The period of the Bab's banishment to the mountains of A_dh_irbayjan,
lasting no less than three years, constitutes the saddest, the most
dramatic, and in a sense the most pregnant phase of His six year ministry.
It comprises His nine months' unbroken confinement in the fortress of
Mah-Ku, and His subsequent incarceration in the fortress of _Ch_ihriq,
which was interrupted only by a brief yet memorable visit to Tabriz. It
was overshadowed throughout by the implacable and mounting hostility of
the two most powerful adversaries of the Faith, the Grand Vizir of
Muhammad _Sh_ah, Haji Mirza Aqasi, and the Amir-Nizam, the Grand Vizir of
Nasiri'd-Din _Sh_ah. It corresponds to the most critical stage of the
mission of Baha'u'llah, during His exile to Adrianople, when confronted
with the despotic Sultan 'Abdu'l-'Aziz and his ministers, 'Ali Pa_sh_a and
Fu'ad Pa_sh_a, and is paralleled by the darkest days of 'Abdu'l-Baha's
ministry in the Holy Land, under the oppressive rule of the tyrannical
'Abdu'l-Hamid and the equally tyrannical Jamal Pa_sh_a. _Sh_iraz had been
the memorable scene of the Bab's historic Declaration; Isfahan had
provided Him, however briefly, with a haven of relative peace and
security; whilst A_dh_irbayjan was destined to become the theatre of His
agony and martyrdom. These concluding years of His earthly life will go
down in history as the time when the new Dispensation attained its full
stature, when the claim of its Founder was fully and publicly asserted,
when its laws were formulated, when the Covenant of its Author was firmly
established, when its independence was proclaimed, and when the heroism of
its champions blazed forth in immortal glory. For it was during these
intensely dramatic, fate-laden years that the full implications of the
station of the Bab were disclosed to His disciples, and formally announced
by Him in the capital of A_dh_irbayjan, in the presence of the Heir to the
Throne; that the Persian Bayan, the repository of the laws ordained by the
Bab, was revealed; that the time and character of the Dispensation of "the
One Whom God will make manifest" were unmistakably determined; that the
Conference of Bada_sh_t proclaimed the annulment of the old order; and
that the great conflagrations of Mazindaran, of Nayriz and of Zanjan were
kindled.
And yet, the foolish and short-sighted Haji Mirza Aqasi fondly imagined
that by confounding the plan of the Bab to meet the _Sh_ah face to face in
the capital, and by relegating Him to the farthest corner of the realm, he
had stifled the Movement at its birth, and would soon conclusively triumph
over its Founder. Little did he imagine that the very isolation he was
forcing upon his Prisoner would enable Him to evolve the System designed
to incarnate the soul of His Faith, and would afford Him the opportunity
of safeguarding it from disintegration and schism, and of proclaiming
formally and unreservedly His mission. Little did he imagine that this
very confinement would induce that Prisoner's exasperated disciples and
companions to cast off the shackles of an antiquated theology, and
precipitate happenings that would call forth from them a prowess, a
courage, a self-renunciation unexampled in their country's history. Little
did he imagine that by this very act he would be instrumental in
fulfilling the authentic tradition ascribed to the Prophet of Islam
regarding the inevitability of that which should come to pass in
A_dh_irbayjan. Untaught by the example of the governor of _Sh_iraz, who,
with fear and trembling, had, at the first taste of God's avenging wrath,
fled ignominiously and relaxed his hold on his Captive, the Grand Vizir of
Muhammad _Sh_ah was, in his turn, through the orders he had issued,
storing up for himself severe and inevitable disappointment, and paving
the way for his own ultimate downfall.
His orders to 'Ali _Kh_an, the warden of the fortress of Mah-Ku, were
stringent and explicit. On His way to that fortress the Bab passed a
number of days in Tabriz, days that were marked by such an intense
excitement on the part of the populace that, except for a few persons,
neither the public nor His followers were allowed to meet Him. As He was
escorted through the streets of the city the shout of "Allah-u-Akbar"
resounded on every side. So great, indeed, became the clamor that the town
crier was ordered to warn the inhabitants that any one who ventured to
seek the Bab's presence would forfeit all his possessions and be
imprisoned. Upon His arrival in Mah-Ku, surnamed by Him Jabal-i-Basit (the
Open Mountain) no one was allowed to see Him for the first two weeks
except His amanuensis, Siyyid Husayn, and his brother. So grievous was His
plight while in that fortress that, in the Persian Bayan, He Himself has
stated that at night-time He did not even have a lighted lamp, and that
His solitary chamber, constructed of sun-baked bricks, lacked even a door,
while, in His Tablet to Muhammad _Sh_ah, He has complained that the
inmates of the fortress were confined to two guards and four dogs.
Secluded on the heights of a remote and dangerously situated mountain on
the frontiers of the Ottoman and Russian empires; imprisoned within the
solid walls of a four-towered fortress; cut off from His family, His
kindred and His disciples; living in the vicinity of a bigoted and
turbulent community who, by race, tradition, language and creed, differed
from the vast majority of the inhabitants of Persia; guarded by the people
of a district which, as the birthplace of the Grand Vizir, had been made
the recipient of the special favors of his administration, the Prisoner of
Mah-Ku seemed in the eyes of His adversary to be doomed to languish away
the flower of His youth, and witness, at no distant date, the complete
annihilation of His hopes. That adversary was soon to realize, however,
how gravely he had misjudged both his Prisoner and those on whom he had
lavished his favors. An unruly, a proud and unreasoning people were
gradually subdued by the gentleness of the Bab, were chastened by His
modesty, were edified by His counsels, and instructed by His wisdom. They
were so carried away by their love for Him that their first act every
morning, notwithstanding the remonstrations of the domineering 'Ali
_Kh_an, and the repeated threats of disciplinary measures received from
Tihran, was to seek a place where they could catch a glimpse of His face,
and beseech from afar His benediction upon their daily work. In cases of
dispute it was their wont to hasten to the foot of the fortress, and, with
their eyes fixed upon His abode, invoke His name, and adjure one another
to speak the truth. 'Ali _Kh_an himself, under the influence of a strange
vision, felt such mortification that he was impelled to relax the severity
of his discipline, as an atonement for his past behavior. Such became his
leniency that an increasing stream of eager and devout pilgrims began to
be admitted at the gates of the fortress. Among them was the dauntless and
indefatigable Mulla Husayn, who had walked on foot the entire way from
Ma_sh_ad in the east of Persia to Mah-Ku, the westernmost outpost of the
realm, and was able, after so arduous a journey, to celebrate the festival
of Naw-Ruz (1848) in the company of his Beloved.
Secret agents, however, charged to watch 'Ali _Kh_an, informed Haji Mirza
Aqasi of the turn events were taking, whereupon he immediately decided to
transfer the Bab to the fortress of _Ch_ihriq (about April 10, 1848),
surnamed by Him the Jabal-i-_Sh_adid (the Grievous Mountain). There He was
consigned to the keeping of Yahya _Kh_an, a brother-in-law of Muhammad
_Sh_ah. Though at the outset he acted with the utmost severity, he was
eventually compelled to yield to the fascination of his Prisoner. Nor were
the kurds, who lived in the village of _Ch_ihriq, and whose hatred of the
_Sh_i'ahs exceeded even that of the inhabitants of Mah-Ku, able to resist
the pervasive power of the Prisoner's influence. They too were to be seen
every morning, ere they started for their daily work, to approach the
fortress and prostrate themselves in adoration before its holy Inmate. "So
great was the confluence of the people," is the testimony of a European
eye-witness, writing in his memoirs of the Bab, "that the courtyard, not
being large enough to contain His hearers, the majority remained in the
street and listened with rapt attention to the verses of the new Qur'an."
Indeed the turmoil raised in _Ch_ihriq eclipsed the scenes which Mah-Ku
had witnessed. Siyyids of distinguished merit, eminent 'ulamas, and even
government officials were boldly and rapidly espousing the Cause of the
Prisoner. The conversion of the zealous, the famous Mirza Asadu'llah,
surnamed Dayyan, a prominent official of high literary repute, who was
endowed by the Bab with the "hidden and preserved knowledge," and extolled
as the "repository of the trust of the one true God," and the arrival of a
dervish, a former navvab, from India, whom the Bab in a vision had bidden
renounce wealth and position, and hasten on foot to meet Him in
A_dh_irbayjan, brought the situation to a head. Accounts of these
startling events reached Tabriz, were thence communicated to Tihran, and
forced Haji Mirza Aqasi again to intervene. Dayyan's father, an intimate
friend of that minister, had already expressed to him his grave
apprehension at the manner in which the able functionaries of the state
were being won over to the new Faith. To allay the rising excitement the
Bab was summoned to Tabriz. Fearful of the enthusiasm of the people of
A_dh_irbayjan, those into whose custody He had been delivered decided to
deflect their route, and avoid the town of _Kh_uy, passing instead through
Urumiyyih. On His arrival in that town Prince Malik Qasim Mirza
ceremoniously received Him, and was even seen, on a certain Friday, when
his Guest was riding on His way to the public bath, to accompany Him on
foot, while the Prince's footmen endeavored to restrain the people who, in
their overflowing enthusiasm, were pressing to catch a glimpse of so
marvelous a Prisoner. Tabriz, in its turn in the throes of wild
excitement, joyously hailed His arrival. Such was the fervor of popular
feeling that the Bab was assigned a place outside the gates of the city.
This, however, failed to allay the prevailing emotion. Precautions,
warnings and restrictions served only to aggravate a situation that had
already become critical. It was at this juncture that the Grand Vizir
issued his historic order for the immediate convocation of the
ecclesiastical dignitaries of Tabriz to consider the most effectual
measures which would, once and for all, extinguish the flames of so
devouring a conflagration.
The circumstances attending the examination of the Bab, as a result of so
precipitate an act, may well rank as one of the chief landmarks of His
dramatic career. The avowed purpose of that convocation was to arraign the
Prisoner, and deliberate on the steps to be taken for the extirpation of
His so-called heresy. It instead afforded Him the supreme opportunity of
His mission to assert in public, formally and without any reservation, the
claims inherent in His Revelation. In the official residence, and in the
presence, of the governor of A_dh_irbayjan, Nasiri'd-Din Mirza, the heir
to the throne; under the presidency of Haji Mulla Mahmud, the
Nizamu'l-'Ulama, the Prince's tutor; before the assembled ecclesiastical
dignitaries of Tabriz, the leaders of the _Sh_ay_kh_i community, the
_Sh_ay_kh_u'l-Islam, and the Imam-Jum'ih, the Bab, having seated Himself
in the chief place which had been reserved for the Vali-'Ahd (the heir to
the throne), gave, in ringing tones, His celebrated answer to the question
put to Him by the President of that assembly. "I am," He exclaimed, "I am,
I am the Promised One! I am the One Whose name you have for a thousand
years invoked, at Whose mention you have risen, Whose advent you have
longed to witness, and the hour of Whose Revelation you have prayed God to
hasten. Verily, I say, it is incumbent upon the peoples of both the East
and the West to obey My word, and to pledge allegiance to My person."
Awe-struck, those present momentarily dropped their heads in silent
confusion. Then Mulla Muhammad-i-Mamaqani, that one-eyed white-bearded
renegade, summoning sufficient courage, with characteristic insolence,
reprimanded Him as a perverse and contemptible follower of Satan; to which
the undaunted Youth retorted that He maintained what He had already
asserted. To the query subsequently addressed to Him by the
Nizamu'l-'Ulama the Bab affirmed that His words constituted the most
incontrovertible evidence of His mission, adduced verses from the Qur'an
to establish the truth of His assertion, and claimed to be able to reveal,
within the space of two days and two nights, verses equal to the whole of
that Book. In answer to a criticism calling His attention to an infraction
by Him of the rules of grammar, He cited certain passages from the Qur'an
as corroborative evidence, and, turning aside, with firmness and dignity,
a frivolous and irrelevant remark thrown at Him by one of those who were
present, summarily disbanded that gathering by Himself rising and quitting
the room. The convocation thereupon dispersed, its members confused,
divided among themselves, bitterly resentful and humiliated through their
failure to achieve their purpose. Far from daunting the spirit of their
Captive, far from inducing Him to recant or abandon His mission, that
gathering was productive of no other result than the decision, arrived at
after considerable argument and discussion, to inflict the bastinado on
Him, at the hands, and in the prayer-house of the heartless and avaricious
Mirza 'Ali-As_gh_ar, the _Sh_ay_kh_u'l-Islam of that city. Confounded in
his schemes Haji Mirza Aqasi was forced to order the Bab to be taken back
to _Ch_ihriq.
This dramatic, this unqualified and formal declaration of the Bab's
prophetic mission was not the sole consequence of the foolish act which
condemned the Author of so weighty a Revelation to a three years'
confinement in the mountains of A_dh_irbayjan. This period of captivity,
in a remote corner of the realm, far removed from the storm centers of
_Sh_iraz, Isfahan, and Tihran, afforded Him the necessary leisure to
launch upon His most monumental work, as well as to engage on other
subsidiary compositions designed to unfold the whole range, and impart the
full force, of His short-lived yet momentous Dispensation. Alike in the
magnitude of the writings emanating from His pen, and in the diversity of
the subjects treated in those writings, His Revelation stands wholly
unparalleled in the annals of any previous religion. He Himself affirms,
while confined in Mah-Ku, that up to that time His writings, embracing
highly diversified subjects, had amounted to more than five hundred
thousand verses. "The verses which have rained from this Cloud of Divine
mercy," is Baha'u'llah's testimony in the Kitab-i-Iqan, "have been so
abundant that none hath yet been able to estimate their number. A score of
volumes are now available. How many still remain beyond our reach! How
many have been plundered and have fallen into the hands of the enemy, the
fate of which none knoweth!" No less arresting is the variety of themes
presented by these voluminous writings, such as prayers, homilies,
orations, Tablets of visitation, scientific treatises, doctrinal
dissertations, exhortations, commentaries on the Qur'an and on various
traditions, epistles to the highest religious and ecclesiastical
dignitaries of the realm, and laws and ordinances for the consolidation of
His Faith and the direction of its activities.
Already in _Sh_iraz, at the earliest stage of His ministry, He had
revealed what Baha'u'llah has characterized as "the first, the greatest,
and mightiest of all books" in the Babi Dispensation, the celebrated
commentary on the surih of Joseph, entitled the Qayyumu'l-Asma, whose
fundamental purpose was to forecast what the true Joseph (Baha'u'llah)
would, in a succeeding Dispensation, endure at the hands of one who was at
once His arch-enemy and blood brother. This work, comprising above nine
thousand three hundred verses, and divided into one hundred and eleven
chapters, each chapter a commentary on one verse of the above-mentioned
surih, opens with the Bab's clarion-call and dire warnings addressed to
the "concourse of kings and of the sons of kings;" forecasts the doom of
Muhammad _Sh_ah; commands his Grand Vizir, Haji Mirza Aqasi, to abdicate
his authority; admonishes the entire Muslim ecclesiastical order; cautions
more specifically the members of the _Sh_i'ah community; extols the
virtues, and anticipates the coming, of Baha'u'llah, the "Remnant of God,"
the "Most Great Master;" and proclaims, in unequivocal language, the
independence and universality of the Babi Revelation, unveils its import,
and affirms the inevitable triumph of its Author. It, moreover, directs
the "people of the West" to "issue forth from your cities and aid the
Cause of God;" warns the peoples of the earth of the "terrible, the most
grievous vengeance of God;" threatens the whole Islamic world with "the
Most Great Fire" were they to turn aside from the newly-revealed Law;
foreshadows the Author's martyrdom; eulogizes the high station ordained
for the people of Baha, the "Companions of the crimson-colored ruby Ark;"
prophesies the fading out and utter obliteration of some of the greatest
luminaries in the firmament of the Babi Dispensation; and even predicts
"afflictive torment," in both the "Day of Our Return" and in "the world
which is to come," for the usurpers of the Imamate, who "waged war against
Husayn (Imam Husayn) in the Land of the Euphrates."
It was this Book which the Babis universally regarded, during almost the
entire ministry of the Bab, as the Qur'an of the people of the Bayan;
whose first and most challenging chapter was revealed in the presence of
Mulla Husayn, on the night of its Author's Declaration; some of whose
pages were borne, by that same disciple, to Baha'u'llah, as the first
fruits of a Revelation which instantly won His enthusiastic allegiance;
whose entire text was translated into Persian by the brilliant and gifted
Tahirih; whose passages inflamed the hostility of Husayn _Kh_an and
precipitated the initial outbreak of persecution in _Sh_iraz; a single
page of which had captured the imagination and entranced the soul of
Hujjat; and whose contents had set afire the intrepid defenders of the
Fort of _Sh_ay_kh_ Tabarsi and the heroes of Nayriz and Zanjan.
This work, of such exalted merit, of such far-reaching influence, was
followed by the revelation of the Bab's first Tablet to Muhammad _Sh_ah;
of His Tablets to Sultan 'Abdu'l-Majid and to Najib Pa_sh_a, the Vali of
Ba_gh_dad; of the Sahifiy-i-baynu'l-Haramayn, revealed between Mecca and
Medina, in answer to questions posed by Mirza Muhit-i-Kirmani; of the
Epistle to the _Sh_erif of Mecca; of the Kitabu'r-Ruh, comprising seven
hundred surihs; of the _Kh_asa'il-i-Sab'ih, which enjoined the alteration
of the formula of the a_dh_an; of the Risaliy-i-Furu-i-'Adliyyih, rendered
into Persian by Mulla Muhammad-Taqiy-i-Harati; of the commentary on the
surih of Kaw_th_ar, which effected such a transformation in the soul of
Vahid; of the commentary on the surih of Va'l-'Asr, in the house of the
Imam-Jum'ih of Isfahan; of the dissertation on the Specific Mission of
Muhammad, written at the request of Manu_ch_ihr _Kh_an; of the second
Tablet to Muhammad _Sh_ah, craving an audience in which to set forth the
truths of the new Revelation, and dissipate his doubts; and of the Tablets
sent from the village of Siyah-Dihan to the 'ulamas of Qazvin and to Haji
Mirza Aqasi, inquiring from him as to the cause of the sudden change in
his decision.
The great bulk of the writings emanating from the Bab's prolific mind was,
however, reserved for the period of His confinement in Mah-Ku and
_Ch_ihriq. To this period must probably belong the unnumbered Epistles
which, as attested by no less an authority than Baha'u'llah, the Bab
specifically addressed to the divines of every city in Persia, as well as
to those residing in Najaf and Karbila, wherein He set forth in detail the
errors committed by each one of them. It was during His incarceration in
the fortress of Mah-Ku that He, according to the testimony of _Sh_ay_kh_
Hasan-i-Zunuzi, who transcribed during those nine months the verses
dictated by the Bab to His amanuensis, revealed no less than nine
commentaries on the whole of the Qur'an--commentaries whose fate, alas, is
unknown, and one of which, at least the Author Himself affirmed, surpassed
in some respects a book as deservedly famous as the Qayyumu'l-Asma.
Within the walls of that same fortress the Bayan (Exposition)--that
monumental repository of the laws and precepts of the new Dispensation and
the treasury enshrining most of the Bab's references and tributes to, as
well as His warning regarding, "Him Whom God will make manifest"--was
revealed. Peerless among the doctrinal works of the Founder of the Babi
Dispensation; consisting of nine Vahids (Unities) of nineteen chapters
each, except the last Vahid comprising only ten chapters; not to be
confounded with the smaller and less weighty Arabic Bayan, revealed during
the same period; fulfilling the Muhammadan prophecy that "a Youth from
Bani-Ha_sh_im ... will reveal a new Book and promulgate a new Law;" wholly
safeguarded from the interpolation and corruption which has been the fate
of so many of the Bab's lesser works, this Book, of about eight thousand
verses, occupying a pivotal position in Babi literature, should be
regarded primarily as a eulogy of the Promised One rather than a code of
laws and ordinances designed to be a permanent guide to future
generations. This Book at once abrogated the laws and ceremonials enjoined
by the Qur'an regarding prayer, fasting, marriage, divorce and
inheritance, and upheld, in its integrity, the belief in the prophetic
mission of Muhammad, even as the Prophet of Islam before Him had annulled
the ordinances of the Gospel and yet recognized the Divine origin of the
Faith of Jesus Christ. It moreover interpreted in a masterly fashion the
meaning of certain terms frequently occurring in the sacred Books of
previous Dispensations such as Paradise, Hell, Death, Resurrection, the
Return, the Balance, the Hour, the Last Judgment, and the like. Designedly
severe in the rules and regulations it imposed, revolutionizing in the
principles it instilled, calculated to awaken from their age-long torpor
the clergy and the people, and to administer a sudden and fatal blow to
obsolete and corrupt institutions, it proclaimed, through its drastic
provisions, the advent of the anticipated Day, the Day when "the Summoner
shall summon to a stern business," when He will "demolish whatever hath
been before Him, even as the Apostle of God demolished the ways of those
that preceded Him."
It should be noted, in this connection, that in the third Vahid of this
Book there occurs a passage which, alike in its explicit reference to the
name of the Promised One, and in its anticipation of the Order which, in a
later age, was to be identified with His Revelation, deserves to rank as
one of the most significant statements recorded in any of the Bab's
writings. "Well is it with him," is His prophetic announcement, "who
fixeth his gaze upon the Order of Baha'u'llah, and rendereth thanks unto
his Lord. For He will assuredly be made manifest. God hath indeed
irrevocably ordained it in the Bayan." It is with that self-same Order
that the Founder of the promised Revelation, twenty years
later--incorporating that same term in His Kitab-i-Aqdas--identified the
System envisaged in that Book, affirming that "this most great Order" had
deranged the world's equilibrium, and revolutionized mankind's ordered
life. It is the features of that self-same Order which, at a later stage
in the evolution of the Faith, the Center of Baha'u'llah's Covenant and
the appointed Interpreter of His teachings, delineated through the
provisions of His Will and Testament. It is the structural basis of that
self-same Order which, in the Formative Age of that same Faith, the
stewards of that same Covenant, the elected representatives of the
world-wide Baha'i community, are now laboriously and unitedly
establishing. It is the superstructure of that self-same Order, attaining
its full stature through the emergence of the Baha'i World
Commonwealth--the Kingdom of God on earth--which the Golden Age of that same
Dispensation must, in the fullness of time, ultimately witness.
The Bab was still in Mah-Ku when He wrote the most detailed and
illuminating of His Tablets to Muhammad _Sh_ah. Prefaced by a laudatory
reference to the unity of God, to His Apostles and to the twelve Imams;
unequivocal in its assertion of the divinity of its Author and of the
supernatural powers with which His Revelation had been invested; precise
in the verses and traditions it cites in confirmation of so audacious a
claim; severe in its condemnation of some of the officials and
representatives of the _Sh_ah's administration, particularly of the
"wicked and accursed" Husayn _Kh_an; moving in its description of the
humiliation and hardships to which its writer had been subjected, this
historic document resembles, in many of its features, the Lawh-i-Sultan,
the Tablet addressed, under similar circumstances, from the
prison-fortress of Akka by Baha'u'llah to Nasiri'd-Din _Sh_ah, and
constituting His lengthiest epistle to any single sovereign.
The Dala'il-i-Sab'ih (Seven Proofs), the most important of the polemical
works of the Bab, was revealed during that same period. Remarkably lucid,
admirable in its precision, original in conception, unanswerable in its
argument, this work, apart from the many and divers proofs of His mission
which it adduces, is noteworthy for the blame it assigns to the "seven
powerful sovereigns ruling the world" in His day, as well as for the
manner in which it stresses the responsibilities, and censures the
conduct, of the Christian divines of a former age who, had they recognized
the truth of Muhammad's mission, He contends, would have been followed by
the mass of their co-religionists.
During the Bab's confinement in the fortress of _Ch_ihriq, where He spent
almost the whole of the two remaining years of His life, the
Lawh-i-Hurufat (Tablet of the Letters) was revealed, in honor of Dayyan--a
Tablet which, however misconstrued at first as an exposition of the
science of divination, was later recognized to have unravelled, on the one
hand, the mystery of the Musta_gh_a_th_, and to have abstrusely alluded,
on the other, to the nineteen years which must needs elapse between the
Declaration of the Bab and that of Baha'u'llah. It was during these
years--years darkened throughout by the rigors of the Bab's captivity, by
the severe indignities inflicted upon Him, and by the news of the
disasters that overtook the heroes of Mazindaran and Nayriz--that He
revealed, soon after His return from Tabriz, His denunciatory Tablet to
Haji Mirza Aqasi. Couched in bold and moving language, unsparing in its
condemnation, this epistle was forwarded to the intrepid Hujjat who, as
corroborated by Baha'u'llah, delivered it to that wicked minister.
To this period of incarceration in the fortresses of Mah-Ku and
_Ch_ihriq--a period of unsurpassed fecundity, yet bitter in its
humiliations and ever-deepening sorrows--belong almost all the written
references, whether in the form of warnings, appeals or exhortations,
which the Bab, in anticipation of the approaching hour of His supreme
affliction, felt it necessary to make to the Author of a Revelation that
was soon to supersede His own. Conscious from the very beginning of His
twofold mission, as the Bearer of a wholly independent Revelation and the
Herald of One still greater than His own, He could not content Himself
with the vast number of commentaries, of prayers, of laws and ordinances,
of dissertations and epistles, of homilies and orations that had
incessantly streamed from His pen. The Greater Covenant into which, as
affirmed in His writings, God had, from time immemorial, entered, through
the Prophets of all ages, with the whole of mankind, regarding the newborn
Revelation, had already been fulfilled. It had now to be supplemented by a
Lesser Covenant which He felt bound to make with the entire body of His
followers concerning the One Whose advent He characterized as the fruit
and ultimate purpose of His Dispensation. Such a Covenant had invariably
been the feature of every previous religion. It had existed, under various
forms, with varying degrees of emphasis, had always been couched in veiled
language, and had been alluded to in cryptic prophecies, in abstruse
allegories, in unauthenticated traditions, and in the fragmentary and
obscure passages of the sacred Scriptures. In the Babi Dispensation,
however, it was destined to be established in clear and unequivocal
language, though not embodied in a separate document. Unlike the Prophets
gone before Him, Whose Covenants were shrouded in mystery, unlike
Baha'u'llah, Whose clearly defined Covenant was incorporated in a
specially written Testament, and designated by Him as "the Book of My
Covenant," the Bab chose to intersperse His Book of Laws, the Persian
Bayan, with unnumbered passages, some designedly obscure, mostly
indubitably clear and conclusive, in which He fixes the date of the
promised Revelation, extols its virtues, asserts its pre-eminent
character, assigns to it unlimited powers and prerogatives, and tears down
every barrier that might be an obstacle to its recognition. "He, verily,"
Baha'u'llah, referring to the Bab in His Kitab-i-Badi', has stated, "hath
not fallen short of His duty to exhort the people of the Bayan and to
deliver unto them His Message. In no age or dispensation hath any
Manifestation made mention, in such detail and in such explicit language,
of the Manifestation destined to succeed Him."
Some of His disciples the Bab assiduously prepared to expect the imminent
Revelation. Others He orally assured would live to see its day. To Mulla
Baqir, one of the Letters of the Living, He actually prophesied, in a
Tablet addressed to him, that he would meet the Promised One face to face.
To Sayyah, another disciple, He gave verbally a similar assurance. Mulla
Husayn He directed to Tihran, assuring him that in that city was enshrined
a Mystery Whose light neither Hijaz nor _Sh_iraz could rival. Quddus, on
the eve of his final separation from Him, was promised that he would
attain the presence of the One Who was the sole Object of their adoration
and love. To _Sh_ay_kh_ Hasan-i-Zunuzi He declared while in Mah-Ku that he
would behold in Karbila the countenance of the promised Husayn. On Dayyan
He conferred the title of "the third Letter to believe in Him Whom God
shall make manifest," while to Azim He divulged, in the
Kitab-i-Panj-_Sh_a'n, the name, and announced the approaching advent, of
Him Who was to consummate His own Revelation.
A successor or vicegerent the Bab never named, an interpreter of His
teachings He refrained from appointing. So transparently clear were His
references to the Promised One, so brief was to be the duration of His own
Dispensation, that neither the one nor the other was deemed necessary. All
He did was, according to the testimony of 'Abdu'l-Baha in "A Traveller's
Narrative," to nominate, on the advice of Baha'u'llah and of another
disciple, Mirza Yahya, who would act solely as a figure-head pending the
manifestation of the Promised One, thus enabling Baha'u'llah to promote,
in relative security, the Cause so dear to His heart.
"The Bayan," the Bab in that Book, referring to the Promised One, affirms,
"is, from beginning to end, the repository of all of His attributes, and
the treasury of both His fire and His light." "If thou attainest unto His
Revelation," He, in another connection declares, "and obeyest Him, thou
wilt have revealed the fruit of the Bayan; if not, thou art unworthy of
mention before God." "O people of the Bayan!" He, in that same Book, thus
warns the entire company of His followers, "act not as the people of the
Qur'an have acted, for if ye do so, the fruits of your night will come to
naught." "Suffer not the Bayan," is His emphatic injunction, "and all that
hath been revealed therein to withhold you from that Essence of Being and
Lord of the visible and invisible." "Beware, beware," is His significant
warning addressed to Vahid, "lest in the days of His Revelation the Vahid
of the Bayan (eighteen Letters of the Living and the Bab) shut thee out as
by a veil from Him, inasmuch as this Vahid is but a creature in His
sight." And again: "O congregation of the Bayan, and all who are therein!
Recognize ye the limits imposed upon you, for such a One as the Point of
the Bayan Himself hath believed in Him Whom God shall make manifest before
all things were created. Therein, verily, do I glory before all who are in
the kingdom of heaven and earth."
"In the year nine," He, referring to the date of the advent of the
promised Revelation, has explicitly written, "ye shall attain unto all
good." "In the year nine, ye will attain unto the presence of God." And
again: "After Hin (68) a Cause shall be given unto you which ye shall come
to know." "Ere nine will have elapsed from the inception of this Cause,"
He more particularly has stated, "the realities of the created things will
not be made manifest. All that thou hast as yet seen is but the stage from
the moist germ until We clothed it with flesh. Be patient, until thou
beholdest a new creation. Say: 'Blessed, therefore, be God, the most
excellent of Makers!'" "Wait thou," is His statement to Azim, "until nine
will have elapsed from the time of the Bayan. Then exclaim: 'Blessed,
therefore, be God, the most excellent of Makers!'" "Be attentive," He,
referring in a remarkable passage to the year nineteen, has admonished,
"from the inception of the Revelation till the number of Vahid (19)." "The
Lord of the Day of Reckoning," He, even more explicitly, has stated, "will
be manifested at the end of Vahid (19) and the beginning of eighty (1280
A.H.)." "Were He to appear this very moment," He, in His eagerness to
insure that the proximity of the promised Revelation should not withhold
men from the Promised One, has revealed, "I would be the first to adore
Him, and the first to bow down before Him."
"I have written down in My mention of Him," He thus extols the Author of
the anticipated Revelation, "these gem-like words: 'No allusion of Mine
can allude unto Him, neither anything mentioned in the Bayan.'" "I,
Myself, am but the first servant to believe in Him and in His signs...."
"The year-old germ," He significantly affirms, "that holdeth within itself
the potentialities of the Revelation that is to come is endowed with a
potency superior to the combined forces of the whole of the Bayan." And
again: "The whole of the Bayan is only a leaf amongst the leaves of His
Paradise." "Better is it for thee," He similarly asserts, "to recite but
one of the verses of Him Whom God shall make manifest than to set down the
whole of the Bayan, for on that Day that one verse can save thee, whereas
the entire Bayan cannot save thee." "Today the Bayan is in the stage of
seed; at the beginning of the manifestation of Him Whom God shall make
manifest its ultimate perfection will become apparent." "The Bayan
deriveth all its glory from Him Whom God shall make manifest." "All that
hath been revealed in the Bayan is but a ring upon My hand, and I Myself
am, verily, but a ring upon the hand of Him Whom God shall make
manifest... He turneth it as He pleaseth, for whatsoever He pleaseth, and
through whatsoever He pleaseth. He, verily, is the Help in Peril, the Most
High." "Certitude itself," He, in reply to Vahid and to one of the Letters
of the Living who had inquired regarding the promised One, had declared,
"is ashamed to be called upon to certify His truth ... and Testimony
itself is ashamed to testify unto Him." Addressing this same Vahid, He
moreover had stated: "Were I to be assured that in the day of His
manifestation thou wilt deny Him, I would unhesitatingly disown thee...
If, on the other hand, I be told that a Christian, who beareth no
allegiance to My Faith, will believe in Him, the same will I regard as the
apple of My eye."
And finally is this, His moving invocation to God: "Bear Thou witness
that, through this Book, I have covenanted with all created things
concerning the mission of Him Whom Thou shalt make manifest, ere the
covenant concerning My own mission had been established. Sufficient
witness art Thou and they that have believed in Thy signs." "I, verily,
have not fallen short of My duty to admonish that people," is yet another
testimony from His pen, "...If on the day of His Revelation all that are
on earth bear Him allegiance, Mine inmost being will rejoice, inasmuch as
all will have attained the summit of their existence.... If not, My soul
will be saddened. I truly have nurtured all things for this purpose. How,
then, can any one be veiled from Him?"
The last three and most eventful years of the Bab's ministry had, as we
have observed in the preceding pages, witnessed not only the formal and
public declaration of His mission, but also an unprecedented effusion of
His inspired writings, including both the revelation of the fundamental
laws of His Dispensation and also the establishment of that Lesser
Covenant which was to safeguard the unity of His followers and pave the
way for the advent of an incomparably mightier Revelation. It was during
this same period, in the early days of His incarceration in the fortress
of _Ch_ihriq, that the independence of the new-born Faith was openly
recognized and asserted by His disciples. The laws underlying the new
Dispensation had been revealed by its Author in a prison-fortress in the
mountains of A_dh_irbayjan, while the Dispensation itself was now to be
inaugurated in a plain on the border of Mazindaran, at a conference of His
assembled followers.
Baha'u'llah, maintaining through continual correspondence close contact
with the Bab, and Himself the directing force behind the manifold
activities of His struggling fellow-disciples, unobtrusively yet
effectually presided over that conference, and guided and controlled its
proceedings. Quddus, regarded as the exponent of the conservative element
within it, affected, in pursuance of a pre-conceived plan designed to
mitigate the alarm and consternation which such a conference was sure to
arouse, to oppose the seemingly extremist views advocated by the impetuous
Tahirih. The primary purpose of that gathering was to implement the
revelation of the Bayan by a sudden, a complete and dramatic break with
the past--with its order, its ecclesiasticism, its traditions, and
ceremonials. The subsidiary purpose of the conference was to consider the
means of emancipating the Bab from His cruel confinement in _Ch_ihriq. The
first was eminently successful; the second was destined from the outset to
fail.
The scene of such a challenging and far-reaching proclamation was the
hamlet of Bada_sh_t, where Baha'u'llah had rented, amidst pleasant
surroundings, three gardens, one of which He assigned to Quddus, another
to Tahirih, whilst the third He reserved for Himself. The eighty-one
disciples who had gathered from various provinces were His guests from the
day of their arrival to the day they dispersed. On each of the twenty-two
days of His sojourn in that hamlet He revealed a Tablet, which was chanted
in the presence of the assembled believers. On every believer He conferred
a new name, without, however, disclosing the identity of the one who had
bestowed it. He Himself was henceforth designated by the name Baha. Upon
the Last Letter of the Living was conferred the appellation of Quddus,
while Qurratu'l-'Ayn was given the title of Tahirih. By these names they
were all subsequently addressed by the Bab in the Tablets He revealed for
each one of them.
It was Baha'u'llah Who steadily, unerringly, yet unsuspectedly, steered
the course of that memorable episode, and it was Baha'u'llah Who brought
the meeting to its final and dramatic climax. One day in His presence,
when illness had confined Him to bed, Tahirih, regarded as the fair and
spotless emblem of chastity and the incarnation of the holy Fatimih,
appeared suddenly, adorned yet unveiled, before the assembled companions,
seated herself on the right-hand of the affrighted and infuriated Quddus,
and, tearing through her fiery words the veils guarding the sanctity of
the ordinances of Islam, sounded the clarion-call, and proclaimed the
inauguration, of a new Dispensation. The effect was electric and
instantaneous. She, of such stainless purity, so reverenced that even to
gaze at her shadow was deemed an improper act, appeared for a moment, in
the eyes of her scandalized beholders, to have defamed herself, shamed the
Faith she had espoused, and sullied the immortal Countenance she
symbolized. Fear, anger, bewilderment, swept their inmost souls, and
stunned their faculties. 'Abdu'l-_Kh_aliq-i-Isfahani, aghast and deranged
at such a sight, cut his throat with his own hands. Spattered with blood,
and frantic with excitement, he fled away from her face. A few, abandoning
their companions, renounced their Faith. Others stood mute and transfixed
before her. Still others must have recalled with throbbing hearts the
Islamic tradition foreshadowing the appearance of Fatimih herself unveiled
while crossing the Bridge (Sirat) on the promised Day of Judgment. Quddus,
mute with rage, seemed to be only waiting for the moment when he could
strike her down with the sword he happened to be then holding in his hand.
Undeterred, unruffled, exultant with joy, Tahirih arose, and, without the
least premeditation and in a language strikingly resembling that of the
Qur'an, delivered a fervid and eloquent appeal to the remnant of the
assembly, ending it with this bold assertion: "I am the Word which the
Qa'im is to utter, the Word which shall put to flight the chiefs and
nobles of the earth!" Thereupon, she invited them to embrace each other
and celebrate so great an occasion.
On that memorable day the "Bugle" mentioned in the Qur'an was sounded, the
"stunning trumpet-blast" was loudly raised, and the "Catastrophe" came to
pass. The days immediately following so startling a departure from the
time-honored traditions of Islam witnessed a veritable revolution in the
outlook, habits, ceremonials and manner of worship of these hitherto
zealous and devout upholders of the Muhammadan Law. Agitated as had been
the Conference from first to last, deplorable as was the secession of the
few who refused to countenance the annulment of the fundamental statutes
of the Islamic Faith, its purpose had been fully and gloriously
accomplished. Only four years earlier the Author of the Babi Revelation
had declared His mission to Mulla Husayn in the privacy of His home in
_Sh_iraz. Three years after that Declaration, within the walls of the
prison-fortress of Mah-Ku, He was dictating to His amanuensis the
fundamental and distinguishing precepts of His Dispensation. A year later,
His followers, under the actual leadership of Baha'u'llah, their
fellow-disciple, were themselves, in the hamlet of Bada_sh_t, abrogating
the Qur'anic Law, repudiating both the divinely-ordained and man-made
precepts of the Faith of Muhammad, and shaking off the shackles of its
antiquated system. Almost immediately after, the Bab Himself, still a
prisoner, was vindicating the acts of His disciples by asserting, formally
and unreservedly, His claim to be the promised Qa'im, in the presence of
the Heir to the Throne, the leading exponents of the _Sh_ay_kh_i
community, and the most illustrious ecclesiastical dignitaries assembled
in the capital of A_dh_irbayjan.
A little over four years had elapsed since the birth of the Bab's
Revelation when the trumpet-blast announcing the formal extinction of the
old, and the inauguration of the new Dispensation was sounded. No pomp, no
pageantry marked so great a turning-point in the world's religious
history. Nor was its modest setting commensurate with such a sudden,
startling, complete emancipation from the dark and embattled forces of
fanaticism, of priestcraft, of religious orthodoxy and superstition. The
assembled host consisted of no more than a single woman and a handful of
men, mostly recruited from the very ranks they were attacking, and devoid,
with few exceptions, of wealth, prestige and power. The Captain of the
host was Himself an absentee, a captive in the grip of His foes. The arena
was a tiny hamlet in the plain of Bada_sh_t on the border of Mazindaran.
The trumpeter was a lone woman, the noblest of her sex in that
Dispensation, whom even some of her co-religionists pronounced a heretic.
The call she sounded was the death-knell of the twelve hundred year old
law of Islam.
Accelerated, twenty years later, by another trumpet-blast, announcing the
formulation of the laws of yet another Dispensation, this process of
disintegration, associated with the declining fortunes of a superannuated,
though divinely revealed Law, gathered further momentum, precipitated, in
a later age, the annulment of the _Sh_ari'ah canonical Law in Turkey, led
to the virtual abandonment of that Law in _Sh_i'ah Persia, has, more
recently, been responsible for the dissociation of the System envisaged in
the Kitab-i-Aqdas from the Sunni ecclesiastical Law in Egypt, has paved
the way for the recognition of that System in the Holy Land itself, and is
destined to culminate in the secularization of the Muslim states, and in
the universal recognition of the Law of Baha'u'llah by all the nations,
and its enthronement in the hearts of all the peoples, of the Muslim
world.