The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl's Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá'í Revelation

Brought from Chihríq to Tabríz in the summer of 1848 to be examined by the most senior religious scholars of the realm, the Báb made an open declaration of His station before the assembled clergy: *I am the promised One.* The chapter records the bastinado that followed, and the denunciatory epistle He wrote upon His return to Chihríq.

The Báb spent four months in Iṣfáhán in 1846 as the guest, first of the Imám-Jum'ih and then of the Governor Manúchihr Khán. The Imám-Jum'ih had asked, as a test, for a commentary on a Súrih of the Qur'án; the Báb produced one in two hours of writing — a quantity of verse that the host afterwards estimated at a third of the Qur'án itself.

Nabíl's chronicle records the Báb's removal from Iṣfáhán in 1847 to the remote frontier prisons of Máh-Kú and Chihríq, in the bleak mountains of north-western Persia. The intent of the authorities was to silence Him by isolation; the effect was the opposite — the journey itself became a teaching, the remote fortresses became places of pilgrimage, and from the cells the Persian Bayán was revealed.

Nabíl records the nine-month imprisonment of the Báb at the mountain fortress of Máh-Kú on the western frontier of Persia — and the remarkable transformation of His warden, 'Alí Khán, from a hostile jailer into a devoted believer who could no longer hold the door closed against the friends.

Nabíl's chronicle preserves the day of July 9, 1850 in the public square of Tabríz. The Báb and His youthful companion Anís were suspended by ropes against a wall. The first volley of seven hundred and fifty muskets severed the ropes; the smoke cleared on an empty scene. The Báb was found in His cell, completing a conversation. A second volley was required to fulfil the sentence.

Late in 1844 the Báb, accompanied by Quddús, sailed from Búshihr for the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. The voyage was long, the water was scarce, the bedouins were thieves; and at the heart of the Sacred Mosque the Báb proclaimed His station openly to a prominent scholar of His age.

In the years between His release from the Síyáh-Chál and His exile to Baghdád, Bahá'u'lláh travelled to the holy city of Karbilá. There the faithful Shaykh Ḥasan-i-Zunúzí — to whom the Báb had once given a written promise that he would behold the One whom God shall make manifest — saw Bahá'u'lláh in the streets and recognized Him, before any public Declaration had yet been made.

Nabíl's chronicle records the return of Bahá'u'lláh from Karbilá in the autumn of 1842 — a young nobleman not yet thirty, returning by horse to Tihrán with the resolve to take up the work the city had been preparing for. The intervening years of His ministry to the wider Bábí community would, in retrospect, take their root in that journey home.

Nabíl's chronicle records that in the autumn of 1852, after the attempt on the life of Náṣiri'd-Dín Sháh by two distraught Bábís acting without authorisation, Bahá'u'lláh was arrested at Níyávarán and confined in the underground dungeon of Ṭihrán known as the Black Pit. There, in chains, He received the intimations of the Mission that would shape the next forty years.

Nabíl's chronicle records that in the spring and summer of 1850, the city of Zanján was the scene of one of the most prolonged Bábí defenses of the early years. Mullá Muḥammad-'Alíy-i-Zanjání, surnamed Ḥujjat, took refuge with his followers in the fortress of 'Alí-Mardán Khán; he and they held against the assembled forces of the Sháh's army for nine months.

In the weeks following Mullá Ḥusayn's recognition of the Báb in Shíráz in May 1844, seventeen further disciples of Siyyid Káẓim arrived from various provinces. Each came expecting to be tested. Each was, instead, recognised by the Báb Himself before they had spoken. They became the Letters of the Living — and one place remained reserved.

Following the Báb's instruction sent from Máh-Kú, Mullá Ḥusayn left Mashhad in the summer of 1848 wearing the Báb's own green turban, the Black Standard unfurled before him. He was, the Master had told him, to march to *the Verdant Isle* — Mázindarán — and the seventy-two companions who would die at his side were already gathering.

Nabíl's chronicle records the death of Mullá Ḥusayn-i-Bushrú'í, first of the Letters of the Living, in the closing months of the siege of the shrine of Shaykh Ṭabarsí in Mázindarán. He led the final sortie at dawn on February 2, 1849, and fell with a musket-ball to the chest in the same charge that broke the Imperial line.

After the betrayal of the Bábís at Fort Ṭabarsí in the spring of 1849, Quddús was led back into Bárfurúsh. He was eighteen of the Báb's Letters of the Living and the only one besides Bahá'u'lláh who would be honoured by the Báb with a written commentary. He was killed in the open square of the town. His last words were of the splendour of his nuptials.

Nabíl's chronicle opens with the figure of Shaykh Aḥmad-i-Aḥsá'í, the Arabian scholar who, at the age of forty, set out from al-Aḥsá in 1216 A.H. to prepare a generation of disciples for the imminent appearance of the promised One. He recognized the birth of Bahá'u'lláh in Núr in 1233 A.H. as the secret event that justified his entire ministry.

As his life drew to a close in Karbilá in 1259 A.H., Siyyid Káẓim-i-Rashtí gathered his disciples and gave them the charge that the Dawn-Breakers treats as the immediate prologue to the Báb's Declaration: scatter yourselves over the face of the earth, detach yourselves from all earthly things, and seek the Promised One who is now manifest.

Nabíl's chronicle records the final months of Siyyid Káẓim-i-Rashtí in late 1843 and early 1844 — the second of the two great preparatory teachers of the dawn of the Revelation. He told his closest students that the Promised One would appear in their own lifetime; that he himself would not live to see Him; that they must scatter across Persia in search of Him.

Among the most distinguished early converts to the Báb's Cause was Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí — known later as Vaḥíd, the Peerless. Sent from the court of Muḥammad Sháh to investigate the new movement, he came as a sceptic; the Báb's revealed commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar undid his scepticism in a single afternoon.

Nabíl's chronicle records the conference at Badasht in the summer of 1848 — the meeting at which the eighty-one principal Bábí teachers of the time gathered in three small gardens to consult on the relation of the new Faith to the Islamic past. The decisive moment came when Ṭáhirih appeared before the assembled men with her veil removed.

Nabíl's chronicle records that in the early summer of 1850, Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí — known as Vaḥíd — withdrew with his followers from the city of Nayríz to the small fort at Khájih in the surrounding hills, where for several months he held off the forces of the governor of Fárs before being deceived, surrendered, and put to death.

Nabíl's account, in *The Dawn-Breakers*, of the night of May 22–23, 1844, when Mullá Ḥusayn met the Báb at the gate of Shíráz, accepted His invitation home, and at two hours and eleven minutes after sunset became the first to recognise Him.

Nabíl's narrative of the morning of July 9, 1850, in the barrack square of Tabríz: the young follower Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alíy-i-Zunúzí, called Anís, who begged to die with the Báb; the first volley that severed the ropes; the Báb's interrupted conversation; and His final words to the regiment.