Summon Up Remembrance

Book excerpt: The fascinating story of a pleasure-seeking Persian boy who became one of 'Abdu'l-Baha's leading English translators and united East and West in the first Persian-American Baha'i marriage. Here is the colourful story of Ali-Kuli Khan, the first to translate into English such important works as the 'Seven Valleys', the 'Kitab-i-Iqan', and the Glad-Tidings. Told by his daughter, herself a well-known author and translator, Khan's story is based on his memoirs and personal papers. Through them we are given a unique and detailed picture of life in Persia at the end of the century, complete with an explanation of that oft-met protocol 'ta'aruf'. We follow the young Khan, dressed as a dervish, on his adventurous walk to 'Akka and note his transformation from a frivolous youth to a skilled translator for 'Abdu'l-Baha. In his nearly two years as a member of 'Abdu'l-Baha's household, Khan both translated for those first groups of American pilgrims to visit the Holy Land and rendered 'Abdu'l-Baha's Tablets into English. In 1901 Khan was sent to America to assist Mirza Abu'l-Fadl and to translate the great teacher's book, The Baha'i Proofs, into English. It was in America that Khan met and fell in love with a Boston society girl, Florence Breed. Their Victorian romance unfolds in the delicate love-letters written by Florence to Khan. Their marriage, the first between a Persian and an American Baha'i, not only symbolized but portrayed the unity between East and West taught by the Baha'i Faith. 'Summon Up Remembrance' is peopled with such familiar figures as Mirza Abu'l-Fadl, Laura Barney, Edward and Lua Getsinger, Mary Hanford Ford and the Atabak. But this is a book dedicated to 'Abdu'l-Baha, and it is His wisdom and teaching that characterizes it. A unique feature is the inclusion of the Tablet of Cremation revealed by 'Abdu'l-Baha, here published for the first time in English in a new translation by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice. The story continues in Arches of the Years.