Bahá'u'lláh Revives the Bábís of Baghdád

A retelling based on The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, volume 1, by Adib Taherzadeh (chapter 5, "Bahá'u'lláh's Return to Baghdad"), and on chapters VII and VIII of God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi. Words in quotation marks are quoted from those books.

On 10 April 1854 Bahá'u'lláh left Baghdád without telling anyone, even His family, and went into the mountains of Kurdistán. In the Kitáb-i-Íqán He gave the reason: "The one object of Our retirement was to avoid becoming a subject of discord among the faithful, a source of disturbance unto Our companions, the means of injury to any soul, or the cause of sorrow to any heart."

In His absence the Bábí community fell apart. Its nominal head kept himself in hiding, and some who called themselves Bábís behaved disgracefully; in Karbilá a band of them stole from pilgrims and even from the shrine of the Imám Ḥusayn. Taherzadeh writes that most of the believers were "dispirited" and that they were "divided among themselves": in Qazvín alone they had formed four sects. No fewer than twenty-five people claimed to be the Promised One foretold by the Báb. Shoghi Effendi records that the Bábís "hardly dared show themselves in public," and that Kurds and Persians abused them openly in the streets.

His family, having learned where He was, sent Shaykh Sulṭán to find Him and plead with Him to come back. He arrived in Baghdád on 19 March 1856, two lunar years after He had left. Of what He found He later wrote: "We found no more than a handful of souls, faint and dispirited, nay utterly lost and dead. The Cause of God had ceased to be on any one's lips, nor was any heart receptive to its message."

He took the affairs of the community in hand again. Taherzadeh writes that "through His exhortations and the encouragement which He gave, both verbally and in writing, He breathed a new life into the dying community." Nabíl recorded that in the two years after His return from Kurdistán He revealed, each day and night, verses equal in volume to the Qur'án. His writings of those years forbade sedition, quarrels and violence, and taught honesty, kindliness, patience and detachment. Bahá'u'lláh Himself described the result:

"We exhorted all men, and particularly this people, through Our wise counsels and loving admonitions, and forbade them to engage in sedition, quarrels, disputes or conflict. As a result of this, and by the grace of God, waywardness and folly were changed into piety and understanding, and weapons of war converted into instruments of peace."

Several of those who had claimed to be the Promised One came to Him in Baghdád, acknowledged their error and asked His forgiveness. Nabíl, who lived among the exiles, wrote that most of those around Bahá'u'lláh "exercised such care in sanctifying and purifying their souls, that they would suffer no word to cross their lips that might not conform to the will of God." 'Abdu'l-Bahá later wrote that the believers, in the estimation of those in authority, "became famous for the integrity of their character, the steadfastness of their hearts, the purity of their motives, the praiseworthiness of their deeds, and the excellence of their conduct."

Seven years after His return, in the Garden of Riḍván, Bahá'u'lláh declared His mission. Shoghi Effendi describes those Baghdád years as a period in which the community's prestige was "immensely enhanced" and "its morals entirely reformed."

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, volume 1, by Adib Taherzadeh, and God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi.

Taherzadeh, A.. (1974). *The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Volume 1*. George Ronald.