The Mission of Shaykh Aḥmad-i-Aḥsá'í

A retelling based on The Dawn-Breakers (Chapter I, "The Mission of Shaykh Aḥmad-i-Aḥsá'í"). The words in quotation marks are quoted from the book.

The Dawn-Breakers opens with Shaykh Aḥmad-i-Aḥsá'í, whom Nabíl calls "that luminous Star of Divine guidance." Shaykh Aḥmad called on the followers of Islam to prepare the way for Him who was to appear in the fulness of time.

He left his home and kindred on one of the islands of Baḥrayn, in the Persian Gulf. "Bereft of all earthly possessions, and detached from all save God," in Nabíl's words, he arose at the age of forty to give the rest of his life to this task.

He went first to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbilá, where within a few years he was recognized as a mujtahid and came to stand above his learned colleagues. Then he travelled to Persia. In Shíráz he often praised the city in terms that astonished his hearers, and told them that some among them would live to see a Day the prophets of old had longed to witness. In Yazd he wrote most of his books, and there Siyyid Káẓim-i-Rashtí, then a young man from Gílán, came to him. Shaykh Aḥmad soon told his other disciples to turn to Siyyid Káẓim with their questions. From Yazd he went on to Mashhad, and then, with Siyyid Káẓim and other disciples, to Ṭihrán, where Fatḥ-'Alí Sháh received him with great honour.

In those days a Child was born in an ancient and noble family of Núr, the son of Mírzá Buzurg, a minister of the Crown. Nabíl writes:

At the hour of dawn, on the second day of Muḥarram, in the year 1233 A.H., the world, unaware of its significance, witnessed the birth of Him who was destined to confer upon it such incalculable blessings.

That Child was Bahá'u'lláh, and the date was 12 November 1817. Nabíl records that Shaykh Aḥmad recognized the meaning of this event and longed to spend the rest of his days near Him, but this was not to be. He left for Kirmánsháh, whose governor, Prince Muḥammad-'Alí Mírzá, the Sháh's eldest son, had asked for the honour of serving him. There he gave special attention to a chosen number of disciples, and in his writings laid stress on the allusions the Imáms had made to the coming of the promised One.

After the Prince died, Shaykh Aḥmad moved to Karbilá. Before leaving for Mecca and Medina he confided to Siyyid Káẓim, his chosen successor, the secret of his mission. Siyyid Káẓim asked to go with him as far as Najaf, but Shaykh Aḥmad refused. His last words to him were: "You have no time to lose. Every fleeting hour should be fully and wisely utilised."

Shaykh Aḥmad died in 1242 A.H. (1826–27), at the age of eighty-one, and was buried in the cemetery of Baqí', near the resting place of Muḥammad in Medina.

A retelling based on The Dawn-Breakers (Chapter I, "The Mission of Shaykh Aḥmad-i-Aḥsá'í"). For the fuller account, see the original.

Nabíl-i-A'ẓam. (1932). *The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl's Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá'í Revelation*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.bahai.org/library/other-literature/historical/dawn-breakers/