The Commentary on the Kawthar: Vaḥíd's Third Audience

In A Traveler's Narrative, 'Abdu'l-Bahá tells the story of the encounter between the Báb and the most distinguished theologian to investigate the new Cause. Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí — known by the title Vaḥíd, the Unique — was the foremost Shí'í cleric of his generation. He had been entrusted by Muḥammad Sháh himself with the responsibility of investigating the claims of the young Merchant of Shíráz and bringing back a report.

Vaḥíd traveled south to Shíráz with confidence. He was a master of the Qur'ánic sciences, of Arabic grammar, of the long literature of Shí'í commentary. He had no doubt that he would, in a single audience, expose any imposture and return north with his report.

He was wrong. The Master records the encounter in three stages.

When the above-mentioned Siyyid arrived at Shíráz he interviewed the Báb three times. In the first and second conferences questioning and answering took place; in the third conference he requested a commentary on the Súrih called Kawthar.

The first audience and the second went much as Vaḥíd had expected. He posed difficult questions. The Báb answered. Vaḥíd went away to consider. He came back unsatisfied. The questions themselves had been answered, but Vaḥíd had been waiting for the test he himself trusted: he wanted to see the Báb compose, in real time, an extended commentary on a difficult passage of the Qur'án — the kind of commentary on which a senior cleric might take weeks of careful work.

In the third audience he made the request. The Súrih he chose was al-Kawthar — the abundance — one of the shortest and most elliptical chapters in the Qur'án, much loved and much commented on through the centuries by the masters of Shí'í learning.

The Báb sat down and wrote.

Without thought or reflection He wrote an elaborate commentary on the Kawthar in his presence — and the above-mentioned Siyyid was charmed and enraptured.

The detail the Master preserves is the without thought or reflection. The Báb did not pause. He did not consult any reference. The verses came down through His pen as freely as breath. Vaḥíd, watching, recognized what no rational test could have proved: he was not in the company of a clever pretender. He was in the presence of a station that overflowed His own.

Vaḥíd went home a Bábí. He never returned to the court at Tihrán to make his report. He did not need to. His own conviction had become his only relevant testimony. Within a few years he would travel south to Yazd and on to Nayríz, where he would lead a small, devoted Bábí community in their last stand against the Persian troops. He would be killed in the Nayríz upheaval of 1850, by his own choice and at the head of his own friends.

A Traveler's Narrative uses Vaḥíd's recognition as one of its key proofs that the Cause of the Báb could not be reduced to the claims of an unlearned visionary. The most learned cleric of the day had come, watched the Báb compose, and stayed.

Source: 'Abdu'l-Bahá, A Traveler's Narrative (translated by E.G. Browne, Cambridge University Press, 1891), pages 1-20. Public domain text from Project Gutenberg eBook #19300.

'Abdu'l-Bahá. (1886). *A Traveler's Narrative*. Cambridge University Press. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19300