The Blind Scholar from Mooltan

A retelling based on The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl's Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá'í Revelation by Nabíl-i-A'ẓam. Short phrases in quotation marks are words preserved in that account.

In the early days of His Mission the Báb instructed His disciples to disperse and teach His Cause. One of them was Shaykh Sa'íd-i-Hindí, one of the Letters of the Living, whom He directed to journey throughout India and proclaim to its people the precepts of His Revelation. In the course of his travels Shaykh Sa'íd came to the town of Mooltan, and there he met a siyyid named Baṣír.

Siyyid Baṣír was blind. Yet, Nabíl writes, he was able to perceive immediately, "with his inner eye," the significance of the message Shaykh Sa'íd had brought him. He was a man of vast learning, and his learning, far from hindering him, enabled him to grasp the meaning of the Cause and the greatness of its power.

"Casting behind him the trappings of leadership," and severing himself from his friends and kinsmen, he resolved to serve the Cause he had embraced. His first act was to make a pilgrimage to Shíráz in the hope of meeting the Báb. There he learned, to his surprise and grief, that the Báb had been banished to the mountains of Ádhirbayján.

He went on to Ṭihrán, and from Ṭihrán to Núr, where he met Bahá'u'lláh. The meeting, Nabíl says, "relieved his heart from the burden of sorrow" that his failure to meet his Master had caused. From then on he shared with everyone he met, of whatever class or creed, the joy and blessings he had received from Bahá'u'lláh.

Nabíl heard of him from two witnesses. Shaykh Shahíd-i-Mazkán met him one summer at Qamṣar, the village where the leading men of Káshán went to escape the heat. Day and night, he said, he found the siyyid arguing with the leading divines who had gathered there. He discussed with them the subtleties of their Faith, set out without fear the fundamental teachings of the new Cause, and confuted their arguments. No one, however learned, could refute the evidence he brought. Such was his knowledge of the teachings and ordinances of Islam that his adversaries "conceived him to be a sorcerer," and feared he would soon rob them of their position.

The second witness, Mullá Ibráhím, who was later martyred in Sulṭán-Ábád, met him in that town towards the end of his life. No one, he said, could surpass the siyyid's knowledge of the Qur'án and the traditions. His opponents would question the accuracy of his quotations, or deny that a tradition he cited existed at all. Then, "with unerring exactitude," he would turn to the great collections of traditions, the Uṣúl-i-Káfí and the Biḥáru'l-Anvár, and instantly bring out the passage that proved his point.

From Sulṭán-Ábád he went on to Luristán and visited the camp of its governor, the prince Íldírím Mírzá, who received him "with marked respect and consideration."

Nabíl knew of that prince. Not long before, he had carried a copy of the Báb's Dalá'il-i-Sab'ih to the same camp, travelling for six days and six nights over mountains and through forests, and had brought back a written message to Mírzá Aḥmad in which Íldírím Mírzá professed his devotion to the Cause of the Báb. When Bahá'u'lláh came to Kirmánsháh, in the month of Ramaḍán, Nabíl laid the letter before Him. After reading it Bahá'u'lláh remarked: "The faith which a member of the Qájár dynasty professes cannot be depended upon. His declarations are insincere."

"Within a few months," Nabíl writes, "we knew the truth of His words."

One day in the prince's camp, Siyyid Baṣír, "who was a man of great courage," spoke of Muḥammad Sháh in terms that threw Íldírím Mírzá into a fury. The prince ordered a cruel torture. The siyyid endured it with amazing fortitude, but died of it.

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl's Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá'í Revelation, translated and edited by Shoghi Effendi, chapter XXV.

Nabíl-i-A'ẓam. (1932). *The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl's Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá'í Revelation*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust.