Mírzá Yahyá’s devilish scheme: - “attempt on the life of the sovereign”

In his folly he had, furthermore, induced Mírzá Áqá Ján to proceed to Núr, and there await a propitious moment when he could make a successful attempt on the life of the sovereign. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

Mírzá Yahyá’s devilish scheme: - “dispatched… one of his supporters” to murder “Dayyán, the ‘repository of the knowledge of God’”

In his fear of any potential adversary he had dispatched Mírzá Muḥammad-i-Mázindarání, one of his supporters, to Ádhirbáyján for the express purpose of murdering Dayyán, the “repository of the knowledge of God,” whom he surnamed “Father of Iniquities” and stigmatized as “Ṭághút,” and whom the Báb had extolled as the “Third Letter to believe in Him Whom God shall make manifest.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

“a campaign designed [by Mírzá Yahyá] to utterly discredit Bahá’u’lláh”

Mírzá Yahyá, closeted most of the time in his house, was secretly directing, through his correspondence with those Bábís whom he completely trusted, a campaign designed to utterly discredit Bahá’u’lláh. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

While Bahá’u’lláh was in Kurdistan: - the “situation of the Bábí community was rapidly going from bad to worse”

While the foundations of Bahá’u’lláh’s future greatness were being laid in a strange land and amidst a strange people, the situation of the Bábí community was rapidly going from bad to worse. Pleased and emboldened by His unexpected and prolonged withdrawal from the scene of His labors, the stirrers of mischief with their deluded associates were busily engaged in extending the range of their nefarious activities. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

‘Abdu’l-Baha’s reference to Bahá’u’lláh’s period of His retirement in Kurdistan

“In a short time,” is ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá’s own testimony, “Kurdistán was magnetized with His love. During this period Bahá’u’lláh lived in poverty. His garments were those of the poor and needy. His food was that of the indigent and lowly. An atmosphere of majesty haloed Him as the sun at midday. Everywhere He was greatly revered and loved.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

Bahá’u’lláh’s reference to His Revelation during the period of His retirement in Kurdistan

Small wonder that Bahá’u’lláh Himself should have, in the Lawḥ-i-Maryam, pronounced the period of His retirement as “the mightiest testimony” to, and “the most perfect and conclusive evidence” of, the truth of His Revelation. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

How people of Kurdistan showed “esteem and respect” towards Bahá’u’lláh

Such was the esteem and respect entertained for Him that some held Him as One of the “Men of the Unseen,” others accounted Him an adept in alchemy and the science of divination, still others designated Him “a pivot of the universe,” whilst a not inconsiderable number among His admirers went so far as to believe that His station was no less than that of a prophet. Kurds, Arabs, and Persians, learned and illiterate, both high and low, young and old, who had come to know Him, regarded Him with equal reverence, and not a few among them with genuine and profound affection, and this despite certain assertions and allusions to His station He had made in public, which, had they fallen from the lips of any other member of His race, would have provoked such fury as to endanger His life. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

Bahá’u’lláh “disclosed new vistas” to the people of Kurdistan

Through His [Bahá’u’lláh’s] numerous discourses and epistles He disclosed new vistas to their eyes, resolved the perplexities that agitated their minds, unfolded the inner meaning of many hitherto obscure passages in the writings of various commentators, poets and theologians, of which they had remained unaware, and reconciled the seemingly contradictory assertions which abounded in these dissertations, poems and treatises. 

- Shoghi Effendi (God Passes By’, chapter 7)

The revelation of the Qasídiy-i-Varqá’íyyih (Ode of the Dove) greatly increased the fascination and interest of those who had “congregated in the seminaries of Sulaymáníyyih and Karkúk”

This episode, by far the most outstanding among the events that transpired during the two years of Bahá’u’lláh’s absence from Baghdád, immensely stimulated the interest with which an increasing number of the ‘ulamás, the scholars, the shaykhs, the doctors, the holy men and princes who had congregated in the seminaries of Sulaymáníyyih and Karkúk, were now following His daily activities. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

At the request of some of the “most eminent doctors and most distinguished students” in Kurdistan Bahá’u’lláh revealed a poem containing “no less than two thousand verses”, “out of which He selected one hundred and twenty-seven, which He permitted them to keep” – this constitute the Qasídiy-i-Varqá’íyyih (Ode of the Dove)

Amazed by the profundity of His insight and the compass of His understanding, they were impelled to seek from Him what they considered to be a conclusive and final evidence of the unique power and knowledge which He now appeared in their eyes to possess. “No one among the mystics, the wise, and the learned,” they claimed, while requesting this further favor from Him, “has hitherto proved himself capable of writing a poem in a rhyme and meter identical with that of the longer of the two odes, entitled Qasídiy-i-Tá’íyyih composed by Ibn-i-Fárid. We beg you to write for us a poem in that same meter and rhyme.” This request was complied with, and no less than two thousand verses, in exactly the manner they had specified, were dictated by Him, out of which He selected one hundred and twenty-seven, which He permitted them to keep, deeming the subject matter of the rest premature and unsuitable to the needs of the times. It is these same one hundred and twenty-seven verses that constitute the Qasídiy-i-Varqá’íyyih, so familiar to, and widely circulated amongst, His Arabic speaking followers.

Such was their reaction to this marvelous demonstration of the sagacity and genius of Bahá’u’lláh that they unanimously acknowledged every single verse of that poem to be endowed with a force, beauty and power far surpassing anything contained in either the major or minor odes composed by that celebrated poet. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

Though Bahá’u’lláh hadn’t seen the book that He was requested to elucidate “He was able to resolve their perplexities in so amazing a fashion”

“God is My witness,” was Bahá’u’lláh’s instant reply to the learned delegation, “that I have never seen the book you refer to. I regard, however, through the power of God, … whatever you wish me to do as easy of accomplishment.” Directing one of them to read aloud to Him, every day, a page of that book, He was able to resolve their perplexities in so amazing a fashion that they were lost in admiration. Not contenting Himself with a mere clarification of the obscure passages of the text, He would interpret for them the mind of its author, and expound his doctrine, and unfold his purpose. At times He would even go so far as to question the soundness of certain views propounded in that book, and would Himself vouchsafe a correct presentation of the issues that had been misunderstood, and would support it with proofs and evidences that were wholly convincing to His listeners. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

While in exile in Kurdistan, some of the “most eminent doctors and most distinguished students” requested Bahá’u’lláh to elucidate “the abstruse passages” in a famous religious book

That seat of learning [theological seminary that Bahá’u’lláh was staying at] had been renowned for its vast endowments, its numerous takyihs, and its association with Saláhi’d-Dín-i-Ayyúbí and his descendants; from it some of the most illustrious exponents of Sunní Islám had gone forth to teach its precepts, and now a delegation, headed by Shaykh Ismá‘íl himself, and consisting of its most eminent doctors and most distinguished students, called upon Bahá’u’lláh, and, finding Him willing to reply to any questions they might wish to address Him, they requested Him to elucidate for them, in the course of several interviews, the abstruse passages contained in the Futúhát-i-Makkíyyih, the celebrated work of the famous Shaykh Muḥyi’d-Dín-i-‘Arabí. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

Bahá’u’lláh’s impact on the people of Kurdistán

Not long after Baha’u’llah’s arrival in Kurdistán, Shaykh Sultán [The father-in-law of Áqáy-i-Kalím, Bahá’u’lláh’s brother] has related, He was able, through His personal contacts with Shaykh ‘Uthmán, Shaykh ‘Abdu’r-Rahmán, and Shaykh Ismá‘íl, the honored and undisputed leaders of the Naqshbandíyyih, the Qádiríyyih and the Khálidíyyih Orders respectively, to win their hearts completely and establish His ascendancy over them. The first of these, Shaykh ‘Uthmán, included no less a person than the Sulṭán himself and his entourage among his adherents. The second, in reply to whose query the “Four Valleys” was later revealed, commanded the unwavering allegiance of at least a hundred thousand devout followers, while the third was held in such veneration by his supporters that they regarded him as co-equal with Khálid himself, the founder of the Order. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

The father-in-law of Áqáy-i-Kalím, Bahá’u’lláh’s brother, arrived in Sulaymáníyyih when He had moved to that town

Meantime His friends in Baghdád had discovered His whereabouts, and had dispatched Shaykh Sultán, the father-in-law of Áqáy-i-Kalím, to beg Him to return; and it was now while He was living in Sulaymáníyyih, in a room belonging to the Takyiy-i-Mawláná Khálid (theological seminary) that their messenger arrived. “I found,” this same Shaykh Sulṭán, recounting his experiences to Nabíl, has stated, “all those who lived with Him in that place, from their Master down to the humblest neophyte, so enamoured of, and carried away by their love for Bahá’u’lláh, and so unprepared to contemplate the possibility of His departure that I felt certain that were I to inform them of the purpose of my visit, they would not have hesitated to put an end to my life.”

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

Bahá’u’lláh transferred His residence to the town of Sulaymáníyyih

Shortly after this contact was established, [a certain Shaykh, a resident of Sulaymáníyyih] Shaykh Ismá‘íl, the leader of the Khálidíyyih Order, who lived in Sulaymáníyyih, visited Him, and succeeded, after repeated requests, in obtaining His consent to transfer His residence to that town. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

As a result of a dream a resident of Sulaymáníyyih sought Bahá’u’lláh out while He was living in caves of Kurdistán

Bahá’u’lláh was still pursuing His solitary existence on that mountain when a certain Shaykh, a resident of Sulaymáníyyih, who owned a property in that neighborhood, sought Him out, as directed in a dream he had of the Prophet Muhammad. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

“the first fruits of His [Bahá’u’lláh’s] Divine Pen”: “Tablet of Kullu’ṭ-Ṭa‘ám and the poem entitled Rashh-i-‘Amá, revealed in Tihrán”

These initial and impassioned outpourings of a Soul struggling to unburden itself, in the solitude of a self-imposed exile (many of them, alas lost to posterity) are, with the Tablet of Kullu’t-Ta‘ám and the poem entitled Rashh-i-‘Amá, revealed in Tihrán, the first fruits of His Divine Pen. They are the forerunners of those immortal works—the Kitáb-i-Íqán, the Hidden Words and the Seven Valleys—which in the years preceding His Declaration in Baghdád, were to enrich so vastly the steadily swelling volume of His writings, and which paved the way for a further flowering of His prophetic genius in His epoch-making Proclamation to the world, couched in the form of mighty Epistles to the kings and rulers of mankind, and finally for the last fruition of His Mission in the Laws and Ordinances of His Dispensation formulated during His confinement in the Most Great Prison of ‘Akká. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

Themes that “poured from His [Bahá’u’lláh’s] sorrow-laden soul” during the time in Kurdistán

In the odes He revealed, whilst wrapped in His devotions during those days of utter seclusion, and in the prayers and soliloquies which, in verse and prose, both in Arabic and Persian, poured from His sorrow-laden soul, many of which He was wont to chant aloud to Himself, at dawn and during the watches of the night, He

• lauded the names and attributes of His Creator,
• extolled the glories and mysteries of His own Revelation,
• sang the praises of that Maiden that personified the Spirit of God within Him,
• dwelt on His loneliness and His past and future tribulations,
• expatiated upon the blindness of His generation, the perfidy of His friends and the perversity of His enemies,
• affirmed His determination to arise and, if needs be, offer up His life for the vindication of His Cause,
• stressed those essential pre-requisites which every seeker after Truth must possess, and
• recalled, in anticipation of the lot that was to be His,
• the tragedy of the Imám Husayn in Karbilá,
• the plight of Muhammad in Mecca,
• the sufferings of Jesus at the hands of the Jews,
• the trials of Moses inflicted by Pharaoh and his people and
• the ordeal of Joseph as He languished in a pit by reason of the treachery of His brothers.

(Shoghi Effendi, ‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

Bahá’u’lláh recalls those painful days during His retirement

At times His dwelling-place was a cave to which He refers in His Tablets addressed to the famous Shaykh ‘Abdu’r-Rahmán and to Maryam, a kinswoman of His. “I roamed the wilderness of resignation” He thus depicts, in the Lawh-i-Maryam, the rigors of His austere solitude, “traveling in such wise that in My exile every eye wept sore over Me, and all created things shed tears of blood because of My anguish. The birds of the air were My companions and the beasts of the field My associates.” “From My eyes,” He, referring in the Kitáb-i-Íqán to those days, testifies, “there rained tears of anguish, and in My bleeding heart surged an ocean of agonizing pain. Many a night I had no food for sustenance, and many a day My body found no rest.… Alone I communed with My spirit, oblivious of the world and all that is therein.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

Bahá’u’lláh retired to the wilderness of Kurdistán, attired “in the garb of a traveler, coarsely clad, taking with Him nothing but his kashkúl (alms-bowl) and a change of clothes”

View of the mountains where Bahá’u’lláh
stayed in Sulaymaniyyih, 1940 (Baha'i Media Bank)

Attired in the garb of a traveler, coarsely clad, taking with Him nothing but his kashkúl (alms-bowl) and a change of clothes, and assuming the name of Darvísh Muḥammad, Bahá’u’lláh retired to the wilderness, and lived for a time on a mountain named Sar-Galú, so far removed from human habitations that only twice a year, at seed sowing and harvest time, it was visited by the peasants of that region. Alone and undisturbed, He passed a considerable part of His retirement on the top of that mountain in a rude structure, made of stone, which served those peasants as a shelter against the extremities of the weather. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

April 10, 1854: Bahá’u’lláh suddenly left the city of Baghdad “without informing any one even among the members of His own family”

Suddenly, and without informing any one even among the members of His own family, on the 12th of Rajab 1270 A.H. (April 10, 1854), He departed, accompanied by an attendant, a Muhammadan named Abu’l-Qásim-i-Hamadání, to whom He gave a sum of money, instructing him to act as a merchant and use it for his own purposes. Shortly after, that servant was attacked by thieves and killed, and Bahá’u’lláh was left entirely alone in His wanderings through the wastes of Kurdistán, a region whose sturdy and warlike people were known for their age-long hostility to the Persians, whom they regarded as seceders from the Faith of Islám, and from whom they differed in their outlook, race and language. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

Bahá’u’lláh confirms later that He ““contemplated no return, and Our separation hoped for no reunion.”

Finally, discerning, as He Himself testifies in the Kitáb-i-Íqán, “the signs of impending events,” He decided that before they happened He would retire. “The one object of Our retirement,” He, in that same Book affirms, “was to avoid becoming a subject of discord among the faithful, a source of disturbance unto Our companions, the means of injury to any soul, or the cause of sorrow to any heart.” “Our withdrawal,” He, moreover, in that same passage emphatically asserts, “contemplated no return, and Our separation hoped for no reunion.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

Bahá’u’lláh’s amanuensis, Mírzá Áqá Ján, recalls witnessing the tremendous sadness that Bahá’u’lláh evinced before His sudden retirement

Mírzá Áqá Ján himself has testified: “That Blessed Beauty evinced such sadness that the limbs of my body trembled.” He has, likewise, related, as reported by Nabíl in his narrative, that, shortly before Bahá’u’lláh’s retirement, he had on one occasion seen Him, between dawn and sunrise, suddenly come out from His house, His night-cap still on His head, showing such signs of perturbation that he was powerless to gaze into His face, and while walking, angrily remark:

“These creatures are the same creatures who for three thousand years have worshipped idols, and bowed down before the Golden Calf. Now, too, they are fit for nothing better. What relation can there be between this people and Him Who is the Countenance of Glory? What ties can bind them to the One Who is the supreme embodiment of all that is lovable?” “

I stood,” declared Mírzá Áqá Ján, “rooted to the spot, lifeless, dried up as a dead tree, ready to fall under the impact of the stunning power of His words.

Finally, He said: ‘Bid them recite: “Is there any Remover of difficulties save God? Say: Praised be God! He is God! All are His servants, and all abide by His bidding!” Tell them to repeat it five hundred times, nay, a thousand times, by day and by night, sleeping and waking, that haply the Countenance of Glory may be unveiled to their eyes, and tiers of light descend upon them.’

He Himself, I was subsequently informed, recited this same verse, His face betraying the utmost sadness.… Several times during those days, He was heard to remark: ‘We have, for a while, tarried amongst this people, and failed to discern the slightest response on their part.’ Oftentimes He alluded to His disappearance from our midst, yet none of us understood His meaning.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

The extent of “Bahá’u’lláh’s sorrows” during the early years in Baghdad – a summary by the Guardian

 The cup of Bahá’u’lláh’s sorrows was now running over. All His exhortations, all His efforts to remedy a rapidly deteriorating situation, had remained fruitless. The velocity of His manifold woes was hourly and visibly increasing. Upon the sadness that filled His soul and the gravity of the situation confronting Him, His writings, revealed during that somber period, throw abundant light.

• In some of His prayers He poignantly confesses that “tribulation upon tribulation” had gathered about Him,
• that “adversaries with one consent” had fallen upon Him,
• that “wretchedness” had grievously touched Him, and
• that “woes at their blackest” had befallen Him.
• God Himself He calls upon as a Witness to His “sighs and lamentations,” His “powerlessness, poverty and destitution,” to the “injuries” He sustained, and the “abasement” He suffered.
• “So grievous hath been My weeping,” He, in one of these prayers, avows, “that I have been prevented from making mention of Thee and singing Thy praises.”
• “So loud hath been the voice of My lamentation,” He, in another passage, avers, “that every mother mourning for her child would be amazed, and would still her weeping and her grief.”
• “The wrongs which I suffer,” He, in His Lawh-i-Maryam, laments, “have blotted out the wrongs suffered by My First Name (the Báb) from the Tablet of creation.” “O Maryam!” He continues, “From the Land of Tá (Tihrán), after countless afflictions, We reached ‘Iráq, at the bidding of the Tyrant of Persia, where, after the fetters of Our foes, We were afflicted with the perfidy of Our friends. God knoweth what befell Me thereafter!”
• And again: “I have borne what no man, be he of the past or of the future, hath borne or will bear.”

Forms of opposition that Bahá’u’lláh encountered during early years in Baghdad

• A clandestine opposition, whose aim was to nullify every effort exerted, and frustrate every design conceived, by Bahá’u’lláh for the rehabilitation of a distracted community, could now be clearly discerned.
• Insinuations, whose purpose was to sow the seeds of doubt and suspicion and to represent Him as a usurper, as the subverter of the laws instituted by the Báb, and the wrecker of His Cause, were being incessantly circulated.
• His Epistles, interpretations, invocations and commentaries were being covertly and indirectly criticized, challenged and misrepresented.
• An attempt to injure His person was even set afoot but failed to materialize.

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

Factors that evoked “the outbreak of the pent-up jealousies” of Bahá’u’lláh’s “ill-wishers and enemies”

To these evidences of an ever deepening veneration for Bahá’u’lláh and of a passionate attachment to His person were now being added further grounds for the outbreak of the pent-up jealousies which His mounting prestige evoked in the breasts of His ill-wishers and enemies.

• The steady extension of the circle of His acquaintances and admirers;
• His friendly intercourse with officials including the governor of the city;
• the unfeigned homage offered Him, on so many occasions and so spontaneously, by men who had once been distinguished companions of Siyyid Káẓim;
• the disillusionment which the persistent concealment of Mírzá Yahyá, and the unflattering reports circulated regarding his character and abilities, had engendered;
• the signs of increasing independence, of innate sagacity and inherent superiority and capacity for leadership unmistakably exhibited by Bahá’u’lláh Himself—

all combined to widen the breach which the infamous and crafty Siyyid Muhammad had sedulously contrived to create. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

“The circumstances leading to the revelation of the Tablet of Kullu’t-Ṭa‘ám”

The circumstances leading to the revelation of the Tablet of Kullu’t-Ṭa‘ám, written during that period, at the request of Hájí Mírzá Kamálu’d-Dín-i-Naráqí, a Bábí of honorable rank and high culture, could not but aggravate a situation that had already become serious and menacing. Impelled by a desire to receive illumination from Mírzá Yaḥyá concerning the meaning of the Qur’ánic verse “All food was allowed to the children of Israel,” Hájí Mírzá Kamálu’d-Dín had requested him to write a commentary upon it—a request which was granted, but with reluctance and in a manner which showed such incompetence and superficiality as to disillusion Hájí Mírzá Kamálu’d-Dín, and to destroy his confidence in its author. Turning to Bahá’u’lláh and repeating his request, he was honored by a Tablet, in which Israel and his children were identified with the Báb and His followers respectively—a Tablet which by reason of the allusions it contained, the beauty of its language and the cogency of its argument, so enraptured the soul of its recipient that he would have, but for the restraining hand of Bahá’u’lláh, proclaimed forthwith his discovery of God’s hidden Secret in the person of the One Who had revealed it. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

“Mírzá Yahyá and his fellow-conspirator Siyyid Muhammad” “instantly detected” the change in Mírzá Áqá Ján and his reverence towards Bahá’u’lláh

The confidence instilled in Mírzá Áqá Ján by this unexpected and sudden contact with the spirit and directing genius of a new-born Revelation stirred his soul to its depths—a soul already afire with a consuming love born of his recognition of the ascendancy which his newly-found Master had already achieved over His fellow-disciples in both ‘Iráq and Persia. This intense adoration that informed his whole being, and which could neither be suppressed nor concealed, was instantly detected by both Mírzá Yahyá and his fellow-conspirator Siyyid Muhammad. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

The incredible spiritual experience of Mírzá Áqá Ján, Baha’u’llah’s amanuensis

This same Mírzá Áqá Ján, recounting to Nabíl his experiences, on that first and never to be forgotten night spent in Karbilá, in the presence of his newly-found Beloved, Who was then a guest of Hájí Mírzá Hasan-i-Hakím-Báshí, had given the following testimony:

“As it was summer-time Bahá’u’lláh was in the habit of passing His evenings and of sleeping on the roof of the House.… That night, when He had gone to sleep, I, according to His directions, lay down for a brief rest, at a distance of a few feet from Him. No sooner had I risen, and … started to offer my prayers, in a corner of the roof which adjoined a wall, than I beheld His blessed Person rise and walk towards me. When He reached me He said: ‘You, too, are awake.’ Whereupon He began to chant and pace back and forth. How shall I ever describe that voice and the verses it intoned, and His gait, as He strode before me! Methinks, with every step He took and every word He uttered thousands of oceans of light surged before my face, and thousands of worlds of incomparable splendor were unveiled to my eyes, and thousands of suns blazed their light upon me! In the moonlight that streamed upon Him, He thus continued to walk and to chant. Every time He approached me He would pause, and, in a tone so wondrous that no tongue can describe it, would say: ‘Hear Me, My son. By God, the True One! This Cause will assuredly be made manifest. Heed thou not the idle talk of the people of the Bayán, who pervert the meaning of every word.’ In this manner He continued to walk and chant, and to address me these words until the first streaks of dawn appeared.… Afterwards I removed His bedding to His room, and, having prepared His tea for Him, was dismissed from His presence.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

During His early years in Baghdad Bahá’u’lláh disclosed “a glimpse of the as yet unrevealed glory of His station” to Mírzá Áqá Ján, His “amanuensis, companion and attendant”

To Mírzá Áqá Ján, “the first to believe” in Him, designated later as Khádimu’lláh (Servant of God)—a Bábí youth, aflame with devotion, who, under the influence of a dream he had of the Báb, and as a result of the perusal of certain writings of Bahá’u’lláh, had precipitately forsaken his home in Káshán and traveled to ‘Iráq, in the hope of attaining His presence, and who from then on served Him assiduously for a period of forty years in his triple function of amanuensis, companion and attendant—to him Bahá’u’lláh, more than to any one else, was moved to disclose, at this critical juncture, a glimpse of the as yet unrevealed glory of His station. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

Bahá’u’lláh’s “words of warning, of counsel and of assurance… at a time when the shadows were beginning to deepen around Him”

Little wonder that from the pen of Bahá’u’lláh, Who was as yet unable to divulge the Secret that stirred within His bosom, these words of warning, of counsel and of assurance should, at a time when the shadows were beginning to deepen around Him, have proceeded:

“The days of tests are now come. Oceans of dissension and tribulation are surging, and the Banners of Doubt are, in every nook and corner, occupied in stirring up mischief and in leading men to perdition.… Suffer not the voice of some of the soldiers of negation to cast doubt into your midst, neither allow yourselves to become heedless of Him Who is the Truth, inasmuch as in every Dispensation such contentions have been raised. God, however, will establish His Faith, and manifest His light albeit the stirrers of sedition abhor it.… Watch ye every day for the Cause of God.… All are held captive in His grasp. No place is there for any one to flee to. Think not the Cause of God to be a thing lightly taken, in which any one can gratify his whims. In various quarters a number of souls have, at the present time, advanced this same claim. The time is approaching when … every one of them will have perished and been lost, nay will have come to naught and become a thing unremembered, even as the dust itself.” 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

Siyyid Muhammad’s machinations

Siyyid Muhammad had meanwhile settled in Karbilá, and was busily engaged, with Mírzá Yaḥyá as his lever, in kindling dissensions and in deranging the life of the exiles and of the community that had gathered about them. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

Mírzá Yahyá’s conduct immediately after the execution of the Báb

The former had, after the execution of the Báb, sustained such a violent shock that his faith almost forsook him. Wandering for a time, in the guise of a dervish, in the mountains of Mázindarán, he, by his behavior, had so severely tested the loyalty of his fellow-believers in Núr, most of whom had been converted through the indefatigable zeal of Bahá’u’lláh, that they too wavered in their convictions, some of them going so far as to throw in their lot with the enemy. He subsequently proceeded to Rasht, and remained concealed in the province of Gílán until his departure for Kirmánsháh, where in order the better to screen himself he entered the service of a certain ‘Abdu’lláh-i-Qazvíní, a maker of shrouds, and became a vendor of his goods. He was still there when Bahá’u’lláh passed through that city on His way to Baghdád, and expressing a desire to live in close proximity to Bahá’u’lláh but in a house by himself where he could ply some trade incognito, he succeeded in obtaining from Him a sum of money with which he purchased several bales of cotton and then proceeded, in the garb of an Arab, by way of Mandalíj to Baghdád. He established himself there in the street of the Charcoal Dealers, situated in a dilapidated quarter of the city, and placing a turban upon his head, and assuming the name of Ḥájí ‘Alíy-i-Lás-Furúsh, embarked on his newly-chosen occupation. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

“Mírzá Yahyá, who claimed to be the successor of the Báb” and “Siyyid Muhammad, exalted by him[Mirzá Yahyá] to the rank of the first among the “Witnesses” of the Bayán”

As the character of the professed adherents of the Báb declined and as proofs of the deepening confusion that afflicted them multiplied, the mischief-makers, who were lying in wait, and whose sole aim was to exploit the progressive deterioration in the situation for their own benefit, grew ever more and more audacious. The conduct of Mírzá Yaḥyá, who claimed to be the successor of the Báb, and who prided himself on his high sounding titles of Mir’átu’l-Azalíyyih (Everlasting Mirror), of Ṣubḥ-i-Azal (Morning of Eternity), and of Ismu’l-Azal (Name of Eternity), and particularly the machinations of Siyyid Muḥammad, exalted by him to the rank of the first among the “Witnesses” of the Bayán, were by now assuming such a character that the prestige of the Faith was becoming directly involved, and its future security seriously imperiled. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)

“The morals of the members of this dwindling [Babi] community…had sharply declined.”

The morals of the members of this dwindling community, no less than their numbers, had sharply declined. Such was their “waywardness and folly,” to quote Bahá’u’lláh’s own words, that upon His release from prison, His first decision was “to arise … and undertake, with the utmost vigor, the task of regenerating this people.” 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’, chapter 7)