declaration

In *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era*, J. E. Esslemont introduces the Western reader to the Báb as He was before His Declaration: a young merchant of Shíráz, raised by a maternal uncle after His father's early death, known across His district for piety, gentleness, and the scrupulous honesty of His business dealings.

Brought from Chihríq to Tabríz in the summer of 1848 to be examined by the most senior religious scholars of the realm, the Báb made an open declaration of His station before the assembled clergy: *I am the promised One.* The chapter records the bastinado that followed, and the denunciatory epistle He wrote upon His return to Chihríq.

Late in 1844 the Báb, accompanied by Quddús, sailed from Búshihr for the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. The voyage was long, the water was scarce, the bedouins were thieves; and at the heart of the Sacred Mosque the Báb proclaimed His station openly to a prominent scholar of His age.

In the weeks following Mullá Ḥusayn's recognition of the Báb in Shíráz in May 1844, seventeen further disciples of Siyyid Káẓim arrived from various provinces. Each came expecting to be tested. Each was, instead, recognised by the Báb Himself before they had spoken. They became the Letters of the Living — and one place remained reserved.

Nabíl's chronicle records the conference at Badasht in the summer of 1848 — the meeting at which the eighty-one principal Bábí teachers of the time gathered in three small gardens to consult on the relation of the new Faith to the Islamic past. The decisive moment came when Ṭáhirih appeared before the assembled men with her veil removed.

Shoghi Effendi's account, in *God Passes By*, of Thornton Chase — the Chicago insurance executive who in June 1894 became the first American and the first Westerner formally to embrace the Bahá'í Faith, and who would later be honoured by 'Abdu'l-Bahá as *the first Bahá'í of the United States.*

Shoghi Effendi's account, in *God Passes By*, of the conference at Badasht in 1848 — and the moment when Ṭáhirih, "adorned yet unveiled," announced that the day of the new Dispensation had begun.

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.

Esslemont's account of the twelve days Bahá'u'lláh spent in the Garden of Najíb Páshá outside Baghdád in April 1863, where, on what Bahá'ís remember as the First Day of Riḍván, He declared to His followers that He was the One whose coming the Báb had foretold.

A passage from Selections from the Writings of the Báb drawn from the Qayyúm al-Asmá' — the great commentary on the Surah of Joseph that the Báb began to reveal on the night of His Declaration in May 1844 and that constitutes His first major work.

In *A Traveler's Narrative*, 'Abdu'l-Bahá records the moment in 1844 when the young Merchant of Shíráz — twenty-five years old — began openly to declare His station: the Báb, the Gate, sent to prepare the way for the greater Manifestation soon to come.

In *A Traveler's Narrative*, 'Abdu'l-Bahá relates the encounter between Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí — known as Vaḥíd, the most learned cleric of his generation in Persia — and the Báb. Three audiences. In the third, a request for a commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar; and the Báb's spontaneous, written reply that emptied the room of every doubt.