The Season of Spring and Wine

A retelling based on A Traveler's Narrative by 'Abdu'l-Bahá and The Dawn-Breakers by Nabíl-i-A'zam. Words in quotation marks are quoted from those accounts.

'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote A Traveler's Narrative in the voice of an outside observer setting down the history of the Báb. It describes how the doctors of the law in Persia kept issuing decisions against the Báb, and how their interference "cast a clamor throughout Persia, causing increased ardor in friends and the coming forward of the hesitating."

Nabíl's narrative, The Dawn-Breakers, calls Mullá Muhammad-'Alí of Zanján "one of the ablest ecclesiastical dignitaries of his age." After studying at Najaf and living for a time in Hamadán, he taught in Zanján for seventeen years, and such were the care and ability with which he taught, Nabíl writes, that his disciples "surpassed in knowledge and understanding the recognised 'ulamás of Zanján." He was "a man of independent mind," and his disputes with the other divines had once brought him to the capital to answer his opponents in person.

When news of the outcry against the Báb reached Zanján, Mullá Muhammad-'Alí, "a man of mark possessed of penetrating speech," sent one of those on whom he could rely to Shíráz to investigate the matter. The man acquainted himself with the details "in such wise as was necessary and proper," and came back with some of the Báb's writings.

Nabíl gives the messenger's name. He was Mullá Iskandar, a disciple "in whom he reposed the fullest confidence," sent "with explicit instructions to conduct a minute and independent enquiry." Mullá Iskandar attained the presence of the Báb and stayed forty days in Shíráz. With the Báb's approval he returned to Zanján, and arrived at a time when all the leading 'ulamás of the city were gathered in the presence of his master.

Mullá Muhammad-'Alí asked him at once whether he believed in the new Revelation or rejected it. Mullá Iskandar handed him the writings he had brought, and said that whatever his master's verdict might be, he would follow it.

"What!" Mullá Muhammad-'Alí exclaimed angrily. "But for the presence of this distinguished company; I would have chastised you severely. How dare you consider matters of belief to be dependent upon the approbation or rejection of others?"

He took from his messenger's hand a copy of the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá', and when he had read one page of it he fell prostrate upon the ground. "I bear witness," he said, "that these words which I have read proceed from the same Source as that of the Qur'án. . . . I take you, members of this assembly, as my witnesses: I pledge such allegiance to the Author of this Revelation that should He ever pronounce the night to be the day, and declare the sun to be a shadow, I would unreservedly submit to His judgment, and would regard His verdict as the voice of Truth." With these words he brought the gathering to an end.

A Traveler's Narrative says that when he had read the writings, "notwithstanding that he was a man expert in knowledge and noted for profound research, he went mad and became crazed as was predestined." He gathered up his books in the lecture-room, saying, "The season of spring and wine has arrived," and he uttered this sentence, "Search for knowledge after reaching the known is culpable."

Then from the pulpit he summoned all his disciples and directed them to embrace the new Faith, and he wrote his own declaration and confession to the Báb. The Báb, in His reply, signified to him the obligation of congregational prayer.

The doctors of Zanján set out "with heart and soul" to exhort and admonish the people, and could effect nothing. At last they went to Tihrán and complained to the king, Muhammad Sháh, asking that Mullá Muhammad-'Alí be summoned to the capital. The royal order went out, and he came.

In Tihrán he was brought before a gathering of the doctors, "but, so they relate, after many controversies and disputations naught was effected with him in that assembly." The king gave him a staff and fifty túmans for his expenses, and permission to return home.

Nabíl records what followed in Zanján. An envoy named Mashhadí Ahmad, whom Mullá Muhammad-'Alí had sent to Shíráz with a petition and gifts, came back and put into his hands, while he was addressing his disciples, a sealed letter from the Báb. In it the Báb conferred upon him one of His own titles, Hujjat, and urged him to proclaim the teachings of the Faith from the pulpit without reserve. He dismissed his disciples, bade them close their books, and declared that he would give up his courses of study. "Of what profit," he said, "are study and research to those who have already found the Truth, and why strive after learning when He who is the Object of all knowledge is made manifest?"

A Traveler's Narrative mentions him once more, briefly. When, "at the decree of erudite doctors and notable lawyers," troops attacked and besieged the believers in Zanján, their leader was Mullá Muhammad-'Alí. At first they sought a reconciliation. Meeting with ferocity, they defended themselves, and amazed the chiefs of the army by their steadfastness and endurance. After numerous battles they yielded at last to promises and to vows registered on the Qur'án, and were all put to the sword. The narrator declines to tell the war of Zanján in detail, since to do so would make his short account "a bulky volume."

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see A Traveler's Narrative by 'Abdu'l-Bahá and The Dawn-Breakers by Nabíl-i-A'zam, chapters IX and XXIV.

'Abdu'l-Bahá. (1886). *A Traveler's Narrative*.