The Test in Iṣfáhán

A retelling for children, based on The Dawn-Breakers by Nabíl-i-A'ẓam, the chapter on the Báb's stay in Iṣfáhán.

In the autumn of the year 1846, the Báb came to a great city called Iṣfáhán. It was one of the most important cities in all of Persia — a place of grand mosques and famous teachers, where the most learned men in the land lived and studied.

The chief jurist of the great mosque was a man called the Imám-Jum'ih. A jurist is a scholar who knows the holy books inside and out, and people came to him with their hardest questions. This man had heard stories about the young visitor from Shíráz. Whispers had reached Iṣfáhán that something remarkable was happening. He decided he would find out for himself — and so he prepared a test.

But this was no ordinary test. The Imám-Jum'ih chose the very hardest thing he could think of, the kind of task that took the greatest scholars long, careful days to attempt. He asked the Báb to write a commentary — a verse-by-verse explanation, in beautiful, classical Arabic — of one of the chapters of the Qur'án. And he asked Him to do it right then, on the spot, with no time to prepare and no books to lean on.

It was the sort of challenge that was meant to be impossible. Surely, the Imám-Jum'ih thought, this will show everyone the truth.

The Báb agreed. He took up His pen.

And then He began to write.

He wrote without stopping. The verses came pouring out, one after another after another, in flowing, perfect Arabic — so quickly that the learned host could not keep up. The Imám-Jum'ih had come ready with clever objections, all the difficult arguments a scholar might raise. But he never got the chance to use a single one. The words flowed faster than he could even follow them, let alone argue. For about two hours the Báb wrote, and the verses filled page after page.

By the end, the Imám-Jum'ih was astonished. This was not at all what he had expected. Afterward, he tried to describe what he had witnessed. The number of verses written in those two short hours, he said, was so great that it was like a fourth — no, a third — of the entire Qur'án. To produce so much, so quickly, in such clear and beautiful handwriting, was something he had never seen in all his years of study.

In the quiet of his own heart, this learned man admitted the truth. He had seen a power he could not explain — a power, he confessed, far beyond what any ordinary person could possess.

The Báb stayed in Iṣfáhán for four months, and it became one of the brightest, most fruitful times of His whole ministry. He had another host, too: the governor of the city, a kind and generous man named Manúchihr Khán. The governor grew so devoted to the Báb that he offered Him every help he could give. He even hoped to set aside his own important position and spend the rest of his life serving this new and shining Cause.

But that was not to be. The governor died suddenly, and the man who took his place did not share his love at all. Instead, he told the king where the Báb was, and the Báb was called away to the capital city of Tihrán.

There is one more thing the Báb said while He was in Iṣfáhán, something worth remembering. People might have guessed that a great new Faith would be carried forward by powerful men — by governors and ministers and rulers. But the Báb said it would not be so. The Cause of God, He promised, would be kept safe and made strong through the poor and the lowly, through ordinary people of humble life and their love and sacrifice.

And so the proudest test in the great city of Iṣfáhán taught a gentle lesson. The cleverest scholar set out to prove that the young Visitor was not what people claimed — and instead found himself amazed by what he could not deny. Sometimes the truth does not need us to defend it with arguments. When it is real, it shines on its own, and even the doubters can see it.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "A Third of the Qur'án: The Báb in Iṣfáhán".

Nabíl-i-A'ẓam. (1932). *The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl's Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá'í Revelation*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.bahai.org/library/other-literature/historical/dawn-breakers/