Mullá Ḥusayn's Forty Days of Prayer

A retelling based on The Dawn-Breakers, Nabíl's narrative of the early days of the Faith, translated by Shoghi Effendi (chapter 3). Words in quotation marks are from The Dawn-Breakers.

Siyyid Káẓim died in Karbilá at the end of 1843, and for a time fear and anxiety filled the hearts of his disciples. On the first day of Muḥarram 1260, early in 1844, Mullá Ḥusayn-i-Bushrú'í came back to Karbilá from a mission on which his teacher had sent him. He cheered the disciples, reminded them of the Siyyid's promise, and urged them to keep searching for the concealed Beloved.

After three days of receiving mourners, he gathered some of the leading disciples and asked what their teacher's last wishes had been. They told him that Siyyid Káẓim had again and again bidden them to leave their homes, scatter far and wide, purge their hearts of every idle desire, and devote themselves to the search for the One whose coming he had so often foretold. The Object of their quest, he had said, was now revealed, and only their own devoted search could remove the veils between them and Him. They repeated his words:

Nothing short of prayerful endeavour, of purity of motive, of singleness of mind, will enable you to tear them asunder.

"Why, then," Mullá Ḥusayn asked, "have you chosen to tarry in Karbilá?" They admitted their failure and said that if he claimed to be the Promised One they would all submit to him. "God forbid!" he answered. "Far be it from His glory that I, who am but dust, should be compared to Him who is the Lord of Lords!" Their first duty, and his own, was to carry out the dying message of their chief. He went straight to other well-known disciples of the Siyyid with the same message. They gave evasive answers. One said they must stay and guard the vacant seat of their chief; another, that he had to care for the children the Siyyid had left behind. Seeing that it was useless, Mullá Ḥusayn spoke to them no more.

He set out from Karbilá for Najaf with his brother, Muḥammad-Ḥasan, and his nephew, Muḥammad-Báqir. At the Masjid-i-Kúfih he decided to spend forty days in retirement and prayer. By his fasts and vigils, Nabíl writes, he prepared himself for the "holy adventure upon which he was soon to embark." His brother shared his devotions, while his nephew saw to their daily needs, kept the fasts and prayed with them in his free hours.

After a few days Mullá 'Alíy-i-Bastámí, one of the foremost disciples of Siyyid Káẓim, arrived at the mosque with twelve companions. Several times he tried to ask Mullá Ḥusayn where he meant to go when his retirement ended, but found him so absorbed in prayer that he could not put the question. He decided to withdraw for forty days himself, and all his companions but three, who attended to their needs, did the same.

When the forty days were over, Mullá Ḥusayn and his two companions visited the shrine at Najaf and went on to Búshihr, on the Persian Gulf, the city where the Báb had for years lived the life of a merchant. There, Nabíl writes, Mullá Ḥusayn "inhaled the fragrance" of the One he was seeking. He did not stay long. "Drawn as if by a magnet which seemed to attract him irresistibly towards the north," he went on to Shíráz. At the gate of the city he sent his brother and nephew ahead to the Masjid-i-Ílkhání, hoping to join them in time for the evening prayer.

That same day, a few hours before sunset, as he walked outside the gate, a Youth wearing a green turban came toward him and greeted him with a smile of loving welcome. That night, in His house, the Báb declared His mission to Mullá Ḥusayn.

This is a retelling. For the full account, see The Dawn-Breakers, chapter 3.

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/