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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
By Nabíl-i-A'ẓam · 1932 · Bahá'í Publishing Trust
Formative Age (1921–1957) · public domain
Epic chronicle of the Bábí period. Many extractable narrative episodes.
About Nabíl-i-A'ẓam
Born Mullá Muḥammad-i-Zarandí. Bábí poet and historian; companion of Bahá'u'lláh in His later years. His chronicle of the Bábí period — completed in 'Akká and partially reviewed by Bahá'u'lláh — became, in Shoghi Effendi's translation, *The Dawn-Breakers*.
1831–1892
Stories by era covered
Featured figures
Themes
“Fear not. Do as you have been bidden, and commit Us to the care of the”
“Think men that when they say, ‘We believe,’ they shall be let alone and not”
“I am," thrice exclaimed the Báb, "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”
God Passes By
Cited in Authoritative HistoryShoghi Effendi · 1944
The Chosen Highway
Secondary RetellingLady Blomfield · 1940
Portals to Freedom
Secondary RetellingHoward Colby Ives · 1937
The Diary of Juliet Thompson
Secondary RetellingJuliet Thompson · 1947
World Order
Secondary RetellingWorld Order Editors · 1935
The Promised Day Is Come
Cited in Authoritative HistoryShoghi Effendi · 1941
In the summer of 1848 the Báb was brought from Chihríq to Tabríz and questioned before the Crown Prince and the leading divines. He declared Himself the promised One, and was afterwards beaten on the feet at the home of the Shaykhu'l-Islám.
In Iṣfáhán the Báb was the guest first of the Imám-Jum'ih and then of the governor, Manúchihr Khán. He wrote a commentary on a Súrih of the Qur'án with great speed, and told the governor how His Cause would be preserved.
In 1847 the Báb was taken from Iṣfáhán toward Ṭihrán and then sent to the fortress of Máh-Kú, and later to Chihríq. At both prisons the wardens and the people of the district came to revere Him, and at Máh-Kú He wrote the Persian Bayán.
During the Báb's nine months in the castle of Máh-Kú, its strict warden, 'Alí Khán, saw Him at prayer outside the locked castle, came to Him in humility, and opened the castle to His visitors.
On 9 July 1850 in Tabríz, the first volley fired at the Báb and Anís cut only their ropes, and the Báb was found back in His room finishing a conversation. A second regiment carried out the execution.
In 1844 the Báb sailed with Quddús from Búshihr to Arabia. On the road to Mecca a Bedouin stole His writings, and beside the Black Stone He declared His station to the Shaykhí scholar Mírzá Muḥíṭ-i-Kirmání.
In 1851 Bahá'u'lláh visited Karbilá. There He met the aged Shaykh Ḥasan-i-Zunúzí, whom the Báb had sent to wait in that city to see the promised Ḥusayn, and confided His secret to him.
After two young Bábís tried to kill the Sháh in August 1852, Bahá'u'lláh was chained for four months in the Síyáh-Chál, the underground dungeon of Ṭihrán. There, in a dream, He heard the words that announced His mission.
In 1850 Ḥujjat and his companions took refuge in the fort of 'Alí-Mardán Khán at Zanján and held out for months against the Sháh's regiments. Nabíl tells of the women who served beside them, of the maiden Zaynab, and of Ḥujjat's death.
After Mullá Ḥusayn recognised the Báb in Shíráz in May 1844, seventeen more seekers found Him, each by his own search. The last was Quddús, whose arrival the Báb foretold the night before.
In July 1848, at the Báb's bidding, Mullá Ḥusayn left Mashhad wearing the Báb's green turban, with the Black Standard carried before him, and led his companions to the shrine of Shaykh Ṭabarsí in Mázindarán.
Before dawn on 2 February 1849, Mullá Ḥusayn led a sortie from the fort of Shaykh Ṭabarsí, was shot in the breast, and was carried back to the fort, where he died after a last conversation with Quddús.
In 1849 the defenders of Fort Ṭabarsí came out on a prince's oath sworn on the Qur'án. The oath was broken, and Quddús was handed over to his enemies in his native town of Bárfurúsh and killed in its public square.
At forty, Shaykh Aḥmad-i-Aḥsá'í left his home in Baḥrayn to prepare the way for the promised One. Nabíl records that he recognized the meaning of Bahá'u'lláh's birth in 1817 and later entrusted his mission to Siyyid Káẓim.
In his last years at Karbilá, Siyyid Káẓim-i-Rashtí sent Mullá Ḥusayn on a mission to Iṣfahán, described to his students the signs of the Promised One, and urged them to scatter far and wide in search of Him.
Nabíl records Siyyid Káẓim's last days: his urging his students to scatter in search of the Promised One, an Arab shepherd's dream foretelling his death, and his passing at Karbilá at the close of 1843.
Muḥammad Sháh sent the learned Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí to Shíráz to investigate the Báb. At their third meeting the Báb revealed, unasked, the commentary Siyyid Yaḥyá had silently resolved to request, and he embraced the Báb's Cause.
In the summer of 1848, eighty-one Bábís gathered at Badasht as guests of Bahá'u'lláh. There Ṭáhirih appeared before the assembled men without her veil and proclaimed that the fetters of the past were burst asunder.
In 1850 Vaḥíd and his companions held the fort of Khájih near Nayríz against the governor's forces until the besiegers, swearing on a sealed Qur'án, drew him out of the fort, betrayed him and put him to death.
In the prison of Chihríq, after months of grief for the martyrs of Shaykh Tabarsí, the Báb named His attendant Sayyáh, the Traveller, and sent him to visit their resting-place on His behalf. On the way back, in the depth of winter, Sayyáh came to Bahá'u'lláh's house in Tihrán.
At Badasht each believer received a new name without knowing who had given it. Hájí Mullá Ismá'íl-i-Qumí, named there Sirru'l-Vujúd, missed the defence of Tabarsí through illness and later died in Tihrán as one of the Seven Martyrs.
On His way from Chihríq to Tabríz, the Báb was the guest of Malik Qásim Mírzá at Urúmíyyih. The prince offered Him one of his wildest horses, and before the whole town the horse stood still beneath Him.
Siyyid Baṣír, a blind and learned man of Mooltan in India, accepted the Báb's message as soon as he heard it. He travelled to Persia, met Bahá'u'lláh at Núr, taught fearlessly among the learned, and was put to death by a prince.
Tahirih taught the Bab's Faith openly in Karbila until guards were set on her house. In Baghdad she silenced a delegation of Shi'ih, Sunni, Christian and Jewish leaders, and was lodged in the Mufti's house, where she defended her faith.
Mírzá Aḥmad-i-Azghandí gathered more than twelve thousand traditions into a book for the Cause of the Báb. In Yazd a hostile cleric borrowed it and threw it into a pond, and Mírzá Aḥmad talked his angry uncle out of revenge.
Nabíl-i-A'zam tells how, as a young shepherd of Zarand, he first heard of the Báb in a village mosque, and how his search led him to Qum and Tihrán just as the struggle at the fort of Tabarsí ended.
Called in a vision to leave his high rank in India and walk to Chihríq, a dervish reached the imprisoned Báb, received the name Qahru'lláh, and was then sent home by the Báb, alone and on foot.
Sent by night to arrest the Bab in Shiraz, the chief constable found the city struck by plague and his own son near death. He begged the Bab for help, his son recovered, and the governor set the Bab free.
Horsemen sent to bring the Báb to Shíráz in chains met Him on the road from Búshihr. Their captain hid their errand, but the Báb told them plainly who He was, refused the captain's offer of escape, and rode ahead of them to Shíráz.
Nabíl's account of the evening of 22 May 1844, when the Báb met Mullá Ḥusayn outside the gate of Shíráz, brought him to His house, and declared His mission to him, the first to believe in Him.
In Tabríz on July 9, 1850, the young believer Anís begged to die with the Báb. The first volley only cut their ropes; before the second, the Báb held up the youth's example to the watching crowd.
Muḥammad-Ḥusayn of Marághih, one of the Seven Martyrs of Ṭihrán, would not say a word to his captors. At the end he embraced the body of the friend who had taught him the Faith and would not be parted from him.
When the Báb was brought to Tabríz to be questioned by the leading religious scholars, He told them plainly that He was the promised One, and He did not take back His words.
In Iṣfáhán the Báb stayed with the city's chief religious leader and then with its governor. He wrote an explanation of a chapter of the Qur'án with amazing speed, and told the governor how God's Cause would be kept safe.
The Báb was sent to a far-off mountain castle so that His followers could not reach Him. Instead, the warden and the townspeople came to love Him, and the same thing happened at a second prison.
'Alí Khán, the strict warden of the fortress of Máh-Kú, let almost no one see his Prisoner, the Báb, until something he saw one morning at dawn changed his heart.
In Tabríz in 1850 a regiment fired at the Báb and His young follower Anís, but the bullets only cut their ropes. The Báb was found in His room, calmly finishing a conversation.
The Báb sailed for two months with Quddús to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. On the way a thief took His writings, and in Mecca He told a well-known scholar who He was.
The Báb told Shaykh Ḥasan to wait in Karbilá, where he would see the promised Ḥusayn. Years later, at the gate of a shrine there, Bahá'u'lláh took him by the hand.
In 1852 Bahá'u'lláh was chained for four months in the Síyáh-Chál, an underground prison in Ṭihrán. There, in a dream, He heard the words that told Him of His Mission.
In 1850 Ḥujjat and his fellow believers took shelter in an old fort in the city of Zanján and held out against the Sháh's soldiers for many months.
One by one, eighteen seekers found the Báb, each by his own search, and became His first followers, the Letters of the Living.
At the Báb's request, Mullá Ḥusayn set out from Mashhad wearing the Báb's green turban, with a black flag carried before him, and led his companions to the shrine of Shaykh Ṭabarsí.
Before dawn on a winter morning in 1849, Mullá Ḥusayn, the first to believe in the Báb, rode out of the fort of Shaykh Ṭabarsí at the head of his companions. He was wounded and died in the fort beside Quddús.
Quddús, the leader of the believers at Fort Ṭabarsí, was betrayed by a broken promise and killed in his home town. On his last day he prayed for the people who hurt him and spoke of his death as his wedding.
At forty, Shaykh Aḥmad left his home in Bahrayn to prepare people for the coming of the Promised One. In Ṭihrán he understood the meaning of Bahá'u'lláh's birth, and before he died he passed his work to Siyyid Káẓim.
Siyyid Káẓim gave his students clues about the Promised One and, near the end of his life, urged them to scatter far and wide in search of Him. Mullá Ḥusayn went, and found the Báb.
Near the end of his life, Siyyid Káẓim urged his students to go and search for the Promised One. A shepherd's dream foretold the day of his death, and soon afterwards Mullá Ḥusayn found the Báb.
Sent by the king to test the Báb, the scholar Siyyid Yaḥyá silently resolved to ask for a commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar. At their third meeting the Báb offered to reveal exactly that.
At a gathering of the Báb's followers in the village of Badasht, Ṭáhirih came before the believers without her veil and told them that a new day had begun.
In 1850 Vaḥíd and his companions held a small fort near Nayríz against a large army, until the army's leaders tricked him with a promise sworn on the Qur'án and then broke it.
Mullá Ḥusayn was searching for the Promised One. Outside the gate of Shíráz a Youth in a green turban welcomed him, took him home, and that night declared that He was the Báb.
Anís, a young believer in Tabríz, begged to stay with the Báb to the end. Before He was martyred, the Báb told the watching crowd that they should have followed the youth's example.
The Báb sent Shaykh Ḥasan-i-Zunúzí to live in Karbilá, promising that he would behold "the promised Husayn." In 1851, in Karbilá, Bahá'u'lláh took the old man by the hand and told him the promise had been fulfilled.
On the night He declared His mission in Shíráz, the Báb called Mullá Ḥusayn, the first to believe in Him, the Bábu'l-Báb, "the gate of that Gate." Mullá Ḥusayn went on to carry the Báb's message to Tihrán and Khurásán, and fell at Shaykh Ṭabarsí.
Quddús was the last of the Letters of the Living and the Báb's chosen companion on His pilgrimage to Mecca. At Badasht Bahá'u'lláh gave him the name Quddús. The Báb gave him the title of the Last Name of God.
When Bahá'u'lláh was arrested after the attempt on the Sháh's life in 1852, the Russian Minister in Ṭihrán refused to surrender Him to the Sháh's officers, pressed for His innocence to be established, and later offered Him refuge in Russia, which He declined.
When Bahá'u'lláh was a child, His father, the Vazír Mírzá Buzurg, dreamed of Him swimming in a limitless ocean with a multitude of fishes clinging to His hair. A soothsayer said the ocean was the world of being.
Before the Báb declared His mission, Bahá'u'lláh stopped to listen to the celebrated mujtahid of Núr and explained a theory none of his disciples could. Afterwards the mujtahid told his students of two dreams about Bahá'u'lláh.
Soon after He embraced the Báb's Cause in 1844, Bahá'u'lláh carried it to His ancestral home in Núr. Many officials and notables responded, and two envoys sent by the local mujtahid to investigate became His followers.
Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid 'Alí raised the Báb after His father's death, stood surety for Him before the governor of Shíráz, and in 1850 gave his life in Tihrán rather than deny Him.
The Báb, Siyyid 'Alí-Muḥammad, was born in Shíráz on 20 October 1819 to parents who were both descendants of the Prophet Muḥammad. His father died while He was an infant, and His maternal uncle raised Him.
In Búshihr a man left goods with the Báb to be sold at a fixed price. The Báb sent him more than that price, because the goods had once been worth more, and refused to take back the difference.
In Karbilá, Siyyid Káẓim broke off his lesson when the young Báb sat down by the door, and said the Truth was more manifest than the ray of light on that lap. He would not say the name, and his students did not understand.
The Báb told Mullá Ḥusayn that the last of His first eighteen disciples would arrive the next night. The next evening a travel-stained youth recognised the Báb in the street by His gait. He was Quddús, the last of the Letters of the Living and the first in rank.
On the evening of 22 May 1844 the Báb met Mullá Ḥusayn outside the gate of Shíráz and took him to His house. That night He declared that He was the One Mullá Ḥusayn had been seeking, and revealed the first chapter of His commentary on the Súrih of Joseph.
In Shíráz in 1844 Mullá Ḥusayn would not tell Mullá ‘Alíy-i-Bastámí whom he had found. Mullá ‘Alí prayed for three nights until a vision led him to the Báb, Who then sent him out as "the first to leave the House of God."
In Iṣfahán in 1844 Mullá Ṣádiq asked Mullá Ḥusayn to name the Promised One. Told only that God's door is never closed to a seeker, he prayed alone, and in a vision saw the face of a Youth he had often seen praying in Karbilá.
In Ṭihrán in 1844 Mullá Ḥusayn learned from a young student of Núr about a son of Mírzá Buzurg who fed the hungry and befriended the poor. He sent Him a scroll by the student's hand, and Bahá'u'lláh, reading it, affirmed its truth.
In Karbilá, Siyyid Káẓim took his disciple Shaykh Ḥasan-i-Zunúzí to visit a Youth from Shíráz whom he treated with deep reverence. Years later, when Shaykh Ḥasan heard the call of the Báb, he knew at once that it was the same Youth.
After Siyyid Káẓim's death, Mullá Ḥusayn urged his fellow disciples to scatter and search for the Promised One, spent forty days in prayer and fasting at the mosque of Kúfih, and then travelled by way of Búshihr to Shíráz.
After Siyyid Káẓim's death, Mullá Ḥusayn refused his fellow disciples' offer to accept him as the promised One, spent forty days in prayer and fasting at the mosque of Kúfih, and set out on the search that led him to the Báb.
Shaykh Aḥmad-i-Aḥsá'í gave his life to preparing people for the coming of the Promised One and chose Siyyid Káẓim-i-Rashtí to carry on his work. Before he died, Siyyid Káẓim urged his disciples to scatter far and wide in search of Him.
During the siege of Zanján a village girl named Zaynab disguised herself as a man and fought at the barricades. Ḥujjat recognised her and granted her request. She fought for five months until she was killed.
The Báb sent Mullá ʻAlíy-i-Bastámí, one of the Letters of the Living, to Najaf and Karbilá, telling him he would be the first to suffer for God's sake. He proclaimed the new Revelation, was denounced, chained, tried in Baghdád and sent away as a prisoner, never to be seen again.
Mírzá Qurbán-ʻAlí, a dervish revered by many, was arrested in Ṭihrán in 1850. Officials pleaded for his life and the Amír-Niẓám was loath to condemn him, but he would not deny the Báb, and he became one of the Seven Martyrs of Ṭihrán.
Mullá Ḥusayn, the first to believe in the Báb, led the defence of the shrine of Shaykh Ṭabarsí. Before dawn on 2 February 1849 he rode out against the besieging army, was shot, and died in the fort after a last conversation with Quddús.
Arrested in Ṭihrán in 1852, Ḥájí Sulaymán Khán refused to recant and was allowed to choose how he would die. He asked that lighted candles be set in wounds in his flesh, and walked through the bazaar praising the Báb.
Ashraf was born in the besieged fort of Zanján. Years later, when he was condemned for his faith, his enemies brought his mother to persuade him to recant. She urged him to stand firm instead, and Bahá'u'lláh praised her in a Tablet.
Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid ʻAlí, the uncle who had raised the Báb, was among fourteen believers arrested in Ṭihrán in 1850. He refused a ransom and the Grand Vazír's offer of freedom, and asked to be the first of the Seven Martyrs to die.
In His youth the Báb worked as a merchant in Búshihr. A visitor recalled His humility and courtesy, and told how He insisted on paying a client the full value of an article, above the price the man had asked.
In Ṭihrán in 1844 Mullá Ḥusayn gave a student from Núr a scroll to hand to Bahá'u'lláh at dawn. Bahá'u'lláh read it aloud, declared that its words had the same regenerating power as the Qur'án, and sent Mullá Ḥusayn a gift of tea and sugar.
Muḥammad Sháh sent Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí, the most learned divine in Persia, to investigate the Báb. After three meetings in Shíráz he became a believer, and the Báb named him Vaḥíd.
Mírzá Muḥammad-'Alíy-i-Zunúzí, called Anís, was confined by his stepfather for his love of the Báb. In a vision the Báb promised that he would share His martyrdom, and on 9 July 1850 he died beside Him in Tabríz.
Siyyid Ḥusayn-i-Yazdí, the Báb's amanuensis, spent His last night with Him in the barracks of Tabríz and was told not to confess his faith, so that he could later tell what he alone knew. In 1852 he was martyred in Ṭihrán.
Sám Khán, the Christian colonel ordered to execute the Báb, begged to be freed from shedding His blood. When his regiment's volley left the Báb unharmed, he marched his men out of the barracks and swore never to take part again.
On the night before His martyrdom, in a cell in the barracks of Tabríz, the Báb spoke with His companions with joy and cheerfulness, and chose the youth Mírzá Muḥammad-'Alí to share His martyrdom.
Sent by Muḥammad Sháh to investigate the Báb, the learned Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí, known as Vaḥíd, met Him three times in Shíráz. At the third meeting the Báb revealed, unasked, the commentary Vaḥíd had silently resolved to request.
A gifted student of Siyyid Káẓim, Ṭáhirih sent a sealed letter to the Promised One by a relative who had set out to find Him. On receiving it, the Báb named her one of the Letters of the Living, though she never met Him.
Shaykh Aḥmad-i-Aḥsá'í and his successor Siyyid Káẓim-i-Rashtí taught that the Promised One would soon appear. Before he died, Siyyid Káẓim urged his disciples to scatter and seek Him, and in 1844 Mullá Ḥusayn's search ended in Shíráz.
When news of the Báb reached Zanján, the learned Mullá Muḥammad-'Alí sent a trusted disciple to Shíráz to investigate. When the disciple returned, Mullá Muḥammad-'Alí refused to let another's verdict decide his belief; he read the Báb's words for himself and accepted the new Faith.
In November 1849, grieving for the martyrs of Shaykh Ṭabarsí, the Báb sent His attendant Sayyáh from Chihríq to visit their resting-place, asking him to return before Naw-Rúz, "the only one I probably shall ever see again."
Shaykh Aḥmad-i-Aḥsá'í and his successor Siyyid Káẓim-i-Rashtí spent their lives preparing disciples for the Promised One. Before he died in 1843 the Siyyid urged them to scatter and seek Him, and within months Mullá Ḥusayn found the Báb in Shíráz.
In 1844, riding in the district of Núr, Bahá'u'lláh stopped to speak with a dervish cooking by a brook. The dervish left his utensils behind, followed Him on foot, and sang: "Thou art the Light of Truth."
Ṭáhirih never met the Báb. She sent a sealed letter with her sister's husband to the Promised One he was sure to meet, and on receiving it the Báb named her one of the Letters of the Living.
Attacked on the road to Bárfurúsh in 1848, Mullá Ḥusayn held his companions back until the enemy had killed seven of them. That evening, in the town's caravanserai, three youths in turn climbed to the roof to sound the call to prayer, and each was shot.
Besieged and starving in the fort of Shaykh Ṭabarsí, the companions of Quddús listened each morning and evening to verses from his commentary on the Ṣád of Ṣamad. One of them later said the words made them forget their hunger.
After reading a single page of the Báb's writings, Mullá Muḥammad-'Alí of Zanján pledged his allegiance before the city's assembled clergy. Named Ḥujjat by the Báb and told to proclaim His teachings from the pulpit, he did so and was held in Tehran for it.
After the governor of Fárs had Him arrested and brought to Shíráz, the Báb was called by the Imám-Jum'ih, Shaykh Abú-Turáb, into the pulpit of the Masjid-i-Vakíl on a Friday to answer before the congregation the charges spread against Him.
In Iṣfáhán, a city famed for its divines, the first to accept the Báb's message was a sifter of wheat. Years later, sieve in hand, he set out to join the defenders of Shaykh Ṭabarsí, where he was martyred.
Sent by Muḥammad Sháh to investigate the Báb, the learned Vaḥíd resolved to ask, only in his heart, for a commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar. At their third meeting the Báb offered it unasked and wrote it before him.
Moved from Máh-Kú to the castle of Chihríq under a warden ordered to admit no one, the Báb won over both the warden, Yaḥyá Khán, and the Kurds of the district, and seekers again came to Him in numbers.
Imprisoned in the frontier castle of Máh-Kú, the Báb won the hearts of the townspeople. The stern warden, 'Alí Khán, was changed by a vision of the Báb at prayer and came to let His followers visit Him freely.
Mullá Ḥusayn's companions drew their swords only to defend their lives. When some of them mistakenly caused the death of a villager's mother near Shaykh Ṭabarsí, they grieved and apologized, and her son became their friend.
In the Síyáh-Chál in 1852, Bahá'u'lláh's fellow prisoners were called out one by one to their deaths. The executioner, who had grown friendly to Him, would afterwards tell Him how each had died.
Chained in two rows in the Síyáh-Chál in 1852, Bahá'u'lláh's fellow prisoners chanted each night the verses He had taught them, until the sound carried to the Sháh's palace nearby.
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