ʻAbdu'l-Bahá
son of Bahá'u'lláh and leader of the Bahá'í Faith
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá (; Persian: عبد البهاء, IPA: [ʔæbdolbæhɒːʔ];, 23 May 1844 – 28 November 1921), born ʻAbbás (Persian: عباس, IPA: [ʔæbːɒːs]), was the eldest son of Baháʼu'lláh, founder of the Bahá’í Faith, who designated him to be his successor and head of the Baháʼí Faith from 1892 until 1921. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá was later cited as the last of three "central figures" of the religion, along with Baháʼu'lláh and the Báb, and his writings and authenticated talks are regarded as sources of Baháʼí sacred literature.
He was born in Tehran to an aristocratic family. At the age of eight, his father was imprisoned during a government crackdown on the Bábí Faith and the family's possessions were looted, leaving them in virtual poverty. His father was exiled from their native Iran, and the family established their residence in Baghdad in Iraq, where they stayed for ten years. They were later called by the Ottoman state to Istanbul before entering another period of confinement in Edirne and finally the prison-city of ʻAkká (Acre). ʻAbdu'l-Bahá remained a prisoner there until the Young Turk Revolution freed him in 1908 at the age of 64. He then made several journeys to the West to spread the Baháʼí message beyond its middle-eastern roots, but the onset of World War I left him largely confined to Haifa from 1914 to 1918. Following the war, the openly hostile Ottoman authorities were replaced by the British Mandate over Palestine, during which time he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his help in averting famine following the war.
In 1892, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá was appointed in his father's will to be his successor and head of the Baháʼí Faith.
The public source identifies “ʻAbdu'l-Bahá” as son of Bahá'u'lláh and leader of the Bahá'í Faith. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Bahá'u'lláh and leader.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q216954. VIAF identifies the subject as 96995970. The Library of Congress control number is n79065595. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1844, 1921, 1892 and 1908.
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This entry incorporates text from “ʻAbdu'l-Bahá” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.