The Dervish by the Brook in Núr

A retelling based on The Dawn-Breakers, Nabíl's narrative of the early days of the Faith, translated and edited by Shoghi Effendi (Chapter V). Words in quotation marks are from that book.

In 1844, soon after the Báb declared His mission, Bahá'u'lláh travelled to Núr, His family's district in the mountains of Mázindarán, and began to teach the new Faith there. The name Núr means "light." Nabíl records that Mázindarán, and Núr in particular, was the first part of Persia to embrace the Báb's message eagerly.

One day, riding out into the country with His companions, Bahá'u'lláh saw a young dervish sitting alone by the roadside. His hair was dishevelled, and he wore a dervish's dress. He had lit a fire beside a brook and was cooking his food and eating it.

Bahá'u'lláh went up to him and, in Nabíl's words, "most lovingly enquired: 'Tell Me, dervish, what is it that you are doing?'"

"I am engaged in eating God," the dervish answered bluntly. "I am cooking God and am burning Him."

Nabíl writes that "the unaffected simplicity of his manners and the candour of his reply pleased Bahá'u'lláh extremely." He smiled at the remark and talked with the dervish "with unrestrained tenderness and freedom." Nabíl does not record what was said, only what came of it: "Within a short space of time, Bahá'u'lláh had changed him completely." Now understanding "the true nature of God," the dervish "immediately recognised the Light which that loving Stranger had so unexpectedly brought him."

His name was Muṣṭafá. He left his cooking utensils where they were and followed Bahá'u'lláh at once, on foot behind His horse. As he walked he sang a love-song he had made up on the spot and dedicated to his Beloved. Its refrain was: "Thou art the Day-Star of guidance. Thou art the Light of Truth. Unveil Thyself to men, O Revealer of the Truth."

In later years the poem became widely known among his people, and it was known that a dervish called Muṣṭafá Big-i-Sanandají, surnamed Majdhúb, had composed it. But, Nabíl writes, "none seemed to be aware to whom it actually referred, nor did anyone suspect, at a time when Bahá'u'lláh was still veiled from the eyes of men, that this dervish alone had recognised His station and discovered His glory."

This is a retelling. For the full account, see The Dawn-Breakers by Nabíl-i-A'ẓam, Chapter V.

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/