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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
16 stories where certitude appears.
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.
In Baghdád, in answer to the questions of an uncle of the Báb, Bahá'u'lláh revealed in the span of two days and two nights the Kitáb-i-Íqán — the Book of Certitude — a work of such sweep and majesty that it unveils the meaning of all the Scriptures of the past and stands among the greatest doctrinal works of His entire Revelation. Adib Taherzadeh recounts the awe of its outpouring.
In Baghdád, in answer to the questions of an uncle of the Báb who was still searching, Bahá'u'lláh revealed in the span of two days and two nights the Kitáb-i-Íqán — the Book of Certitude. Shoghi Effendi ranks it the most important doctrinal work of the Bahá'í Revelation: a torrent of explanation poured out almost in a single sitting, and a sign of the glory of the Word.
From within His imprisonment, on the death of one of the Ottoman ministers who had persecuted Him, Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Tablet of Fu'ád — and in it foretold, in order, the downfall of the other minister who shared the guilt and of the Sulṭán above them both. Within a few years it had all come to pass. The sovereignty of His Word over the mightiest powers of the age is a splendour the Feast of Bahá remembers.
About a year before His ascension, Bahá'u'lláh set down in His own hand the Kitáb-i-'Ahd — His Book of the Covenant, His Will and Testament. During His final illness He placed it in 'Abdu'l-Bahá's keeping, and nine days after His passing it was read aloud to the gathered believers. In it, in words beyond all dispute, Bahá'u'lláh bade His family and His kindred turn their faces toward the Most Mighty Branch.
In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the Most Holy Book, Bahá'u'lláh wrote a single luminous verse pointing the believers, after His passing, toward "Him Whom God hath purposed, Who hath branched from this Ancient Root." In His Book of the Covenant He made the meaning unmistakable: the object of that verse was none other than 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the Most Mighty Branch.
In the summer of 1844, weeks after the Báb declared His mission in Shíráz, a youth named Mullá Muḥammad-'Alíy-i-Bárfurúshí arrived footsore from the north. He was the eighteenth and last to find the Báb of his own seeking — and the youngest. He spoke few words, yet the Báb raised him above all the other Letters of the Living and named him Quddús, "the Most Holy."
On the evening of 22 May 1844, outside the gate of Shíráz, the Báb invited a travel-worn seeker named Mullá Ḥusayn into His home. There, two hours and eleven minutes after sunset, He declared Himself to be the Promised One — and, taking up His pen, began to reveal the first verses of a new Book with a speed and majesty that left His guest overwhelmed.
In His own writings the Báb called Himself "a letter out of that most mighty book and a dewdrop from that limitless ocean," and pointed always to One yet to come. 'Abdu'l-Bahá's A Traveler's Narrative records how that promise ripened — until, in a garden by the Tigris, the Ocean the Báb had heralded appeared.
Years before the Garden of Riḍván, the Báb had filled His writings with promises of "Him Whom God shall make manifest" — and had pointed, in veiled and exact words, to "the year nine" and to nineteen years that must elapse before the Promised One would appear. In April 1863, nineteen years after the Báb's own Declaration, that promise was kept.
In the years of His exile in Baghdád, Bahá'u'lláh received a letter of spiritual questions from a Ṣúfí leader, a judge named Shaykh Muḥyi'd-Dín. In answer He revealed the Seven Valleys — a mystical Tablet that traces the soul's ascent to God through seven stages, from the first Valley of Search to the last Valley of true poverty and nothingness. A single revealed letter became one of the most beloved descriptions of the inner journey ever written.
Siyyid Yaḥyá-i-Dárábí, called Vaḥíd, was sent by the Sháh himself to examine the Báb and report on His claim. The most learned man in Persia came armed with the hardest questions he could devise. Across three audiences his doubts were answered one by one — until in the last, the Báb fulfilled the very test Vaḥíd had silently resolved to set Him, and the great scholar's questioning ended in certitude.
Fáṭimih Baraghání — known to history as Ṭáhirih, "the Pure One" — was a woman of extraordinary learning in an age that gave women little room to learn. For years she searched the writings of Shaykh Aḥmad and Siyyid Káẓim for the truth they promised was near. When the Báb declared His mission far away in Shíráz, she recognized Him through her own study and a letter she sent ahead — believing in Him before she had ever seen His face.
The most learned divine in Persia was sent by the king himself to examine the young Báb and report Him a pretender. He came armed with all his scholarship and a secret final test no one could have known. In a single sitting that test was answered before he spoke it — and the proudest scholar of the realm bowed his head. A story of the power of God over the learned heart.
In the very days of the Riḍván festival, on the eve of His banishment from Baghdád, Bahá'u'lláh revealed one of the great Tablets of His early ministry — the Súriy-i-Ṣabr, the Tablet of Patience, also called the Tablet of Job. Sent in honor of a survivor of the Nayríz upheaval whom He named Ayyúb, it lifts up the steadfastness of those who suffered for the Báb and crowns the Festival of joy with a hymn to patient endurance.
A devout and charitable man in Karbilá longed to join the believers — and the very clergy trying to stop him sent him to seek a sign from God. The sign that came was not the one they expected. A teaching story told by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, from a 1906 pilgrim's notes.