Mírzá Muḥammad (), or Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl-i-Gulpáygání (1844–1914), was the foremost Baháʼí scholar who helped spread the Baháʼí Faith in Egypt, Turkmenistan, and the United States. He is one of the few Apostles of Baháʼu'lláh who never actually met Baháʼu'lláh. His given name was Muhammad, and he chose the alias Abu'l-Faḍl (progenitor of virtue) for himself, but ʻAbdu'l-Bahá frequently addressed him as Abu'l-Fada'il (progenitor of virtues). Early life Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl was born in a village near Gulpaygan, Iran, in June or July 1844. His family were prominent religious scholars in the village; his father, Mirza Muhammad Rida Shariʻatmadar, was a religious leader, and his mother, Sharafu'n-Nisa, was related to the prayer leader of the town. Abu'l-Faḍl completed his preliminary education in Gulpaygan, and then successively went to Arak, Karbala and Najaf to continue his education. In 1868 he left for Isfahan to study Islamic sciences at one of the religious colleges in the city; he was given a room by one of the prayer leaders, Imam-Jumʻih, Sayyid Muhammad Sultanu'l-ʻUlama, who was a friend of his father's. Abu'l-Faḍl remained at the college for three years, becoming well-versed in several branches of knowledge. Abu'l-Faḍl's father died in the winter of 1871, and after his death, Abu'l-Faḍl's brothers schemed against him and took all their father's inheritance. In October 1873, Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl was invited to Tehran to teach Kalam, or speculative theology, at the Madrasih Hakim Hashim, one of the religious colleges in the city. During his time there he continued learning about philosophy and mystical philosophy, or Irfan, by attending the lectures of Mírzá Abu'l-Hasan Jilvih, one of the leading figures on the subject. He also discussed the history of religion with two Buddhist scholars who were in Tehran at the same time, and attended science classes at the élite school of Dar ol-Fonoon, founded by Amir Kabir, the grand vizier to Nasereddin Shah. After a short time at the Madrasih Hakim Hashim, he was selected to be the head of the religious college. Conversion to the Baháʼí Faith and arrests Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl's first encounters with Baháʼís was in the beginning of 1876 during his time in Tehran. Abu'l-Faḍl, at one point, met an uneducated cloth-seller, named Aqa ʻAbdu'l-Karim, with whom he would have discussions over difficult religious questions. Over time Abu'l-Faḍl came to appreciate ʻAbdu'l-Karim's keenness and moral qualities, but when eventually he learnt that ʻAbdu'l-Karim was a Baháʼí and that the