Knighthood, Protections and Appreciations bestowed upon `Abdu'l-Bahá by the British Crown
The war of 1914-18, repeatedly foreshadowed by Abdu'l-Baha in the dark warnings He uttered in the course of His western travels, and which broke out eight months after His return to the Holy Land, once more cast a shadow of danger over His life. . .
In the Holy Land, . . . though the outcome of that tremendous struggle was to liberate once and for all the Heart and Center of the Faith from the Turkish yoke, a yoke which had imposed for so long upon its Founder and His Successor such oppressive and humiliating restrictions, yet severe privations and grave dangers continued to surround its inhabitants during the major part of that conflict, and renewed, for a time, the perils which had confronted Abdu'l-Baha during the years of His incarceration in Akka. The privations inflicted on the inhabitants by the gross incompetence, the shameful neglect, the cruelty and callous indifference of both the civil and military authorities, though greatly alleviated through the bountiful generosity, the foresight and the tender care of Abdu'l-Baha, were aggravated by the rigors of a strict blockade. A bombardment of Haifa by the Allies was a constant threat, at one time so real that it necessitated the temporary removal of Abdu'l-Baha, His family and members of the local community to the village of Abu-Sinan at the foot of the hills east of Akka. The Turkish Commander-in-Chief, the brutal, the all-powerful and unscrupulous Jamal Pasha, an inveterate enemy of the Faith, through his own ill-founded suspicions and the instigation of its enemies, had already grievously afflicted Abdu'l-Baha, and even expressed his intention of crucifying Him and of razing to the ground the Tomb of Baha'u'llah. . . .
The conclusion of this terrible conflict, the first stage in a titanic convulsion long predicted by Baha'u'llah, not only marked the extinction of Turkish rule in the Holy Land and sealed the doom of that military despot who had vowed to destroy Abdu'l-Baha. . . it produced those revolutionary changes which, on the one hand, fulfilled the ominous predictions made by Baha'u'llah in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, and enabled, according to Scriptural prophecy, so large an element of the "outcasts of Israel," the "remnant" of the "flock," to "assemble" in the Holy Land, and to be brought back to "their folds" and "their own border," beneath the shadow of the "Incomparable Branch," referred to by Abdu'l-Baha in His "Some Answered Questions," and which, on the other hand, gave birth to the institution of the League of Nations, the precursor of that World Tribunal which, as prophesied by that same "Incomparable Branch," the peoples and nations of the earth must needs unitedly establish. . . .
No need to dwell on the energetic steps which the English believers as soon as they had been apprized of the dire peril threatening the life of Abdu'l-Baha undertook to insure His security; on the measures independently taken whereby Lord Curzon and others in the British Cabinet were advised as to the critical situation at Haifa; on the prompt intervention of Lord Lamington, who immediately wrote to the Foreign Office to "explain the importance of Abdu'l-Baha's position;" on the despatch which the Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour, on the day of the receipt of this letter, sent to General Allenby, instructing him to "extend every protection and consideration to Abdu'l-Baha, His family and His friends;" on the cablegram subsequently sent by the General, after the capture of Haifa, to London, requesting the authorities to "notify the world that Abdu'l-Baha is safe;" on the orders which that same General issued to the General Commanding Officer in command of the Haifa operations to insure Abdu'l-Baha's safety, thus frustrating the express intention of the Turkish Commander-in-Chief (according to information which had reached the British Intelligence Service) to "crucify Abdu'l-Baha and His family on Mt. Carmel" in the event of the Turkish army being compelled to evacuate Haifa and retreat northwards.
The three years which elapsed between the liberation of Palestine by the British forces and the passing of Abdu'l-Baha were marked by a further enhancement of the prestige which the Faith, despite the persecutions to which it had been subjected, had acquired at its world center, and by a still greater extension in the range of its teaching activities in various parts of the world. . . . Nor were the British authorities slow to express their appreciation of the role which Abdu'l-Baha had played in allaying the burden of suffering that had oppressed the inhabitants of the Holy Land during the dark days of that distressing conflict. The conferment of a knighthood upon Him at a ceremony specially held for His sake in Haifa, at the residence of the British Governor, at which notables of various communities had assembled; the visit paid Him by General and Lady Allenby, who were His guests at luncheon in Bahji, and whom He conducted to the Tomb of Baha'u'llah; the interview at His Haifa residence between Him and King Feisal who shortly after became the ruler of Iraq; the several calls paid Him by Sir Herbert Samuel (later Viscount Samuel of Carmel) both before and after his appointment as High Commissioner for Palestine; His meeting with Lord Lamington who, likewise, called upon Him in Haifa, as well as with the then Governor of Jerusalem, Sir Ronald Storrs; the multiplying evidences of the recognition of His high and unique position by all religious communities, whether Muslim, Christian or Jewish; the influx of pilgrims who, from East and West, flocked to the Holy Land in comparative ease and safety to visit the Holy Tombs in Akka and Haifa, to pay their share of homage to Him, to celebrate the signal protection vouchsafed by Providence to the Faith and its followers, and to give thanks for the final emancipation of its Head and world Center from Turkish yoke - these contributed, each in its own way, to heighten the prestige which the Faith of Baha'u'llah had been steadily and gradually acquiring through the inspired leadership of Abdu'l-Baha.
As the ministry of Abdu'l-Baha drew to a close signs multiplied of the resistless and manifold unfoldment of the Faith both in the East and in the West, both in the shaping and consolidation of its institutions and in the widening range of its activities and its influence. . . . .
The famous scientist and entomologist, Dr. Auguste Forel, was converted to the Faith through the influence of a Tablet sent him by Abdu'l-Baha - one of the most weighty the Master ever wrote. . . .
Another Tablet of far-reaching importance was His reply to a communication addressed to Him by the Executive Committee of the "Central Organization for a Durable Peace," which He dispatched to them at The Hague by the hands of a special delegation. . . .
(Shoghi Effendi: God Passes By, Pages: 303-308)