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Already in Shiraz, at the earliest stage of His ministry, He had revealed what Baha'u'llah has characterized as "the first, the greatest, and mightiest of all books" in the Babi Dispensation, the celebrated commentary on the surih of Joseph, entitled the Qayyumu'l- Asma', whose fundamental purpose was to forecast what the true Joseph (Baha'u'llah) would, in a succeeding Dispensation, endure at the hands of one who was at once His arch- enemy and blood brother. This work, comprising above nine thousand three hundred verses, and divided into one hundred and eleven chapters, each chapter a commentary on one verse of the above- mentioned surih, opens with the Bab's clarion- call and dire warnings addressed to the "concourse of kings and of the sons of kings;" forecasts the doom of Muhammad Shah; commands his Grand Vizir, Haji Mirza Aqasi, to abdicate his authority; admonishes the entire Muslim ecclesiastical order; cautions more specifically the members of the Shi'ah community; extols the virtues, and anticipates the coming, of Baha'u'llah, the "Remnant of God," the "Most Great Master;" and proclaims, in unequivocal language, the independence and universality of the Babi Revelation, unveils its import, and affirms the inevitable triumph of its Author. It, moreover, directs the "people of the West" to "issue forth from your cities and aid the Cause of God;" warns the peoples of the earth of the "terrible, the most grievous vengeance of God;" threatens the whole Islamic world with "the Most Great Fire" were they to turn aside from the newly- revealed Law; foreshadows the Author's martyrdom; eulogizes the high station ordained for the people of Baha, the "Companions of the crimson- colored ruby Ark;" prophesies the fading out and utter obliteration of some of the greatest luminaries in the firmament of the Babi Dispensation; and even predicts "afflictive torment," in both the "Day of Our Return" and in "the world which is to come," for the usurpers of the Imamate, who "waged war against Husayn (Imam Husayn) in the Land of the Euphrates." (23:1) It was this Book which the Babis universally regarded, during almost the entire ministry of the Bab, as the Qur'an of the people of the Bayan; whose first and most challenging chapter was revealed in the presence of Mulla Husayn, on the night of its Author's Declaration; some of whose pages were borne, by that same disciple, to Baha'u'llah, as the first fruits of a Revelation which instantly won His enthusiastic allegiance; whose entire text was translated into Persian by the brilliant and gifted Tahirih; whose passages inflamed the hostility of Husayn Khan and precipitated the initial outbreak of persecution in Shiraz; a single page of which had captured the imagination and entranced the soul of Hujjat; and whose contents had set afire the intrepid defenders of the Fort of Shaykh Tabarsi and the heroes of Nayriz and Zanjan.
(23:2)
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