I remember dimly very happy days with my beloved father and
mother, and my brother 'Abbas, who was two years my senior.
My father was Mirza Husayn-'Ali of Nur, [Bahá'u'lláh] who married my
beautiful mother, Ásiyih Khanum, when she was very young. She was the only
daughter of a Persian Vizier, of high degree, Mirza Isma'il. He, as well as
Mirza 'Abbas Buzurg, my paternal grandfather, possessed great wealth.
When the brother of my mother married my father's sister,
the double alliance of the two noble families roused much interest throughout
the land. "It is adding wealth to wealth," the people said. Ásiyih
Khanum's wedding treasures were extensive, in accordance with the usual custom
in families of their standing; forty mules were loaded with her possessions when
she came to her husband's home.
For six months before the marriage a jeweller worked at her
home, preparing jewellry -- even the buttons of her garments were of gold, set
with precious stones. (These buttons were destined to be exchanged for bread,
on the terrible exile journey from Tihran to Baghdad.)
- Bahiyyih Khanum ([Bahá'u'lláh’s daughter] quoted by Lady Blomfield in ‘The Chosen Highway’)
