Baha'u'llah: the King of Glory

CONTENTS

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 �� 11 12 13 14 �� 17 18 �� 20 21 22 23

Editor’s note to the 1991 edition Preface Introduction Prologue The Ancestry of Bahá’u’lláh The Family of Bahá’u’lláh Childhood and Early Life The Dawn To the Capital City of Írán In the Home of His Ancestors The First Imprisonment The Conference of Badasht From Badasht to Shaykh�� The Second Imprisonment A Momentous Year One Year at Karbilá The Fall of Amír Kabír ��Sháh �� Bábí Martyrs of 1852 The Story of a Shírází Youth �� Bagh�� Sulaymáníyyih Bagh�� Bagh��

ix xi 1 7 9 13 19 26 32 39 42 44 �� 57 62 68 71 75 �� 85 95 �� 118 ��

��’�’�� 24 �� 26 �� 28 29 30 31 32 33 �� 36 �� 38 39 40 41 42

From the Most Exalted Pen �� In the City of Constantine �� Adrianople, the Last Years Banishment to ‘Akká Arrival at ‘Akká The Lord of Hosts Life in the Barracks The Story of Badí‘ �� The Turn of the Tide �� Last Years within the City Walls The Years at Bahjí The Activities of the Azalís in Constantinople Pages of an Autobiography The Ascension of Bahá’u’lláh

165 �� 203 �� 254 262 277 289 292 302 �� 343 �� 358 366 384 401 413

� �� Sháh � �� Banishment to ‘Akká III The Aftermath of the Siege of Plevna ��

444 448 ��

� � �� Bibliography � � �� Index

�� 476 �� 484

Illustrations and maps are indexed under the relevant headings

420

8 THE CONFERENCE OF BADASHT T�� Conference of Badasht was unique and unparalleled in the religious �� regarding the nature of their Faith and their future course of action. The �� *�� ian of the Bahá’í Faith has particularly remarked: ‘The primary purpose of that gathering was to implement the revelation of the Bayán by a �� ecclesiasticism, its traditions, and ceremonials. The subsidiary purpose of the conference was to consider the means of emancipating the Báb ��Ch�� ful; the second was destined from the outset to fail.’1 Badasht was a hamlet, situated on the borders of Mázindarán. When Bahá’u’lláh reached this hamlet, He rented three gardens: one �� shí, the eighteenth and the last of the Báb’s Letters of the Living, and the �� surrounding her in Qazvín, her native town. Bahá’u’lláh, Himself, �� . . . Those who had gathered in Badash�� all of whom, from the time of their arrival to the day of their disper� sion, were the guests of Bahá’u’lláh. Every day, He revealed a Tablet �� bled believers. Upon each He bestowed a new name. He Himself was �� Persian Bayán�� Bábí community, after the Conference of Badasht.

��

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henceforth designated by the name of Bahá; upon the Last Letter of �� had convened at Badasht a special Tablet was subsequently revealed by the Báb, each of whom He addressed by the name recently con� ferred upon him. When, at a later time, a number of the more rigid �� Báb, to whom these complaints had been addressed, replied in the following terms: ‘What am I to say regarding her whom the Tongue ��2

�� She appeared before them, with her veil discarded, her face adorned and uncovered for all to see. To many of them it seemed as if the Day �� Kh�� he had his bare sword in his hand, and it looked as if, at any moment, ��Shaykh�� His threatening attitude failed, however, to move her. Her countenance �� A feeling of joy and triumph had now illumined her face. She rose from her seat and, undeterred by the tumult that she had raised in the hearts of her companions, began to address the remnant of that assem� bly. Without the least premeditation, and in language which bore a striking resemblance to that of the Qur’án, she delivered her appeal with matchless eloquence and profound fervour. She concluded her address with this verse of the Qur’án: ‘Verily, amid gardens and rivers shall the pious dwell in the seat of truth, in the presence of the potent King.’ As she uttered these words she cast a furtive glance towards

46

��’�’�� watching her were unable to tell to which of the two she was alluding.3

�� garden, and other companions had also gathered there around Him. �� a thunderbolt. ‘I am the Word’, she declared, ‘which the Qá’im is to �� earth!’ And, at the very end, she said: ‘This day is the day of festivity and universal rejoicing, the day on which the fetters of the past are burst asunder. Let those who have shared in this great achievement arise and embrace each other.’4 After the pandemonium had subsided, Bahá’u’lláh quietly took �� That memorable day and those which immediately followed it wit� nessed the most revolutionary changes in the life and habits of the assembled followers of the Báb. Their manner of worship underwent a sudden and fundamental transformation. The prayers and ceremo� nials by which those devout worshippers had been disciplined were irrevocably discarded. A great confusion, however, prevailed among those who had so zealously arisen to advocate these reforms. A few condemned so radical a change as being the essence of heresy, and refused to annul what they regarded as the inviolable precepts of �� regarded as the sole representative of the Báb, the only one who had the right to pronounce upon such weighty matters. Still others who �� the false and distinguish the faithful from the disloyal. . . . This state of tension persisted for a few days until Bahá’u’lláh �� ciliation between them. He healed the wounds which that sharp con� �� constructive service.5

��

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�� Event’, or ‘The Terror’ in the translation of A. J. Arberry), read to that assemblage, and when their minds comprehended the meaning and the allusions and the purport of those verses of the Qur’án, they understood �� When the Terror descends (and none denies its descending) abasing, exalting, when the earth shall be rocked and the mountains crumbled and become a dust scattered, �� Companions of the Left (O Companions of the Left!) and the Outstrippers: the Outstrippers those are they brought nigh the Throne, �� (a throng of the ancients and how few of the later folk) �� reclining upon them, set face to face, immortal youths going round about them with goblets, and ewers, and a cup from a spring (no brows throbbing, no intoxication) and such fruits as they shall choose, �� as the likeness of hidden pearls, a recompense for that they laboured. Therein they shall hear no idle talk, no cause of sin, only the saying ‘Peace, Peace!’6

Bahá’u’lláh stayed in Badash��

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��’�’��

�� the foot of a mountain, when, at the hour of dawn, we were sud� denly awakened by the stones which the people of the neighbourhood �� place of safety, where I intended to join him. When I arrived, I found �� Shíráz, Mírzá ‘Abdu’lláh. The violence with which we were assailed had brought desolation into �� except that young man, who displayed on that occasion a courage and determination that were truly surprising. Sword in hand, undaunted by the savage assault of the inhabitants of the village, who had rushed to plunder our property, he sprang forward to stay the hand of the assailants. Though himself wounded in several parts of his body, he risked his life to protect our property. I bade him desist from his act. When the tumult had subsided, I approached a number of the inhabit� ants of the village and was able to convince them of the cruelty and shamefulness of their behaviour. I subsequently succeeded in restor� ing a part of our plundered property.’7

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