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                     Unfolding Destiny 
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                     Page 424 
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 Letter of 9 February 1930
 
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	| 1 | 
	
     The subject you had raised with regard to the date of the 
publication of the writings of Bahá'u'lláh is interesting as it is 
important.  If I remember correctly the same issue was raised as 
an open challenge in India by some spokesman of the Ahmadiyya 
sect.  The earliest published writings of Bahá'u'lláh date from the 
nineties of the last century.  Over forty years ago the Aqdas, a 
volume of general Tablets including Tarazát, Ishráqát, and others 
were published in Ishqábád (Russia) and Bombay respectively 
and copies of these though rare are still procurable.  Simultaneously 
with these, if not earlier, some of the writings of 
Bahá'u'lláh were published by the Oriental Department of the 
Imperial Russian University at St. Petersburgh under the 
supervision of its director Baron Rosen (and more particulars 
about these could be found in the books of E. G. Browne) and 
these of course are not undated like some of those published in 
Bombay.  
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	| 2 | 
	
     The main bulk of the writings of Bahá'u'lláh however are to 
be found in manuscript form written by noted scribes after the 
fashion of orientals.  These scribes did not leave all their 
manuscripts undated and Jinábí Zain, a very noted Bahá'í scribe, 
always dated his copies of the writings of Bahá'u'lláh at the end 
of the volume in what E. G. Browne calls `colophenes' and the 
description of some of these colophenes could be found in the 
works of the Cambridge Professor.  
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	| 3 | 
	
     The son of the above-mentioned scribe is still living in Haifa 
and does very much the same work as his father.  He claims that 
as early as 1868 his father used to write copies of the Íqán for the 
Bahá'ís in Persia as a source of livelihood, and that after 1885 
when he went to Akká to join Bahá'u'lláh's party his entire work 
and time was devoted to copying the sacred writings for sale 
among Bahá'ís.  These copies are to be found all throughout the 
East and are almost invariably dated.  
 
 
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