Badí' and the Tablet to the Sháh

*A retelling based on **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi, with details from Adib Taherzadeh's **The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh**, volume 3. Words in quotation marks are as those books record them.*

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In Adrianople Bahá'u'lláh revealed a long Tablet to Náṣiri'd-Dín Sháh of Persia, the Lawḥ-i-Sulṭán. Shoghi Effendi describes it as His "detailed epistle" to the Sháh, in which the aims, purposes and principles of His Faith are expounded and the validity of His Mission demonstrated. Taherzadeh records that the Tablet, though revealed in Adrianople, was sent to the Sháh from 'Akká.

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The one who carried it was Áqá Buzurg of Khurásán, known as Badí', "the Wonderful." He had been brought into the Faith by Nabíl. He was seventeen years old. Bahá'u'lláh affirmed that in him "the spirit of might and power was breathed."

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Badí' visited Bahá'u'lláh in the army barracks of 'Akká during the second year of His confinement there. After that visit, Shoghi Effendi writes, he "had arisen with amazing alacrity to carry that Tablet, alone and on foot, to Tihrán and deliver it into the hands of the sovereign."

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The journey took four months. In Ṭihrán Badí' spent three days fasting and keeping vigil. Then he met the Sháh, who was setting out on a hunting expedition to Shimírán. He approached him calmly and respectfully and called out: "O King! I have come to thee from Sheba with a weighty message."

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At the Sháh's order the Tablet was taken from him and given to the mujtahids of Ṭihrán, who were commanded to reply to it. They evaded the command and recommended instead that the messenger be put to death. The Sháh later sent the Tablet to the Persian Ambassador in Constantinople, hoping it would further inflame the Sultán's ministers against Bahá'u'lláh.

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Badí' was arrested and branded for three successive days. The Sháh ordered him photographed; Taherzadeh writes that the photograph, with the brazier and branding irons in the foreground, shows the calm and assurance of his face. His head was then beaten with the butt of a rifle, and his body was thrown into a pit and covered with earth and stones.

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Bahá'u'lláh called him the "Pride of Martyrs." For three years He continued to extol the heroism of that youth in His writings, and He called His references to that sacrifice the "salt of My Tablets."

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*This is a retelling. For the full account, see **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi, chapter 12.*

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