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, accompanied by his translators, Saichiro Fujita and others attended the Utah State Fair and visited the Mormon Tabernacle.
Traveling all day through Nevada on its way to California, the train made regular stops but there's no record of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá disembarking until his arrival in San Francisco.
[152][nb 5] On his first full day in Los Angeles ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, along with twenty-five other Baháʼís, visited Thornton Chase's grave on 19 October.
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá designated Chase's grave a place of pilgrimage, and revealed a tablet of visitation, which is a prayer to say in remembrance of a person, and decreed that his death be commemorated annually.
[162][163] ʻAbdu'l-Bahá arrived in Liverpool on 13 December,[164] and over the next six months he visited Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, and Germany before finally returning to Egypt on 12 June 1913.
[171][172][173][174] The newspaper coverage lead to a stream of visitors and speaking engagements on 8 Jan; he spoke at the Edinburgh College of Art, and the North Canongate School.
[186][187] In Vienna ʻAbdu'l-Bahá met with the Persian minister, the Turkish Ambassador in multiple occasions, and spoke with Theosophists on three separate days.
