The Face Mullá Ṣádiq Remembered

A retelling based on The Dawn-Breakers, Nabíl's narrative of the early days of the Faith, as translated by Shoghi Effendi. Words in quotation marks are quoted from that history; the longer passage set apart is Mullá Ṣádiq's own account as Nabíl recorded it.

When the Báb sent the Letters of the Living out from Shíráz in 1844, He told them not to mention His name or person. Mullá Ḥusayn, the first of them, was sent north, and his first stop was Iṣfahán.

In Iṣfahán lived Mullá Ṣádiq-i-Khurásání, known as Muqaddas. On the instructions of Siyyid Káẓim he had spent the previous five years there, preparing the way for the new Revelation. Bahá'u'lláh later gave him the title Ismu'lláhu'l-Aṣdaq, and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, in Memorials of the Faithful, counts him among the Hands of the Cause of God. As soon as he learned that Mullá Ḥusayn had arrived, he went to meet him, and they spoke at night in the house of Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alíy-i-Nahrí.

Mullá Ṣádiq asked him to name the One who claimed to be the promised Manifestation. Mullá Ḥusayn replied: "To enquire about that name and to divulge it are alike forbidden." Could he then, Mullá Ṣádiq asked, seek the grace of God on his own, as the Letters of the Living had done, and discover His identity through prayer? Mullá Ḥusayn answered: "The door of His grace is never closed before the face of him who seeks to find Him."

Mullá Ṣádiq left at once and asked the host for a room where he could pray alone and undisturbed. He described what followed:

In the midst of my contemplation, I suddenly remembered the face of a Youth whom I had often observed while in Karbilá, standing in an attitude of prayer, with His face bathed in tears at the entrance of the shrine of the Imám Ḥusayn. That same countenance now reappeared before my eyes. In my vision I seemed to behold that same face, those same features, expressive of such joy as I could never describe. He smiled as He gazed at me. I went towards Him, ready to throw myself at His feet. I was bending towards the ground, when, lo! that radiant figure vanished from before me.

Overpowered with joy, he ran out to find Mullá Ḥusayn, who received him "with transport" and assured him that he had at last attained the object of his desire. But Mullá Ḥusayn told him to keep it to himself: "Declare not your vision to anyone; the time for it has not yet arrived." He sent him first to Kirmán, to give the Message to Ḥájí Mírzá Karím Khán, and then to Shíráz, to rouse its people from their heedlessness. "I hope to join you in Shiraz," he said, "and share with you the blessings of a joyous reunion with our Beloved."

Mullá Ṣádiq did reach Shíráz, and there he summoned the people openly to the new Faith. Nabíl records that the governor of Fárs had him arrested with Quddús. Mullá Ṣádiq was scourged, the beards of both men were burned, and they were led through the streets by a halter before being expelled from the city. While this was being done, Mullá Ṣádiq was heard reciting a prayer: "O Lord, our God! We have indeed heard the voice of One that called." By their sufferings, Nabíl writes, the two "earned the immortal distinction of having been the first to be persecuted on Persian soil for the sake of their Faith."

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see The Dawn-Breakers, Nabíl's narrative, translated by Shoghi Effendi.

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/