Her [Táhirih’s]career was as dazzling as it was brief, as
tragic as it was eventful. Unlike her fellow-disciples, whose exploits
remained, for the most part unknown, and unsung by their contemporaries in
foreign lands, the fame of this immortal woman was noised abroad, and traveling
with remarkable swiftness as far as the capitals of Western Europe, aroused the
enthusiastic admiration and evoked the ardent praise of men and women of divers
nationalities, callings and cultures. Little wonder that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá should
have joined her name to those of Sarah, of Ásíyih, of the Virgin Mary and of
Fátimih, who, in the course of successive Dispensations, have towered, by
reason of their intrinsic merits and unique position, above the rank and file
of their sex. “In eloquence,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself has written, “she was the
calamity of the age, and in ratiocination the trouble of the world.” He,
moreover, has described her as “a brand afire with the love of God” and “a lamp
aglow with the bounty of God.” (Shoghi Effendi, ‘God Passes By’)
