Siyyid Yaḥyá's Three Interviews with the Báb

As news of the Báb spread through Persia, Muḥammad Sháh resolved to find out the truth about Him. He chose for the task Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí, later known as Vaḥíd, whom Nabíl calls "the most learned, the most eloquent, and the most influential" of the Sháh's subjects. The Sháh, Nabíl writes, had implicit confidence in his impartiality. He asked him to go to Shíráz, enquire thoroughly into the Báb's claim, and report back.

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On the way Siyyid Yaḥyá prepared the questions he would put to the Báb. He met Him at the home of the Báb's uncle, Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid ‘Alí, and Nabíl, drawing on Siyyid Yaḥyá's own account, records three interviews. In the first, for about two hours, he raised the most abstruse questions of Islamic metaphysics, the Qur'án and the traditions. The Báb's brief, lucid answers left him humbled at his own presumption, and he hurriedly begged leave to retire.

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In the second, he found that every question he had meant to ask had vanished from his memory, and yet the Báb answered, one by one, the very questions he had forgotten. Still a voice whispered to him that this might be an accidental coincidence.

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He resolved on a final test. In his third interview he would, in his inmost heart and without a word, ask the Báb to reveal a commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar. If the Báb, unasked, did so in a way that set it apart from the usual commentaries, he would embrace His Cause.

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When he entered the Báb's presence, he was so overcome with awe that he could not stand, though he had often stood before the Sháh without the least timidity. The Báb took his hand, seated him beside Him, and said: "Seek from Me whatever is your heart's desire. I will readily reveal it to you." Siyyid Yaḥyá could not speak. The Báb smiled and asked whether, were He to reveal the commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar, he would acknowledge that His words were born of the Spirit of God.

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Early in the afternoon the Báb asked for His pen-case and some paper and began to write. *Verses streamed from His pen with a rapidity that was truly astounding,* Siyyid Yaḥyá recalled. The Báb did not stop until the whole commentary was finished, near sunset, and then read it aloud. Siyyid Yaḥyá spent three days and nights with Mullá ‘Abdu’l-Karím transcribing it, and came away so certain that, he said, all the powers of the earth could not shake his confidence.

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He had been staying in the house of Ḥusayn Khán, the governor of Fárs. When the governor demanded to know whether he had fallen under the Báb's influence, Siyyid Yaḥyá answered:

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> No one but God, who alone can change the hearts of men, is able > to captivate the heart of Siyyid Yaḥyá. Whoso can ensnare his > heart is of God, and His word unquestionably the voice of Truth.

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In the same chapter Nabíl tells of another dignitary who investigated the Báb's claim for himself: Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí-i-Zanjání, a man of independent mind, whom the Báb surnamed Ḥujjat. He sent a trusted disciple, Mullá Iskandar, to Shíráz. When Mullá Iskandar returned with the Báb's writings, Ḥujjat read a single page of the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá', fell prostrate and exclaimed: *I bear witness that these words which I have read proceed from the same Source as that of the Qur'án.*

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Later in that chapter Nabíl records how Ḥusayn Khán, swearing by *the imperial diadem of Muḥammad Sháh* that he would have the Báb executed that very night, sent his chief constable to arrest Him. That same night an outbreak of cholera struck the city; the governor's household was stricken and he fled. The chief constable's own son fell ill, and he begged the Báb to save him. The boy recovered, and at the constable's entreaty Ḥusayn Khán ordered the Báb released.

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*A retelling based on **The Dawn-Breakers** (Chapter IX, "The Báb's Stay in Shíráz after the Pilgrimage (Continued)"). For the fuller account, see the original.*

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