The Báb Before the Clergy of Tabríz

A retelling for children, based on The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl's Narrative (trans. Shoghi Effendi), Chapter XVIII. The words in quotation marks are word for word from the book.

In the summer of 1848 the Báb was a prisoner in the castle of Chihríq, in the mountains of Persia. The Grand Vizier, the chief minister of the Sháh, had Him brought to the city of Tabríz. There the most important religious leaders of the city were called together to question Him and decide how to stop His teachings from spreading. The young prince Náṣiri'd-Dín Mírzá, who would later become Sháh, came to the meeting too.

So many people crowded around the gate to see the Báb that a path had to be cleared for Him. When He came into the hall, every seat was taken except one. That seat had been kept for the prince. The Báb greeted everyone and, without stopping, went and sat down in it. The whole room fell silent. No one dared to say a word.

At last the man in charge of the meeting asked Him: "Whom do you claim to be, and what is the message which you have brought?"

The Báb answered:

"I am, I am, I am, the promised One! I am the One whose name you have for a thousand years invoked, at whose mention you have risen, whose advent you have longed to witness, and the hour of whose Revelation you have prayed God to hasten."

For a thousand years the people of their faith had prayed for the Promised One to come. Now the Báb was telling them that He was that One.

One of the religious leaders spoke to Him rudely. The Báb calmly said that He had not come of His own wish, He had been sent for, and that He stood by what He had said. When they asked Him for proof, He said that the greatest proof of a Messenger of God is the Word of God that He brings. Then, when He began to speak in the style of the Qur'án, the same man interrupted to say that He had made a mistake in grammar. The Báb explained that the Word of God does not have to follow the rules that people make, because those rules were first taken from the Word of God. After one more question, He answered with a verse from the Qur'án, stood up and left the hall.

Afterward the Báb was punished. One of the leading religious men of the city had Him brought to his house and beat the soles of His feet with rods. Then the Báb was taken back to His prison in the mountains.

The meeting had been called to stop the Báb. Instead, as Shoghi Effendi later wrote, it gave Him the chance to announce His mission openly, in front of the most powerful people of Tabríz.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "I Am the Promised One".

Nabíl-i-Aʻẓam. (1932). *The Dawn-Breakers (Nabíl's Narrative)*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://reference.bahai.org/en/t/nz/DB/