George Khayrullah

George Khayrullah (Ibrahim Khayrullah, Kheirallah) was a Bahá'í convert originally from what was then called Syria, but would be now termed the Lebanon. He had previously been a Christian. He was taught the Faith in Cairo by a merchant named Abdu'l-Karím-i- Tihrání. Keen for Bahá'í service, he was sent by 'Abdu'l-Bahá to the United States of America, to plant the Bahá'í Faith there. He was a resourceful individual, and managed to rapidly create a group of Bahá'í believers. He used the term "Truth-Knowers" and allegedly the first meetings took the form of a sort of secret gathering. He married an English woman, who was technically the first Bahá'í born in England. However, she lost touch with the Faith when she returned to England.

At this time there were no Local Spiritual Assemblies, and so Khayrullah was the undoubted leader of the American Bahá'í community. However, at some point he returned to Haifa to report to 'Abdu'l-Bahá. It seemed to him that he could spread the Faith in America without support from Haifa, and therefore suggested himself as a leader in the West, with the Master concentrating on the East. This did not, of course, accord with most people's understanding of the Covenant. However, the Arch Covenant-Breaker, Mirza Muhammad-Ali, approached him and established some kind of understanding with him. When he returned to America he then tried to dissuade the new Bahá'ís from taking any further notice of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. It was Thornton Chase who stood up to him, earning himself the epithet, "the first American Bahá'í". 'Abdu'l-Bahá sent a series of teachers to America to try to help Khayrullah understand his true role, but he was not to be dissuaded.

Deprived of his divine link to the Covenant, and to the wider Bahá'í movement, Khayrullah failed to make any further headway. A letter from him to Edward G. Browne, written in 1917, shows that his own movement had long since dwindled to nothing, as the wider Bahá'í community had gone from strength to strength.