Dayyán, the Third Letter to Believe

*A retelling based on **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi, with the account of Dayyán's conversion from Nabíl's **The Dawn-Breakers** and Bahá'u'lláh's words about him in the **Epistle to the Son of the Wolf**. Words in quotation marks are quoted from those books.*

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While the Báb was imprisoned in the castle of Chihríq, siyyids, divines and even government officials of the nearby town of Khuy began to embrace His Cause. Among them was Mírzá Asadu'lláh, whom Shoghi Effendi describes as "a prominent official of high literary repute." Nabíl records that he had at first denounced the Báb's message so vehemently that those who tried to teach him were baffled.

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Then Mírzá Asadu'lláh had a dream. He decided to tell no one about it. He chose two verses of the Qur'án and sent the Báb a written request: "I have conceived three definite things in my mind. I request you to reveal to me their nature." A few days later a reply came in the Báb's own handwriting. It described the dream in full and gave the exact texts of the two verses.

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He accepted the Faith at once. Though he was not used to walking, he refused the horse his friends offered him and went on foot along the steep, stony path from Khuy to the castle. His meeting with the Báb, Nabíl writes, "confirmed him in his belief and excited that fiery ardour which he continued to manifest to the end of his life."

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That same year the Báb asked forty of His companions each to write a treatise establishing the truth of His mission. Of all of them, Mírzá Asadu'lláh's ranked highest in the Báb's estimation. The Báb gave him the name Dayyán and revealed in his honour the Lawḥ-i-Ḥurúfát, the Tablet of the Letters.

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He extolled him as the "repository of the trust of the one true God," and addressed him with a title that looked beyond His own ministry to the One whose coming He foretold: "O thou who art the third Letter to believe in Him Whom God shall make manifest!"

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Dayyán's father, an intimate friend of the Prime Minister, Ḥájí Mírzá Áqásí, had already told the minister of his grave concern at the way able officials of the state were being won over to the new Faith. Dayyán's conversion, together with the arrival of a dervish from India whom the Báb had bidden in a vision to come to Him, brought matters to a head, and the Báb was summoned to Tabríz.

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Years later, after the Báb's martyrdom, Dayyán was among the many Bábís who travelled to Baghdád to see Bahá'u'lláh and crossed His threshold. Bahá'u'lláh Himself later wrote: "As to Dayyán—upon him be the glory of God and His mercy—he attained Our presence in accordance with that which had been revealed by the pen of the Primal Point."

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Not long afterwards Dayyán was murdered. Shoghi Effendi records that the killing was ordered by Bahá'u'lláh's half-brother, who "feared and envied" him. Bahá'u'lláh speaks of him as one "who was wronged and suffered martyrdom."

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*This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi and **The Dawn-Breakers** by Nabíl-i-A'ẓam.*

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