Ibrahim George Kheirollah
Ibrahim George Kheirollah (November 11, 1849 – March 6, 1926) was the first Baha’i teacher sent to the United States who made the first Americans to convert to the Baha’i Faith and formed the first Baha’i community in the United States. After confronting and arguing with Abdu’l-Baha over ideological matters and leadership style, his positions as the main and prominent spokesman and organizer of the Baha’i Faith in the United States were taken from him. He then tended to the unificationist Baha’i group of Muhammad Ali Baha’i and took hundreds of American Baha’is to that group at least temporarily.
Return to America: Decision to join Mohammad Ali Effendi
Two months after returning to the United States (in 1899), I received a letter from Abbas Effendi in his own handwriting and with his special signature (A. E.), in which he wrote after praising me: “You are the center of the circle of love and affection for God and the axis where the population of believers gather around you to praise and worship God.” This letter caused me to become resolute that he is nothing more than a flatterer! Because his letter was an answer to my question about how and through whom, a wealthy person, can send him money? At the same time, I learned that Mr. and Mrs. Getsinger, who had returned to the United States shortly after us, were spreading the word among the Bahائ’ کهs that Abbas Effendi was dissatisfied with me and that my teachings were wrong, and that Mr. Getsinger had been appointed as the head of the Baha’is group in America. And he has proved his claim by presenting a credential signed by Abbas Effendi.
Considering these unfortunate events, I thought about it and, after studying Bahaullah’s texts and writings, I was convince that the Abdu’l-Baha claims, conduct, and teachings were invalid and false. So, I separated from him and joined the line of Muhammad Ali’s followers according to the commandment of the Book of the Covenant. And I started corresponding with him. Among my documents and correspondence, I have more than one hundred and fifty letters from him in which you cannot even find a word against Abbas Effendi, but Abbas Effendi asked us to pray until Mohammad Ali repents and returns to the right path.
The beginning of tension and conflict in America
Seven months after returning to the United States, during a meeting at the Masonic Temple in Chicago, I announced my separation from Abdu’l-Baha and the reunion with his brother Muhammad Ali Effendi. I asked those who agreed with me to join me. About 300 people joined me in Chicago, Kenosha, and elsewhere but the majority remained with Abbas Effendi because the wealthy Americans were still in his party. In those days I gave a work of Bahaullah to the Hallister Brothers Publications in Chicago. I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. Howard McNaught from New York City and thank him for the literary editing of many parts of that book. A few months later, Abbass Effendi first sent Haji Abdul Karim Tehrani to keep me among his supporters; but he could not convince me even after he promised that I would receive $ 50,000 in compensation from a wealthy American. Then Mirza Assadollah, the brother-in-law of Abbass Effendi and Mirza Hassan Khorasani were sent to either keep me in the group or get rid of me! Several threatening messages were sent to me from Acre, and three guards were assigned by the American police to look after me. Asadullah, the father of Dr. Amin Farid, told the American Baha’is that I would die soon if I continued to disobey Abdu’l-Baha, and even announced the day of my burial. On the same day, I met a Baha’i in the city and he was surprised that I was still alive. Then Abolfazl Golpayegani came to the United States to negotiate with me, and Mrs. Getsinger was the liaison and messenger between me and Golpayegani, but we did not agree to hold a meeting, so there was no meeting between us.
The unfortunate persecutions, the unjust sufferings, the accusations and the slanders that were inflicted on me by the followers of Abdu’l-Baha and his representatives and envoys, and most importantly, the important events that took place after my return from Acre, all of them have been recorded in the United States by Dr. Frederick A. Pease, a historiographer of the Baha’i group. He intends to publish them soon, so I see no need to include them in this autobiography.
Since 1900, there has been a great deal of correspondence between me and His Highness Muhammad Ali Effendi, the Most Great Branch, and Mahd-e Olia (Bahaullah’s Widow), Khademullah, Mirza Aqajan, and Muhammad Hussein Shirazi, and several others of Bahaullah’s family about Bahaullah’s teachings which deny the actions of Abbas Effendi, the Most Great Branch. I have made this clear in my two books, “Facts for Baha’is” and “Three Questions”, which I published between 1901 and 1902.
Muhammad Ali Effendi, the Most Great Branch, sent me hundreds of tablets issued by Bahaullah and many other valuable Baha’i texts written by prominent Baha’i writers. He also provided valuable information about Bahai tablets and artifacts, and gave me precious gifts such as a tablet in Bahaullah’s own handwriting, two strands of Bahaullah hair, and a few other gifts and memorabilia, addressing me in correspondence as “doctor”.
I continued to teach in Chicago with those who had joined me. In 1904, I married Miss Augusta Linderburg, after which we moved to St. Louis and from there to New York City.
We returned to Chicago in 1906 and began teaching as usual; I had two other classes in the Chicago suburbs, one in Evanston and the other in Wilmette. My wife died in 1912, a Baha’i woman who was resolute on her belief even in deathbed.
In 1994, I returned to Chicago with my son, George Ibrahim Kheirollah, after spending eighteen months in Black Hills (Rapid City, South Dakota). In Chicago, we had meetings with the Baha’is and decided to register an association under the title of the “National Association of World Religions” according to the laws of the state of Illinois.
Happy ending
For many years, my main desire and wish has been to strive to know and believe in the existence of God, the Creator of the world, the resurrection and the hereafter, the survival and immortality of mankind, the boundary between abstract reason and matter and right and wrong. By the grace of God, these facts were obtained for me through research and study, and I have explained them in my works, the book “Bahaullah”, and the same work namely “O Christians,” in which my biography has also been included.
Any rational and fair person can find strong scientific and logical reasons and arguments in the content of these books to convince him or her about the occurrence of the above events, but even if we do not accept any of these arguments and only suffice to what is in my works about the predictions included in the Bible, the Qur’an, and other sacred texts that go beyond human knowledge, it is enough that they convince anyone of the truth of these facts. In other words, there is a God who sent prophets and messengers to humanity and taught them about the survival and immortality of mankind and the resurrection, and then in the last stage, God himself appeared on earth to establish his kingdom on earth; while our forgiveness and salvation became certain, as our lord Jesus Christ had promised.
Let me finish writing this and raise our hands to heaven, like Jesus Christ, and joyfully exclaim, “O Heavenly Father, all thanks be to you; for you have given us eternal life through the manifestation of the soul and your great ego, and you made us recognize that you are only the true God; grandeur, omnipotence, glory and absolute power belong to you forever.
