The Ray of Light at Karbilá

A retelling based on chapter 2 of The Dawn-Breakers, Nabíl's narrative of the early days of the Bahá'í Revelation, which records the account Shaykh Ḥasan-i-Zunúzí, a disciple of Siyyid Káẓim, gave to Nabíl. Words in quotation marks are from that book.

Siyyid Káẓim-i-Rashtí taught in Karbilá. He had succeeded Shaykh Aḥmad-i-Aḥsá'í, and he told his disciples that the Promised One would soon appear. Some of them came to believe that Siyyid Káẓim was himself the Promised One. Shaykh Ḥasan-i-Zunúzí, who served him, told Nabíl that he too had wondered this, and had prayed to God to be either confirmed in the belief or freed from it.

One day at dawn an attendant woke Shaykh Ḥasan and took him to Siyyid Káẓim, who was dressed and ready to go out. "A highly esteemed and distinguished Person," Siyyid Káẓim said, "has arrived. I feel it incumbent upon us both to visit Him." They walked through the streets of Karbilá to a house where a Youth wearing a green turban stood at the door, as if expecting them. He embraced Siyyid Káẓim, who received Him in silence, with bowed head. Upstairs, the Youth filled a silver cup and handed it to Siyyid Káẓim with a verse of the Qur'án: "A drink of a pure beverage shall their Lord give them." Nothing else was said. Shaykh Ḥasan could not understand why his teacher showed such reverence to this Youth.

"Three days later," Shaykh Ḥasan recalled, "I saw that same Youth arrive and take His seat in the midst of the company of the assembled disciples of Siyyid Kazim. He sat close to the threshold, and with the same modesty and dignity of bearing listened to the discourse of the Siyyid." As soon as Siyyid Káẓim saw Him, he stopped speaking. One of the disciples asked him to finish the argument he had left.

"What more shall I say?" replied Siyyid Káẓim, turning toward the Báb. "Lo, the Truth is more manifest than the ray of light that has fallen upon that lap!" Shaykh Ḥasan saw that the ray had fallen on the lap of the Youth they had visited.

"Why is it," the questioner asked, "that you neither reveal His name nor identify His person?" Siyyid Káẓim answered by pointing to his own throat: if he spoke the name, both of them would be put to death at once.

Shaykh Ḥasan had heard his teacher say that even if he were to point to the Promised One and say, "He indeed is the Beloved, the Desire of your hearts and mine," people would still fail to recognize Him. Now Siyyid Káẓim had pointed to the ray of light on that lap, "and yet none among those who were present seemed to apprehend its meaning." Shaykh Ḥasan came away convinced that Siyyid Káẓim could not be the Promised One, and that "a mystery inscrutable to us all, lay concealed in that strange and attractive Youth."

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see The Dawn-Breakers by Nabíl-i-A'ẓam.

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/