A successor or vicegerent the Báb never named, an interpreter of His teachings He refrained from appointing. So transparently clear were His references to the Promised One, so brief was to be the duration of His own Dispensation, that neither the one nor the other was deemed necessary. All He did was, according to the testimony of ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá in “A Traveller’s Narrative,” to nominate, on the advice of Bahá’u’lláh and of another disciple, Mírzá Yahyá, who would act solely as a figurehead pending the manifestation of the Promised One, thus enabling Bahá’u’lláh to promote, in relative security, the Cause so dear to His heart.
- Shoghi Effendi (Chapter 2, ‘God Passes By’)