Ṭáhirih's Letter to the Promised One

A retelling based on The Dawn-Breakers, Nabíl's narrative of the early days of the Faith, translated and edited by Shoghi Effendi, with a few details from Shoghi Effendi's God Passes By. Words in quotation marks are quoted from those books.

Of the eighteen Letters of the Living, the first disciples of the Báb, all but one came into His presence and were named by Him face to face. The exception was the only woman among them, known to history as Ṭáhirih.

Her given name was Fáṭimih, and she was born in Qazvín in the same year as Bahá'u'lláh. Her father, Ḥájí Mullá Ṣáliḥ, and her uncle, Mullá Taqí, were renowned mujtahids, doctors of Islamic law. She was married to her cousin, Mullá Taqí's son. From childhood she was regarded in her city as a prodigy. The French historian A. L. M. Nicolas, quoted in the notes to Nabíl's narrative, records that she sat in her father's and uncle's classes among two or three hundred students, "always concealed behind a curtain," and more than once corrected the explanations the two elderly scholars gave.

Her family did not follow the Shaykhí teachers, but she alone showed, from the first, a deep devotion to Siyyid Káẓim, the successor of Shaykh Aḥmad. She wrote a defence of Shaykh Aḥmad's teachings and sent it to him. His reply opened with the words "O thou who art the solace of mine eyes (Ya Qurrat-i-'Ayni!), and the joy of my heart!" From then on she was known as Qurratu'l-'Ayn, "Solace of the Eyes."

Shoghi Effendi writes that her first intimation of the new Cause came through a dream in which the Báb appeared to her. When she learned that her sister's husband, Mírzá Muḥammad-'Alí of Qazvín, was about to set out on a journey, she gave him a sealed letter and asked him to deliver it to the Promised One whom, she said, he was sure to meet on the way. She added a spoken message: "Say to Him, from me, 'The effulgence of Thy face flashed forth, and the rays of Thy visage arose on high. Then speak the word, "Am I not your Lord?" and "Thou art, Thou art!" we will all reply.'"

Mírzá Muḥammad-'Alí did meet the Báb and recognised Him, and gave Him both the letter and the message. The Báb at once declared her one of the Letters of the Living.

The name Ṭáhirih

Four years later, at the gathering of the believers at Badasht, Bahá'u'lláh gave each of those present a new name, and Qurratu'l-'Ayn received the title Ṭáhirih, "the Pure One." Some who were at Badasht were so startled by her fearlessness that they complained of her to the Báb. He replied: "What am I to say regarding her whom the Tongue of Power and Glory has named Ṭáhirih?" Nabíl records that those words silenced her critics.

She taught the Faith in Karbilá, Baghdád, Qazvín and Ṭihrán, and in 1852 she was put to death in Ṭihrán. Shoghi Effendi records that at the end, turning to the man in whose custody she had been held, she declared: "You can kill me as soon as you like, but you cannot stop the emancipation of women."

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see The Dawn-Breakers by Nabíl-i-A'ẓam, chapter III, and God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi, chapters I, II and 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/