Shaykh Ḥasan and the Youth in Karbilá

A retelling of Shaykh Ḥasan-i-Zunúzí's own account as Nabíl records it in The Dawn-Breakers, chapter 2 (the story is also told on Bahá'í Chronicles). Words in quotation marks are from The Dawn-Breakers.

Shaykh Ḥasan-i-Zunúzí was a devoted disciple of Siyyid Káẓim in Karbilá. Siyyid Káẓim often told his students that the Promised One was near, and some of them came to believe that the Siyyid himself was that One. When one of them said so openly, the Siyyid was sore displeased. Shaykh Ḥasan told Nabíl that he had the same thought, and prayed that, if it were mistaken, he might be delivered from such idle fancy. "I was so perturbed," he said, "that for days I could neither eat nor sleep."

One day at dawn an attendant woke him and took him to Siyyid Káẓim's house. The Siyyid was dressed and ready to go out. "A highly esteemed and distinguished Person," he said, "has arrived. I feel it incumbent upon us both to visit Him." They walked through the streets of Karbilá to a house at whose door "stood a Youth, as if expectant to receive us." He wore a green turban. He came forward and embraced Siyyid Káẓim, who received His greetings "speechless and with bowed head."

The Youth led them to an upper room decked with flowers. He filled a silver cup and handed it to the Siyyid with a verse of the Qur'án: "A drink of a pure beverage shall their Lord give them." Shaykh Ḥasan was given a cup as well. Nothing else was said, and soon their Host saw them to the door. Shaykh Ḥasan could not understand why his teacher showed this Youth a reverence "which even the sight of the shrine of the Siyyidu'sh-Shuhadá' had failed to excite."

Three days later the same Youth came into Siyyid Káẓim's class and sat near the door. The Siyyid stopped speaking. When a student asked him to go on, he turned toward the Youth and said: "What more shall I say? 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. Asked why he would not reveal the Promised One's name, the Siyyid only pointed to his own throat, as if to say that to name Him would cost them both their lives. From then on Shaykh Ḥasan was convinced that the Siyyid could never be the Promised One, "but that a mystery inscrutable to us all, lay concealed in that strange and attractive Youth."

Several times he watched the Youth praying at the doorway of the shrine of the Imám Ḥusayn. Tears rained from His eyes as He repeated, "O God, my God, my Beloved, my heart's Desire," and pilgrims near enough to hear Him stopped their own prayers and marvelled. Each time Shaykh Ḥasan tried to speak to Him, "a force that I could neither explain nor resist" held him back. He learned only that the Youth was a merchant from Shíráz, not a member of the clergy, and soon heard that He had left for Najaf on His way home. Shaykh Ḥasan's own words follow:

That Youth had set my heart aflame. The memory of that vision haunted me. My soul was wedded to His till the day when the call of a Youth from Shíráz, proclaiming Himself to be the Báb, reached my ears. The thought instantly flashed through my mind that such a person could be none other than that selfsame Youth whom I had seen in Karbilá, the Youth of my heart's desire.

He travelled to Shíráz, found that the Báb had gone on pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, met Him on His return, and did all he could to remain close to Him. The Báb gave him the task of transcribing His Tablets. In Iṣfahán he was one of only three believers allowed to see the Báb. At Máh-Kú he spent his nights in a mosque outside the town until the warden brought him into the Báb's presence, and he copied the verses the Báb dictated there to His amanuensis. Later the Báb sent him to collect the Tablets revealed in the castles of Máh-Kú and Chihríq and to deliver them to Siyyid Ibráhím-i-Khalíl in Tabríz for safekeeping.

While the Báb was imprisoned in Chihríq, He told Shaykh Ḥasan not to join the believers at Shaykh Ṭabarsí but to go to Karbilá and live there, "inasmuch as you are destined to behold, with your own eyes, the beauteous countenance of the promised Ḥusayn." Shaykh Ḥasan did as he was bidden. He married, earned his living as a scribe, and told no one of the promise.

In 1851, a little over a year after the Báb's martyrdom, he was passing the gate of the inner courtyard of the shrine of the Imám Ḥusayn when he saw Bahá'u'lláh for the first time. Bahá'u'lláh took him by the hand and walked with him along the market-street. At the end He said: "Praise be to God that you have remained in Karbilá, and have beheld with your own eyes the countenance of the promised Ḥusayn." Shaykh Ḥasan longed to proclaim it at once. "Not yet," Bahá'u'lláh breathed into his ears; "the appointed Hour is approaching. It has not yet struck. Rest assured and be patient."

This is a retelling. For the full account, see Nabíl's The Dawn-Breakers, chapter 2.

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/