An Historical Cambridge Connection

An Historical Cambridge Connection

One of the few Westerners to meet Bahá’u’lláh was Professor Edward G. Browne, an orientalist from the University of Cambridge who had travelled to the Middle East to study this new (Bahá’í) movement. He was granted four successive interviews in April 1890. He has left this description of his first meeting with Bahá’u’lláh:

“…The face of Him on whom I gazed I can never forget, though I cannot describe it. Those piercing eyes seemed to read one’s very soul; power and authority sat on that ample brow… No need to ask in whose presence I stood, as I bowed myself before one who is the object of a devotion and love which kings might envy and emperors sigh for in vain!”

Bahá’u’lláh spoke to Professor Browne at that meeting:

“Praise be to God that thou hast attained!… Thou hast come to see a prisoner and an exile…. That all nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers; that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that diversity of religion should cease, and differences of race be annulled—what harm is there in this?… Yet so it shall be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the “Most Great Peace” shall come…. Let not a man glory in this, that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind….”