Two Days and Two Nights

*A retelling based on Shoghi Effendi's **God Passes By**, with the account of the uncle's visit from **The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh**, Volume 1, by Adib Taherzadeh. Words in quotation marks are quoted from those books.*

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In 1862, in the closing years of Bahá'u'lláh's stay in Baghdád, a maternal uncle of the Báb, Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid Muḥammad, came to 'Iráq with his younger brother, Ḥájí Mírzá Ḥasan-'Alí, to visit the Shrines at Karbilá. Neither had accepted their Nephew's claim.

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Taherzadeh gives the account of Mírzá Áqá Ján, Bahá'u'lláh's amanuensis. When Bahá'u'lláh learned from Ḥájí Siyyid Javád-i-Karbilá'í that the two brothers were in Baghdád and that he had not spoken with them about the Faith, He lovingly admonished him and told him to invite them. Only the elder brother came.

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At the end of the meeting he asked Bahá'u'lláh to make clear the truth of the Báb's message, since some of the Islamic traditions about the promised Qá'im seemed to him not to have been fulfilled. Bahá'u'lláh told him to go home, write down every question and tradition that troubled him, and bring the list to Him.

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He came back the next day with his questions. They still survive, written in his own hand on two sheets under four headings, all about the coming of the Qá'im, and in them he asks again and again that his doubts be removed so that he may reach certitude. "Within the span of two days and two nights the Kitáb-i-Iqan, a lengthy epistle (of over two hundred pages) dealing with all his questions, was revealed by Bahá'u'lláh." At first it was known as the Epistle to the Uncle.

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The book dispelled his doubts, and he recognized the station of the Báb. In his will, written some years later, he declared himself a follower of both the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh.

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Shoghi Effendi writes that the book was revealed "on the eve of the declaration of His Mission," and "in fulfillment of the prophecy of the Báb, Who had specifically stated that the Promised One would complete the text of the unfinished Persian Bayán." He calls it "a model of Persian prose," and says that it "occupies a position unequalled by any work in the entire range of Bahá'í literature, except the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Bahá'u'lláh's Most Holy Book."

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Among much else, he writes, the Íqán "proclaims unequivocally the existence and oneness of a personal God," affirms "the unity of the Prophets," "enumerates the essential prerequisites for the attainment by every true seeker of the object of his quest," and "unfolds the meaning of such symbolic terms as 'Return,' 'Resurrection,' 'Seal of the Prophets' and 'Day of Judgment'."

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*This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi, chapter 8, and **The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh**, Vol. 1, by Adib Taherzadeh.*

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