The Story of Bahá'u'lláh

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The Story of Bahá’u’lláh PROMISED ONE OF ALL RELIGIONS

Druzelle Cederquist

Wilmette, Illinois

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Bahá’í Publishing 415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois 60091-2844 Copyright © 2005 by Druzelle Cederquist All rights reserved. Published 2005 Printed in the United States of America 08

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ISBN 1-931847-13-4 (softcover) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cederquist, Druzelle, 1949– The story of Bahá’u’lláh, promised one of all religions / Druzelle Cederquist. p. cm.

Includes bibliographic references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 1-931847-13-4 (sc: alk. paper) 1. Bahá’u’lláh, 1817–1892. I. Title.

BP392.C43 2005 297.9’3’092—dc22 [B] 2004054411

Cover design by Robert A. Reddy Book design by Suni D. Hannan ∞This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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Contents Acknowledgments ................................................................ xi Note to the Reader .............................................................. xv Map of Persia in the Time of Bahá’u’lláh ............................ xvi Map of the Exiles of Bahá’u’lláh ........................................ xvii

The Story of Bahá’u’lláh Part 1: The Dawn 1 2

Shaykh Mahmúd’s Secret Plan .............................................. 3 .

The Puppet Show and the Dream .......................................... 6

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The Home of Love .............................................................. 10

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Father of the Poor and Mother of Consolation .................... 13

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No Time to Lose ................................................................. 17

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The Quest ........................................................................... 23

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Witnesses of the Dawn ....................................................... 27

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Noble Descendant of a Noble Father ................................. 32

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The Mujtahid and the Dervish ............................................ 36

10 Awake, Awake! ................................................................... 40 11 The Scholar and the Governors .......................................... 44 12 The Open Mountain and the Grievous Mountain ................ 50 13 Rage and a Secret Rescue .................................................. 53 14 The Blast of the Trumpet .................................................... 57 15 The Sermon of Wrath and a Royal Command .................... 62 16 Bandar-Gaz and the Black Standard .................................. 64 17 Danger at Amul .................................................................. 68 18 Courage at Tabarsí ............................................................. 72 .

19 Embattled ........................................................................... 76 20 No Peace in the City of Tabríz ............................................ 80 21 A Promise Kept in Karbala ................................................. 86 22 A Plot against the Shah ...................................................... 90 23 Prisoner .............................................................................. 94 24 The Black Pit ...................................................................... 96

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25 Cruel Days ........................................................................ 100 26 The Mystery of God and His Treasure .............................. 105 27 Banished .......................................................................... 110 28 Terrible Journey ............................................................... 114

Part 2: The Sun in Its Splendor 29 Baghdad ........................................................................... 121 30 Thousands of Oceans of Light .......................................... 124 31 The Dark Campaign ......................................................... 128 32 Alone in the Wilderness .................................................... 131 33 The Nameless One ........................................................... 135 34 A Joyful Naw-Rúz ............................................................. 140 35 Purity within Purity ........................................................... 144 36 Unlocking the Doors of Heaven ........................................ 148 37 The Shaykh and the Assassin .......................................... 153 38 The Eldest Uncle’s Questions ........................................... 157 39 A Paradox Resolved ......................................................... 163 40 The Garden of Paradise .................................................... 167 41 One Hundred and Ten Days ............................................. 172 42 The Sultan’s Command .................................................... 175 43 The Poisoned Cup ............................................................ 178 44 The Most Great Separation ............................................... 182 45 He Who Feareth No One .................................................. 186 46 O Kings of the Earth! ........................................................ 190 47 Destination Unknown ....................................................... 194 48 The Most Great Prison ...................................................... 198 49 Seeking a Glimpse of the Lord ......................................... 201 50 For the Healing of All the World ....................................... 204 51 Into the Mouth of the Serpent ........................................... 209 52 The Greatest Gift .............................................................. 213 53 The Whisperings of Satan ................................................. 218 54 The Keys of My Mercy ...................................................... 222

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55 The Governor and the Master of Acre .............................. 226 56 Two Birds of the Nest of Thy Love ................................... 229 57 The Hand of God .............................................................. 234 58 Oasis ................................................................................ 238 59 The King of Martyrs and the Beloved of Martyrs .............. 242 60 Blessed Is the Place .......................................................... 246 61 To Conquer the Cities of the Hearts .................................. 250 62 The Master ........................................................................ 254 63 O Most Exalted Leaf! ........................................................ 258 64 These Fruitless Strifes, These Ruinous Wars .................... 263 65 The King of Days .............................................................. 267 66 The Holy Mountain and the Martyrs of Yazd ..................... 273 67 A Pattern for the Future .................................................... 278 68 The Sun of Bahá Has Set ................................................. 284 69 An Excellent and Priceless Heritage ................................. 287 Appendix 1: A Brief Chronology of Events in the Life of Bahá’u’lláh ............................................................ 291 Appendix 2: A Note about the Wives of Bahá’u’lláh and Bahá’í Marriage ................................................................ 293 Appendix 3: Islam and its Two Major Branches, Shia and Sunni ................................................................. 294 Appendix 4: Millennial Christians ..................................... 296 Appendix 5: Mírzá Yahyá . .................................................. 300 Notes ................................................................................ 303 Glossary ........................................................................... 319 Bibliography ..................................................................... 335 Index ................................................................................. 341

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1 Shaykh Mahmúd’s Secret Plan .

Shaykh Ma¥múd walked north along the streets of Acre with a determined stride. A gentle sea breeze o² the Mediterranean ru¼ed his white beard and his long black aba, but the shaykh was too angry to notice.

The Persian government and the Ottoman Empire might be afraid to execute an enemy of Islam, but he, Shaykh Ma¥múd, was not.

As the brick prison barracks came into view, Shaykh Ma¥múd clutched the cold metal dagger more tightly beneath his cloak. The task was simple and would surely please God. He would eliminate the heretic who dared to claim he was God’s chosen Messenger.

“Tell the prisoner I wish to see Him,” Shaykh Ma¥múd told the guards at the prison gate. Although the prisoner was not allowed visitors, the guards obeyed, for the shaykh was a highly respected Muslim teacher and leader in Acre.

The guards delivered the shaykh’s message, but the prisoner answered calmly, “Tell him to cast away the weapon and then he may come in.”1 Shaykh Ma¥múd was startled when he heard the reply. How could the prisoner know about the dagger? It was still well hidden, and he had told no one of his plan. Puzzled and upset, the shaykh returned home.

But Shaykh Ma¥múd was not a man to be thwarted when he set his mind to do something—and he was physically strong. He did not need a weapon. His own two hands were strong enough to accomplish the task. The determined Shaykh Ma¥múd returned once again to the prison.

Once again he asked to see the prisoner.

This time the reply came, “Tell him to purify his heart ³rst and then he may come in.”2 The shaykh was astonished to hear such an answer. What magic did this prisoner possess that he could read the inner secrets of his heart!

Once again he left the prison, more deeply disturbed this time, his mission still unaccomplished.

Later the troubled Shaykh Ma¥múd fell into a deep sleep. He dreamed about his father, who was long dead, and about a wise old shaykh who had visited his father when Ma¥múd was a boy of ten. The shaykh had 3

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told Ma¥múd to watch for the coming of the Lord—the “Promised One” sent by God. He would come to Acre, the shaykh had said, when little Ma¥múd was a grown man. He would speak Persian and dwell in an upper room at the top of a long ·ight of stairs.

When Shaykh Ma¥múd awoke, his dream lingered with him, vivid and clear. As he pondered the words of the wise old shaykh, questions deep within him and long forgotten began to stir. Shaykh Ma¥múd decided to return once more to the prison gate. Again he took no weapon, but this time the malice in his heart had given way to a new desire—a deep longing to discover the truth. This time, when Shaykh Ma¥múd asked to see the prisoner, the prisoner gave His consent.

The shaykh walked up a long ·ight of stone stairs that led to the prison cells. He spoke ³rst with the prisoner’s eldest son, who prepared him to meet with his father. Finally, Shaykh Ma¥múd stood at the threshold of the prisoner’s cell and was given permission to enter.

The man who stood before him was of middle age and average height, with jet-black hair and beard. As a prisoner He had survived the Black Pit of Tehran and the mountainous winter journey into exile. He had endured the torture of the bastinado—the soles of His feet beaten until they bled—and the weight of a hundred-pound chain that left its scars upon His neck. He had faced down assassins and their guns in Baghdad, but His hand was no longer steady, and His writing wavered now from the poison that had been meant to end His life.

Shaykh Ma¥múd did not know about all these things, but one thing he realized at once. This prisoner was not at all what he had imagined Him to be. When He moved, it was with a natural grace and majesty that made Shaykh Ma¥múd feel like a humble subject in the presence of his king. When He spoke, He spoke with the assurance of a king and more—with a love that penetrated every word. This was the One called Bahá’u’lláh—“the Glory of God.” The gentle sound of waves lapping against the city wall drifted in through the prison window. Acre was a prison-city on the shores of the Holy Land, and Bahá’u’lláh had been sent there in 1868 to die. Bahá’u’lláh, Who was the noble son of a noble family, Who was called “father” by the poor for His loving-kindness and generosity, Whose wisdom and courage were recognized even by His enemies—Bahá’u’lláh had been sent to Acre to die.3

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Yet when o²ered a chance to escape His fate, He had refused to run away.

“Who is to be preferred,” Bahá’u’lláh later wrote, “he that hath sheltered himself behind curtains, or he that hath o²ered himself in the path of God?”4 Although Bahá’u’lláh had committed no crime, in the eyes of His accusers He had committed the greatest crime. He claimed to be a divine Messenger, chosen by God to speak to the world as the great Prophets before Him—Abraham, Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ, and Mu¥ammad—had done. He claimed to ful³ll the prophecies of old and to bring new guidance from God. “This thing is not from Me,” Bahá’u’lláh had written to the shah of Persia, “but from One Who is Almighty and All-Knowing.”5 His accusers were outraged. “Blasphemy!” they called it. How dare He—Who had never even received religious training—claim to speak with divine authority!

“And if My sin be this,” Bahá’u’lláh further wrote, “that I have exalted the Word of God and revealed His Cause, then indeed am I the greatest of sinners! Such a sin I will not barter for the kingdoms of earth and heaven.”6 When Bahá’u’lláh spoke, people were drawn to listen. With the eloquence of His arguments He stirred their thoughts and inspired their hearts as no one else. Many were convinced that He spoke the truth. Bahá’u’lláh’s enemies could not bear it. They wanted His name, His life, and His Cause erased from the face of the earth. In 1868 they used their sovereign powers to exile Bahá’u’lláh to Acre in Palestine, far from His Persian homeland.

There He would surely die, they thought, disgraced and entirely forgotten.

But the Koran warns, “They plotted—but God plotted: and of plotters is God the best!”7 The rulers who imprisoned Bahá’u’lláh thought of themselves as mighty kings who commanded the peoples of the world. They forgot that the sovereignty of kings is not the sovereignty of God, Who claims for His domain the hearts of all humankind. Blinded by their ambitions, they could not know that one day, when their own names lay forgotten as dust, the name of Bahá’u’lláh would be cherished in every land.

From his ³rst moment in Bahá’u’lláh’s presence, Shaykh Ma¥múd felt the power and majesty of the Messenger of God. The shaykh could scarcely look upon Bahá’u’lláh’s face, so radiantly did it shine with the light of His spirit. Here was a splendor that needed no royal robes or trumpets to herald it. Here was a majesty that belonged to no one else on earth.

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The shaykh’s own position as a respected religious leader paled, all at once, to insigni³cance. Moved by a deep sense of reverence and a joy that ·ooded his being, Shaykh Ma¥múd lay face down, prostrate at the feet of Bahá’u’lláh. How else could he express the feelings that overwhelmed him—the awe and wonder and gratitude? How could he explain the certain knowledge that ³lled his heart? He was but a candle in the presence of the sun. The Lord had indeed come to Acre.

The story of Bahá’u’lláh—“the Glory of God”—begins in the early nineteenth century, not in the prison-city of Acre, but to the east, in another walled city that stands near the foot of the tallest mountain in Persia—the city of Tehran.

2 The Puppet Show and the Dream “Alláh-u-Akbar!” (God is Most Great!) From the high, slender towers of the mosques of Tehran came the familiar Arabic call to prayer.

The call that had wakened Muslims for more than a thousand years ·oated out over the sleeping city. The sound of it gently traced the edges of blue-and-gold-domed mosques and ·at-roofed houses, reaching with delicate ³ngers into the last dreams of night.

Long ago Tehran had been a quiet village where travelers rested in shady groves of fruit trees and nomads stopped to graze their sheep. Now it was the capital of Persia and home to 160,000 people—merchants and peasants, landowners and servants, and the shah who ruled over all of them.

Each dawn, as the ³rst rays of sunlight washed the sky, the people of Tehran woke with the call to prayer. Getting up, they washed hands and face—the ablutions required before prayer—with pitchers of cold water.

Then, with prayer rug unrolled, each believer turned to God to begin the day as the Prophet Mu¥ammad had taught His followers generations before.

In a mansion on the eastern edge of the city, young Þusayn-‘Alí awoke, excited at the prospect of another day of celebration. Þusayn-‘Alí’s older brother had gotten married earlier in the week. Because their family was noble and wealthy, the marriage celebration, by Persian custom, continued for seven days and nights. Friends and relatives came from near and

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far. In an era when travel and communication were slow and entertainment did not come every day, people found great pleasure in attending such a festive gathering.

All week Þusayn-‘Alí had enjoyed plates of delicious Persian food— rice cooked with almonds and dates, skewers of roasted meat and vegetables, sweet pastries, juicy melons, and icy fruit sherbets. He had enjoyed the music and other entertainment arranged for this special occasion.

Today, on the last day of the festivities, Þusayn-‘Alí watched as a tent was pitched in the open courtyard and a stage was made ready. In a short time, much to His delight, the wedding guests were invited to come to a puppet show. As Þusayn-‘Alí watched, a puppet ³gure wearing a crown and majestic robes appeared—the king! The miniature king was surrounded by a procession of advisors, princes, and ministers of state—all ³nely dressed and all puppet-sized.

As the play continued, a puppet thief was brought before the king. The king ordered the thief beheaded, and an executioner carried out the king’s command. News was brought to the miniature king of a rebellion in his land. The king ordered his regiments and artillery to battle the rebels, and soon the sounds of an imaginary battle could be heard o²stage. Þusayn-‘Alí watched it all, entranced by the small ³gures and the story they played out. When the drama ³nally ended and the audience of guests had gone, young Þusayn-‘Alí saw a man leave the tent with a box under his arm.

“What is this box?” Þusayn-‘Alí asked him.

“All these lavish trappings,” the man replied, “the king, the princes and the ministers, their pomp and glory, their might and power, everything you saw, are all now contained within this box.”1 To Þusayn-‘Alí, the puppeteer’s answer held truth for more than his puppets. People themselves, He had noticed, seemed to treat the world as though it were the tent with a puppet stage and their lives the stories on that stage. Those who gained wealth, fame, or authority in the world felt the drama’s best parts belonged to them. Yet wealth and poverty, honor and dishonor, often changed hands in the world, and many held tight to sel³sh ambitions, eager to gain a better part.

Why should they take pride, Þusayn-‘Alí wondered, in such self-centered aims and accomplishments? How could they forget the truth that surrounded them? Whenever a life ended in this world, the body of that

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person—rich or poor, powerful or not—was laid to rest in the earth, like the puppets returned to their box. Only the soul of each one continued its journey in the next world. Only the invisible qualities of each soul— generosity, kindness, courage—were carried into the life hereafter. Every sel³sh ambition was left, at last, buried in the dust of the world that had spawned it. Þusayn-‘Alí understood this with a certainty He could not explain.

These were unusual thoughts for a youth to ponder, but Þusayn-‘Alí often thought about things that other youth did not, and could answer questions that even adults could not answer. It was simply His nature— a unique nature that was evident from His earliest days. Þusayn-‘Alí was born November 12, 1817, at dawn when the birds begin their songs. He was born in the land of Persia, in the city of Tehran.

According to the Muslim calendar used in Persia, the day of His birth was the second day of the month of Mu¥arram in the year 1233 A.H. At that time, Fat¥-‘Alí Sháh ruled Persia, and King George III was king of England. James Monroe was president of the United States, which had only nineteen states, Abraham Lincoln was a boy of eight, living in Indiana, and Frederick Douglass was a baby, born into slavery in the state of Maryland.2 Þusayn-‘Alí was the third-born child of the honorable Mírzá ‘Abbás Buzurg, a vizier (minister of state) of the shah, and his noble wife Khadíjih Khánum.* Only later, when the time was right, would He take the title “Bahá’u’lláh,” meaning in Arabic “the Glory of God.” Early on, His parents recognized that Þusayn-‘Alí was an unusual child. His mother often wondered how a baby could be so happy and content all the time. “This child never cries!” she would exclaim.3 But what truly astonished them as they watched their young son grow was His extraordinary knowledge and wisdom. His simple education was no di²erent from that given to other sons of the Persian nobility. Tutors came to His home to teach reading, writing, and Persian culture, just as * Mírzá and Khánum are honori³c titles. “Mírzá” is a contraction of amír-zádih meaning “son of a prince, ruler, commander, or governor.” When used before a name, it conveys the honori³c sense of “Mister.” “Khánum,” meaning literally “lady” or “wife,” when placed after a woman’s given name is a courtesy title meaning “gentlewoman.”

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