Bahíyyih Khánum

The blistering August sun beat down on the weary group of about 70 Bahá’í exiles, drifting in the Mediterranean Sea. A faint wind barely pushed their sails.
It was 1868, and Bahíyyih Khánum was about 21 years old. After “eight hours of positive misery,” they reached the filthy prison-city of ‘Akká, Israel. They were marched through the streets, past a jeering crowd, to an old army barracks. Conditions were so foul that Bahíyyih fainted.
Born in 1846 with the given name Fatimih Sultan, Bahíyyih Khánum, was the only daughter of Baháʼu'lláh and Ásíyih Khánum.
Brought up through the trying times her family lived through, in adulthood she served the interests of the Bahá’í Faith and was even occasionally trusted with running its affairs.
Marjorie Morten writes, “Something greater than forgiveness she had shown in meeting the cruelties and strictures in her own life. To be hurt and to forgive is saintly but far beyond this is the power to comprehend and not be hurt. This power she had.
The word mazlúm, which signifies acceptance without complaint, has come to be associated with her name. She was never known to complain or lament. It was not that she made the best of things, but that she found in everything, even in calamity itself, the germs of enduring wisdom.
She did not resist the shocks and upheavals of life and she did not run counter to obstacles. She was never impatient. She was as incapable of impatience as she was of revolt.
But this was not so much long-sufferance as it was quiet awareness of the forces that operate in the hours of waiting and inactivity.
Always she moved with the larger rhythm, the wider sweep, toward the ultimate goal.”
Every morning, she reminds me, “To be hurt and to forgive is saintly but far beyond this is the power to comprehend and not be hurt at all. … Radiantly acquiesce, Adam. Remember the larger rhythm, the wider sweep, the ultimate goal.”