The Ornament of the Near Ones: Zaynu'l-Muqarrabín

A retelling drawn from The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh by Adib Taherzadeh, with details preserved in 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Memorials of the Faithful. The narrative is retold in our own words; short phrases in quotation marks are titles or words preserved in those histories.

Before he ever heard the name of the Báb, the man later called Zaynu'l-Muqarrabín was already a person of consequence. His name was Mullá Zaynu'l-'Ábidín, and in the town of Najaf-Ábád, near Iṣfáhán, he was the leading religious authority — a learned jurist whose word settled disputes and whose judgments carried the force of law in the eyes of the people. 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who knew him well in later years, called him "one of the greatest of all the Báb's companions and all the loved ones of Bahá'u'lláh," and recalled that in his former life he had been "the standard, and the authority of last resort" for his whole district.

A man in such a position has a great deal to lose. When he recognised the truth of the new Faith, he lost it. The people who had revered him turned on him; the very eminence that had been his protection became, overnight, his danger. He was mocked, cursed, and driven from place to place. He bore it all and went on teaching. And in the end, like so many of the faithful, he made his way out of Persia into exile, drawn toward the presence of Bahá'u'lláh, until at last he reached the prison-city of 'Akká and was admitted into the presence of his Beloved.

It was there, in the years of the Most Great Prison and after, that Zaynu'l-'Ábidín found the work that would define his life and earn him his name. He became a copyist of the sacred Writings.

It is hard, in an age of printing presses and instant copies, to feel the weight of what that meant. In those days every Tablet that Bahá'u'lláh revealed, every prayer and letter and book, existed at first only in manuscript. If the believers scattered across Persia and beyond were ever to read these words, the words had to be copied out, by hand, over and over — and copied accurately, for a single careless scribe could corrupt the very Word of God. Zaynu'l-Muqarrabín gave himself to this labour with a devotion and an exactness that were without equal. His handwriting was beautiful; more importantly, it was scrupulously faithful. He laboured over many volumes, transcribing a great part of Bahá'u'lláh's most important Tablets. So trustworthy was his work that a Tablet in his hand became, for the believers, a copy they could rely on without question — and to this very day, the authentic texts of Bahá'u'lláh's Writings in their original languages are checked against the manuscripts he left behind. The integrity of the Revelation itself, as it has come down to us, rests in no small part on the patient pen of this one faithful servant.

For this man and this service, Bahá'u'lláh conferred upon him the name by which he is remembered: Zaynu'l-Muqarrabín — "the Ornament of Them that are Nigh unto God." Bahá'u'lláh revealed Tablets in his honour, addressing him by this title, and 'Abdu'l-Bahá later set him among the noblest of the believers and the chosen Apostles of His Father. The proud jurist of Najaf-Ábád, who might have kept his rank and his comfort by simply staying silent, had become instead an "ornament" — not because of any office he held, but because of the lowly, exacting, endless work he did at the edge of a prison, so that the words of God might reach the hearts of the faithful uncorrupted.

There is a particular beauty in the name he was given, and it speaks directly to the spirit of the Feast of Asmá', the Feast of Names. The grandest of the names of God might have gone, one would think, to those who taught before kings or died on battlefields. This one went to a copyist. Nearness to God, the name quietly insists, is not measured by spectacle. It can be reached through the humblest and most hidden of faithful tasks, done well, done for love, done for the sake of others one will never meet. Zaynu'l-Muqarrabín adorned the company of the believers not by what he commanded but by what he served — and the name he was given turned that quiet service into a permanent ornament of the Cause.

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh by Adib Taherzadeh and Memorials of the Faithful by 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

Taherzadeh, A.. (1974). *The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh*. George Ronald.