The First Eighteen Believers

A retelling for children, based on The Dawn-Breakers by Nabíl-i-A'ẓam, the story of the first believers in the Báb.

On an evening in May 1844, in the city of Shíráz, a man named Mullá Ḥusayn met the Báb. Mullá Ḥusayn had been searching for the Promised One. His teacher, Siyyid Káẓim, had told his students that the Promised One would soon appear, and before he died he had asked them to go out and search for Him. That evening, in the Báb's house, Mullá Ḥusayn found the One he had been looking for.

The Báb called him "the first to believe in Me." Then He told Mullá Ḥusayn something more. Eighteen people had to find Him at the beginning, and each one had to find Him alone, without being told where to look. In the Báb's words, they were to come "unwarned and uninvited." Mullá Ḥusayn was not to tell anyone what he had seen and heard.

Nabíl, who wrote the story down, tells us how the others came. Some were guided in a dream while they slept. Some were guided while they were awake. A few found the answer while they were praying, and others while they sat thinking quietly. One after another, they came to the Báb and recognized Him.

One of them, a woman named Ṭáhirih, never traveled to Shíráz. When her sister's husband set out on a journey, she gave him a sealed letter and told him he would surely meet the Promised One on the way. He did meet the Báb and gave Him the letter, and the Báb named Ṭáhirih one of His first believers.

When seventeen had come, the Báb said to Mullá Ḥusayn:

Seventeen Letters have thus far enlisted under the standard of the Faith of God. There remains one more to complete the number.

He said the last one would arrive the next night. The next evening, as the Báb walked home with Mullá Ḥusayn, a tired, dusty young traveler came up to them. He looked at the Báb and said, "Why seek you to hide Him from me? I can recognise Him by His gait." His name was Quddús, and he was twenty-two years old. Later he went with the Báb on His pilgrimage to Mecca.

These eighteen were called the Letters of the Living. The Báb sent them out to teach, each one to his own home province. Only Mullá Ḥusayn and Quddús stayed with Him in Shíráz. For the time being they were not to speak His name, but to tell people that the Gate to the Promised One had been opened.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "The Eighteen Letters of the Living".

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/