The Year of Stress: Nabíl's Grief at the Ascension of Bahá'u'lláh

The Bahá’í Holy Day of the Ascension of Bahá’u’lláh — observed each year at three in the morning on May 29 — has few extended first-hand narratives in the public-domain literature. But ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in His Memorials of the Faithful, records what the Ascension meant for one believer who had walked beside Bahá’u’lláh for decades: Nabíl-i-Zarandí, the chronicler of the Dawn-Breakers.

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Nabíl had spent his life in the path of the Cause. He had searched for Bahá’u’lláh in Kurdistán when His whereabouts were unknown; he had carried the news of the Manifestation across Persia; he had been turned back at the gates of ‘Akká during the years of strict imprisonment; he had lived as a recluse in a cave on Mount Carmel, *lamenting night and day, moaning and chanting prayers,* until at last the Wronged One issued forth and Nabíl was admitted again to His presence.

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Then, on May 29, 1892, Bahá’u’lláh ascended at Bahjí.

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‘Abdu’l-Bahá writes:

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> This went on until the day Bahá’u’lláh ascended. At that supreme > affliction, that shattering calamity, Nabíl sobbed and trembled and > cried out to Heaven. He found that the numerical value of the word > *shidád* — year of stress — was 309, and it thus became evident > that Bahá’u’lláh foretold what had now come to pass.

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The Master continues:

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> Utterly cast down, hopeless at being separated from Bahá’u’lláh, > fevered, shedding tears, Nabíl was in such anguish that anyone seeing > him was bewildered. He struggled on, but the only desire he had was > to lay down his life. He could suffer no longer; his longing was > aflame in him; he could stand the fiery pain no more. And so he > became king of the cohorts of love, and he rushed into the sea.

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Before that day, Nabíl had written out the year of his death in a single word: *Drowned.*

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Of him ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says, in closing, that *the waters of sacrifice closed over him; he was drowned, and he came, at last, to the Most High.*

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For Bahá’ís, the Memorial of Nabíl is a window into the cost of love on the day of the Ascension. The community’s observance of that day — the chanting of the Tablet of Visitation at the appointed hour — sits inside a much older silence: the silence of those who, like Nabíl, could not imagine the world without Him.

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