|
The great bulk of the writings emanating from the Bab's prolific mind was, however, reserved for the period of His confinement in Mah- Ku and Chihriq. To this period must probably belong the unnumbered Epistles which, as attested by no less an authority than Baha'u'llah, the Bab specifically addressed to the divines of every city in Persia, as well as to those residing in Najaf and Karbila, wherein He set forth in detail the errors committed by each one of them. It was during His incarceration in the fortress of Mah- Ku that He, according to the testimony of Shaykh Hasan- i- Zunuzi, who transcribed during those nine months the verses dictated by the Bab to His amanuensis, revealed no less than nine commentaries on the whole of the Qur'an-- commentaries whose fate, alas, is unknown, and one of which, at least the Author Himself affirmed, surpassed in some respects a book as deservedly famous as the Qayyumu'l- Asma. (24:2) Within the walls of that same fortress the Bayan (Exposition)-- that monumental repository of the laws and precepts of the new Dispensation and the treasury enshrining most of the Bab's references and tributes to, as well as His warning regarding, "Him Whom God will make manifest"-- was revealed. Peerless among the doctrinal works of the Founder of the Babi Dispensation; consisting of nine Vahids (Unities) of nineteen chapters each, except the last Vahid comprising only ten chapters; not to be confounded with the smaller and less weighty Arabic Bayan, revealed during the same period; fulfilling the Muhammadan prophecy that "a Youth from Bani- Hashim ... will reveal a new Book and promulgate a new Law;" wholly safeguarded from the interpolation and corruption which has been the fate of so many of the Bab's lesser works, this Book, of about eight thousand verses, occupying a pivotal position in Babi literature, should be regarded primarily as a eulogy of the Promised One rather than a code of laws and ordinances designed to be a permanent guide to future generations. This Book at once abrogated the laws and ceremonials enjoined by the Qur'an regarding prayer, fasting, marriage, divorce and inheritance, and upheld, in its integrity, the belief in the prophetic mission of Muhammad, even as the Prophet of Islam before Him had annulled the ordinances of the Gospel and yet recognized the Divine origin of the Faith of Jesus Christ. It moreover interpreted in a masterly fashion the meaning of certain terms frequently occurring in the sacred Books of previous Dispensations such as Paradise, Hell, Death, Resurrection, the Return, the Balance, the Hour, the Last Judgment, and the like. Designedly severe in the rules and regulations it imposed, revolutionizing in the principles it instilled, calculated to awaken from their age- long torpor the clergy and the people, and to administer a sudden and fatal blow to obsolete and corrupt institutions, it proclaimed, through its drastic provisions, the advent of the anticipated Day, the Day when "the Summoner shall summon to a stern business," when He will "demolish whatever hath been before Him, even as the Apostle of God demolished the ways of those that preceded Him."
(24:3)
|