The Uncle Who Reared the Báb

A retelling based on The Dawn-Breakers, Nabíl's narrative of the early days of the Faith, with a detail from God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi. Words in quotation marks are quoted from those books.

The Báb lost His father, Siyyid Muḥammad-Riḍá, in His early childhood. Nabíl writes: "He was reared by His maternal uncle, Haji Mirza Siyyid 'Ali, a martyr to the Faith, who placed Him, while still a child, under the care of a tutor named Shaykh Abid."

Shaykh ʿÁbid later related that when he asked his young pupil to recite the opening words of the Qur'án, the Child would not say them until He was told what they meant. The teacher pretended not to know, and the Báb explained the words Himself "in terms such as I had neither read nor heard." Shaykh ʿÁbid took Him back to His uncle. "I have brought Him back to you," he said, "and commit Him to your vigilant protection. He is not to be treated as a mere child, for in Him I can already discern evidences of that mysterious power which the Revelation of the Sahibu'z-Zaman alone can reveal."

Shaykh ʿÁbid went on: "Haji Mirza Siyyid 'Ali sternly rebuked the Bab. 'Have You forgotten my instructions?' he said. 'Have I not already admonished You to follow the example of Your fellow-pupils, to observe silence, and to listen attentively to every word spoken by Your teacher?'" He sent the Báb back to school. But the Child went on showing the same knowledge, and at last His uncle took Him from the school and brought Him into his own business as a merchant.

After the Báb declared His mission in 1844 and made His pilgrimage to Mecca, He sent Quddús to Shíráz with a letter for His uncle. Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid ʿAlí welcomed Quddús into his home, and through him learned of the new Revelation. Nabíl records that he "was the first, after the Letters of the Living, to embrace the Cause in Shiraz."

When the Báb Himself was brought to Shíráz under guard, the governor, Ḥusayn Khán, required "a person of recognised standing to give bail and surety" for Him. The uncle "consented to act as the sponsor of his Nephew. In his own handwriting he wrote the pledge, affixed to it his seal, confirmed it by the signature of a number of witnesses, and delivered it to the governor." He then took the Báb home to His mother.

In 1849 Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid ʿAlí visited the Báb in the fortress of Chihríq, and from there went to Tihrán. In 1850, four months before the Báb's own execution, he was among fourteen Bábís arrested in the capital. Seven recanted and were released. He would not. Friends urged him to escape, and wealthy merchants of Shíráz and Tihrán offered to pay his ransom, but he refused. Brought before the Grand Vizier, the Amír-Nizám, he was promised an honourable return to his native city in exchange for a single word of recantation. He replied: "God knows that whatever I have heard and read concerning the sayings and doings of those Messengers, I have been privileged to witness the same from this Youth, this beloved Kinsman of mine, from His earliest boyhood to this, the thirtieth year of His life." He added: "I only request of you that you allow me to be the first to lay down my life in the path of my beloved Kinsman."

He was taken out and beheaded, the first of the Seven Martyrs of Tihrán.

This is a retelling. For the full account, see The Dawn-Breakers by Nabíl-i-Aʿẓam.

Nabíl-i-A'ẓam. (1932). *The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl's Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá'í Revelation*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.bahai.org/library/other-literature/historical/dawn-breakers/