The most outstanding scholar of the Bahá'í Faith. Born in 1844 in Gulpáygán, Iran, to a family of Muslim religious scholars, at thirty Mírzá Abu'l-Fadl was the master teacher of a Tihrán religious seminary. After years of rejecting the Bahá'í Faith, he was moved to study it after an encounter with a humble Bahá'í blacksmith. In 1876, Abu'l-Fadl became a Bahá'í and devoted the rest of his life to teaching, travelling and writing about the Bahá'í Faith. In Cairo he was the centre of Bahá'í activity. In 1901 `Abdu'l-Bahá sent him to America where he spent nearly four years, making a lasting mark on the American Bahá'í Community. Among the books he wrote which have been translated into English are The Bahá'í Proofs, The Brilliant Proof, Miracles and Metaphors and Letters and Essays, 1886-1913. Mírzá Abu'l-Fadl died in Cairo in 1914. Shoghi Effendi named him one of the nineteen Apostles of Bahá'u'lláh.


Entry from: A Basic Bahá'í Dictionary, George Ronald, U.K., 1989 [1991], p.6.)