Bahá'u'lláh's Childhood Dream

A retelling based on ‘Alí-Akbar Furútan’s Stories of Bahá’u’lláh and H. M. Balyuzi’s Bahá’u’lláh, The King of Glory.

Bahá’u’lláh was born in Tihrán in 1817, a son of Mírzá ‘Abbás-i-Núrí, known as Mírzá Buzurg, whose family home was at Tákur in the district of Núr in Mázindarán. Two accounts of His earliest years have come down to us.

The first concerns His infancy. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá recalled that it was a cause of astonishment to His mother: He never cried and never showed restlessness. His father came to see that among all his sons and daughters this child was one apart.

The second belongs to His fifth or sixth year. He dreamt that He was in a garden where huge birds flew overhead and attacked Him, but could not harm Him. Then He went to bathe in the sea, and there fishes attacked Him, and they too could do Him no injury.

He told His father the dream, and Mírzá Buzurg sent for a man who claimed to interpret dreams. After making his calculations, the man said that the sea was the whole world, and the birds and fishes were the peoples of the world, who would assail Him because He would bring forth something of vital importance to the minds of men. They would be powerless to harm Him, he said, for He would triumph over them all.

A retelling based on Stories of Bahá’u’lláh by ‘Alí-Akbar Furútan (George Ronald, 1986), which cites ‘Abdu’l-Bahá; both accounts are given in H. M. Balyuzi, Bahá’u’lláh, The King of Glory, chapter 3. For the fuller account, see the originals.

Furutan, A.. (1986). *Stories of Bahá'u'lláh*. George Ronald.