Dazzled by His Beauty

A retelling based on The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, volume 2, by Adib Taherzadeh, with details from God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi. Words in quotation marks are as recorded in those books.

Ḥájí Mírzá Ḥaydar-'Alí wrote in his book Bihjatu'ṣ-Ṣudúr about a conversation with Ḥájí Siyyid Javád-i-Karbilá'í, an early believer and "one of the Mirrors of the Bábi Dispensation." A man once asked the Siyyid to describe the countenance of the Báb and its beauty. "He was unsurpassed in beauty and sweetness," the Siyyid answered; "I saw in Him all the goodness and beauty ascribed to the person of Joseph."

Ḥaydar-'Alí then asked him to speak of the beauty of Bahá'u'lláh. He replied: "Know with absolute certainty that if anyone, whether friend or foe, claims that he was able to look directly into the blessed face of Bahá'u'lláh he is a liar. I tested this repeatedly and tried time and again to gaze upon His blessed countenance, but was unable to do so." To gaze steadily at that face, he said, was like looking into the sun, and the eyes filled with tears, "making it impossible to gain any impression of Him."

"I myself had this experience," Ḥaydar-'Alí wrote. During the seven months he stayed in Adrianople he was so dazzled by the presence of Bahá'u'lláh that he was "completely oblivious of myself and all creation." Fourteen or fifteen years later he reached 'Akká and was in Bahá'u'lláh's presence for three months. All that time he had wanted to know the colour of the táj, the tall felt head-dress Bahá'u'lláh wore, and every time he came into His presence he forgot to look. At last, one day in the Garden of Riḍván outside 'Akká, Bahá'u'lláh was taking His midday meal in the room that pilgrims still visit. Two or three people stood inside and several outside, "all enamoured of His peerless, imperishable and glorious Beauty." Standing behind the others, Ḥaydar-'Alí finally saw the táj. Its colour, he recorded, was green.

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Ḥájí Muḥammad-Ṭáhir-i-Málmírí, the father of Adib Taherzadeh, went on pilgrimage to 'Akká about 1878. He stayed nine months and was allowed to come into Bahá'u'lláh's presence every other day. Each time, he longed to look fully into His face, and each time he found himself dazzled. His memoir tells what happened one day:

"One day, I attained the presence of the Blessed Beauty. Graciously He bade me be seated. When I sat down, He called Khadimu'llah and said, 'Bring tea for Aqa Tahir'. Khadimu'llah brought a cup of tea and handed it to me. As I took the cup into my hands, my eyes fell upon the face of the Blessed Beauty and I became unconscious. I could not take my eyes from the transcendent beauty of His countenance."

Khádimu'lláh, "the servant of God," was Bahá'u'lláh's name for His amanuensis, Mírzá Áqá Ján. Then, as the Ḥájí remembered it, Bahá'u'lláh said to him: "Oh, look what you have done! You have spilt the tea and spoilt your aba! Protect this aba, it is going to be your only clothing all the way to Persia. We also had only one shirt and underwear on Our journey to Sulaymaniyyih." Only then did the Ḥájí realize that he was holding only the saucer and had dropped the cup. The hot tea had soaked through his cloak and his clothes, and he had not felt it. Taherzadeh notes that these are not Bahá'u'lláh's exact words, though they convey what He said.

On the way home, all the Ḥájí's belongings were stolen. He recovered only the 'abá and two envelopes. Through the cold of winter he wore that thin silk cloak over his shirt and shivered, remembering Bahá'u'lláh's words and how He had suffered from the cold of Sulaymáníyyih.

Ḥaydar-'Alí also recorded what happened when some government officials in 'Akká saw Bahá'u'lláh for the first time. At the festival of Riḍván, in the house of Bahá'u'lláh's brother Mírzá Músá, a Turkish official in charge of customs was lodging in another apartment. When Bahá'u'lláh came out to where the official and his officers were sitting, they rose and bowed, though it was not their custom. "Their hearts were enamoured of His peerless and beauteous countenance." Bahá'u'lláh spoke to them with loving kindness and went back inside. Afterwards the officer asked, "Who was this distinguished personage? Is He the Holy Spirit or the King of Kings?" The believers answered, "He is the father of Abbas Effendi," meaning 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

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None of Bahá'u'lláh's disciples, Taherzadeh writes, was able to write a pen-portrait of Him. The only one there is came from a visitor who was not a Bahá'í, the Cambridge orientalist Edward Granville Browne. He was Bahá'u'lláh's guest at Bahjí for five days, from 15 to 20 April 1890, and was granted four interviews with Him. Browne wrote: "The face of Him on Whom I gazed I can never forget, though I cannot describe it. Those piercing eyes seemed to read one's very soul; power and authority sat on that ample brow.... No need to ask in whose presence I stood, as I bowed myself before one who is the object of a devotion and love which kings might envy and emperors sigh for in vain."

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, volume 2, by Adib Taherzadeh, pages 8 to 13, and God Passes By, chapter 11.

Taherzadeh, A.. (1977). *The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Volume 2*. George Ronald.