The Báb Declares His Mission at Mecca

A retelling based on Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era by J. E. Esslemont, with details of the pilgrimage from God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi and The Dawn-Breakers. Words in quotation marks are quoted from those books.

Esslemont, in his introduction to the Faith, tells the beginning of the Báb's ministry in a few sentences. The first eighteen disciples, with the Báb as the nineteenth, were known as the Letters of the Living, and He sent them to different parts of Persia and Turkistán to spread the news of His advent. "Meantime He Himself set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca, where He arrived in December 1844, and there openly declared His mission."

The Báb had spoken of this journey on the night of His declaration. He told Mullá Ḥusayn that when the number of His disciples was complete, one of them would go with Him on His pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, and added: "There I shall deliver the Message of God to the Sharif of Mecca." The companion He chose was Quddús, the last of the Letters of the Living.

Shoghi Effendi gives the details in God Passes By. The Báb sailed from Búshihr in October 1844 with Quddús and His Ethiopian servant. After a stormy voyage of more than a month He landed at Jiddah, put on the pilgrim's garb, and rode to Mecca on a camel, arriving on 12 December. Quddús walked beside Him, holding the bridle. On the day of ‘Arafih the Báb spent His whole time in prayer. At Muná He sacrificed nineteen lambs, as was the custom, and with the other pilgrims He circled the Kaaba and performed the rites of the pilgrimage.

Shoghi Effendi names two episodes of that visit as of particular importance. The Báb declared His mission to Mírzá Muḥíṭ-i-Kirmání, one of the leading figures of the Shaykhí school, and openly challenged him. And through Quddús He sent an Epistle to the Sherif of Mecca, the custodian of the Kaaba, calling on him to accept the new Revelation. The Sherif, absorbed in his own affairs, did not respond.

After visiting Medina the Báb returned to Búshihr, where He took leave of Quddús. Esslemont writes that on His return "great excitement was caused by the announcement of His Bábhood," and names what stirred it: "The fire of His eloquence, the wonder of His rapid and inspired writings, His extraordinary wisdom and knowledge, His courage and zeal as a reformer." These drew "the greatest enthusiasm among His followers" and "a corresponding degree of alarm and enmity" among others. The Shí'ih doctors denounced Him and persuaded Ḥusayn Khán, the Governor of Fárs, to act against the new Faith. "Then commenced for the Báb," Esslemont writes, "a long series of imprisonments, deportations, examinations before tribunals, scourgings and indignities, which ended only with His martyrdom in 1850."

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era by J. E. Esslemont and God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi.

Esslemont, J. E.. (1923). *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era*. George Allen & Unwin. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19241/pg19241-images.html