A believer who witnessed the verses of God revealed by both the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh

A certain Muhammad Karím, a native of Shíráz, who had been a witness to the rapidity and the manner in which the Báb had penned the verses with which He was inspired, has left the following testimony to posterity, after attaining, during those days, the presence of Bahá’u’lláh, and beholding with his own eyes what he himself had considered to be the only proof of the mission of the Promised One: “I bear witness that the verses revealed by Bahá’u’lláh were superior, in the rapidity with which they were penned, in the ease with which they flowed, in their lucidity, their profundity and sweetness to those which I, myself saw pour from the pen of the Báb when in His presence. Had Bahá’u’lláh no other claim to greatness, this were sufficient, in the eyes of the world and its people, that He produced such verses as have streamed this day from His pen.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 8)

Baghdád 1856-1863: ”hundreds of thousands of verses, mostly written by His [Bahá’u’lláh] own hand, were obliterated and cast into the river.”

As to those verses which He either dictated or wrote Himself, their number was no less remarkable than either the wealth of material they contained, or the diversity of subjects to which they referred. A vast, and indeed the greater, proportion of these writings were, alas, lost irretrievably to posterity. No less an authority than Mírzá Áqá Ján, Bahá’u’lláh’s amanuensis, affirms, as reported by Nabíl, that by the express order of Bahá’u’lláh, hundreds of thousands of verses, mostly written by His own hand, were obliterated and cast into the river. “Finding me reluctant to execute His orders,” Mírzá Áqá Ján has related to Nabíl, “Bahá’u’lláh would reassure me saying: ‘None is to be found at this time worthy to hear these melodies.’ … Not once, or twice, but innumerable times, was I commanded to repeat this act.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 8)

Baghdád 1856-1858: - the “unrecorded verses…in a single day and night”: - “the equivalent of the Qur’án!”

So prolific was this period, that during the first two years after His return from His retirement, according to the testimony of Nabíl, who was at that time living in Baghdád, the unrecorded verses that streamed from His lips averaged, in a single day and night, the equivalent of the Qur’án! 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 8)

Baghdád 1856-1863: The “scope and volume of Bahá’u’lláh’s writings, after His return from Sulaymáníyyih”

 The enormous expansion in the scope and volume of Bahá’u’lláh’s writings, after His return from Sulaymáníyyih, is yet another distinguishing feature of the period under review. The verses that streamed during those years from His pen, described as “a copious rain” by Himself, whether in the form of

• epistles,
• exhortations,
• commentaries,
• apologies,
• dissertations,
• prophecies,
• prayers, odes or specific Tablets, contributed,
• to a marked degree, to the reformation and progressive unfoldment of the Bábí community,
• to the broadening of its outlook,
• to the expansion of its activities and
• to the enlightenment of the minds of its members.

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 8)

Bahá’u’lláh’s “life was characterized by…austerity, and… simplicity”

His [Bahá’u’lláh’s] own life was characterized by that same austerity, and evinced that same simplicity which marked the lives of His beloved companions. “There was a time in ‘Iráq,” He Himself affirms, in one of His Tablets, “when the Ancient Beauty … had no change of linen. The one shirt He possessed would be washed, dried and worn again.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 8)