EPILOGUE |
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1 | NEVER had the fortunes of the Faith proclaimed by the Báb sunk to a lower ebb than when Bahá'u'lláh was banished from His native land to `Iráq. The Cause for which the Báb had given His life, for which Bahá'u'lláh had toiled and suffered, seemed to be on the very verge of extinction. Its force appeared to have been spent, its resistance irretrievably broken. Discouragements and disasters, each more devastating in its effect than the preceding one, had succeeded one another with bewildering rapidity, sapping its vitality and dimming the hope of its stoutest supporters. Indeed, to a superficial reader of the pages of Nabíl's narrative, the whole story from its very beginning appears to be a mere recital of reverses and massacres, of humiliations and disappointments, each more severe than the previous one, culminating at last in the banishment of Bahá'u'lláh from His own country. To the sceptical reader, unwilling to recognise the celestial potency with which that Faith was endowed, the entire conception that had evolved in the mind of its Author seems to have been foredoomed to failure. The work of the Báb, so gloriously conceived, so heroically undertaken, would appear to have ended in a colossal disaster. To such a reader, the life of the ill-fated Youth of Shíráz would seem, judging from the cruel blows it sustained, to be one of the saddest and most fruitless that had ever been the lot of mortal men. That short and heroic career, which, swift as a meteor, flashed across the firmament of Persia, and seemed for a time to have brought the longed-for light of eternal salvation into the gloom that encircled the country, was plunged at last into an abyss of darkness and despair. |
2 |
Every step He took, every endeavour He made, had but
served to intensify the sorrows and disappointments that
weighed upon His soul. The plan He had, at the very outset
of His career, conceived of inaugurating His Mission with a
public proclamation in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina
failed to materialise as He had hoped. The Sherif of Mecca,
to whom Quddús was bidden deliver His Message, accorded
him a reception that betrayed by its icy indifference the
contemptuous disregard in which the Cause of a Youth of
Shíráz was held by the ruler of |
3 |
Much as He Himself had suffered, the agony He was
made to endure was but a drop compared to the calamities
which were to rain down upon the multitude of His avowed
followers. The cup of sorrow that had touched His lips had
yet to be drained to its very dregs by those who still remained
after Him. The catastrophe of Shaykh Tabarsí, which
robbed Him of His ablest lieutenants, Quddús and Mullá
|
4 |
Of all those who had shown themselves capable of carrying
on the work which the Báb had handed down to His
followers, Bahá'u'lláh alone remained.
[1]
All the rest had
fallen by the sword of the enemy. Mírzá |
5 | The Faith the Báb had proclaimed, and for which He had given His all, had indeed reached its lowest ebb. The fires kindled against it had almost consumed the fabric upon which its continued existence depended. The wings of death seemed to be hovering above it. Extermination, complete and irremediable, appeared to be threatening its very life. Amidst the shadows that were fast gathering about it, the figure of Bahá'u'lláh alone shone as the potential Deliverer of a Cause that was fast speeding to its end. The marks of clear vision, of courage and sagacity which He had shown on more than one occasion ever since He had risen to champion the Cause of the Báb, appeared to qualify Him, should His life and continued existence in Persia be ensured, to revive the fortunes of an expiring Faith. But this was not to be. A catastrophe, unexampled in the whole history of that Faith, precipitated a persecution fiercer than any that had hitherto taken place, and this time drew into its vortex the person of Bahá'u'lláh Himself. The slender hopes which the remnants of the believers still entertained were wrecked amidst the confusion that ensued. For Bahá'u'lláh, their only hope and the sole object of their confidence, was so struck down by the severity of that storm that no recovery could any longer be thought possible. After He had been despoiled of all His possessions in Núr and Tihrán, denounced as the prime mover of a dastardly attempt upon the life of His sovereign, abandoned by His kindred and despised by His former friends and admirers, plunged into a dark and pestilential dungeon, and at last, with the members of His family, driven into hopeless exile beyond the confines of His native land, all the hopes that had centred round Him as the possible Redeemer of an afflicted Faith seemed for a moment to have completely vanished. |
6 | No wonder Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, under whose eyes and by whose impulse such blows were being dealt, was already priding himself on being the wrecker of a Cause against which he had so consistently battled, and which he had at last, to outward seeming, been able to crush. No wonder he imagined, as he sat musing over the successive stages of this vast and bloody enterprise, that by the act of banishment which his hands had signed, he was sounding the death-knell of that hateful heresy which had struck such terror to the hearts of his people. To Násiri'd-Dín Sháh it appeared, at that supreme moment, that the spell of that terror was broken, that the tide that had swept over his country was at last turning and bringing back to his fellow-countrymen the peace for which they cried. Now that the Báb was no more; now that the mighty pillars that sustained His Cause had been crushed into dust; now that the mass of its devotees, throughout the length and breadth of his dominion, were cowed and exhausted; now that Bahá'u'lláh Himself, the one remaining hope of a leaderless community, had been driven into exile and had, of His own accord, sought refuge in the neighbourhood of the stronghold of shí'ah fanaticism, the spectre that had haunted him ever since he had ascended the throne had vanished for ever. Never again, he imagined, would he hear of that detestable Movement which, if he were to believe his best counsellors, was swiftly receding into the shadows of impotence and oblivion. [3] |
7 | To even the followers of the Faith who were left to survive the abominations heaped upon their Cause--to even that small caravan, with perhaps a few exceptions, wending its way in the depth of winter through the snows of the mountains bordering on `Iráq, [4] the Cause of the Báb, one can well imagine, might for a moment have seemed to have failed in accomplishing its purpose. The forces of darkness that had encompassed it on every side would seem to have at last triumphed over, and put out, the light which that young Prince of Glory had kindled in His land. |
8 | In the eyes of Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, at all events, the power that had seemed for a time to have swept within its orbit the entire forces of his realm had ceased to count. Ill-starred from its very birth, it had eventually been forced to surrender to the violence of the blows which his sword had dealt. The Faith had suffered a disruption certainly well deserved. Delivered from its curse, which for many nights had robbed him of his sleep, he could now, with undivided attention, set about the task of rescuing his land from the devastating effects of that vast delusion. Henceforth his real mission, as he conceived it, was to enable both Church and State to consolidate their foundations and to reinforce their ranks against the intrusion of similar heresies, which might, in a future day, poison the life of his countrymen. |
9 | How vain were his imaginings, how vast his own delusion! The Cause he had fondly imagined to have been crushed was still living, destined to emerge from the midst of that great convulsion stronger, purer, and nobler than ever. The Cause which, to the mind of that foolish monarch, seemed to be speeding towards destruction was but passing through the fiery tests of a phase of transition that was to carry it a step further on the path of its high destiny. A new chapter in its history was being unfolded, more glorious than any that had marked its birth or its rise. The repression which that monarch had believed to have succeeded in sealing its doom was but the initial stage in an evolution destined to blossom, in the fulness of time, into a Revelation mightier than any that the Báb Himself had proclaimed. The seed His hand had sown, though subjected, for a time, to the fury of a storm of unexampled violence and though later transplanted to a foreign soil, was to continue to develop and grow, in due time, into a Tree destined to spread its shelter over all the kindreds and peoples of the earth. Though the Báb's disciples might be tortured and slain, and His companions humiliated and crushed; though His followers might dwindle in number; though the voice of the Faith itself might be silenced by the arm of violence; though despair might settle upon its fortunes; though its ablest defenders might apostatise from their faith, yet the promise embedded within the shell of His word no hand could succeed in ravishing, and no power stand in the way of its germination and growth. |
10 | Indeed, the first glimmerings of the dawning Revelation, of which the Báb had declared Himself to be the Herald, and to the approach and certainty of which He had so repeatedly alluded, [5] could already be discerned amidst the gloom that encircled Bahá'u'lláh in the Síyáh-Chál of Tihrán. [6] The force that, growing out of the momentous Revelation released by the Báb, was at a later time to unfold itself in all its glory and encompass the globe, was already pulsating in the veins of Bahá'u'lláh as He lay exposed in His cell to the sword of His executioner. The still voice which, in the hour of bitter agony, announced to the Prisoner the Revelation of which He was chosen to be the Mouthpiece, could not, of a certainty, have reached the ears of the monarch who was already preparing the celebration of the extinction of the Faith his Captive had championed. That imprisonment which he who had caused it, believed to have branded with infamy the fair name of Bahá'u'lláh, and which he regarded as a prelude to a still more humiliating banishment to `Iráq, was, indeed, the very scene that witnessed the first stirrings of that Movement of which Bahá'u'lláh was to be the Author, a Movement which was first to be made known in the city of Baghdád and at a later time to be proclaimed from the prison-city of Akká to the Sháh, no less than to the other rulers and crowned heads of the world. |
11 |
Little did Násiri'd-Dín Sháh imagine that by the very
act of pronouncing the sentence of banishment against Bahá'u'lláh
he was helping in the unfolding of God's irrepressible
Purpose and that he himself was but an instrument in the
execution of that Design. Little did he imagine that as his
reign was drawing to a close it would witness a revival of
the very forces he had sought so strenuously to exterminate--
a revival that would manifest a vitality such as he, in the
hour of darkest despair, had never believed that Faith to
possess. Not only within the confines of his own realm,
[7]
not only throughout the adjacent territories of `Iráq and
Russia, but as far as India in the East,
[8]
as far as Egypt and
European Turkey in the West, a recrudescence of the Faith
such as he had never expected, awakened him from the
dreams in which he had so fondly indulged. The Cause of
the Báb seemed as if risen from the dead. It appeared under
a form infinitely more formidable than any under which it
had appeared in the past. The fresh impetus which, despite
his calculations, the personality of Bahá'u'lláh, and, above
all, the inherent strength of the Revelation which He personified,
had lent to the Cause of the Báb, was one Nasiri'd Din
Sháh had never imagined. The rapidity with which a
slumbering Faith had been revived and consolidated within
his own territory; its spreading out to States beyond its confines;
the stupendous claims advanced by Bahá'u'lláh almost
in the midst of the stronghold where He had chosen to dwell;
the public declaration of that claim in European Turkey,
and its proclamation in challenging Epistles to the crowned
heads of the earth, one of which the Sháh himself was destined
to receive; the enthusiasm that announcement evoked in the
hearts of countless followers; the transference to the Holy Land
of the centre of His Cause; the gradual relaxation of the
severity of His confinement which marked the closing days
of His life; the lifting of the ban that had been imposed by
the |
12 | Little did Nabíl himself imagine that within twoscore years of the writing of his narrative the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, the flower and fruit of all the Dispensations of the past, would have been capable of advancing thus far on the road leading to its world-wide recognition and triumph. Little did he imagine that less than forty years after the death of Bahá'u'lláh His Cause, bursting beyond the confines of Persia and the East, would have penetrated the furthermost regions of the globe and would have encircled the whole earth. Scarcely would he have believed the prediction had he been told that the Cause would, within that period, have implanted its banner in the heart of the American continent, would have made itself felt in the leading capitals of Europe, would have reached out to the southern confines of Africa, and would have established its outposts as far as Australasia. Hardly would his imagination, fired as it was by a conviction as to the destiny of his Faith, have carried him to a point at which he could have pictured to his mind the Tomb Shrine of the Báb, of the ultimate destination of whose remains he confesses himself to be ignorant, embosomed in the heart of Carmel, a place of pilgrimage and a beacon of light to many a visitor from the ends of the earth. Hardly could he have imagined that the humble dwelling of Bahá'u'lláh, lost amid the tortuous lanes of old Baghdád, would one day, as a result of the machinations of a tireless enemy, have forced itself on the attention, and become the object of the earnest deliberations, of the assembled representatives of the leading Powers of Europe. Little did he imagine that, with all the praise he, in his narrative, lavishes upon Him, there would proceed from the Most Great Branch [10] a power that within a short period would have awakened the northern States of the American continent to the glory of the Revelation bequeathed to Him by Bahá'u'lláh. Little did he imagine that the dynasties of those monarchs the evidences of whose tyranny he recounts so vividly in his narrative, would have tottered to their fall and suffered the very fate which their representatives had so desperately striven to inflict upon their dreaded opponents. Little did he imagine that the whole ecclesiastical hierarchy of his country, the prime mover and the willing instrument of the abominations heaped upon his Faith, would so swiftly and easily be overthrown by the very forces it had attempted to subdue. Never would he have believed that the highest institutions of sunní Islám, the Sultanate and the Caliphate, [11] those twin oppressors of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh, would have been swept away so ruthlessly by the very hands of the professing adherents of the Faith of Islám. Little did he imagine that side by side with the steady expansion of the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh the forces of consolidation and internal administration would so progress as to present to the world the unique spectacle of a Commonwealth of peoples, world-wide in its ramifications, united in its purpose, co-ordinated in its efforts, and fired by a zeal and enthusiasm that no amount of adversity can quench. |
13 | And yet who knows what achievements, greater than any that the past and the present have witnessed, may not still be in store for those into whose hands so precious a heritage has been entrusted? Who knows but that out of the turmoil which agitates the face of present-day society there may not emerge, sooner than we expect, the World-Order of Bahá'u'lláh, the bare outline of which is being but faintly discerned among the world-wide communities that bear His name? For, great and marvellous as have been the achievements of the past, the glory of the golden age of the Cause, whose promise lies embedded within the shell of Bahá'u'lláh's immortal utterance, is yet to be revealed. Fierce as may seem the onslaught of the forces of darkness that may still afflict this Cause, desperate and prolonged as may be that struggle, severe as may be the disappointments it may still experience, the ascendancy it will eventually obtain will be such as no other Faith has ever in its history achieved. The welding of the communities of East and West into the world-wide Brotherhood of which poets and dreamers have sung, and the promise of which lies at the very core of the Revelation conceived by Bahá'u'lláh; the recognition of His law as the indissoluble bond uniting the peoples and nations of the earth; and the proclamation of the reign of the Most Great Peace, are but a few among the chapters of the glorious tale which the consummation of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh will unfold. |
14 | Who knows but that triumphs, unsurpassed in splendour, are not in store for the mass of Bahá'u'lláh's toiling followers? Surely, we stand too near the colossal edifice His hand has reared to be able, at the present stage of the evolution of His Revelation, to claim to be able even to conceive the full measure of its promised glory. Its past history, stained by the blood of countless martyrs, may well inspire us with the thought that, whatever may yet befall this Cause, however formidable the forces that may still assail it, however numerous the reverses it will inevitably suffer, its onward march can never be stayed, and that it will continue to advance until the very last promise, enshrined within the words of Bahá'u'lláh, shall have been completely redeemed. |
1. [Mírzá Abu'l-Fadl quotes in his "Fará'íd" (pp. 50-51), the following remarkable tradition from
2. ["`A hollow receptacle of about the size and shape of a cocoa-nut, round the orifice of which two chains are attached at four points to serve as a handle. It is used by dervishes as an alms-basket." ("A Traveller's Narrative," p. 51, note 3.)]
3. ["Excellency, After the carrying out of those energetic measures on the part of the Persian Government for the extirpation and extermination of the misguided and detestable sect of the Bábís, with the details of which Your Excellency is fully acquainted [allusion is made to the great persecution of the Bábís in Tihrán in the summer of 1852], praise be to God, by the attention of the Imperial mind of is most potent Majesty, whose rank is as that of Jamshid, the refuge of the True Religion--may our lives be his sacrifice!--, their roots were torn up." (Extract from letter addressed by Mírzá Sa'id Khán, ex-foreign minister of Persia; to the Persian ambassador in Constantinople; dated 12th of 12th Dhu'l-Hijjih, 1278 [May 10, 1862]. Facsimile and translation of the document reproduced in E. G. Browne's "Materials for the Study of the Bábí Religion," p. 283.)]
4. ["It was a terrible journey in rough mountain country and the travellers suffered greatly from exposure." (Dr. T. K. Cheyne's "The Reconciliation of Races and Religions," p. 121.)]
5. ["But just as remarkable as his boldness in claiming Divine authority is his restraint in insisting that his authority was not final. He felt competent and commissioned to reveal much, but he felt with equal certainty that there was infinitely more yet to be revealed. Herein was his greatness. And herein was his greatest sacrifice. He thereby risked the diminution of his personal fame. But he insured the continuance of his mission.... He insured that the movement he had started would grow and expand. He himself was but `a letter out of that most mighty book, a dewdrop from that limitless ocean.'... This was the humility of true insight. And it had its effect. His movement has grown and expanded, and it has yet a great future before it." (Sir Francis Younghusband's "The Gleam," pp. 210-11.)]
6. ["During the days when I was imprisoned in the Land of Tá [Tihrán], although the galling weight of chains and the loathsome atmosphere of the prison allowed me little sleep, yet occasionally, in my moments of slumber, I felt as if something were pouring forth over breast, even as a mighty torrent, which, descending from the Summit of a lofty mountain precipitates itself over the earth. All my limbs seemed to have been set aflame. At such moments my tongue recited what mortal ears could not hear." ("The Epistle to the Son of the Wolf," p. 17.)]
7. [Gobineau, writing in about the year 1865, testifies as follows: "Public opinion holds that the Bábís are to be found in every social class and among the members of every religion, with the exception of the Nusayris and the Christians, but it is especially the educated classes, the men of learning who are suspected of sympathy with Bábism. It is believed, and with good reason, that many mullás and, among them, outstanding mujtahids, magistrates of high rank, and high court officials very close to the king, are Bábís. According to a recent estimate, there would be in Tihrán, a city of about eighty thousand souls, five thousand Bábís. But this estimate is not very reliable and I am inclined to think that, if the Bábís were to triumph in Persia, their number in the capital would be much larger, for, at that moment, one would have to add to the number of the zealous ones, whatever that number may now be, a large proportion of those who are recently in favor of the officially condemned doctrine and to whom victory would impart the courage to declare their faith openly." (Les Religions et les Philosophies dans l'Asie Centrale," p. 251.) "Half a century has not yet elapsed since Mírzá
9. ["The Cause of the Báb is on the road to great achievements. We have now shown how there has taken place a religious movement which absorbs the deepest attention of Central Asia, that is to say, of Persia, several regions of India and a section of Asiatic Turkey; a religious movement, therefore, truly remarkable and worthy of being studied. Through it, we witness events, manifestations, catastrophes such that one could only imagine possible in remote ages when the great religions were born. I even confess that if I were to see appear in Europe a religion like unto Bábism, with advantages such as Bábism possesses, with complete faith, an undaunted enthusiasm, tried courage and proven devotion, winning the respect of the indifferent, frightening its adversaries and, moreover, a tireless proselytism constantly gaining adherents in every social class, --if I were to see such a phenomenon in Europe, I would not hesitate to predict that, within a given time, power and sovereignty would of necessity belong to a group so richly endowed." (Comte de Gobineau's "Les Religions et les Philosophies dans l'Asie Centrale," pp. 116, 293-294.) "It seems certain that from the religious standpoint and especially from the moral one, Bábism marks an advance over the teachings of Islám; one may hold with M. Vambery (French Academy, March 12, 1892) that its leader has expressed doctrines worthy of the greatest thinkers.... In any case the growth of Bábism is an interesting chapter in the history of modern religions and civilization. And thus, after all is said, those who praise it are perhaps right; it may be that from Bábism will come the regeneration of the Persian peoples, even of the whole of Islám which is in real need of it. Unfortunately there is seldom a national regeneration without much shedding of blood." (M. J. Balteau's "Le Bábisme," p. 28.) "Now it appears to me that the history of the Bábí movement must be interesting in effort ways to others besides those who are directly engaged in the study of Persian. To the student of religious thought it will afford no little matter for reflection; for here he may contemplate such personalities as by lapse of time pass into heroes and demi-gods still unobscured by myth and fable he may examine by the light of concurrent and independent testimony one of those strange outbursts of enthusiasm, faith, fervent devotion, and indomitable heroism--or fanaticism, if you will-- which we are accustomed to associate with the earlier history of the human race; he may witness in a word, the birth of a faith which may not impossibly win a place amidst the great religions of the world. To the ethnologist also it may yield food for thought as to the character of a people who, stigmatised as they often have been as selfish, mercenary, avaricious, egotistical, sordid, and cowardly, are yet capable of exhibiting under the influence of a strong religious impulse a degree of devotion, disinterestedness, generosity, unselfishness, nobility, and courage which may be paralleled in history, but can scarcely be surpassed. To the politician, too, the matter is not devoid of importance; for what changes may not be effected in a country now reckoned almost as a cypher in the balance of national forces by a religion capable of evoking so mighty a spirit? Let those who know what
11. ["The Caliphate began with the election of Abú-Bakr in A.D. 632 and lasted until A.D. 1258, when Hulagu Khán sacked Baghdád and put Mu'tasim-Bi'llah to death. For nearly three centuries after this catastrophe the title of Caliph was perpetuated in Egypt by descendants of the House of Abbás who lived under the protection of its Mameluke rulers, until in A.D. 1517