Ch.XXII, p.514, f.2
"Praise be to God who manifested the Point [the Bab] and caused to
proceed therefrom the knowledge of all that was and shall be.... He is
that Point which God hath made to be an Ocean of light unto the faithful
among His servants, and a Ball of Fire unto the deniers among His creatures
and the impious among His people." (Baha'u'llah, the "Ishraqat," p. 3.)
"In His interpretation of the letter `Ha,' He craved martyrdom, saying:
`Methinks I heard a voice calling in My inmost being: "Do Thou sacrifice
the thing which Thou lovest most in the path of God, even as Husayn, peace
be upon him, hath offered up his life for My sake." And were I not
regardful of this inevitable mystery, by Him in whose hand is My soul, even
if all the kings of the earth were to be leagued together, they would be
powerless to take from Me a single letter; how much less can such servants
as these, who are worthy of no attention, and who verily are of the
outcast? that all may know the degree of My patience, My resignation and
self-sacrifice in the path of God.'" (Idem, the "Kitab-i-Iqan," p. 195.)
"The Bab, the Lord most high, may the life of all be a sacrifice unto Him,
hath specifically revealed an Epistle unto the ulamas of every city,
wherein He hath fully set forth the character of the denial and repudiation
of each of them. Wherefore, take ye good heed, ye who are men of
insight!" (Ibid., p. 193.) "This illustrious Soul arose with such power
that He shook the supports of the religion, of the morals, the conditions,
the habits and the customs of Persia, and instituted new rules, new laws,
and a new religion. Though the great personages of the State, nearly all
the clergy, and the public men, arose to destroy and annihilate Him, He
alone withstood them, and moved the whole of Persia.... He imparted
Divine education to an unenlightened multitude and produced marvellous
results on the thoughts, morals, customs, and conditions of the
Persians." (Abdu'l-Baha, "Some Answered Questions," pp. 30-31.)
"Christians believe that if Jesus Christ had wished to come down from the
cross he could have done so easily; he died of his own free will because it
was written that he should and in order that the prophecies might be
fulfilled. The same is true of the Bab, so the Babi's say, who, in this
way, gave a clear sanction to his teachings. He likewise died voluntarily
because his death was to be the salvation of humanity. Who will ever tell
us the words that the Bab uttered in the midst of the unprecedented
turmoil which broke out as he ascended? Who will ever know the memories
which stirred his noble soul? Who will reveal to us the secret of that
death.... The sight of the baseness, the vices, the deceptions of that
clergy shocked his pure and sincere soul: he felt the need of a thorough
reform in public morals and he undoubtedly hesitated more than once, at the
thought of a revolution, which seemed unavoidable, to free the bodies as
well as the minds from the yoke of brutishness and violence which weighed
upon all Persia for the selfish benefit of a minority ... of pleasure
lovers, and to the greatest shame of the true religion of the Prophet. He
must have been much perplexed, deeply anxious, and he stood in need of the
triple shield of which Horace speaks, to throw himself headlong into that
ocean of superstition and hatred which was fatally to engulf him. His life
is one of the most magnificent examples of courage which it has been the
privilege of mankind to behold, and it is also an admirable proof of the
love which our hero felt for his fellow countrymen. He sacrificed himself
for humanity, for it he gave his body and his soul, for it he endured
privations, insults, torture and martyrdom. He sealed, with his very
lifeblood, the covenant of universal brotherhood. Like Jesus he paid with
his life for the proclamation of a reign of concord, equity and brotherly
love. More than anyone he knew what dreadful dangers he was heaping upon
himself. He had been able to see personally the degree of exasperation
that a fanaticism, shrewdly aroused, could reach; but all these
considerations could not weaken his resolve. Fear had no hold upon his
soul and, perfectly calm, never looking back, in full possession of all his
powers, he walked into the furnace." (A. L. M. Nicolas' "Siyyid
Ali-Muhammad, dit le Bab," pp. 203-204, 376.)
"The head of the new religion was dead and, according to the provisions
of the prime minister, the minds of the people would now be at peace and
there was no room for further anxiety, at least from that source. But such
political wisdom was baffled and, instead of appeasing the flames, it had
fanned them into greater violence."
"We shall see shortly, when I shall examine the religious dogmas preached
by the Bab, that the perpetuity of the sect did not in the least depend
upon his physical presence; all could proceed and grow without him. If the
premier had been aware of this fundamental trait of the hostile religion,
it is not likely that he would have been so eager to do away with a man
whose existence, after all, would not have had any more significance than
his death." (Comte de Gobineau's "Les Religions et les Philosophies dans
+F3 l'Asie Centrale," pp. 224-225.) Such a prophet," writes the Rev. Dr. T. K.
Cheyne, "was the Bab; we call him `prophet' for want of a better name,
`yea, I say unto you, a prophet and more than a prophet.' His combination
of mildness and power is so rare that we have to place him in a line with
super-normal men.... We learn that at great points in his career, after he
had been in an ecstasy, such radiance of might and majesty streamed from
his countenance that none could bear to look upon the effulgence of his
glory and beauty. Nor was it an uncommon occurrence for unbelievers
involuntarily to bow down in lowly obeisance on beholding His Holiness--
while the inmates of the castle though for the most part Christians and
Sunnis, reverently prostrated themselves whenever they saw the visage of
His Holiness. Such transfiguration is well known to the saints. It was
regarded as the affixing of the heavenly seal to the reality and
completeness of [the] Bab's detachment." ("The Reconciliation of Races
and Religions," pp. 8-9.) "Who can fail to be attracted by the gentle
spirit of Mirza Ali-Muhammad? His sorrowful and persecuted life; his
purity of conduct, and youth; his courage and uncomplaining patience under
misfortune; his complete self-negation; the dim ideal of a better state of
things which can be discerned through the obscure and mystic utterances of
the Bayan; but most of all his tragic death, all serve to enlist our
sympathies on behalf of the young Prophet of Shiraz. The irresistible
charm which won him such devotion during his life still lives on, and still
continues to influence the minds of the Persian people." (E. G. Browne's
art. "The Babi's of Persia," Journal of J. R. A. S., 1889, p. 933.) "Few
believe that by these sanguinary measures the doctrines of [the] Bab will
cease from propagation. There is a spirit of change abroad among the
Persians, which will preserve his system from extinction; besides which,
his doctrines are of an attractive nature to Persians. Though now subdued,
and obliged to lurk concealed in towns, it is conjectured that the creed of
[the] Bab, far from diminishing, is daily spreading." Lady Sheil's
"Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia," p. 181.) "The story of the Bab,
as Mirza Ali-Muhammad called himself, was the story of spiritual heroism
unsurpassed in Svabhava's experience; and his own adventurous soul was
fired by it. That a youth of no social influence and no education should,
by the simple power of insight, be able to pierce into the heart of things
and see the real truth, and then hold on to it with such firmness of
conviction and present it with such suasion that he was able to convince
men that he was the Messiah and get them to follow him to death itself, was
one of those splendid facts in human history that Svabhava loved to
meditate on... The Bab's passionate sincerity could not be doubted, for
he had given his life for his faith. And that there must be something in
his message that appealed to men and satisfied their souls was witnessed to
by the fact that thousands gave their lives in his cause and millions now
follow him. If a young man could, in only six years of ministry, by the
sincerity of his purpose and the attraction of his personality, so inspire
rich and poor, cultured and illiterate, alike, with belief in himself and
his doctrines that they would remain staunch though hunted down and without
trial sentenced to death, sawn asunder, strangled, shot, blown from guns;
and if men of high position and culture in Persia, Turkey and Egypt in
numbers to this day adhere to his doctrines, his life must be one of those
events in the last hundred years which is really worth study." (Sir
Francis Younghusband's "The Gleam," pp. 183-4.) "Thus, in only his
thirtieth year, in the year 1850, ended the heroic career of a true
God-man. Of the sincerity of his conviction that he was God-appointed, the
manner of his death is the amplest possible proof. In the belief that he
would thereby save others from the error of their present beliefs he
willingly sacrificed his life. And of his power of attaching men to him
the passionate devotion of hundreds and even thousands of men who gave
their lives in his cause is convincing testimony." (Ibid., p. 210.) "The
Bab was dead, but not Babism. He was not the first, and still less the
last, of a long line of martyrs who have testified that even in a country
gangrened with corruption and atrophied with indifferentism like Persia,
the soul of a nation survives, inarticulate perhaps, and in a way helpless,
but still capable of sudden spasms of vitality." (Valentine Chirol's "The
Middle Eastern Question," p. 120.)