Vaḥíd Meets the Báb in Shíráz

*A retelling drawn from Nabíl's **The Dawn-Breakers** (chapter 9), where Siyyid Yaḥyá tells the story of his meetings with the Báb in his own words. Words in quotation marks are as that book records them.*

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Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí was, in Nabíl's words, "the most learned, the most eloquent, and the most influential" of Muḥammad Sháh's subjects. 'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote that he "had committed to memory no less than thirty thousand traditions." At any gathering he attended, however many leading clerics were present, he was the chief speaker, and none of them would press their own views before him.

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When reports of the Báb reached the capital, the Sháh sent word that Siyyid Yaḥyá should go to Shíráz, "to enquire thoroughly into the episode of the Siyyid-i-Báb, and to inform us of the results of his investigations." Siyyid Yaḥyá had long wanted to do this, and he set out at once, thinking on the way of the questions he would put to the Báb. In Shíráz he met an old friend, 'Aẓím, who had already met the Báb.

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'Aẓím advised him to show the utmost courtesy, "lest you, too, in the end should be obliged to deplore any act of discourtesy towards Him."

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At their first meeting Siyyid Yaḥyá spent about two hours raising the most difficult questions of Islamic learning. The Báb noted each question and answered it briefly and clearly. Siyyid Yaḥyá "was overpowered by a sense of humiliation at his own presumptuousness and pride." Afterwards he told 'Aẓím: "I have in His presence expatiated unduly upon my own learning. He was able in a few words to answer my questions and to resolve my perplexities."

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At the second meeting he found that all his prepared questions had gone from his memory, and the Báb answered them anyway. Still a voice kept whispering to him: "Might not this, after all, have been an accidental coincidence?" He decided that at the third meeting he would ask, silently in his heart, for a commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar, and would not say it aloud.

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"As soon as I was ushered into His presence," he recalled, "a sense of fear, for which I could not account, suddenly seized me." He, who had often been in the presence of the Sháh, could not stand on his feet. The Báb took his hand, seated him beside Him, and said: "Seek from Me whatever is your heart's desire. I will readily reveal it to you." Then He asked whether, if He revealed the commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar, Siyyid Yaḥyá would acknowledge that His words were born of the Spirit of God.

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From early afternoon until near sunset the Báb wrote the commentary. "Verses streamed from His pen with a rapidity that was truly astounding." When He read it aloud, Siyyid Yaḥyá was so moved that three times he nearly fainted. He and Mullá 'Abdu'l-Karím then spent three days and nights copying the commentary. "We verified all the traditions in the text and found them to be entirely accurate."

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When he returned to the house of Ḥusayn Khán, the governor of Fárs, the governor asked whether he had fallen under the Báb's spell. He replied: "No one but God, who alone can change the hearts of men, is able to captivate the heart of Siyyid Yaḥyá."

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Ḥusayn Khán wrote to the Sháh that Siyyid Yaḥyá had become a follower of the Báb. The Sháh sent back a command forbidding any of his subjects to speak against Siyyid Yaḥyá's rank: "He is of noble lineage, a man of great learning, of perfect and consummate virtue." The Báb gave Siyyid Yaḥyá the title by which he is remembered, Vaḥíd.

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*This is a retelling. For the full account, see chapter 9 of Nabíl's **The Dawn-Breakers**.*

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