The Báb Reveals the Seven Proofs

A retelling based on God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi, which describes the Báb's confinement in Máh-Kú and the place of the Dalá'il-i-Sab'ih among His writings, and on the excerpts from the Dalá'il-i-Sab'ih published in Selections from the Writings of the Báb. Words in quotation marks are quoted from those two books.

Ḥájí Mírzá Áqásí, the Grand Vizir of Muḥammad Sháh, ordered the Báb confined in the fortress of Máh-Kú in Ádhirbáyján. Shoghi Effendi describes the place as a four-towered fortress on "a remote and dangerously situated mountain on the frontiers of the Ottoman and Russian empires." The district was the Grand Vizir's own birthplace, and its people had long enjoyed his favour. For the first two weeks no one was allowed to see the Báb except His amanuensis, Siyyid Ḥusayn, and his brother. In the Persian Bayán the Báb Himself recorded that at night He did not even have a lighted lamp.

The Grand Vizir's plan did not work. The people of the district came to love their Prisoner. Each morning they tried to catch a glimpse of His face and asked from afar His blessing on their daily work. The warden, 'Alí Khán, relaxed his discipline and began to admit visitors. Among them was Mullá Ḥusayn, who walked from Mashhad to Máh-Kú and celebrated Naw-Rúz of 1848 with the Báb. When secret agents reported this to Tihrán, the Báb was moved, about 10 April 1848, to the fortress of Chihríq, which He called the Grievous Mountain.

Shoghi Effendi writes that "the great bulk" of the Báb's writings belongs to these two confinements. In Máh-Kú the Báb wrote "the most detailed and illuminating" of His Tablets to Muḥammad Sháh, and "during that same period" He revealed the Dalá'il-i-Sab'ih, the Seven Proofs. Shoghi Effendi calls it "the most important of the polemical works of the Báb" and describes it as "remarkably lucid, admirable in its precision, original in conception, unanswerable in its argument."

The work answers a questioner. The excerpts in Selections from the Writings of the Báb begin: "Thou hast asked concerning the fundamentals of religion and its ordinances." The Báb replies that the first thing in religion is the knowledge of God, and that this knowledge "can never be attained save through the knowledge of Him Who is the Dayspring of divine Reality."

His central proof is the one given to Muḥammad: the revelation of verses, for "it is set down in the Qur'án that none but God is capable of revealing verses." Speaking of Himself in the third person, the Báb points out that "His age is no more than twenty-five years," that He was an "untutored one," and yet He was revealing verses that none of the learned could match. "Hath anyone like unto Him ever appeared in former times," He asks, "or is this characteristic strictly confined unto Him?"

He also recalls how earlier Revelations were received. Of the Christians in Muḥammad's day He writes: "The blame falleth upon their doctors, for if these had believed, they would have been followed by the mass of their countrymen." He notes that within the domains of Islám there were "seven powerful sovereigns ruling the world," and that "none of them hath been informed of His Manifestation, and if informed, none hath believed in Him." Shoghi Effendi singles out both points. The Báb also praises Vaḥíd in this work, testifying, in Shoghi Effendi's words, to his "talents and saintliness" and his "high attainments in the realm of science and philosophy."

Above all, the Báb asks His questioner to judge honestly. He quotes the miracles the Arabs demanded of Muḥammad and then writes: "Now be fair! The Arabs uttered such words, and now, prompted by thy desire, thou dost demand yet other things? What is the difference between thee and them?" A servant of God, He explains, should accept the proof God has appointed rather than follow his own fancy. "The object of thy belief in God is but to secure His good-pleasure."

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi, and the excerpts from the Dalá'il-i-Sab'ih (The Seven Proofs) in Selections from the Writings of the Báb.

Effendi, S.. (1944). *God Passes By*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/shoghi-effendi/god-passes-by/