The First Chapter of the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá'
Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, (1944), Bahá'í Publishing Trust · Read original
When in Bahá'í history
Shíráz (today: Shíráz, Iran)
A retelling based on God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi, which describes the revelation and contents of the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá', with Mullá Ḥusayn's own account from The Dawn-Breakers by Nabíl. Words in quotation marks are quoted from those books.
On the evening of 22 May 1844, in His house in Shíráz, the Báb declared His mission to Mullá Ḥusayn, who had come to the city in search of the Promised One. After answering the questions His guest put to Him, the Báb said: "Now is the time to reveal the commentary on the Surih of Joseph."
Mullá Ḥusayn later described what followed, as Nabíl records it: "He took up His pen and with incredible rapidity revealed the entire Surih of Mulk, the first chapter of His commentary on the Surih of Joseph. The overpowering effect of the manner in which He wrote was heightened by the gentle intonation of His voice which accompanied His writing. Not for one moment did He interrupt the flow of the verses which streamed from His pen." In the account Shoghi Effendi quotes, Mullá Ḥusayn says: "I was enthralled by the music of that voice which rose and fell as He chanted; now swelling forth as He revealed verses of the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá, again acquiring ethereal, subtle harmonies as He uttered the prayers He was revealing."
That commentary became the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá'. Shoghi Effendi writes that Bahá'u'lláh characterized it as "the first, the greatest, and mightiest of all books" in the Bábí Dispensation. It has more than nine thousand three hundred verses in one hundred and eleven chapters, each chapter a commentary on one verse of the Súrih of Joseph. Its fundamental purpose, he explains, was to foretell what the true Joseph, Bahá'u'lláh, would suffer at the hands of His own brother in a later Dispensation.
The book opens with a call and a warning addressed to the "concourse of kings and of the sons of kings." It admonishes the Muslim clergy, extols the coming of Bahá'u'lláh as the "Remnant of God," proclaims the independence of the new Faith, and even directs the "people of the West" to "issue forth from your cities and aid the Cause of God." It foreshadows the Báb's own martyrdom.
Throughout almost all of the Báb's ministry the Bábís regarded it as the Qur'án of the people of the Bayán. Some of its pages were borne by Mullá Ḥusayn to Bahá'u'lláh, Who at once gave the new Revelation His allegiance. Ṭáhirih translated the whole book into Persian. A single page of it, Shoghi Effendi writes, "captured the imagination and entranced the soul" of Ḥujjat, and its words inspired the defenders of Fort Shaykh Ṭabarsí and the believers of Nayríz and Zanján.
This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi, and The Dawn-Breakers by Nabíl.
Cite this story
Effendi, S.. (1944). *God Passes By*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/shoghi-effendi/god-passes-by/
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