he would in future initiate some highly important task.

After the ascension of Baha'u'llah, the Afnan, loyal and staunch in the
Covenant, rendered even more services than he had before; this in spite of
many obstacles, and an overwhelming load of work, and an infinite variety
of matters all claiming his attention. He gave up his comfort, his
business, his properties, estates, lands, hastened away to I_sh_qabad and
set about building the Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar; this was a service of very
great magnitude, for he thus became the first individual to erect a Baha'i
House of Worship, the first builder of a House to unify man. With the
believers in I_sh_qabad assisting him, he succeeded in carrying off the
palm. For a long period in I_sh_qabad, he had no rest. Day and night, he
urged the believers on. Then they too exerted their efforts, and made
sacrifices above and beyond their power; and God's edifice arose, and word
of it spread throughout East and West. The Afnan expended everything he
possessed to rear this building, except for a trifling sum. This is the
way to make a sacrifice. This is what it means to be faithful.

Afterward he journeyed to the Holy Land, and there beside that place where
the chosen angels circle, in the shelter of the Shrine of the Bab, he
passed his days, holy and pure, supplicating and entreating the Lord.
God's praise was always on his lips, and he chanted prayers with both his
tongue and heart. He was wonderfully spiritual, strangely ashine. He is
one of those souls who, before ever the drumbeat of "Am I not your Lord?"
was sounded, drummed back: "Yea, verily Thou art!"(76) It was in the 'Iraq
period, during the years between the seventies and the eighties of the
Hijra, that he first caught fire and loved the Light of the World, beheld
the glory dawning in Baha'u'llah and witnessed the fulfillment of the
words, "I am He that liveth in the Abha Realm of Glory!"

The Afnan was an uncommonly happy man. Whenever I was saddened, I would
meet with him, and on the instant, joy would return again. Praise be to
God, at the last, close by the Shrine of the Bab, he hastened away in
light to the Abha Realm; but the loss of him deeply grieved 'Abdu'l-Baha.

His bright grave is in Haifa, beside the Haziratu'l-Quds, near Elijah's
Cave. A tomb must be erected there, and built solidly and well. May God
shed upon his resting-place rays from the Paradise of Splendors, and lave
that holy dust with the rains that be