O Concourse of Kings: A Passage from the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá
the Báb, Selections from the Writings of the Báb, Bahá'í World Centre · Read original
When in Bahá'í history
Shíráz (today: Shíráz, Iran)
In the night of His Declaration in May 1844, in the small upper room of His house in Shíráz, the Báb began to write the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá’ — a commentary on the Súrih of Joseph that He revealed to Mullá Ḥusayn at extraordinary speed, chanting the verses aloud as He set them down. It became His earliest book, and the inaugural revelation of His Cause.
The Báb was twenty-five years old. The room held only Himself and one listener. Yet from that beginning, in language modelled on the Qur’án itself, the verses lifted their address upward and outward to the great political powers of the earth.
In Selections from the Writings of the Báb, this passage from the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá’ is preserved in English translation:
O concourse of kings! Deliver with truth and in all haste the verses sent down by Us to the peoples of Turkey and of India, and beyond them, with power and with truth, to lands in both the East and the West…
The young Merchant of Shíráz, in the first hours of His public ministry, was already commanding emperors. The Tablet does not acknowledge that they did not know He existed. It treats the kings of the earth as if their first duty were already known to them: to carry the new revelation, in haste, to the nations under their care.
He continues with a promise:
And know that if ye aid God, He will, on the Day of Resurrection, graciously aid you, upon the Bridge, through Him Who is His Most Great Remembrance…
The kings did not, of course, deliver the verses. Most never read them. But the verses delivered themselves: from the upper room of Shíráz to the dungeons of Tabríz, then over the Caucasus to the gardens of Bahjí, and from there into a Faith that now reaches every continent. The Bridge stands. The Day of Resurrection has, on the Bahá’í reading, come. The kings missed their chance. The small believers — Mullá Ḥusayn, then Quddús, then Ṭáhirih, then Bahá’u’lláh — did not.
Source: Selections from the Writings of the Báb, excerpts from the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá'. Public domain text, also found in Project Gutenberg eBook #18828.
Cite this story
the Báb. *Selections from the Writings of the Báb*. Bahá'í World Centre. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18828
Record yourself reading this story
Recording stays on this device only. Nothing is uploaded.
Related stories
In the Heart of Islam: The Báb Proclaims His Mission at Mecca
Soon after declaring His mission in Shíráz, the Báb set out on the great pilgrimage to Mecca, arriving in December 1844. There, in the holiest place of Islam, He openly proclaimed His station — and on His return to Persia the news of His claim kindled both fervent love and bitter opposition, opening the long road of suffering that led at last to His martyrdom.
Look Well at Me
On a spring evening in Shíráz in 1844, a tired seeker named Mullá Ḥusayn was invited into the home of a young merchant. Before the night was over, his long search — and a new age for humanity — had begun. A retelling from Lady Blomfield's The Chosen Highway.
Two Hours and Eleven Minutes After Sunset: The Declaration of the Báb
Nabíl's account, in *The Dawn-Breakers*, of the night of May 22–23, 1844, when Mullá Ḥusayn met the Báb at the gate of Shíráz, accepted His invitation home, and at two hours and eleven minutes after sunset became the first to recognise Him.
The First, the Greatest, the Mightiest: The Báb's Qayyúmu'l-Asmá'
On the night the Báb declared His mission in Shíráz, He took up His pen and began, with astonishing speed, to reveal the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá' — the first Book of His Dispensation. Shoghi Effendi ranks it among the greatest and mightiest of all the works the Báb left behind.