Symbol and Secret: Chapter One

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STUDIES IN THE BABI AND BAHA'I RELIGIONS

VOLUME SEVEN

SYMBOL AND SECRET:
QUR'AN COMMENTARY IN
BAHÁ'U'LLÁH'S KITÁB-I ÍQÁN

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click for larger photo

REVELATION WRITING in the hand of Mírzá Áqá Ján, taken down in almost illegible script at a rapid pace as Bahá'u'lláh revealed verses. This sheet is from the original manuscript of the revelation of the Tablet of Tajalliyat, and shows the third Tajalli. The stenographic "revelation writing" presumed to have been the first copy of the Kitáb-i-Íqán has been lost.
(Courtesty of the Baha'i World Centre.)

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CHAPTER ONE

BAHA'U'LLÁH
AND THE BOOK OF CERTITUDE

THE NATURE OF BAHÁ'U'LLÁH'S REVELATION

Bahá'u'lláh claimed to be the revealer of God's will for a new period in history. But this claim was made explicit in 1863, after the Book of Certitude was written. Therefore, the status of this work relative to Bahá'u'lláh's own self-consciousness at the time is an important issue in Bahá'í studies.

The spontaneity and rapidity with which Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Book of Certitude became a matter of some renown among early Bábís, the majority of whom would later accept Bahá'u'lláh's ability to "reveal verses" from God as a sign of prophetic authenticity. Bahá'u'lláh did not fail to astonish Bábís on this account. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the Book of Certitude constitutes an act of revelation, a few general remarks on the nature of Bahá'u'lláh's acts of revelation would provide a wider context for understanding the work in question.

One account of Bahá'u'lláh's revelatory experiences is given by Sayyid Asadu'lláh-i Qumi, who met Bahá'u'lláh in 1886. In those days it was customary to write Persian and Arabic with reed pens, which often produced a shrill sound,

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described as a shriek. The calligrapher could control the sound to a certain extent, arousing a rush of excitement in onlookers:

I recall that as Mírzá Áqá Ján [Bahá'u'lláh's scribe] was recording the words of Bahá'u'lláh at the time of revelation, the shrill sound of his pen could be heard from a distance of about twenty paces. In the history of the Faith not a great deal has been recorded about the manner in which the Tablets were revealed. For this reason ... I shall describe it. . .

Mírzá Áqá Ján had a large ink pot about the size of a small bowl. He also had available about ten to twelve pens and large sheets of paper in stacks. In those days all letters which arrived for Bahá'u'lláh were received by Mírzá Áqá Ján. He would bring these into the presence of Bahá'u'lláh and, having obtained permission, would read them. Afterwards the Blessed Beauty [Bahá'u'lláh] would direct him [Mírzá Áqá Ján to take up his pen and record the Tablet which was revealed in reply.

Such was the speed with which he used to write the revealed Word that the ink of the first word was scarcely yet dry when the whole page was finished. It seemed as if someone had dipped a lock of hair in the ink and applied it over the whole page. None of the words was written clearly and they were illegible to all except Mírzá Áqá Ján. There were occasions when even he could not decipher the words and had to seek the help of Bahá'u'lláh. When revelation had ceased, then in accordance with Bahá'u'lláh's instruction Mírzá Áqá Ján would rewrite the Tablet in his best hand and dispatch it to its destination.¹

Although this anecdote reflects as much upon Mírzá Áqá Ján as upon Bahá'u'lláh's celerity, it does show how spontaneous Bahá'u'lláh's dictations were, at least in the eyes of his followers.

The question of exactly when Bahá'u'lláh assumed his role as revelator affects considerably the interpretation of the Book of Certitude. In New Testament scholarship, the counterpart to this question is that of the "messianic secret." Jesus is often portrayed in the Gospels (primarily in Mark) as having an air of secrecy about his messiahship.²

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The classic 1901 study by Wrede (Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien) takes the secrecy pericopes in Mark as unhistorical. Wrede theorized that the secrecy motif was a literary device contrived to reflect the post-resurrection be lief in Jesus as Messiah.³ Although questions of literary falsification are not applicable in the Book of Certitude, one may ask: Does the theme of messianic secrecy afford a parallel here? Was Bahá'u'lláh in fact harboring his own messianic secret during the Baghdad period? We will explore this possibility. It is an attractive hypothesis, but its verifiability presents a problem.

IS THE BOOK OF CERTITUDE "REVELATION"?

Knowing whether Bahá'u'lláh regarded the Book of Certitude as "revelation" at the time of its writing would tell us a great deal about his self-concept at that time. Was he or was he not keeping a messianic secret?

Do Bahá'u'lláh's implicit claims during the Baghdad period (1853-63) indicate a "Secret that stirred within His bosom," as official Bahá'í history maintains, or are such claims to be understood within the context of the exalted theophoric language characteristic of Bábí mysticism at the time? The language of ecstatic mysticism typically exhibits a kind of spiritual bravado. In contrast, the language of revelation is typified by allusion to (or assertion of) divine authority, with a commission intended for individuals, for groups, or for the entire human race. Was Bahá'u'lláh consciously "revealing" the Book of Certitude?⁴

The answer, of course, greatly influences the reading of the text. If Bahá'u'lláh gives no indication that the text is revealed, then the reader might be justified in simply reading the Book of Certitude as a Bábí apologetic. If, on the other hand, there is evidence to show that the author considered the

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text revealed at the time of its composition, the reader may be fairly sure that Bahá'u'lláh already had a strong sense of divine election.

Internal evidence suggests that the author of the Book of Certitude did indeed consider the text to be "revealed." The most telling ground on which to draw this conclusion may be found in Bahá'u'lláh's authorial colophon at the end the text, which makes explicit a claim that the Book of Certitude is "revealed." If the text was expressly claimed as revelation at the time of its writing, it should be added that this claim was given little prominence prior to Bahá'u'lláh's declaration.

E. G. Browne was puzzled by the colophon ending the Kitáb-i Íqán, since he had difficulty reconciling any such revelatory claim to the fact that Bahá'u'lláh was still a Bábí. The Bábí community at that time was, at least nominally, under the leadership of Bahá'u'lláh's half brother Subh-i Azal. The relationship between these two rival claimants will be discussed below. On the colophon itself, Browne observes:

The colophon with which the Íqán closes deserves notice. It runs as follows: 'Al-munzalu min al-Ba wa'l-Ha, wa's-salamu 'ala man samia naghmata'l-warqa fi sidratil-muntaha fasubhana Rabbana 'l-A'1a, ' "Revealed from the B. and the H. (i.e., Beha) and peace (be) upon whomsoever heareth the song of the dove on the 'lote-tree beyond which there is no passing, ' and glory (be) to our Lord the Most High."⁵

Shoghi Effendi translates the colophon as follows:

Revealed by the "Ba'" and the "Ha'."
Peace be upon him that inclineth his ear unto the melody of the Mystic Bird calling from the Sadratu'l-Muntaha!
Glorified be our Lord, the Most High!⁶

The reference to the Sidrat al-muntaha (the Lotus-Tree of the boundary, or the Lote-Tree beyond which there is no passing) is quranic (Qur'án 53:14). The association clearly is

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revelatory. On the explicit claim to revelation, Browne remarks:

The expression munzal ('revealed,' 'sent down') is remarkable, since we have seen that Beha at this date asserted that he 'claimed no authority over any one,' which statement could scarcely be put forward if he intended the work in which it occurs to be regarded in the light of a revelation. I therefore think it most probable that the colophon was added at a later date, after Beha's claim had been put forward and accepted by the majority of the Bábís, and when all his writings (including, probably, those composed at a date previous to this claim) were regarded as inspired. The point can only be settled definitely when a copy of the Íqán written previously to this date (i.e., before A.H. 1283, A.D. 1866-67) can be obtained and examined. The British Museum MS. ends with the same colophon, except that al-manzal is written instead of al-munzal.⁷

Browne is correct in raising the issue of the presence of the colophon in the earliest manuscripts of the text. It is hoped that some day a critical edition of the Kitáb-i-Íqán will be undertaken, which will no doubt settle such textual questions. The most reliable manuscripts I have consulted indicate that the original word was al-manzúl. The definitive answer would come, of course, from examining the original manuscript.

Although there is no doubt that the expression "revealed" does exist in the original colophon, we must find corroboration for the assertion of revelation on other internal grounds. One passage for which a case can be made for implied claim to revelation is the following:

By God! This Bird of Heaven, now dwelling upon the dust, can, besides these melodies, utter a myriad songs, and is able, apart from these utterances, to unfold innumerable mysteries. Every single note of its unpronounced utterances is immeasurably exalted above all that hath already been revealed,⁸ and immensely glorified beyond that which hath streamed from this Pen. Let the future disclose the hour when the Brides of inner

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meaning will, as decreed by the Will of God, hasten forth unveiled, out of their mystic mansions, and manifest themselves in the ancient realm of being.⁹

Is this a mystical claim or a prophetic claim? The designation "Bird of Heaven" is more literally rendered "earthly Dove" (hamamiy-i turabi) by Ali-Kuli Khan.¹⁰ The translation given by Shoghi Effendi reflects the sense that, since a bird normally flies in the sky or perches in a tree, the "earthly Dove" (or, inelegantly, "bird of dust") signifies a man of God obliged to live in mortality. At any rate, what the dove claims to do is incontestably a gift from "heaven." Bahá'u'lláh's professed ability to unfold "innumerable mysteries" (rumuz-ha) seems contextually related to the intimation, "let the future disclose the hour." Bahá'u'lláh follows with a quotation in Arabic," which ends:

All proclaim His Revelation (amr)¹² and all unfold the mysteries (Asrár) of His Spirit.¹³

The entire passage would appear (albeit in retrospect) to be a claim to impending revelation, expressed obliquely, with a deliberate artifice of ambivalence.

In similar fashion, Bahá'u'lláh opens Part Two of the book with these words in Arabic:

Verily He Who is the Day-Star of Truth and Revealer of the Supreme Being holdeth, for all time, undisputed sovereignty over all that is in heaven and on earth, though no man be found on earth to obey Him. He verily is independent of all earthly dominion, though he be utterly destitute. Thus We reveal (nazharu) unto thee the mysteries of the Cause (Asrár al-amr) of God, and bestow upon thee the gems of divine wisdom, that haply thou mayest soar on the wings of renunciation to those heights that are veiled from the eyes of men.¹⁴

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This is oblique self-disclosure. The verb nazhar comes from the root zahara, from which derives the Bahá'í technical term for one unto whom God reveals and in whom God metaphorically "appears," i.e., a "Manifestation" (zuhur) of God.¹⁵ The verb does not necessarily denote (or exclude) revelation, but it can carry that connotation. In an Islamic context, any claim to expounding the "mysteries of God" could easily be construed as an explicit claim to some kind of divine election. But deliberate ambiguity is artfully maintained here.

DATE OF REVELATION

Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith from 1921 to 1957, produced what became the standard translation of the Book of Certitude. Ideally, a translator should also be an authority on the text. Thus we look to Shoghi Effendi's pronouncements, as the logical starting point for dating the text in question. As to the date of revelation, Shoghi Effendi has fixed 1278 A.H. on internal grounds. In a letter written in the early years of his leadership, the Guardian initially had given 1861 as the year.¹⁶ Because the year 1278 A.H. converts to 1861-62, Shoghi Effendi presumably did not have any more specific data at his disposal at that time. Later, he quite definitely designated the year as 1862.¹⁷

Shoghi Effendi also is quite definite about the fact that the Book of Certitude was revealed in two days and two nights.¹⁸ The Báb's unconverted maternal uncle, Hájí Mírzá Sayyid Muhammad, at the urging of his Bábí relative Mírzá Áqáy-i Nasiru'd-Din, had submitted certain questions to Bahá'u'lláh, but had not much time to receive his answers.¹⁹ In Khanidan-i Afnan, the Persian biography of the Afnan family (the relatives of the Báb), Hájí Mírzá Sayyid Muhammad states that Bahá'u'lláh completed the Íqán within two days of having received the questions submitted to him. This is confirmed in the unpublished memoirs of Áqáy-i Nuru'd-Din.²⁰

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Originally it had been thought that the text was revealed in one night. Based on information obtained from Mírzá Abu'l-Fadl Gulpaygani, in the preface to his first English translation of the Book of Certitude, Ali-Kuli Khan states:

According to the prevailing opinion of the Bahá'ís, it was written in one night by the Supreme Pen [Bahá'u'lláh]. It is certain that Persian pilgrims to the holy sanctuaries in Irak do not stop in Baghdad more than one day. Even if Hájí-Seyd-Mohammed, as an exception to this custom, had remained in Baghdad a longer time, it is not probable that he could have attained to the presence of Bahá Ulláh more than two or three times. The Seyd submitted his questions through Hájí-Seyd-Jawad of Karbila, to whom Bahá Ulláh had sent this message, "Let the maternal uncle of the Báb write down his questions; We will then write an answer to each." This strengthens the opinion of the rapidity of the Book.²¹

It appears that the pilgrim returned with the original in hand, and this was kept in the family of the Báb's uncle until 1948, when it was presented to the Guardian.

It is remarkable that a work of this size (some 200 pages in Persian) should have been revealed and copied within so short a time. Both reports, of the one-day and two-day periods of revelation, are reconcilable if the text was revealed within the first twenty-four hours and transcribed from "revelation writing" (khatt-i tanzil), now lost, within the next day and night. A further possibility has been raised by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice. In its Memorandum dated 22 January 1995, the Research Department writes:

Aside from the statements of the Guardian, on page 138 of God Passes By, we have located no other historical evidence of the span of time in which the book was revealed. It is interesting to note that Shoghi Effendi says only that the book was revealed within the space of two days and nights. The question of when

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a copy was made is not addressed. At the top of the same page, the Guardian states that "the unrecorded verses that streamed from His lips averaged, in a single day and night, the equivalent of the Qur'án!" Bahá'u'lláh Himself testifies to this phenomenon. See, for instance, His description in the Lawh-i Nasir in Majmu'ih (Cairo: 1920) p. 175.

On the 1278 A.H./1861-62 C.E. date of composition, Browne (writing in 1889) at one point concurred, giving a literal translation of the internal evidence from the Book of Certitude itself:

One thousand two hundred and seventy-eight years have passed since the Manifestation of the 'Point of the Furkan' (i.e. Muhammad, who is so called in correspondence with the title "Point of the Beyan" applied to the Báb), and all these worthless wretches have read the Qur'án every morning, and have not yet attained to a single letter of the purport thereof. (Hal hazar uudivist uu haftdd (uu) hasht sing az zUhiur-i-Nukta-i-Furkan gu;asht, vajami'-i-in hamaj-i-rad'dar har qabah talavat-i-Kurdn namzude and, va hanuiz bi-harft az maksuud-i-an fdliz na-shudg.)²²

Browne reminds us that although "the Báb is very fond of dating not from the hijra, but from the bi'sat²³ (mission) of Muhammad, which he places ten years earlier," no compelling reason requires that Bahá'u'lláh, though at the time a Bábí, followed the Báb's system of dating. (Had Bahá'u'lláh followed the Báb's method of reckoning, the reference to 1,278 years would have converted to 1268 A.H.) Furthermore, Browne concludes, judging from the two references to Baghdad in the text itself, that 1278 A.H., and not 1268 A.H. (when Bahá'u'lláh was in Tehran), is intended.²⁴ In 1892, Browne revised his dating based on other internal grounds, complicating the problem somewhat.

Browne notes that Bahá'u'lláh chose to return from exile when, "the order to return emanated from the source of command" (az masdar-i amr hukm-i ruju' sadir shud).²⁵ In the sentences immediately following in the Persian text, Bahá'u'lláh

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states, "What pen can recount the things We beheld upon Our return! Two years have elapsed during which Our enemies have ceaselessly and assiduously contrived to exterminate Us, whereunto all witness."²⁶ Browne understood the reference to "two years" as the period immediately following Bahá'u'lláh's return in 1856 from a self-imposed exile in the mountains of Kurdistan.

But it seems that Browne's reading may be mistaken. According to Nosrat M. Hosseini, the presence of the adverb "now" (hal) in the Persian text clearly identifies the present. Bahá'u'lláh evidently is referring to machinations against him which had been ongoing for the past two years from the time of writing. This is probably a reference to the schemes of Sayyid Muhammad lsfahani, Bahá's mortal enemy.²⁷

In an apparent preference for Browne's revised determination, MacEoin now favors the year circa 1858²⁸ over 1861-62, such that Browne's argument is still maintained in some current scholarship. Browne reasoned:

[A]II the writings wherein Beha [Bahá'u'lláh] clearly advances a claim to supremacy, contain internal evidence to prove that they were not written before the Adrianople period. The Ikan, which is the only one of Beha's works certainly known to have been written in Baghdad, contains no declaration of such a claim ... Now, according to Nabil's poem (stanza 6), Beha returned to Baghdad from his two years' retirement at the age of forty, i.e. in A.H. 1272-3 (A.D. 1856), so that the Ikan must have been concluded ... in A.D. 1858.²⁹

However, the return from exile is, at best, a past event, a terminus a quo (another of which may be the citation of Arabic Hidden Word No. 62, included without quotation formula in the Book of Certitude itself).³⁰

There is, however, one further piece of internal evidence which corroborates—I think conclusively—the 1278 date. In speaking of the persecution of the Bábís, Bahá'u'lláh draws

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an interesting comparison, and contrast, to the martyrdom of Imam Husayn:

Were not the happenings of the life of the "Prince of Martyrs" regarded as the greatest of all events, as the supreme evidence of his truth? Did not the people of old declare those happenings to be unprecedented? Did they not maintain that no manifestation of truth ever evinced such constancy, such conspicuous glory? And yet, that episode of his life, commencing as it did in the morning, was brought to a close by the middle of the same day, whereas, these holy lights have, for eighteen years, heroically endured the showers of afflictions which, from every side, have rained upon them."

The reference to eighteen years squares with the explicit mention of 1278, as the declaration of the Báb (and thereafter the Bábí movement) took place in 1260 A.H./1844 C.E. Amanat states: "All the sources agree with the Báb [Bayán II, 7, 301 that it was on the night of 5 Jumada al-Ula 1260/22 May 1844 that Mulla Husayn fully accepted Sayyid 'Ali Muhammad's claim" to babiyya (Gatehood).³² This date should have been a matter of general knowledge among the Bábís, irrespective of when formal use of the Badi' calendar commenced among them and among Bahá'ís thereafter. (The Badi' calendar of 19 months of 19 days each, with intervening intercalary days to complete the solar year, was established by the Báb in the Kitáb al-Asmá', and was later ratified, with minor changes, by Bahá'u'lláh in the Kitáb-i Aqdas, which stated that it should begin with the Báb's declaration.)"

There is no question that Bahá'u'lláh had in mind the year 1260 A.H., as references to the apocalyptic significance of that date occur elsewhere in the Kitáb-i Íqán, as well as an³⁴ explicit reference to the Báb's declaration in the year 1260. By simple calculation, 22 May 1844, plus eighteen solar years equals 22 May 1862. But Bahá'u'lláh was not referring to solar years. For lunar years, the rule of thumb is that a lunar

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year is around eleven days shorter than the solar year. To approximate dating, we shall take Bahá'u'lláh literally and exclude the possibility of his having rounded up. Disregarding leap years, let us subtract 198 days (11 days x 18 years), from 22 May 1862. This yields early November 1861, give or take a few days. Only if Bahá'u'lláh meant a period of time well over eighteen years, does a dating some time in 1862 become likely. For this reason, the more conservative dating for the revelation of the Book of Certitude would be 1278 A.H., equivalent to 1861-62 C.E.

The date of revelation of the Book of Certitude is, I think, established as 1278 A.H. on fairly straightforward and explicit internal grounds. But conversion to the Gregorian calendar is not so precise. The official Bahá'í date, though at one time 1861 C.E., is now 1862 C.E. To err on the side of caution, until specific justification for 1862 comes to light, a more conservative estimate of 1861-62 is to be preferred for purposes of academic investigation. Apart from intrinsic interest over the date of the text itself, its fixed place within an overall time frame goes far toward situating the Book of Certitude within Bahá'u'lláh's developing messianic self-consciousness.³⁵

CIRCUMSTANCES OF REVELATION

In Bahá'í terms, the Book of Certitude is considered a demonstrative (but technically, not a philosophical) treatise (istidlaliyya). Bahá'u'lláh advances and explains various quranic and New Testament passages for a dual purpose: (1) to vindicate the divine mission of the Báb; and (2) implicitly, to establish Bahá'u'lláh's own prophetic credentials on the eve of his proclamation that a cycle of fulfillment has dawned upon the historical horizon, ushering in its wake a global reformation.

The events which led to the revelation of the Book of Certitude were mentioned above. Bahá'u'lláh himself has

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recounted those events. In a Tablet addressed to Shaykh 'Abdu'l-Majid-i Shirazi, he relates that Hájí Sayyid Javad-i Karbala'i came to Bahá'u'lláh and informed him that the two uncles of the Báb were at that time in Baghdad, having visited the sacred shrines in Najaf and Karbala. They were soon to return home. Bahá'u'lláh admonished Hájí Sayyid Javad for failing to teach these uncles, at so opportune a time, of the truth of their Nephew's mission. Hájí Sayyid Javad was³⁶ then instructed to bid the two brothers to visit Bahá'u'lláh.

Although the younger brother declined, Hájí Mírzá Sayyid Muhammad arrived the next day. Impressed by what Bahá'u'lláh had to say, the Báb's uncle prevailed upon him to vindicate the truth of the Báb's mission, in light of the Báb's apparent failure to fulfill popular eschatological expectations. Bahá'u'lláh agreed and bade the uncle draw up a list of his questions. When the questions were submitted the next day, Bahá'u'lláh revealed a lengthy epistle (over 200 pages in Persian) within forty-eight hours. The Book of Certitude was thus originally known as Risaliy-i Khal (Epistle to the Uncle), but was later designated by Bahá'u'lláh as the Kitáb-i Íqán.³⁷

QUESTIONS OCCASIONING THE BOOK OF CERTITUDE

The questions posed by the Báb's uncle make up the structure of the Book of Certitude. These original questions, preserved in family archives, have been published in facsimile.³⁸ They were penned on two sheets of paper and organized under four headings, all dealing with popular Shí'í expectations of the Islamic eschaton, the principal actor of which was to be the heralded Qá'im. The questions may be summarized so:

The Day of Resurrection: Will it be corporeal? How will the just be recompensed and the wicked dealt with?
The Twelfth Imam: How can traditions attesting his occultation be explained?

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Quranic Interpretation: How can the literal meaning of scripture be reconciled with the interpretations current among Bábís?
Advent of the Qaim: How can the apparent non-fulfillment of popular Imami traditions concerning the Resurrector be explained?³⁹

These questions all center on the seeming contradiction caused by the Báb's claim to a realized eschaton in the absence of a literal fulfillment of scripture and popular expectation.

The recipient of the treatise is addressed throughout the text with such salutations as, "O my brother!"⁴⁰ and "Dear friend!"⁴¹ and "O affectionate seeker! "⁴² Although the circumstances of revelation are specific, one should consider the wider audience Bahá'u'lláh had in mind. Naturally, the Bábís constitute the immediate wider audience: "Give ear, O people of the Bayán," and so on.⁴³ The Bábís, interestingly enough, are addressed in the same way that Bahá'u'lláh would address Christians in later writings: "May God assist us and assist you, O concourse of the Spirit! that perchance ye may in the time of His Manifestation ... attain unto the Presence of God."⁴⁴

Finally, the entire world is addressed: "Sanctify your souls, O ye peoples of the world,"⁴⁵ and: "Behold, O concourse of the earth, the splendours of the End, revealed in the Manifestations of the Beginning!"⁴⁶ Bahá'u'lláh's proclamation to a wider audience is arguably rhetorical, perhaps even a fictive device. But judging from the nature of his later proclamations to potentates and pontiffs, it is quite possible he did have a wider audience in mind.

MANUSCRIPT HISTORY

The manuscript history of the Kitáb-i Íqán presents some difficulties which Bahá'u'lláh himself addresses, attesting to the presence of defective manuscripts of the book already in circulation during his lifetime. In an unpublished Tablet, dated 1298 A.H., to Hand of the Cause Mulla'Ali-Akbar Shah-

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Mírzádi (Hájí Akhund), Bahá'u'lláh writes, "some of the copies of the Kitáb-i Íqán are extant in this land ['Akká], but all are not correct."⁴⁷ This statement by Bahá'u'lláh would alone warrant the publication of a critical edition of the Kitáb-i Íqán. It may have been a contributing factor in Bahá'u'lláh's decision to authorize publication of the work in Bombay. Publication, of course, went far towards standardizing the text. Textual irregularities are alleged to have been introduced into this printing. This largely polemical issue, raised by a detractor of the Bahá'í Faith, will be resolved in the next section.

It makes sense to deal with the manuscript tradition before discussing its publication. Shoghi Effendi explains:

The main bulk of the writings of Bahá'u'lláh however are to be found in manuscript form written by noted scribes after the fashion of orientals. These scribes did not leave all their manuscripts undated and Jinabi Zain, a very noted Bahá'í scribe, always dated his copies of the writings of Bahá'u'lláh at the end of the volume in what E. G. Browne calls "colophenes" and the description of some of these colophenes could be found in the works of the Cambridge Professor.

The son of the above-mentioned scribe is still living in Haifa and does very much the same work as his father. He claims that as early as 1868 his father used to write copies of the Íqán for the Bahá'ís in Persia as a source of livelihood, and that after 1885 when he went to Akká to join Bahá'u'lláh's party his entire work and time was devoted to copying the sacred writings for sale among Bahá'ís. These copies are to be found throughout the East and are almost invariably dated.⁴⁸

The frontispiece to Balyuzi's Bahá'u'lláh: The King of Glory presents a facsimile of the first page of one of the early manuscripts of the Book of Certitude.⁴⁹ Browne was in possession of two manuscripts, both of which are preserved in the E. G. Browne Oriental Collection at the Cambridge University Library: (1) catalogued as MS. F.58(10), acquired by Browne in Shiraz on March 1, 1888; (2) catalogued as MS.

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F.59(9) (the superior manuscript)⁵⁰, given to Browne in Akká on April 20, 1890."

The latter manuscript includes a colophon signed by "the letter Za" and dated 11 Jamada I 1306 (January 13, 1889).⁵² The same colophon, inscribed in the form of a diamond superimposed on a triangle, tells us that this was the sixty-seventh copy made by "Za." In Browne's estimation, the manuscript "is an extremely accurate and trustworthy transcript."⁵³

Presumably, Bahá'u'lláh would have dictated the Kitáb-i Íqán, and Mírzá Áqá Ján would have taken it down. This is partly speculation, but is probably true, since the majority of Bahá'u'lláh's Tablets were recorded by the same scribe over the forty-year period of Bahá'u'lláh's ministry. Lost would be the transcript itself, the so-called documents of "revelation writing," a specimen of which has been published.⁵⁴

What is now considered the original manuscript of the Kitáb-i Íqán is the copy given to the Báb's uncle. It is in the handwriting of Bahá'u'lláh's eldest son, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, with a few changes and additions penned in the margins by Bahá'u'lláh himself. During the Baghdad period, much of the scribal work was done by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who was eighteenyears old when he transcribed the Kitáb-i Íqán. For decades this manuscript original was an heirloom of the family of Hájí Mírzá Sayyid Muhammad. In 1948, his great-granddaughter Fatimih Khanum Afnan, presented it to the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith.⁵⁵ The manuscript is now preserved in the International Bahá'í Archives on Mount Carmel.⁵⁶

The existence of this manuscript original would seem sufficient to settle any textual problems encountered in other manuscripts. The original, however, has not been published in facsimile, and so is not readily available for comparison. It is also not altogether certain which manuscript(s) the published editions of the Kitáb-i Íqán are based upon. In one documented case, Monjazeb relates:

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In the period between its composition and its first printed edition (early 1880s), the Kitab-i-Íqán was widely circulating in Persia through the customary method of hand transcription. This procedure naturally gave rise to the existence of less accurate copies which prompted Bahá'u'lláh to approve several other manuscripts as authoritative versions for the purpose of duplication. One such version, according to Bahá'u'lláh in a Tablet to Jamal-i Burujirdi, was given to Mulla 'Ali-Akbar-i Shamírzádi who had been appointed earlier by Bahá'u'lláh as a "Hand of the Cause."⁵⁷

These and related problems in the manuscript tradition invite further investigation. Reconstruction of the publication history of the Íqán is no less challenging.

PUBLICATION

The Book of Certitude was possibly the first of Bahá'u'lláh's works to appear in print.⁵⁸ Besides the obvious advantages in disseminating the work, there was perhaps a need to standardize the text as well. A beautifully lithographed edition, bearing no date, was published by relatives of the Báb (the Afnans) in Bombay possibly in 1299 A.H. (1882 C.E.) by Hasani Zivar Press.⁵⁹

The exact date of the first publication of the Kitáb-i Íqán is itself a matter of controversy. The approximate time frame is fixed by Shoghi Effendi:

The subject you had raised with regard to the date of the publication of the writings of Bahá'u'lláh is interesting as it is important. If I remember correctly the same issue was raised as an open challenge in India by some spokesman of the Ahmadiyya sect. The earliest published writings of Bahá'u'lláh date from the nineties of the last century [i.e., the 1890s].⁶⁰

The nature of the Ahmadiyya-Bahá'í controversy in India is not specified by Shoghi Effendi, but possibly it was a debate

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over which movement was the first to publish ideas which the two might have had in common.

There is, however, some dispute over exactly when the first edition was printed. According to the Muslim cleric Sayyid Muhammad Baqir Najafi, the first edition of the Kitáb-i Íqán appeared in "1308" A.H. (1890-1891 C.E.) and not in 1310 A.H. (1893 C.E.), as one Bahá'í scholar asserts.⁶¹ Other evidence suggests that an edition came out prior to either of these alleged first editions of 1308 and 1310. This comes from E. G. Browne.

In the course of his travels in Persia, Browne says he was shown "a copy of the lithographed Bombay edition" by Shaykh Mihdi Qumi, an Azali Bábí, on July 15, 1888, in Kerman: "(T)he Sheykh began to speak more freely about Beha than he had hitherto done. He produced a copy of the lithographed Bombay edition of the Iqan, which he told me had been sent him by the Beha'is, and pointed out with great disapproval a passage where the Shí'ítes are called 'that foul and erring sect.'"⁶² Evidently, the lithographed edition Browne was shown predates the 1308 "first" edition of which Najafi speaks.

Evidence for a possible 1308 edition comes from an editorial written by Shua Ulláh Behai (i.e., Shúa'u'lláh) published in 1935. Speaking of services rendered by his father (Mírzá Muhammad-'Ali, Ghusn-i Akbar, the "Greater Branch"), a younger son of Bahá'u'lláh who opposed 'Abdu'l-Bahá's leadership of the Bahá'í religion after the death of Bahá'u'lláh in 1892, Shua Ulláh writes:

I shall record hereunder one of his [Ghusn-i Akbar's] services of which I was fortunate in being an eye witness and a participant. In the year eighteen eighty-nine, by the command of Beha'U'lláh, he journeyed to East India for the sole purpose of publishing some of the sacred Books; India being the only country in which printing presses were available at that time.... We remained in Bombay over a year, during which time Ghusni Akbar succeeded in organizing a printing firm called 'Naseri

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Press,' and published five volumes of the teachings of Beha 'U'lláh in the Persian and the Arabic languages. After our return to 'Akká, copies of the said volumes were brought to the presence of Beha 'U'lláh and received His approval. Indeed, this was a great service to the cause.... for to this day, of which forty-four years have elapsed, these are the only outstanding volumes of the teachings of Beha 'U'lláh ever published.⁶³

Of the five volumes two were Kitáb-i iqtidarat and Kitáb-i mubin, both said to be in the hand of Mishkin Qalam.⁶⁴ One of the volumes, according to Shoghi Effendi, included the Kitáb-i Aqdas.' Presumably these five volumes,' including the Kitáb-i Íqán, were lithographed around 1308-10 A.H./1890-93 C.E.⁶⁷

Another source⁶⁸ confirms the identities of four of the volumes of Bahá'u'lláh's writings that were published in 1308-10 A.H. (1) Haft vadi (The Seven Valleys); and (2) Kalimat-i maknunih (The Hidden Words), two unauthorized lithographs published anonymously in India by Sulayman Khan Tunukabuni (known as Jamal Effendi) between 1878 and 1889; (3) Al-Kitáb al-aqdas wa nabdhih min alwah Bahá' Alláh (Bombay: Dutt Prashad Press, 1308/1890-91), a collection of sixty-eight tablets of Bahá'u'lláh in the hand of Hájí Mírzá Husayn of Shiraz ("Husayn who was imprisoned in Khartfim"), naskh, 380 pages of fifteen lines each.

Five volumes of Bahá'u'lláh's writings were published by Nasiri Press between 1308 and 1310: (4) Alwah-i Bahá'u'lláh mushtamil bar Surat al-Haykal, Lawh al-Rais, Lawh al-Aqdas, Lawh al-'Amr va ghayrih—popularly known as Kitáb-i mubin (Bombay: Nasiri Press, 1308/1890-91), a collection of 96 Arabic tablets of Bahá'u'lláh, beginning with Suratu'l-Haykal, in the hand of Mírzá Muhammad-'Ali (Ghusn-i Akbar), naskh, 360 pages of 15 lines each; (5) Iqtidárat va chand lawh-i digar (Bombay: Nasiri Press, 13th Rajab, 1310/31 January 1893), a collection of thirty-three tablets of Bahá'u'lláh (mostly Persian, some Arabic), in the hand of Mishkin-Qalam, nastaliq,

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329 pages of 15 lines each; (6) Ishráqát va chand lawh-i digar (Bombay: Nasiri Press, 1310/1892-93), a collection of thirty-seven Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh (mostly Persian, some Arabic), in the hand of Mishkin-Qalam, nasta'liq, 295 pages; (7) Majmu'iy-i az alpah-i Hadrat-i Bahá'u'lláh bih khatt-i Jinabi Zayn (Bombay: Nasiri Press, 131011892-93), a collection of twenty-three tablets of Bahá'u'lláh, in the hand of Zayn al Muqarribin, 296 pages; (8) Kitáb-i mustatáb-i Íqán (Bombay: Nasiri Press, 1310/1892-93), the first dated lithograph of the Íqán, in the hand of Mishkin-Qalam, nasta'liq, 214 pages.

To this list may be added the following works of 'Abdu'l-Bahá: (9) Maqáliy-i shakhsi sayyah (Bombay: Nasiri Press, 26th of Rabi'll, 1308/6th December 1890), A Traveller's Narrative, in the hand of Zayn al-Muqarribin, nasta'liq, 240 pages of 9 lines each, 21 x 13.5 cm., grey paper; and (10) Kitáb-i Asrár al-ghaybiyya al-asbab al-madantyyih (Bombay: Nasiri Press, 1310/1892-93), known as The Secret of Divine Civilization, 154 pages.

Of the early lithographs of Bahá'u'lláh's writings, two were private publications by Jamal Effendi; five volumes were published by Nasiri Press, formerly located at Frere Road near the blue gate of the Victoria Dock in Bombay; and one volume by Dutt Prashad Press. A survey of early Bombay lithographs confirms the first dated lithograph of the Íqán to be the 1310 A.H. edition in the hand of the celebrated calligrapher, Mishkin Qalam. I could find no record of a 1308 edition of the Íqán. Najafí states that Browne had used the 1308 edition of the Kitáb-i Íqán in the latter's translation of the Nuqtatu'l-Káf. Browne himself, however, does not refer to this edition. More puzzling is the fact that Najafi nowhere states where he found his copy of the putative 1308 Bombay lithograph. This forces the conclusion that Najafis information is unreliable.

Also suspect are Najafi's charges of errors in Qur'án citations present in the first lithographed edition of the Íqán. In its Memorandum dated 22 January 1995, the Research

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Department writes: "In neither of the two early lithographed editions of the Kitáb-i-Iqan are any of the Quranic quotes used differently from the textus receptus other than the verse 2:210 in the first edition." To his credit, Najafi does provide a facsimile of the first two and final pages of the Íqán in question, which attest an undated, rather than a dated, lithograph.

This still leaves unexplained Browne's record of having been shown a lithographed edition of the Kitáb-i Íqán in 1888 A.D. It is Balyuzi who confirms the existence of a pre-1308 A.H edition. On the whole Balyuzi's scholarship was impeccable and meticulous. He states, unfortunately without documentation (though there is no reason to doubt his information): "The Book of Certitude was perhaps the earliest of the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh to appear in print. A beautifully lithographed copy, which does not bear a date and must have been printed in Bombay, is known to have been in circulation in the early eighties of the last century."⁶⁹

There is yet another Bombay lithograph (of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's work), held or previously held at the Institute of Oriental Languages in St. Petersburg, catalogued by Baron Rosen in Collection scientifiques, vol. 6, p. 253, which might provide the most reliable attestation of the undated lithographed Íqán to which Balyuzi refers: (11) 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Asrár al-ghaybiyya li-asbáb al-madaniyya (Bombay: Ijasani Zivar Press [publication arranged by al-Hájí Muhammad Uusayn al-ijakim al-Bahá'í], Rabi' I 1299/January-February 1882): first published work by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, but published anonymously, in the hand of Mírzá Muhammad-'Ali Shirazi, nasta'liq, 101 pages of 17 lines each, bearing the hallmark: "Abdoolally Abdoolrahim & Co., Importers."

Based on a near-consensus that the Kitáb-i Íqán was probably the first Bahá'í book ever to be (officially) published, and on the strength of the preceding data establishing the second Bahá'í work ever published, it is my conclusion that the first edition of the Íqán was an undated lithograph, about which

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the following details are probable: (12) [Missing title]: Kitáb-i mustatab-i-Íqán (n.p. [Bombay: Hasani Zivar Press], n.d. [1299/ 1882 (?)D, a publication undertaken by al-Hájí Muhammad Husayn al-Uakim al-Bahá'í, in the hand of Mírzá Muhammad 'Ali Shirazi, nastaliq, 157 pages of 15 lines each.⁷⁰

Examination of photocopies of pages from an undated early lithograph of the Kitáb-i Íqán held at the Bahá'í World Centre and a comparison with a facsimile of the same text in Najafis Bahá'íyan, p. 469, resulted in a perfect match and verification of the identity of the text in question. Moreover, there is a descriptive match with the undated Íqán lithograph Baron Rosen delineates in Collections scientifiques, Vol. 6, p. 144:

245
N. 501467. 20.5 x 13 c. 157 pages. 151. (longues de 7.5 c.) Une édition lithographic du meme, sans titre, ni indication de lieu et date. M. Browne, 11, 944, nous apprend qu'il existe une lithographie faite bi ce qu'il parait aux Indes et execute avec beaucoup de soin. Elle ne se vend pas ouvertement, tous les exemplaires etant dans les mains adherents de la secte. Rest evident que notre exemplaire est un specimen de cette édition. II est en effet que notre exemplaire est un specimen de cette edition. Rest en effet d'une execution tres-soignee; les caracteres talliq en trahissent l'origine indienne et le papier-tres-beau et tres fort-porte la marque "Abdoolally Abdoolrahim & Co, Importers". —A la fin on lit la meme phrase que dans le autres exx., A savoir: [Arabic text of final sentence of the Íqán cited here].

In fine, there are four extant copies of the undated Íqán lithograph known to the present writer, the existence of which is verifiable, although locations exist for only three of the four: (1) A lithograph donated by Orientalist M. Gamazof sometime between 1886 and 1889. Baron Rosen concludes: "Il est évident que notre exemplaire est un spécimen de cette édition." It was archived as MS. no. 50/467 in the Institute of Oriental Languages of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in St. Petersburg.

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It is probably now kept at the Leningrad branch of the Institute of the Peoples of Asia (Institut Narodov Azii), which had absorbed the oriental institutions of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Akedemiia Nauk SSSR). However, in 0. F. Akimushkin et al, Persidskie Tadzhiskie rukopisi, Instituta Naradov Azii an SSSR (ed. N. D. Afiklukho-Maklai: Moscow, 71 1964) vol., 1, p. 66, Collections scientifiques entry 245 does not appear alongside entry 244, as expected. (2) There is the undated Íqán lithograph held by the Bahá'í World Centre Library (Haifa, Israel), indexed as no. BP 362.K.8.1893 (tentative dating when catalogued). (3) Another is privately held by Mr. Payarn Afsharian, co-owner of Kalimat Press, Los Angeles. (4) Finally, there is Najafi's text, the alleged 1308 edition in the hand of Mírzá Muhammad-'Ali (Ghusn-i Akbar). Najaff gives no location for this text.

The first dated lithograph of the Kitab-iÍqán is the 1310 A.H. edition in the hand of Mishkin-Qalam, catalogued as BP 362.K8.1892 in the Bahá'í World Centre Library. "Three copies of the lithograph known to have been lithographed in Bombay, dated 1310/1892," writes the Research Department in its 14 February 1995 Memorandum, "are also held at the Bahá'í World Centre. We know of no others; however, the friends around the world continue to forward historical material to the Bahá'í World Centre when they find it, and there is always hope that other copies may come to light."

The first printed (typeset) edition was published in Cairo, 1318/1900 by al-Mawsuat Press (216 pages). Based on the above data, the publication record of the Kitáb-i Íqán may be tentatively reconstructed and chronologically ordered as follows:

First edition:
	Bombay⁷²	Hasaní Zivar Press	1299?/1882?	Lithographed

Text revision:
	By order of Bahá'u'lláh		1305-1306/1887-89

Second edition:
	Bombay⁷³	Násirí Press	1310/1892-93	Lithographed.

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Third edition:
	Cairo⁷⁴	Mawsu'at Press	1318/1900	Printed

Fourth edition:
	Cairo⁷⁵	Farij Alláh Zakí Pub.	1352/1933	Printed

Fifth edition:
	Tehran⁷⁵	n.p.	1319 Solar/1941	Cyclostyled

Reprinted:
	Germany⁷⁶	Bahá'í Verlag	136 B.E/1980	Printed
	Karachi	Bahá'í Publishing Trust	144 B.E./1990	Printed

An oblique witness to this chronology is a Tablet of Bahá'u'lláh to Mulla 'Ali-Akbar, in which we learn that Bahá'u'lláh, for an undisclosed period of time, suspended dissemination of the Kitáb-i Íqán some twenty years after it had first circulated. This, owing to dangers posed to the Faith had too many copies of this work fallen into the hands of its enemies. Taherzadeh states:

. . . Bahá'u'lláh advised caution and prudence. He explained that it was not wise at that time to print books, because should a large number of books become available, the enemies of the Cause (who were waiting for an excuse) could be provoked into bringing about an upheaval in that land. Bahá'u'lláh intimates that it was for the same reason that He had stopped the dissemination of the Kitáb-i Íqán which had been printed [sic] some twenty years before.⁷⁷

Reference here to twenty years is confusing. In my own study of this unpublished Tablet, recently provided to me by the Universal House of Justice, it seems that Bahá'u'lláh, some twenty years before, had granted permission to a certain Hubbu'lláh (perhaps a numerically equivalent code name for a known Bahá'í) to have the Íqán "printed" (tab'shud). Permission was granted for only a few copies (chand jild) to be disseminated. Bahá'u'lláh states that these copies had not been proofread. In my opinion, this reference to some kind of "printing" cannot have meant a mechanical reproduction.⁷⁸

Bahá'u'lláh's policy of restricting distribution of the Kitáb-i

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Íqán is stated in this Tablet to Hájí Akhúnd. As to dating, although it is undated, Bahá'u'lláh refers to the two previous pilgrimages the recipient had previously made to Akká. Since it is known that the two pilgrimages of Hájí Akhúnd during Bahá'u'lláh's lifetime took place around 1873 and 1888, it is certain that Bahá'u'lláh had revealed this Tablet sometime between 1888 and 1892. Bahá'u'lláh seems to say that the restrictions placed on disseminating the Kitáb-i Íqán had been relaxed for around one year.

Matched with all of the fixed dates established above, it is now possible to map out a chronology that accounts for all of the data adduced so far in this investigation. The first fixed date is 1278 A.H./1861-62 C.E. for the revelation of the Kitáb-i Íqán, on incontrovertible internal grounds. The second fixed date is the Bombay lithograph of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Asrár al-ghaybiyya li-asbab al-madaniyya (known in the West as The Secret of Divine Civilization) in 1882, which is known either to have followed or coincided with the first lithograph of the Kitáb-i Íqán.⁷⁹

We now have a perfect match with Taherzadeh's notice of Bahá'u'lláh's suspension of publication: (1) The Book of Certitude was revealed in 1278/1861-62. (2) Permission was granted to a certain Ijubbu'lláh for some kind of limited dissemination, the Íqán described as having been "printed" (unpublished Tablet to Hájí Akhúnd, revealed in 1888 or post-1888). (3) For around twenty years (circa 1868-88), dissemination of the Kitab-i-Íqán was restricted due to very real dangers that mere possession of the book posed to Bahá'ís (same Tablet). (4) Nevertheless, for those twenty years, defective copies of the Íqán did circulate, transcribed by hand (unpublished Tablet to Hájí Akhúnd, dated 1298 A.H./1880⁸¹ C.E.). (5) Notwithstanding, around twenty years after its revelation, an undated Íqán lithograph was published in Bombay in the early 1880s (probably c. 1299/1882). (6) A hiatus of approximately ten years between the undated (and perhaps

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unedited) Íqán lithograph and the dated 1310/1892-93 lithograph is partially confirmed by Browne, who in 1889 observed: "Except for a small tract in Persian called Muduniyyat [sic] (Civilization), which does not deal directly with religious questions, the Iqán is, so far as I am aware, the only one of their books which the Bábís have published. It was lithographed, I think in India, and much care was bestowed on its execution. Note that Browne speaks of one edition only at this point in time - a time prior to 1308 A.H./1890-91 C.E., thus rendering Najaffs dating of the "first edition" suspect. (7) During 1305-06 A.H./1887-89 C.E, Bahá'-u'lláh began the process of editing the Íqán (several Tablets cited by Fadil Mazandarani [see below]). (8) Bahá'u'lláh entrusts Hájí Akhúnd with an approved copy (tablet cited by Fadil Mazandarani). (9) In 1310/1892-93, a lithograph in the hand of Mishkin Qalam is published by the Afhans in Bombay. (10) In 1318/1900, the first authentically printed, rather than lithographed, version is published in Cairo. (11) The current version is the 1352/1933 version and its reprintings.

Throughout this process, the role of Hájí Akhúnd invites further research. In 1880-81, Bahá'u'lláh communicated to Hájí Akhúnd the problem of defective copies of the Íqán. Then, either in 1888 or shortly after, Hájí Akhúnd requested permission to publish the Íqán. Presumably after Bahá'u'lláh's editing of the text in 1887-89, Hájí Akhúnd was entrusted with an approved copy of the Íqán to which all subsequent copies of the book were supposed to conform. The question remains as to whether or not the Hájí Akhúnd exemplar, or a copy from it, had served as the master copy for the 1310 lithograph.

Bahá'u'lláh is known to have sent three calligraphers to Bombay: (1) Mírzá Muhammad-'Ali (Ghusn-i Akbar); (2) Muhammad-Husayn Ehartilmi, and (3) Mishkin Qalam. In addition to the volume containing the Kitáb-i Aqdas, published by Dutt Prashad Press in 1308, it has been possible to verify that five volumes of Bahá'u'lláh's writings were in fact published by

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Nasiri Press between 1308 and 1310: (1) Kitáb-i mubin (1308); (2) Kitáb-i Íqán (1310); (3) Iqtiddrat (1310); (4) Ishr�qat (1310); and (5) Majmuih (1310). This perhaps satisfies Shoghi Effendi's historical note in God Passes By. This list does not, however, support Shí'í'au'lláh's allegation that Bahá'u'lláh was shown all five lithographs for approval upon Mírzá Muhammad'Ali's return to Akká in 1891.

Although the problem of the exact identity of the five Bombay lithographs to which the Guardian referred remains unresolved, another approach may be taken in an effort to place the undated Íqán lithograph. The 1890 volume known as Kitábi mubin, containing the text of the Súratul-Haykal, is known to be in the hand of Mírzá Muhammad-'Ali. This lithograph ends with a distinctive colophon in the peculiar and indecipherable "new writing" (khátt-i badi) invented by this particular copyist. The noticeable absence of such a colophon in the undated Bombay Íqán lithograph is incongruent with Mírzá Muhammad 'Ali's scribal signature of the period around 1308 A.H./1890-91 C.E. Najafí definitely had access to an undated Íqán lithograph, the facsimile of which is a perfect match with the Bahá'í World Centre's text and with that in the private archives of Payam Afsharian.⁸¹

NAJAFÍ'S ALLEGATIONS

Although his intentions are polemical rather than academic, Sayyid Najafi has drawn attention to the editing of the Kitáb-i Íqán. By so doing, he has sought to scandalize Bahá'u'lláh by pointing to alleged "errors" in Quran citations. Moreover, he tries to show that Bahá'ís involved in the publication of the Íqán were party to emendations of the text and suppression of the first edition of the Íqán. According to Hosseini, Najafi is a Shí'íte theologian, one of the more committed contemporary critics of the Bahá'í Faith in Iran.

In his book Bahá'íyan, in the section subheaded Tamasuk

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bi Qur'án.⁸² Najafi argues that passages in the "original" 1308 edition of the Íqán clearly documented Bahá'u'lláh's deference to his half-brother, Subh-i Azal, in implicit acknowledgment of Azal's authority within the Bábí community. Such deferential passages, according to Najafi, were purged or altered in the 1310 lithograph, while copies of the first edition were surreptitiously collected and destroyed. But this is not the end of the accusations of tampering. Najafi alleges that errors in Qur'án citations, as well as misrepresentations of traditions (hadith), had existed in the 1308 edition. Ten such errors in Qur'án citation (since corrected) are listed by Najafi.⁸³

Bahá'í authorities were, at first, oblivious to these alleged errors, Najafi maintains. But there soon followed a 1310 edition with some emendations, which Bahá'ís tried to pass off as the actual first edition. The 1318 edition corrected these, and thus represents the first fully corrected version, on which subsequent printings were modeled, according to Najafi.

Support for the "corrupt" text of the 1308 "first" edition is said to exist in manuscripts found in Egypt. Najafí states that he went to Egypt in 1356 A.H. (1977), where he conducted research at the Dar al-Kutub wal-Wasa'l-Qumiya Library. After long research, he chanced upon a manuscript of the Kitab-i Íqán (8cm x 13.5cm), catalogued as No. 5061-S [i]. The manuscript was 92 pages long with nine lines per page (though, judging from the facsimile on p. 472, 19 lines per page seems more accurate). The scribe was anonymous, but Najafi believes it was none other than Zaynal-Muqarrabin (1818-1903), one of the Apostles of Bahá'u'lláh and probably the most reliable copyist. The colophon dates the copy at 1295 A.H. (1878).⁸⁴

Najafi took photographs of the manuscript, and compared them against the text of the 1308 first edition, finding they matched exactly. Further support was found in another such manuscript (dated 1294 A.H.) in the Parliamentary Library in Tehran.⁸⁵ Najafi provides a facsimile of the stamp of the Dar al-Kutub Library, followed by the first page and ending

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colophon, together with page 47.⁸⁶ Both manuscripts are said to agree with the 1308 edition of the Kitáb-i Íqán. For this reason, Najafi believes the "first" edition was based on the text of a Zaynul-Muqarrabin copy. Najafi's allegations may be charted as follows:

Manuscripts	1st Lithograph	2nd Lithograph	1st Printing
Egypt, 1295 A.H.	Cháp-sangí	Cháp-sangí	Cháp-surbí
Tehran, 1294 A.H.	Bombay, 1308 A.H.	Bombay, 1310 A.H.	Cairo, 1318 A.H.
Presumed faithful	Exactly as mss.	Partially corrected	Fully corrected
Servant of Azal passages	Servant of Azal passages	Excised	Excised
Qur'án errors	Qur'án errors	Qur'án errors	Corrected

Najafi's hypothesis that a manuscript copied by Zaynu'l-Muqarrabin stood behind the first Íqán lithograph is plausible. In its Memorandum dated 22 January 1995, the Research Department writes: "The master copies used for each edition have not, to our knowledge, yet been identified; at least there is no record of their existence or whereabouts. Usually, published works of Bahá'u'lláh were based on manuscripts copied by Zaynu'l-Muqarrabin, one of the authorized scribes of Bahá'u'lláh.... The copyist for the Bombay lithographs has not, to date, been identified."

RESPONSE OF THE RESEARCH DEPARTMENT

As the reader can appreciate, there are a number of confusing details to sort out and harmonize. Some of these details are conflicting, in great measure due to the lack of a coherent, documented publication history of the text in question. In response to the Najafi allegations, the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice in Haifa, Israel, wrote a memorandum in which the following information and analysis is provided:

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Alleged Expurgation of Deferential References to Fubh-i Azal:
In its Memorandum dated 10 September 1991 sent to the present writer through the Universal House of Justice, the Research Department responds:

Najafi states that Bahá'u'lláh's acknowledgement of Azal's authority is found in the 1308 A.H. edition of the Íqán and such acknowledgement is corrected in the subsequent editions of the Íqán (Najafi, pp. 464-465). The verse of the Íqán referred to by Najafi as indicative of Bahá'u'lláh's acknowledgement of Azal's authority, reads:

...until the hour whence, from the Mystic Source, there came the summons bidding Us return whence We came. (Kitáb-i Íqán, p. 251).

Najafi and Azali sources have taken the term "Mystic Source" to be a reference to Azal (Najafi, p. 464 and 311-313).

Although Najafi claims that the verse quoted above is corrected in the subsequent versions of the Íqán (Najafi, p. 465), he himself has quoted that very verse on pages 311-312 of his book, and, he himself has shown the source of the verse as the Íqán, p. 195 [1933 edition] (Najafi, p. 311, footnote 23). This edition of the Íqán is the very edition whose title page, first page, and pages 58-59 are photographed on page 467 in Najafí's book and captioned as "corrected version".

In brief, the verse of the Íqán which Najafí claims to have been corrected since the earliest edition of the book is found, in fact, in all editions of the Íqán, and Najafi himself has taken it from the 1933 edition and quoted it in his book.

This response does not resolve the controversy over interpretation of the words "Mystic Source," but if one were, for the sake of argument, to concede the Azali position that this was a reference to Subh-i Azal, Najafi's allegation that this reference was expurgated from later editions of the Kitáb-i Íqán is contradicted by his own references to this verse as found in the so-called "corrected version."

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Alleged Withdrawal and Destruction of the "First Edition" of the Íqán:
Najafi's intention was to scandalize both Bahá'u'lláh and his followers by the alleged expurgation of putative deferential statements regarding Azal, and by the alleged recall and disposal of original lithographs of the Kitáb-i Íqán. In response to the latter allegation, the Research Department writes:

Mr. Buck's statement [sic; actually, Najafi's statement] that the "copies of the first edition were surreptitiously collected and destroyed" is simply not supported by any evidence. As can be seen from the following section of this memorandum, Bahá'u'lláh's own corrections to the Íqán made a new version of the book and, very naturally, other versions fell into disuse.

This statement, a flat denial of any Bahá'í conspiracy to suppress the so-called "first edition" of the Kitáb-i Íqán, neither confirms nor denies the existence of a 1308 A.H. edition, though the context of the Research Department's rejoinder seems to assume that edition for the sake of argument. The ambiguity of the statement, "very naturally, other versions fell into disuse," does not distinguish between manuscript and lithograph.

Since it appears certain that the most important and explicit witness in the text of the "original" Kitáb-i Íqán, attesting Bahá'u'lláh's alleged subservience to Subh-i Azal was in fact not expurgated from the text in any edition, doubt is cast on the relative importance of all other alleged pro-Azali excisions. No other study of the Íqán has ever found that there were excisions from the original manuscript. We know that Bahá'u'lláh made additions in the margins of the original, but not subtractions. We now move to the problem of alleged misquotes of the Qur'án.

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Alleged Errors in Citations from Qur'án and Islamic Traditions:
As to the charge of Bahá'u'lláh having made "errors" in his extemporaneous recall of passages from the Qur'án, the Research Department responds:

During His lifetime, Bahá'u'lláh Himself reviewed the book and indicated necessary changes so that, subsequently, a new, revised version of the book became available. In several Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh, indications are found that during 1305-1306 A.H. (1887-1889 A.D.) Bahá'u'lláh undertook the task of revising the book particularly in order to bring the Qur'ánic quotations in line with the common standard. A sample of such a Tablet is published in the Asrár'u'l-Athar. A provisional translation of a portion of this Tablet follows:

... a copy of a correct Íqán was given to Jinab-i-'Ali Akbar, My Glory be upon him. Existing copies should be brought into conformity with this copy, or new transcriptions made from it. The latter is better and more appropriate. ([Bahá'u'lláh, cited in] Fadil Mazandarani, Asráru'l-Athar [Tihran: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 124 B.E.] Vol. 1, p. 278.)

A careful study of the changes that were made clearly shows that the verses of the Qur'án that were not quoted exactly in the first edition of the Íqán were brought into exact conformity in the new edition. As Mr. Buck is undoubtedly aware, when Bahá'u'lláh quotes His own Writings in a Tablet, He not infrequently quotes them in a form that, while conveying the essential meaning of the original, is not in exactly the same words. It would seem that in revealing the Kitáb-i Íqán, He followed the same practice in relation to passages He quoted from the Quran. The fact that He Himself had them later changed to be in accordance with the accepted text of the Quran makes it clear that He was fully aware of the matter and, moreover, that the change in wording had no effect on the purport of His argument.

Here is positive confirmation by Bahá'í authorities of an original version of the Íqán and "a new revised version."

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Quranic citations were brought into alignment with the standard Qur'án between 1887-88. On the basis of this information, Najafi's 1308 A.H. dating for an unrevised first lithographed edition of the Íqán is too late. In its Memorandum dated 22 January 1995, the Research Department writes: "In neither of the two early lithographed editions of the Kitáb-i Íqán are any of the Quranic quotes used differently from the textus receptus other than the verse 2:210 in the first edition."

This contradicts Najafi. The Research Department states that there was one unaligned Qur'án citation (2:210) in the first Íqán lithograph, while Najafl alleges there were ten verses exhibiting "errors" in citation. Without access to these two Bombay lithographs, the present writer cannot make an independent determination.

The Research Department speaks of other kinds of textual changes as well: stylistic and grammatical. In his Questions and Answers, supplemental to the Kitab-i Aqdas, Bahá'u'lláh himself discloses the editing process and reasons for it: "Many Tablets were revealed and dispatched in their original form without being checked and reviewed. Consequently, as bidden, they were again read out in the Holy Presence, and brought into conformity with the grammatical conventions of the people in order to forestall the cavils of the opponents of the Cause."⁸⁷ This anticipates attacks like those of Najafi.

Such disclosures of editing, particularly by Bahá'u'lláh himself, steals from Najafi's thunder. Corroboratively, in the same memorandum, the Research Department discloses:

Regarding stylistic and grammatical changes: numerous changes are recorded, all of which are reflected in the texts transcribed during the time of Bahá'u'lláh, i.e., assumed to have been seen and approved by Him. Some of the these changes, however, were not incorporated into the early lithographed copies. Please see the attached document where some of these changes are listed.

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It is important to note that the stylistic and grammatical changes mentioned above took place over time - often it was Zayn himself that suggested them - and therefore the various manuscripts differ somewhat, one from the other.

... It is regrettable that the World Centre does not have a copy of the British Museum manuscript BL Or. 3116, foll. 78127. Obviously no comparison studies can be made at the World Centre until it is possible to obtain a facsimile. If Mr. Buck has such a facsimile and can forward a copy to the Bahá'í World Centre, it would be appreciated.

... It is not possible to provide photocopies of the entire volume of the lithographed editions for the purpose of research at this time.

As requested, I did send a copy of the British Museum manuscript to the Bahá'í World Centre. However, facsimiles of the original manuscript of the Kitáb-i Íqán and the two Bombay Íqán lithographs are unavailable to scholars. At the present time, no critical edition of the Íqán is possible until these manuscripts are available for collation. In fact, there are simply no critical editions of Bahá'í scxipture. This is the present state of textual scholarship on the Kitáb-i Íqán.

Discussion:
Although Najafi seems relatively well informed, his prime example of a pro-Azal text in the Book of Certitude is the "Mystic Source" passage, which was in fact not excised but rather retained in all editions of the text. The allegation of excised references to Azal of a laudatory or servile nature is not disproven, but the burden of proof rests with Najafi. Although Najafi appears to have had access to two lithographed editions of the Book of Certitude, nowhere does he cite a suppressed pro-Azal reference.

The mixed results of consulting hostile literature is methodologically significant here. The researcher ought to make every effort to exhaust the literature which is available. While Bahá'ís may be disinclined to include the hostile literature with

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in the scope of any such research project, the academic is obliged to take note of this literature, always circumspect as to bias but open to new data irrespective of its provenance. It is hoped that the ethos of the present study will be enhanced by such a procedure, even if it is misconstrued by readers with an overriding religious interest.

The Persian edition consulted for this study is the 1980 reprint of the 1933 Egyptian printing. This is the same text as that published in 1990 (144 B.E.) by the Pakistan Bahá'í Publishing Trust in Karachi (fourth edition, also based on the 1352 "corrected" version).

The colophon on p. 199 of the 1352 Egyptian edition, concludes, in very awkward Persian, that the text is free of all printing errors: va tashih-i an aghlát-i matbaish [sic; read matba'tl na-darad ("and the correction of that [edition] does not have errors of printing"). But the colophon itself appears to have at least one error: the strange (non)word nahsin [sic] may be a mistake for tahsin (beautification). From an academic perspective, this hardly inspires confidence in the text. A critical edition, requisite to the scholarly study of religious texts in all other traditions, is needed here as well.

The text suffers from the lack of a printed gaf throughout.⁸⁸ Neither is the text free of errors. For instance, there is a passage which Shoghi Effendi renders, in part: "He [the true seeker] will likewise clearly distinguish all the signs of God ... from the doings, words and ways of men, even as the jeweller who knoweth the gem from the stone."⁸⁹ In the Persian text, due to the idiosyncracies of Persian word order and Bahá'u'lláh's mastery of style, the term for "jeweller"—lit., "Jewellers" (ahl-i lu'lu')—is immediately followed by the word for "gem": lu-ra (sic). This latter word should be emended to read lu'lu-rá, where the enclitic accusative marker -rá is suffixed (for the purpose of specification) to "pearl" or "gem" (lu'lu'). The corrected text would thus read: ahl-i lu'lu'lu'lu-rá, instead of ahl-i lu'lu'lu-ra. This technical discussion was

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necessary in order to prove an important point that directly bears on future study of the Book of Certitude.

Contrary to Najafi, no one should be scandalized by emendations in the text. These are all part of the Íqán's manuscript history and publication record. The errors in manuscript copies of the Íqán which Bahá'u'lláh himself noted, together with the aforementioned irregularities in printed editions, probably raise more questions in the absence of a critical edition than they would in a scholarly publication, the critical apparatus of which places all of these problems in perspective.

TRANSLATIONS

The first English translation was undertaken by noted Persian diplomat and Bahá'í Ali-Kuli Khan, apparently at the instruction of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in 1900, according to Monjazeb. Four years later, The Book of Ighan was published in New York by George Blackburne Company, with a revised printing in 1924, by Brentano's of New York, under the new title The Book of Assurance.⁹⁰ Shoghi Effendi thought it necessary to improve on Khan's translation, hoping that "a proper rendering of it would infinitely enhance the teaching work in the West."⁹¹ In an advance announcement of his new translation in 1931, it was said on the Guardian's behalf that "he hopes that this new rendering will be an improvement on the previous one, but he fully admits that it is far from perfect, far from the original itself."⁹² Given its overall superiority in terms of accuracy and eloquence, in addition to its status as the official Bahá'í translation, Shoghi Effendi's translation is the preferred rendering for the purpose of this thesis.

As to other languages, among the following translations of the Kitáb-i Íqán have been published: Albanian (1932), Arabic (1934), Bengali (1975), Chinese (193?), Danish (1974), Dutch/Flemish (1937/1976), English Braille (1961), French

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(1904/1965), German (1969), Japanese (1977), Portuguese (193?), Russian (1933), Spanish (1937/1971), Swedish (1936), Turkish (1969), Urdu (1955), Xhosa (1979). Manuscript translations are said to include Armenian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Czech, Esperanto, Gujarati, Kurdish, Norwegian and Serbian.⁹³

NOTES

^1. From the spoken chronicle of Sayyid Asadu'lláh-i Qumi, Masabih-i Hidayat, Vol. 4, pp. 446-47. Translated by Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Vol. 1, pp. 33-34.
^2. Jesus maintains this secrecy in various ways: (1) Jesus commands demons to be silent over his true identity (Mark 1:25; 1:34; 3: l lf.; (2) Jesus orders silence as to his miracles (Mark 1:43f.; 5:43; 7:36); (3) Jesus instructs his disciples to keep their silence (Mark 8:30; 9:9); (4) Jesus wishes his whereabouts undisclosed (Mark 7:24; 9:30); (5) Jesus gives private teachings to a chosen few (Mark 7:17; 10:10); (6) Jesus conceals his meaning within parables (Mark 4: l lf ); (7) the disciples are often at a loss to fathom Jesus (Mark 6:52; 8:17-2 1). See C. Tuckett, "Messianic Secret," in A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation, p. 445.
^3. Tuckett, "Messianic Secret," p. 445.
^4. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 115.
Phenomenologists of religion have established five criteria of revelation: (1) Origin or author: God, spirits, ancestors, power (mana), forces. In every case, the source of revelation is something supernatural or numinous. (2) Instrument or means: sacred signs in nature (the stars, animals, sacred places, or sacred times); dreams, visions, ecstasies; finally, words or sacred books. (3) Content or object: the didactic, helping, or punishing presence, will, being, activity, or commission of the divinity. (4) Recipients or addressees: medicine men, sorcerers, sacrificing priests, shamans, soothsayers, mediators, prophets with a commission or information intended for individuals or groups, for a people or the entire race. (5) Effect and consequence for the recipient: personal instruction or persuasion, divine mission, service as oracle, all this through inspiration or, in the supreme case,

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through incarnation. (J. Dininger, "Revelation," Encyclopedia of Religion). See also Geo Widengren, "Phenomenology of Revelation." Studia Missionalia Vol. 20 (1971), pp. 301-319.
^5. Browne, "The Bábís of Persia," p. 947; Momen, Selections, p. 253.
^6. Bahá'u'lláh, The Book of Certitude, P. 257.
^7. Browne, "The Bábís of Persia," p. 948; Momen, Selections, p.254.
^8. Persian: Bayán shud.
^9. Bahá'u'lláh, The Book of Certitude, p. 175/Persian, p. 136.
^10. Bahá'u'lláh, The Book of Assurance, p. 125. In Arabic, hamam is, literally, "dove" or "pigeon."
^11. Not indicated in either translation. Besides Qur'án and Hadíth citations in Arabic, Bahá'u'lláh in a number of other passages in The Book of Certitude switches from Persian to Arabic.
^12. Literally, "command." But sometimes in quranic use, and frequently in Bahá'í use, the idea of divine "command" is bound up with the act or concept of revelation.
^13. Bahá'u'lláh, The Book of Certitude, p. 176.
^14. Ibid., p. 97 (Persian, pp. 72-73).
^15. Wehr, Arabic-English Dictionary, p. 583.
^16. Shoghi Effendi, The Unfolding Destiny of the British Bahá'í Community: The Messages of the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith to the Bahá'ís of the British Isles, p. 430: "As to the date of the Íqán I think it can be calculated from the actual text and 1 have it in my papers as 1278 A.H., i.e. 1861 A.D. You will find that in the text itself." In what would be corroborative of the early date (1861), Taherzadeh (The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Vol. 4, p. 295) makes the curious statement that Hand of the Cause Hájí Akhund was actually known to have perused the Kitáb-i Íqán in 1861
^17. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 99.
^18. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 138.
^19. See Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Vol. 1, pp. 155-56.
^20. Muhammad Aliy-i Fayo, Kitáb-i Khanidan-i Afnan Sidriy-i Rahman (Tehran: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 127 B.E. [1970-711) pp. 42ff. I am indebted to Shahrokh Monjazeb for this reference. For Mírza Áqá's testimony, see Balyuzi, Eminent Bahá'ís, p. 227.

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^21. Ali Kuli Khan, "Introduction" to Bahá'u'lláh, The Book of Ighan, pp. vii-viii.
^22. Browne, Selections, p. 251; idem, "The Bábís of Persia. II. Their Literature and Doctrines," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 21 (1889) p. 945.
Shoghi Effend's rendering reads: "Twelve hundred and eighty years have passed since the dawn of the Muhammadan Dispensation, and with every break of day, these blind and ignoble people have recited their Quran, and yet have failed to grasp one letter of that book!" (Bahá'u'lláh, The Book of Certitude, p. 172, Persian, p. 134.) The Guardian evidently took licence in rounding off the figure for an English-speaking audience unconcerned with precise Islamic dates.
Khan's translation was more literal: "To be brief: Twelve hundred and seventy-eight years have passed since the Manifestation of the Point of the Koran." (The Book of Assurance, pp. 122-23)
^23. Arabic: bithat.
^24. Browne, Selections, p. 251.
^25. Browne, "The Bábís of Persia," p. 946; Selections, p. 252. Shoghi Effendi translates this phrase as "from the Mystic Source, tkere came the summons bidding Us return." (The Book of Certitude, p. 251.) There has been some controversy over who is intended by "the Mystic Source." Shoghi Effendi states that God is meant. MacEoin maintains that the Bábí leader Subhi Azal is alluded to ("Divisions and Authority Claims in Bábísm," pp. 118-19): "There are no very good grounds for translating the phrase in question as 'the Mystic Source' nor for identifying it unequivocally with the God-head.... Taken together, these and similar passages lend considerable support to the view, first put forward by E. G. Browne, that the term maqdar-i amr in the Kitáb-i Íqán is to be interpreted as a reference, not to the divinity, but to Azal, as the locus of revelation at that time."
MacEoin and Shoghi Effendi agree on one point: "Mírzá Yahya [Subh-i Azal], realizing full well to what a pass his unrestrained leadership of the Faith had brought him, had, moreover, insistently and in writing, besought Him to return" (God Passes By, p. 126.) I think Bahá'u'lláh's mystical orientation, reflected in all of his writings during this period, conclusively points to his sense of Divine Will as the ultimate source of authority. This seems to be

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borne out in his Persian Lawh-i Maryam (Tablet of Mary-the wife of his brother Hájí Mírzá Rida-Quli, referred to by Bahá'u'lláh as "the Red Leaf" [al-Waráqátu'l-Hamra]):

0 Maryam! ... From the Land of Ta [Tehran], after afflictions which cannot be enumerated, we reached the 'lraq-i 'Arab by command of the Tyrant of Persia, where, after the fetters of foes, 'we were afflicted with the perfidy of friends. Thereafter God knoweth what befell me, until I chose solitary exile, cut off from my household and what it contained, and from the Spirit and what is connected therewith. I journeyed through the deserts of resignation, travelling in such guise that all men wept over my strangerhood, and all things shed tears of blood over my sorrows.
I kept company with the beasts of the field, passing beyond this transitory world like spiritual lightning, while for two years or rather less I avoided all beside God and shut my eyes to all but Him.... Until God's Predestination reminded some of His spiritual servants of this Youth of Canaan, and they began to make enquiry and to establish correspondence with all places and persons, until they discovered a sign of that signless one in a mountain cave. Verily he guideth all things into a straight path. (translated by Browne, Materials for the Study of the Bábí Religion, p. 8)

This Tablet was revealed in the 'Akká period, so is not a contemporary witness. With this caveat, the retrospective testimony of Bahá'u'lláh is still evidential. Though the "Mystic Source" is likely the same as "God's Predestination," in practical terms the return seems to have been occasioned at the urging of several Bábís: Subh-i Azal, Bahá'u'lláh's twelve-year-old son 'Abdu!l-Bahá, Bahá'u'lláh's brother Áqáy-i Kalirm, Shaykh Sultan, and Javád the woodcutter (Balyuzi, Bahá'u'lláh: The King of Glory, pp. 121-22). Bahá'u'lláh himself is referred to as masdar-i amr by the Zoroastrian agent Manakji in the conclusion to the Bábí history, Tárikh-i Jadid, trans. by Browne as, The New History of Mírzá Alí Muhammad, the Báb, pp. 315 and 316, n. 3.
^26. Bahá'u'lláh, The Book of Certitude, pp. 251-52. Bahá'u'lláh's departure from Baghdad is determined to have taken place on April 10, 1854. He returned to Baghdad on March 19, 1856, "exactly two

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lunar years . . . since Bahá'u'lláh's departure." (Balyuzi, Bahá'u'lláh, p. 122.)
^27. Personal communication from Bahá'í scholar Nosratolláh M. Hosseini. See Persian text in Bahá'u'lláh, Kitáb-i Íqán, p. 195. On Sayyid Muhammad Igfahani, stigmatized in Bahá'í history as the "Antichrist of the Bahá'í Revelation," see Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Vol. 1, pp. 246-56.
^28. MacEoin, "Divisions and Authority Claims in Bábísm (1850-1866)," Studia Iranica, Vol. 18 (1989) p. 117.
^29. Browne, "Some Remarks on the Bábí Texts edited by Baron Victor Rosen," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 24 (1892) p. 305. Browne's vacillation over the date of The Book of Certitude is evident in his other works: 'Yet simplicity and directness is to be found in modern as well as in ancient writers of Persian verse and prose: the Íqán ("Assurance") of the Bábís, written by Bahá'u'lláh about A.D. 1859, is as concise and strong in style as the Chahar Máqála, composed some seven centuries earlier." (A Literary History of Persia from Firdawsi to Sadi, Vol. 2, p. 89.) In his entry on the "Báb, Bábís" for Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 2,1 p. 302, Browne states that the Kitab-i-Íqán was "composed ... in 1861-1862."
^30. I cannot prove the direction of dependence at this point, which in any event rests entirely on the validity of the date established for the Hidden Words as 1274 A.H. (c. 1858 C.E.). (Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 140.) In all likelihood, Bahá'u'lláh is quoting one of his previous divine sayings, as nowhere else in The Book of Certitude does Bahá'u'lláh assume the voice of God. The Hidden Word embedded in the text of The Book of Certitude (p. 228) reads: "0 Son of Man! Many a day hath passed over thee whilst thou hast busied thyself with thy fancies and idle imaginings. How long art thou to slumber on thy bed? Lift up thy head from slumber, for the Sun hath risen to the zenith, haply it may shine upon thee with the light of beauty." This may be an oblique hint at revelation. Cf. Bahá'u'lláh, The Hidden Words, Arabic, No. 62.
^31. Bahá'u'lláh, The Book of Certitude, p. 226.
^32. Amanat, Resurrection and Renewal, p. 170.
^33. W. Momen, A Basic Bahá'í Dictionary, "Calendar, Bahá'í," p. 49.

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^34. Bahá'u'lláh, The Book of Certitude, pp. 201, 234, 253. On date of the Báb's declaration, Bahá'u'lláh states: "No sooner that eternal Beauty [the Báb] revealed Himself in Shíraz, in the year sixty, and rent asunder the veil of concealment, than the signs of the ascendancy, the might, the sovereignty, and power, emanating from that Essence of Essences and Sea of Seas, were manifest in every land." (p. 234.)
^35. The Research Department at the Bahá'í World Centre legitimated this dating, stating:

Mr. Buck is correct that an excerpt from a letter publish Unfolding Destiny: The Messages from the Guardian Bahá'í Faith to the Bahá'í Community of the British Isles (London: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1981), p. 430 states: "As to the date of the Íqán, I think it can be calculated from the actual text and I have it in my papers as 1278 A.H., i.e. 1861 A.D. You will find that in the text itself. It was written in answer to questions put by a distinguished Bábí." The Bahá'í Centre Archives does not, to date, have this letter in its collection. However, the Research Department sees no reason why Mr. Buckshould not use the year 1861 as the date of the revelation of the Kitáb-i Íqán. (Research Department, Memorandum date 6 March 1995.)

^36. A. Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Vol. 1, pp157-58. Ishraq-Khavari, Qamus-i-Íqán, Vol. 1, pp. 4-6. Elsewhere it is stated that the Báb's uncle received Bahá'u'lláh's invitation through Hájí Sayyid Javad-i Karbala'i when the latter found the uncle in Kazimayn, "which is distant one hour from Baghdad." See Browne, Materials for the Study of the Bábí Religion, p. 12.
^37. Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Vol. 1, pp. 157-58.
^38. A reproduction of the original handwritten questions by Hájí Mírzá Sayyid Muhammad was published in Faizi's Kitab-i-Khanidan-i Afnan Sidriy-i Rahman (Tehran: Mu'assasy-i Millíy-i Matbu'at-i Amri, 124 B.E. [1970-71 C.E.]) between pp. 40-41. See S. Monjazeb, "Kitáb-i Íqán," in A Shorter Encyclopedia of the Bahá'í Faith, ed. by M. Momen, et. al. (Wilmette: Ill: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, forthcoming).
^39. Balyuzi, Bahá'u'lláh, pp. 164-65.
^40. Bahá'u'lláh, The Book of Certitude, p. 43.

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^41. Ibid., p. 90.
^42. Ibid., p. 91.
^43. Ibid., p. 93.
^44. Ibid., p. 166.
^45. Ibid., p. 3.
^46. Ibid., p. 168.
^47. Text in Iran National Bahá'í Archives, No. 28, p. 193. I am indebted to N. M. Hossein for this reference and translation. Personal communication.
^48. Shoghi Effendi, Unfolding Destiny, p. 424.
^49. Opening page of the Kitáb-i Íqán from a copy dated 1871 in the hand of Áqá Mrza Áqáy-i Rikab-Saz, the first Bahá'í martyr of Shiraz.
^50. Browne, Descriptive Catalogue, p. 79.
^51. Momen, Selections from the Writings of E. G. Browne, p. 488.
^52. Browne, "Description," pp. 665-66; Momen, Selections, p. 488.
^53. Browne, "Description," p. 666.
^54. Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Vol. 1, plates between pp. 110 and 111. In a letter dated 29 December 1994 to the present writer, the Universal House of Justice writes:

Regarding your question whether any "revelation writing" is still extant from the time when the Kitáb-i Íqán was written, no research has yet been done on revelation writing, and none has been identified as coming from the period in question. Furthermore, it is rather unlikely that revelation writing from the period when Bahá'u'lláh was itinerant would have survived; the material in the Bahá'! World Centre Archives is more likely to be from the 'Akká period than from any other period of His ministry.

Corroboratively, the Research Department, in its Memorandum dated 22 January 1995, writes: "The oldest copy of the Kitáb-iÍqán held in the Archives is in the handwriting of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and contains additions on the margin by Bahá'u'lláh Himself. To date there is no copy identified as in the handwriting of Mirrza Áqá Ján."
^55. Ibid., p. 159, with reference to U. Giachery's Shoghi Effendi—Recollections, for an account of this fortunate event.

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^56. Balyuzi, Bahá'u'lláh: The King of Glory, p. 165.
^57. S. Monjazeb, "Kitáb-i Íqán." Cf. Bahá'u'lláh's Tablet to Mulla 'Ali-Akbar Shahmirzadi, in Iran National Bahá'í Archives, No. 15 (132 B.E.) p. 424. Reference provided by N. M. Hosseini, personal communication, July 11, 1993.
^58. H. M. Balyuzi, Bahá'u'lláh: The King of Glory, p. 165. This is Balyuzi's assertion, but it should not go unqualified. There is evidence to suggest that the Bahá'í teacher Jamal Effendi (see Balyuzi, Eminent Bahá'ís, pp. 120-28) had published, in India, two unauthorized editions of Bahá'u'llah's writings: one the Hidden Words, and the other, the Seven Valleys. See note 65 below.
^59. Balyuzi, Eminent Bahá'ís in the Time of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 121; assuming publication of the Íqán prior to Abdu'l-Bahás Treatise.
^60. Letter of Shoghi Effendi (dated February 9, 1930) in Unfolding Destiny, p. 424.
^61. Sayyid Muhammad Baqir Najafi, Bahá'íyan, p. 464, citing Fadil Mazandarani (Asrár al-athár, q.v. Íqán) who states that the 1310 edition was in the hand of the illustrious Bahá'í calligrapher, Mishkin-Qalam (an identification Najafi doubts). If the first dated edition had not been in the hand of Qalam, there were two other possibilities. According to Balyuzi, the two other calligrapher-scribes who produced copies of Bahá'u'lláh's writings for publication were Mirza Muhammad 'Ali (Bahá'u'lláh's third son) and Muhammad Husayn Khartúmi. (Eminent Bahá'ís, p. 121.)
^62. Browne, A Year Amongst the Persians, p. 554. Momen, Selections, p. 107n.
^63. S. Behai, untitled editorial, Behai Quarterly, Vol. 2, no. 1 ("First Quarter," 1935) p. 14. My thanks to Dr. Robert Stockman, Research Office, Bahá'í National Center, Wilmette, Illinois, for this reference. Personal communication, August 17, 1990.
^64. Balyuzi, Bahá'u'lláh: The King of Glory, p. 338. As to the Kitáb-i mubin, Balyuzi could be mistaken, since the colophon is in an undecipherable script which I take to be the invented khatt-t badi' of Mírzá Muhammad-'Ali.
There is a disturbing report that Mírzá Muhammad-'Ali "when sent on a mission to India, had tampered with the text of the holy writings entrusted to his care for publication." (God Passes By, p. 249.)

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^65. Shoghi Effendi speaks of "the publication in India of five volumes of the Author of the Faith, including His Most Holy Book." (God Passes By, p. 195.)
^66. Referring to publications authorized by Bahá'u'lláh. At the request of the Afnans (relatives of the Báb) in Bombay, Bahá'u'lláh had sent Sulayman Khan-i Tunukabuni, known as Jamal Effendi, to India to serve as the first Bahá'í "pioneer" (missionary) of the subcontinent (hence, his Bahá'í renown as the "spiritual father" of the Bahá'ís of India and Burma). Jamal Effendi's first of two missionary sojourns in India lasted a decade, from 1878 to 1888, during which time he "had some of the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh printed and widely circulated." (Balyuzi, Eminent Bahá'ís, pp. 122-23.) What Balyuzi does not mention, perhaps out of respect for this outstanding teacher of the Faith, is that Jamal Effendi had, on his own initiative, published writings of Bahá'u'lláh without authorization. In his missionary zeal, but without explicit authorization, Jamal Effendi had the Hidden Words and the Seven Valleys of Baha'u'lláh published, without Bahá'u'lláh's name as author, leading many to believe that Jamal himself had written these books. See J. Armstrong-Ingram, Preface to Sydney Sprague, A Year with the Bahá'ís in India and Burma.
See also Momen, "Esslemont's Survey of the Bahá'í Community in 1919-20: Part IV. India by Mírzá Mahmud Zarqani," Bahá'í Studies Bulletin Vol. 2, no. 1 (June 1983) p. 3: "After spending some five years in India, he [Jamal Effendi] returned to the Holy Land. Bahá'u'lláh reproved him for having published 'Seven Valleys' in his name." Momen notes an historical inaccuracy here, as 'Abdu'l-Bahá (Memorials of the Faithful, p. 136) states that Jamal had returned to Akká after the ascension of Bahá'u'lláh (Ibid., p. 6.)
^67. One of the five volumes Browne describes as follows: "A collection of selected Alwah ('Tablets') of Bahá'u'lláh, lithographed in 1308/1890-1 in excellent naskh, and comprising 360 pages. The place of production and publication is not indicated, but this, and several similar volumes uniform with it, were, I believe, produced in India at some press officially recognized by the Bahá'í leaders ... There is no title-page, the volume beginning immediately with the Súratu'l-Haykal. The copyist's name appears at the end, but unfortunately only in the 'New Writing' [Khat-i-Badi] of the Bahá'ís,

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which I am unable to read." (Browne, Materials for the Study of the Bábí Religion, p. 190.)
It should be noted that, apart from its incidental use as in the colophon of which Browne speaks, the so-called "New Writing (Khatt-i Badi' of the Bahá'ís" is a misnomer, since this curious script was invented by Mírzá Muhammad-'Ali and, if used at all, would have been used primarily by the Azalis. The script evidently gained little currency, if any, among Bahá'ís.
^68. First Bahá'í Centenary Souvenir: The Hundred Years History of the Bahá'ís of India and Burma (N.p.: Bahá'í Publishing Committee, n.d. [19441) pp. 61. I am indebted to Stephen Lambden for this reference.
^69. Balyuzi, Bahá'u'lláh: The King of Glory, p. 165.
^70. In its Memorandum (dated 28 December 1994) to the author, the Research Department states:

In an email message dated 28 November 1994, Mr. Christopher Buck requested information on the first published edition of the Kitáb-i Íqán. He specifies an edition, evidently known to him, published in Bombay at the Hasani Zívar Press in Rabi' I, 1299 (1882). The Research Department would be interested to know the source of Mr. Buck's information about such a lithographed edition, inasmuch as the earliest dated edition of this book known to the Bahá'í World Centre to be printed in Bombay was published in 1310 (1892-93) in 214 pages.
There is another early edition of the Kitáb-i Íqán at the World Centre, lithographed in 157 pages, but it has no title page, no date and no place of publication. It is possible that this edition might be the one that Mr. Buck has described in his letter. We attach a photocopy of the first and last pages of this edition for Mr. Buck's information. It will be noted that the Bahá'í World Centre Library has attributed a tentative date of 1893 to this copy.

The Research Department adds a caveat to my subsequent identification of the undated lithograph in St. Petersburg with the one held at the Bahá'í World Centre. Responding to my question, "Are any Bombay lithographs of the Íqán known to the Research Department apart from the one in St. Petersburg and the two at the

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Bahá'í World Centre?" the Research Department states: "We assume Mr. Buck intends by this description the undated lithographs. Although the probability is acknowledged, it is still only an assumption that these were lithographed in Bombay." (Research Department, Memorandum dated 14 February 1995) I should add a further disclaimer: The connection I have hypothesized between the publication of 'Abdul-Bahá's Asrár al-ghaybiyya li-asbdb almadaniyya in Bombay by Ijasani Zivar Press in 1299/1882 and the undated Íqán lithograph is admittedly speculative.
^71. I am indebted to J. R. I. Cole for this reference.
^72. Perhaps 1882. Momen without supporting documentation, states as fact that the first Bahá'í book ever printed was the Kitáb-i Íqán in Bombay, followed by the publication of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Kitáb-i Asrár-i ghaybiyya li asbab al-madaniyya in 1882. See idem, "The Bahá'í Influence on the Reform Movements of the Islamic World in the 1860s and 1870s," Bahá'í Studies Bulletin, Vol. 2, no. 2 (September 1983) pp. 52 and 62, n. 17.
^73. Najaff, Bahá'íyan, p. 464.
^74. Ibid., p. 463, n. 121. The first printing of the Kitab-i-Íqán in 'Egypt was by al-Mawsú'at Press in Cairo, 1318/1900. Cf. Cole's reference to the 1318/1900 Cairo edition in Mírzá Abu'l-Fadl, Letters and Essays, 1886-1913, p. 8n.
^75. Najafi, Bahá'íyan, p. 463, n. 122. This edition has been reprinted (sans index): Bahá'u'lláh, Kitáb-i Íqán (Germany: Bahá'í Verlag, 1980/136 B.E.). The title page reads, in part: "Reprinted from the original printing, Egypt, 1934 [sic]." This is incorrect. The colophon to the 1933 edition (following p. 199 on what should be p. 200 but which is unnumbered) states that the book was published in the year 1352 A.H. (1933). The typeset 1933 edition was published by a certain Faraj Alláh Zaki. It bears the title, Kitáb-i mustatab-i-Íqán. Both the 1933 edition and its 1980 German reprint are in the author's possession.
^76. The Tehran edition, Kitáb Mustatab-i-Íqán, is written in the hand of 'Ali-Akbar Rúhání, cyclostyled 1319 A.H. (solar), 97 B.E. A copy is in the author's possession.
^77. A. Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Vol. 4, pp. 32122, citing Bahá'u'lláh's Tablet to Mulla' Ali-Akbar, from an unpublished compilation, National Archives Committee, No. 15, pp. 423-24.

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^78. With this conclusion, the Research Department agrees:

We attach a copy of the Tablet in question. We note that Bahá'u'lláh'does refer to the reproduction of the Íqán twenty years before. It is felt that there are reasons not to leap to the conclusion that He is speaking of an attempt which involved lithography, binding, or other production techniques that might be attached to the term "publication". There is no date given on the Tablet, so it is very difficult to calculate the situation of the Faith twenty years earlier. We note that even if the Tablet was revealed as late as the early 1890s, twenty years before that date marked a time when Bahá'u'lláh was still in prison and when His life and the lives of Bahá'ís in Persia and other parts of the Eastern World were in jeopardy, and it would have been unwise to reproduce literature for dissemination. (Research Department, Memorandum dated 14 February 1995.)

And, further:

. . . Mr. Christopher Buck asks the Research Department to comment on ... use of the word "printed" in connection with the Tablet written by Bahá'u'lláh to Mulla 'Ali-Akbar-i-Shah Mírzadi. The Research Department concurs that the verb was probably inaccurate. Mr. Buck will have noted that in the letter dated 14 February, in which the Research Department commented more fully on this Tablet, the verb "reproduced" was used. (Research Department, Memorandum dated 6 March 1995.)

^79. M. Momen, "The Bahá'í Influence on the Reform Movements of the Islamic World in the 1860s and 1870s," Bahá'í Studies Bulletin Vol. 2, no. 2 (September 1983) pp. 52 and 62, n.17. Cf. Horace Holley, "Introduction," in 'Abdu'l-Bahá, The Secret of Divine Civilization (translated by M. Gail) (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1957 [1975]) "Written in the year 1875, the original Persian text was lithographed in Bombay in 1882."
^80. Browne, "The Bábís of Persia. II. Their Literature and Doctrines," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. .21 (October 1889) p. 944; idem, Selections from the Writings of E. G. Browne, p. 250.
^81. The Research Department's position on the undated Íqán lithograph is as follows:

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The Research Department takes the position that until historical details about problematic issues of any kind are demonstrable by solid evidence, it is preferable to leave them as "unresolved". The date of 1308 A.H. and the identification of the calligraphy as that of Muhammad-'Ali have been propounded by some scholars and doubted by others, and, as yet, the Research Department has no conclusive proof that the attribution of the date and the hand of the calligrapher is beyond question. Indeed, we have proposed that 1308 A.H. (1891) is probably too late a date to attach even tentatively to the undated edition, inasmuch as E. G. Browne was aware of a lithographed edition of the Kitáb-i Íqán in 1888 or 1889 A.D. In the opinion of the Research Department, it is likely that this is the one of which he had knowledge. (Research Department, Memorandum dated 14 February 1995.)

This is the same conclusion independently reached by the present writer.
^82. Najafi, Bahá'íyan, pp. 457-75.
^83. Ibid., pp. 463-64. These are: Quran 2:206; 2:172; 6:35; 74:5 1; f6:5; 29:22; 19:23; 3:115; 50:19; 33:30.
^84. This reported Cairo manuscript should not be confused with the printed Cairo edition of the Kitáb-i Íqán.
^85. Najafi, Bahá'Iyan, pp. 468-69. Facsimile of colophon on p. 473.
^86. Ibid., pp. 470-72. Najafi has not discussed the manuscript original in the hand of 'Abdu'l-Bahá.
^87. Bahá'u'lláh, "Questions and Answers" 57, in idem, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas: The Most Holy Book (Haifa: Bahá'í World Centre, 1992)P.123.
^88. There are two possible reasons for this: (1) As the text was printed in Cairo, the typesetting may reflect the fact that Arabic lacks this Persian character; (2) the more probable reason may be extrapolated from an observation made by Palmer: "In modern Persian, print or MS., the diacritical bar distinguishing gaf from kaf is rarely employed." (Palmer, "Persian Grammar Simplified," A Concise Dictionary, English-Persian, p. 3).
^89. Bahá'u'lláh, The Book of Certitude, p. 197.
^90. S. Monjazeb, "Kitáb-i Íqán." Stockman gives the following

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citation: Bahá'u'lláh, The Book of Assurance, translated by Ali Kuli Khan, assisted by Howard MacNutt (New York: George V. Blackburne, Co., 1904). A French rendering appeared in the same year: Bahá'u'lláh, Le Livre de la certitude translated by Hippolyte Dreyfus and Mírzá Habib-u'lláh Chirazi [Mírza Habíb'u'lláh Shirazí]; Paris: E. Leroux, 1904.) Citation by Stockman, "New Word and Old: The Bible and the American Bahá'ís" (Ph.D. dissertation: Harvard Divinity School, 1990) p. 12, n. 25.
^91. From a letter dated June 28, 1930, on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to a National Spiritual Assembly. Cited in an anonymous typescript, "Aids for the Study of the Kitáb-i Íqán." My thanks to Ms. Furugh Ardakani, graduate student at the University of Alberta at Edmonton, for providing this manuscript.
^92. Ibid.
^93. Ibid.

Introduction

Chapter 2

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