Symbol and Secret: Chapter Five

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THE SHRINE OF BAHA'U'LLÁH TODAY An aerial view of the final resting place (center) of Bahá'u'lláh, the prophet and founder of the the Bahá'í Faith, and the author of the Kitáb-i Íqán. The Mansion of Bahji is seen behind.
(Courtesy of the Bahá'í World Centre.)

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CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSION:
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE

This study seeks to examine the interplay between technique and theme, instrument and ideology, exegesis and authority. The preceding chapter focused on Bahá'u'lláh's skills as a master of symbolic interpretation (tawll), drawing on a repertoire of "procedural devices" found in classical Quran commentary (tafsír). Wansbrough's typology, applied as a framework of analysis, illuminates the predominantly Islamic features of Bahá'u'lláh's methodology. Such skills served overt and covert purposes, both of which were decidedly post-islamic.

Defence of the mission of the Báb—with all of its abrogatory implications—is the ostensible, indeed, the stated purpose of The Book of Certitude. On the subtle level of "sub-text," however, advance legitimation of Bahá'u'lláh's own authority looms. Within the ta'wíl itself is a hidden dimension. Behind the symbolic exegesis itself, a messianic secret is concealed, and partly revealed.

It is possible now to articulate a thematic statement which sums up the findings of this study. The following epitome is somewhat complex, but it will be explained in the course of this chapter: Vindicating the mission of the Báb and the break

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from Islam, Bahá'u'lláh presents a figuration-based rationale for quranic symbolism. While logically overruling Islamic finality, the author creates a world of correspondences by means of genitive metaphors (realizing eschatology in the process) to prepare Bábís for the disclosure of his own messianic secret.

Four thematic approaches are interwoven here. Each of these may be outlined under the headings below:

The Eschatologically Conceived Break from Islam;
Bahá'u'lláh's Hermeneutical Approach: figuration-Based Rationale for Symbolism;
Bahá'u'lláh's Exegetical Techniques: Worlds of Correspondence and Exegetical Metaphors;
Transforming Eschatology into Authority: The Problem of Bahá'u'lláh's Messianic Secret.

Messianic secrecy can be argued from evidence within The Book of Certitude itself. The secrecy motif has heuristic value; it helps to explain more fully Bahá'u'lláh's enigmatic self-references. The purpose of this chapter is to synthesize the results of this study into a meaningful whole, linking Bahá'u'lláh's symbolic exegesis with messianic secrecy.

THE ESCHATOLOGICALLY CONCEIVED BREAK FROM ISLAM

Across Islam's chasm of finality, The Book of Certitude has drawn a bridge which is eschatological. Crossing over, the spiritual wayfarer can glance back and contemplate the point of origin: the homeland of Islam, the parent Faith. The vital link of continuity with Islam is never wholly lost. From this point of departure, the wayfarer's destination, referred to by Bahá'u'lláh as the City of Certitude, gains its perspective. Whether or not the wayfarer has roots in Islam, the bridge

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does. Yet the promised land lies beyond, in the post-quranic eschaton.

On the far shore stand two mysterious figures who, in prophetic code, are referred to in The Book of Certitude as the Qá'im (the Riser, Resurrector) and the Mustagháth (the Invoked, Beseeched). Who are these figures? Is the Qá'im a restorer, a renovator, or a revealer?

In Sunni Islam, the counterpart of the Shí'í Qá'im is the Mahdi (the Rightly-Guided One), who is the restorer of pristine Islam, consolidating an otherwise moribund Islamic system of law (sharia). In Shí'í theory, the Qá'im (who is to be of 'Ali's lineage) is a renovator, the inaugurator of a new religious dispensation, in which elements of the old Islamic law code will be abrogated in favor of a renewed Islamic system.² The Qá'im is not, however, a revealer (although some traditions might hint otherwise),³ since Muhammad is the final revealer for all time. For Islam, the doctrine of the "special prophethood" of Muhammad (as the "Seal of the Prophets") can never be violated.⁴

In Bábí thought, the Qá'im is a revealer. The same term now has a radically different meaning, since the Qá'im is the equal of Muhammad, and has the power to abrogate Islamic law and to reveal new doctrine. In fine, the Sunni Mahdi is a restorer of Islamic law; the Shí'í Qá'im is a renovator of law but not of doctrine; the Bábí Qá'im is a revealer in the full creative sense. This characterization of Sunni, Shí'í, and Bábí conceptions of the deliverer—as, respectively, restorer, renovator, and revealer—is doubtless an oversimplification, but may be of some descriptive value.

Mustagháth is another name for the Bábí messiah, "He Whom God Shall Make Manifest" (man yuzhiruhu'lláh). The word Mustagháth is a Bábí rather than a Shí'í term. A cryptic figure, the Mustaghdth represents both a revelator and (qabbalistically) a time of revelation.⁵ In any event, the Bábí conception of the Qá'im and the Mustagháth presents a direct

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challenge to the doctrine of the finality of Islam. For in either orthodoxy (Sunni or Shí'í), Muhammad is the last prophet. Bahá'u'lláh fully argues the challenge these two prophetic figures pose, an obstacle overcome ultimately by a leap of faith. Not in name but in principle, Bahá'u'lláh intimates that Islam will be superseded by a new revelation from God:

That a divine Revelation which for years hath been securely established; beneath whose shadow all who have embraced it have been reared and nurtured; by the light of whose law generations of men have been disciplined; the excellency of whose word men have heard recounted by their fathers; in such wise that the human eye hath held naught but the pervading influence of its grace, and mortal ear hath heard naught but the resounding majesty of its command-what act is mightier than that such a Revelation should, by the power of God, be "cloven asunder" and be abolished at the appearance of one Soul?⁶

There is no revitalization of Islam envisioned here. The Bábí movement had already effected its break with Islam,⁷ a break Bahá'u'lláh further rationalized and deepened.⁸ No harking back to the Quran and Islamic law was contemplated in this portrayal of things to come. Rhetoric promising the victory of Islam is absent. In terms of authority, Islam is clearly superseded in an eschaton denuded of the supernatural events Muslims had come to expect. The reverse of what was traditionally expected largely defines the Bábí/Bahá'í conception of last events.

Doctrinally and in practice, the very claim to post-quranic revelation was sufficient to precipitate a break from Islam. This is the doctrinal divide, the point of departure leading to non-islamic conclusions, giving rise to Muslim objections to Bábí claims, objections ultimately etched in horrific anti-Bábí and anti-Bahá'í persecutions. These, in the final analysis, failed to silence the new claims.⁹

From 1863 onward, the exercise of Bahá'u'lláh's charismatic

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authority over the traditional authorities of Qur'án, sunna, and Imami hadíth was the most decisive factor in the founding of the Bahá'í Faith. Bahá'u'lláh's prerogative to abrogate the laws of Islam was made possible by the Báb, himself a revolutionary personality. Out of the matrix of heterodoxy, the Báb created a religious system which, despite all of its patently Islamic features, presented a bold alternative to Shí'ísm. What the Báb originated has been carefully analyzed by Amanat in his social history of the Bábí movement.¹⁰ Factors contributing to the break from Islam are presented as follows:

The extent to which the teachings of the Báb and his disciples offered an alternative to the religion of the time can be demonstrated by the following factors. Foremost was the fact that Bábísm responded to the changing sociomoral climate by consciously incorporating the notion of recurring renewal into the body of religious doctrine; something that the orthodox Shí'íte establishment (and the later Islamic reformers of all persuasions) tended to reject or ignore. In introducing the theme of progressive revelation, the Báb benefited from the dynamics of the Batiní theory of cyclical manifestations. Hence the religion of the Bayán employed the old symbols of Shí'ísm in order to offer a fresh response to an equally old tension within that religion.

The earlier currents of the Batini thought, with very few exceptions, rarely exceeded the claim to the individual deputyship of the Hidden Imam. Only in Shaykhism, preoccupation with the Imam's this-worldly whereabouts subjected his existence to a historical process that ultimately was to culminate in his Advent. The Báb sought the solution to the dichotomy of the Shí'íte Imamate: the simultaneous presence and absence of the Imam, in the outward declaration of Mahdihood and its logical corollary, the Qiyama. This revolutionary step set the Bábí's on the road to a complete break from Islam and the creation of a new religious dispensation. The mind that conceived this break, and set about to achieve it, though primarily religious, shared the modernity of a secular mind as it traced the stagnation of the community not in the irreversible fate of its

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members but in their failure to see the incompatibility of their past religious values with the realities of a new era. Before the introduction of Western ideologies would definitively revise the ideals of reform, this was the only answer generated in nineteenth-century Shí'íte Iran which coped with the threat of an alien and materially superior culture without resorting to rejectionism or falling prey to complacency.¹¹

The themes in Bábí theology which made possible a reformist break from Islam are analyzed by Amanat practically as counterpoints:

The three themes of progressive revelation, conditional recognition of temporal authority, and this-worldliness of human salvation were in contrast to the Islamic precepts of the finality of Islam, the totality of the prophetic authority, and the otherworldliness of the Qiyama.¹²

What of Islamic reform? The assessment of Hamid Algar has considerable insight, in that he draws a distinction between Islamic reform and Islamic terminology:

Bábísm, as a movement taking its starting point within Islam and then swiftly going beyond its bounds, might also in a certain sense be thought of as a "reform" of Islam, parallel to Malkum's own project of an "Islamic renaissance." Malkum's plan, like Bábísm, entailed the use of Islamic terminology for purposes fundamentally alien to the Islamic faith.¹³

As to the Bábí movement, Algar does not elaborate on exactly what purposes were "alien to the Islamic faith," but he surely means the break from Islam.

Later conflation of Bábí and Bahá'í ideologies aside, if we draw the historical distinction between the Bábí and Bahá'í movements, it is clear that the Bcabi movement represented one reformist solution to the pressures and perils facing Persia in the mid-nineteenth century, as Amanat points out:

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The Bábí phenomenon sprang up at a time when Persian society was on the verge of a crucial transition. Tormented by its ageold dilemmas, the Persian mind was beginning to be exposed to a materially superior civilization. The emergence of the Bábí doctrine thus was perhaps the last chance for an indigenous reform movement before that society became truly affected by the consequences of the Western predominance, first in material and then in ideological spheres. Notwithstanding its weaknesses, the Bábí doctrine attempted to address, rather than ignore, the issues that lay at the foundation of the Persian conscuousness. The Bábí solution was the product of an esoteric legacy, one that sought redemptive regeneration in a break with the past without being essentially alien to the spirit of that past.¹⁴

Amanat goes on to explain that the Bábí worldview was not consciously affected by the Western ethos; nor was it influenced by the Western positivist models of progress and humanism. Unlike later Islamic reformers, who shrank from tampering with time-honored dogma, the Báb "strove to resolve the predicaments of Islamic eschatology by returning to the basic issues of prophethood, resurrection, and the hereafter."¹⁵

Amanat observes that the Bábí movement was not bent solely on rejuvenating Islam's inner truth (batin), but intended to fully supplant its institutional exterior (zahir)—principally, the Islamic law code (sharia)—with a distinct one of its own.¹⁶ In point of fact, the Bábí religion was typologically a new religion, and asserted itself as such. This is not to claim that the Bábí religion functioned as a universal world religion: It did not. But it did establish the theoretical possibilities for a new system. Indeed it legislated one.

Bahá'u'lláh's use of the Qur'án was in support of the Báb, not the other way around. In less than two years, The Book of Certitude would be used to legitimize (or, rather, to present, in a missionary context) Bahá'u'lláh's own prophetic credentials.¹⁷ As Browne was told in Shiraz in 1888:

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All that emanates from the Source (masdar) is equal in importance.... but some books are more systematic, more easily understood, and therefore more widely read than others. Of these the chief are:—41) The Kitáb-i-Aqdas (Most Holy Book), which sums up all the commands and ordinances enjoined on us; (2) The Íqán (Assurance), which sets forth the proofs of our religion; (3) Dissertations on science—astronomy, metaphysics, and the like—which we call Suwar-i-'Ilmiyye; (4) Prayers (Munajat) and Exhortations.¹⁸

Practically from its inception, The Book of Certitude emerged as the most important doctrinal work of the Bahá'í Faith, regarded as having "set forth the proofs of our religion." This work distanced the Bábí movement still further from a strictly Islamic worldview.

The break from Islam appears to have carried with it a more universal sense of missionary burden. The Book of Certitude in fact opens with a call: "O ye peoples of the world" (Arabic: ya ahl al-ard).¹⁹ Among the "peoples of the world" are surely the Christians. Later in the text, one encounters Bahá'u'lláh's call to the "concourse of the Spirit." At first glance, the Arabic passage translated below could be construed as an address to Christians:

May God assist us and assist you, O concourse of the Spirit! (ya ma'shar al-ruh) that perchance ye may in the time of His Manifestation (al-mustagháth) be graciously aided to perform such deeds, and may in His days attain unto the Presence of God (liqá' Alláh).²⁰

Given this reference to the Mustagháth in the Arabic text, the more probable audience here are the Bábís.

Even if Christians are not specifically apostrophized in The Book of Certitude some of their eschatological concerns are. More than passing attention is given to Christian apocalyptic expectations. As if anticipating a Christian audience, Bahá'u'lláh devotes nearly one-quarter of The Book of Certitude

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to Christian subjects. In medieval Islam, anti-Christian polemics had become practically a badge of Muslim identity and were commonplace. The kind of serious consideration given Christian scriptures in Bahá'u'lláh's writing is quite apart, especially as the Gospel is accorded an interpretive parity with the Qur'án. Bahá'u'lláh defends the sayings of Jesus in the New Testament against stock Islamic charges of textual corruption (tahríf).²¹ Bahá'u'lláh accuses Muslim divines themselves, not of textual corruption, but of interpretive corruption.²²

In his post-declaration ministry, Bahá'u'lláh's personal identification with Jesus is striking. Occasionally Jesus' identification with Bahá'u'lláh is portrayed.²³ Though this study has focused mostly on the specifically Islamic features of The Book of Certitude, further work on its Christian elements needs to be done. It is this Christian dimension that largely accounts for the successful use of The Book of Certitude for Bahá'í teaching in the West.

Bahá'u'lláh's doctrine of the spiritual fraternity of God's prophets, though Islamic in its basic features, goes beyond Islam. Emphasis on prophetic unity is the real doctrinal groundwork for his later concern with interreligious unity, an intimation of which is seen in Bahá'u'lláh's statement: "Furthermore, how numerous are those peoples of divers beliefs, of conflicting creeds, and opposing temperaments, who, through the reviving fragrance of the Divine springtime, breathing from the Ridvan of God, have been arrayed with the new robe of divine Unity, and have drunk from the cup of His singleness!"²⁴ Bahá'u'lláh implicitly encourages the application of his exegetical arguments to other religious contexts when he says: "In fact, all the Scriptures and the mysteries (asrár) thereof are condensed into this brief account."²⁵ One implication of this statement is that the break from Islam is now generalized as an eschatologically conceived break from every religion in the context of apocalyptic fulfillment.

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Beyond the break from Islam, there is also an anticipated break from Bábísm. In his effort to reverse the fortunes of the Bábí community, Bahá'u'lláh sustained Bábí expectations in various ways. In so doing, he linked eschatological requital to moral rectitude, making the latter a requirement for the former. It appears that moral reform had for some time been foremost in the mind of the Bábí leader, representing his strategy for consolidating the Bábí community.

During the period of 1853-54, Bahá'u'lláh had urged several major reforms in the Bábí community, mortally wounded as it was from the military disasters of the previous four years and the ensuing bloodbath of persecution, decreed by the Qajar state. Among Bábís, there was opposition to those reforms at first. In an effort to avoid schism, Bahá'u'lláh withdrew in the spring of 1854 for two years to the mountainous wilderness of Sar Galu, in Iraqi Kurdistan around Sulaymaniyyah.

Upon his return, Bahá'u'lláh saw the crisis into which the Bábí community had plunged. Consolidation was paramount, something Subh-i Azal had been powerless to effect during his half brother's absence. Bahá'u'lláh took pains to make purity of spirit, achieved through moral rectitude, a precondition for spiritual receptivity. The promise of recognizing a new revelation from God was held out only for the moral elect, those who could prove themselves spiritually worthy. Bahá'u'lláh made effective use of the eschaton to reorient the Bábí psyche and to steel Bábí cohesiveness.

The Book of Certitude presumes a sense of eschatological imminence-a tense, palpable edge of anticipation-among those to whom it was addressed, the Bábís. Something big is on the horizon. Something momentous is in store: "The universe is pregnant with these manifold bounties, awaiting the hour when the effects of Its unseen gifts will be made manifest in this world."²⁶ Bahá'u'lláh appeared to possess a key to these secrets. The key is The Book of Certitude itself.²⁷

To make matters more complex, the Báb had also given

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long-term, rather than imminent, predictions. To find the expected Mustagháth, one had to accept doctrinal enigmas and be prepared to embrace the unexpected. In the passage below, entrance to the City of Certitude is promised to those who are not held back by such puzzles, and who disencumber themselves of the shackles of Islamic doctrinal determinism. In order for the eschaton to be realized, the Shí'í apocalyptic scenario had to be rejected in favor of Bahá'u'lláh's symbolic interpretations. This, in effect, radically spiritualizes the eschaton, totally demilitarizes it (for no Islamic holy war is waged), and universalizes it. It is not Shí'í Islam that prevails but, rather, a new "City" appearing in its stead:

When the channel of the human soul is cleansed of all worldly and impeding attachments, it will unfailingly perceive the breath of the Beloved across immeasurable distances, and will, led by its perfume, attain and enter the City of Certitude....

They that valiantly labour in quest of God's will, when once they have renounced all else but Him, will be so attached and wedded to that City that a moment's separation from it would to them be unthinkable. They will hearken unto infallible proofs from the Hyacinth of that assembly, and receive the surest testimonies from the beauty of its Rose and the melody of its Nightingale. Once in about a thousand years shall this City be renewed and readorned.

Wherefore, O my friend, it behooveth Us to exert the highest endeavour to attain unto that City, and, by the grace of God and His loving-kindness, rend asunder the "veils of glory". . . That City is none other than the Word of God revealed in every age and dispensation. In the days of Moses it was the Pentateuch; in the days of Jesus the Gospel; in the days of Muhammad the Messenger of God the Qur'án; in this day the Bayán; and in the dispensation of Him Whom God will make manifest His own Book-the Book unto which all the Books of former Dispensations must needs be referred, the Book which standeth amongst them all transcendent and supreme.²⁸

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Reference to thousand-year intervals would not necessarily have deterred Bábí readers from expecting an imminent messianic advent, for there was a fund of very definite short-term eschatological expectations that could easily have fired the imagination of the expectant Bábí. MacEoin has collated both long-term and short-term Bábí expectations in a useful study which attempts to bring clarity to rather convoluted Bábí sources.²⁹ Was this mix of long-term and short-term prophecy a ruse to keep the arcane from being profaned? Or was it due to an inconsistency on the Báb's part? No one has solved this problem in all its intricacies.

Expectations were set up in both native and diasporal Bábí communities (in Persia and Baghdad) for the advent of "He Whom God Shall Make Manifest" (man yuzhiruhu'lláh). The implications of this eschatological. tension are obvious: In it are the seeds of relativizing the Báb's religious system to its own eventual eclipse. This eventuality was a foregone conclusion. If the Báb's primary role was that of a messianic harbinger, then the "Gate" (Báb) was an entrance, not a final destination. As Amanat observes:

The idea of perpetual Zuhur, conceived by the Báb and enshrined in the chiliastic notion of the He Whom God Shall Manifest, essentially militated against the institutionalization of the Bábí religion. The Bábí theology was erected on the precept of the prophetic continuity and the sense of vigilance for future divine revelations....

The possibility of the Bábí sharí'a's being nullified and replaced by a future manifestation, particularly since the time of his advent was signaled in the Bayán in the cryptic code of mustagháth (he who shall be called upon for help), was an open invitation for messianic innovation.³⁰

In validating the immediate past in the advent of the Báb, Bahá'u'lláh's statements about the future were lent greater authenticity. Of the two eschatological figures familiar to

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Bábís in The Book of Certitude, the first is the Qá'im. The Qá'im is identified with the Báb, who is portrayed in The Book of Certitude in vivid symbolic terms, such as the Sea of Seas, the Ocean of divine wisdom, the divine Luminary, the eternal Sun, the Manifestation of the Adored.³¹

In his later writings, this kind of theophanic language is transferred to Bahá'u'lláh himself in his future role as the self-proclaimed Mustagháth.³² This transference is mediated through the doctrine of prophetic unity, in which all the prophets of God are seen as "proclaiming the same Faith."³³ Bahá'u'lláh alludes to the imminence of the mysterious Mustagháth in the closing words of Part One of The Book of Certitude:

And now, We beseech the people of the Bayán, all the learned, the sages, the divines, and witnesses amongst them, not to forget the wishes and admonitions revealed in their Book. Let them, at all times, fix their gaze upon the essentials of His Cause, lest when He, Who is the Quintessence of truth, the inmost Reality of all things, the Source of all light, is made manifest, they cling unto certain passages of the Book, and inflict upon Him that which was inflicted in the Dispensation of the Qur'án.

For, verily, powerful is He, the King of divine might, to extinguish with one letter of His wondrous words, the breath of life in the whole of the Bayán and the people thereof, and with one letter bestow upon them a new and everlasting life, and cause them to arise and speed out of the sepulchres of their vain and selfish desires.

Take heed, and be watchful; and remember that all things have their consummation in belief in Him, in attainment unto His day, and in the realization of His divine presence. "There is no piety in turning your faces toward the east or toward the west, but he is pious who believeth in God and the Last Day." (Qur'án 2:176)³⁴

The ascendancy of the Mustagháth over the Báb meant that the revelation of the latter would be subordinated to the

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former. The Bayán conceivably could be "extinguished" in one eschatological breath by the Mustagháth. Sometime following his declaration in 1863, Bahá'u'lláh explicitly identified himself as the one foretold by the Báb: as the one promised in al-mustagháth with the name of man yuzhiruhu'lláh.³⁵ Any leap of faith embracing such a claim relegates the Báb's revelation to a subordinate status, eclipsed by the preeminence of the new revelation.

Lest the same fate befall Bahá'u'lláh's religion, it was necessary later in his ministry to literalize at least one aspect of the chiliasm: its thousand-year duration. That he intended his own law-code and religious precepts to remain in force for no less than a millennium is made explicit in an incontrovertible statement in the Kitáb al-Aqdas.³⁶ Once realized in the person of Bahá'u'lláh, Bábí millenarian expectations were henceforth discarded.

The Book of Certitude, when it was written, ostensibly had little to do with Bahá'u'lláh. After his declaration in April-May 1863, the book had everything to do with him. This leap of logic and faith requires some explanation. With its focus on apocalyptic events, the literary enterprise of The Book of Certitude is that of biblical and quranic exegesis, aimed at vindicating the Báb's prophetic claims. In large part this is achieved through an ingenious argument to assert the possibility (in fact, the certainty) of post-quranic revelation. The argument served more to establish Bahá'u'lláh's credentials than those of the Báb, for in practice The Book of Certitude was used extensively in the propagation of the Bahá'í cause. The reason for this is simple.

The text of The Book of Certitude remained the same, but the context underwent a radical shift following Bahá'u'lláh's declaration less than two years after The Book of Certitude was written. Once the context had shifted in terms of authority—a shift in primary authority from the Báb to Bahá'u'lláh himselfThe Book of Certitude—was used as a reflexive validation of the

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author's own prophetic credentials. Suffice it to say that the case argued on behalf of the Báb easily doubled for Bahá'u'lláh himself, irrespective of original intent. The picture that emerges is this: Soon (a year or so) after the revelation of The Book of Certitude, Bahá'u'lláh's defence of the Báb turned full-circle. The question remains: Was this an intentional artifice?

BAHÁ'U'LLÁH'S HERMENEUTICAL APPROACH:
FIGURATION-BASED RATIONALE FOR SYMBOLISM

In order to reject a reductive argument, I have avoided any formal attempt to trace lines of influence. Standing within an Islamic worldview, Bahá'u'lláh drew on a rich exegetical heritage, and the broad range of his own exegetical techniques attests to the acquisitive nature of the exegetical tradition of Qur'án commentary.

An additional "procedural device" was at work in The Book of Certitude: interscriptural exegesis. This device establishes interpretive parity between the Qur'án and the sayings of Jesus. In an Islamic context, Bahá'u'lláh's use of interscriptural exegesis is proportionally remarkable, considering that so much of The Book of Certitude concerns the Minor Apocalypse of Matthew 24. With the exception of this last device, Bahá'u'lláh's exegetical techniques are classically Islamic. At the same time, such techniques are brought to bear on the novel problem which the Báb had raised by his claim to revelation.

In terms of his overall exegetical strategy, Bahá'u'lláh advanced a figuration-based rationale for symbolism. Though his terminology shows little overlap with the sophisticated Islamic discipline of rhetoric (ilm, al-balágha).³⁷ some of Bahá' u'lláh's arguments from implausibility are clearly rhetorical, and as such they establish an informally semantic basis for nonliteral interpretation. The use of commonsense semantic logic in The Book of Certitude is integral to the structure of Bahá'u'lláh's basic argument.

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For rhetoricians, the classic example of quranic symbolism was "the hand of God: "And they do not esteem God as He ought to be esteemed when He grips the whole earth on the Day of Resurrection and the heavens are folded in His right hand." (Qur'án 39:67) Added to this paradigmatic verse were a number of other examples which were in effect cognitive satellites. To a modern mind, the symbolic nature of such an expression might appear obvious. Not so for orthodox Islam. One champion of orthodoxy, 'Ali al-Qari al-Harawi (d. 1605 C.E.), stated categorically: "As a matter of fact, I have found that the theological fathers unanimously say that it is not allowed to interpret the hand of God metaphorically."³⁸ Whether or not one accepts the "hand of God" as figurative, the verse at Qur'án 39:67 is really no different. It is simply an eschatological hand of God.

On this verse, Bahá'u'lláh points to the anthropomorphist entrapment which a literal reading poses:

And now, be fair in thy judgment. Were this verse [Quran 39:671 to have the meaning which men suppose it to have.³⁹ of what profit, one may ask could it be to man? Moreover, it is evident and manifest that no such hand as could be seen by human eye could accomplish such deeds, or could possibly be ascribed to the exalted Essence of the one true God. Nay, to acknowledge such a thing is naught but sheer blasphemy, an utter perversion of the truth....⁴⁰

Know verily that the purpose underlying all these symbolic terms (kalimát-i marmuzih) and abstruse allusions (isharat-i mulghazih).⁴¹ which emanate from the Revealers of God's holy Cause, hath been to test and prove the peoples of the world; that thereby the earth of the pure and illuminated hearts may be known from the perishable and barren Soil.⁴²

Bahá'u'lláh's method for discriminating between literal and figurative expressions involves an analysis of logical structure versus surface structure. His approach might be

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summed up negatively: "Were it [a figurative verse just cited] to be literally interpreted, it would never correspond with the truth."⁴³ The underlying assumptions governing this assertion, apart from the resolution of anthropomorphisms ascribed to the divinity, include an overruling of belief in the suspension of natural law and a rejection of exegesis that fails to search for meaning in the deep structure of text.

One might say that, from a Bahá'í perspective, the most literal reading of scripture is not always the most "faithful." In The Book of Certitude, Bahá'u'lláh criticizes populist Christian fundamentalism, or literalism predicated on a belief in scriptural inerrancy. Perhaps it is not so much the interpretations themselves to which Bahá'u'lláh objects, but more the loss of spiritual discernment caused by literalism, particularly in the inability to perceive spiritual qualities in a new revelation which presents itself from outside of the Christian community. In terms of Bahá'í salvation history, what leads to the gravest error of faith is the loss of pattern recognition. The prophetic character of Muhammad should have been self-evident, but the Quran was, in effect, the wrong "miracle," because it was contrary to popular Christian expectations.

Those responsible for perpetuating a literalist view of prophecy are the nameless, but very real, Christian "divines":

Inasmuch as the Christian divines have failed to apprehend the meaning of these words [Matt. 24:29-31], and did not recognize their object and purpose, and have clung to the literal interpretation (zahir) of the words of Jesus, they therefore became deprived of the streaming grace of the Muhammadan Revelation and its showering bounties.

The ignorant among the Christian community, following the example of the leaders of their faith, were likewise prevented from beholding the beauty of the King of glory, inasmuch as those signs which were to accompany the dawn of the sun of the Muhammadan Dispensation did not actually come to pass.

Thus, ages have passed and centuries rolled away, and that

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most pure Spirit hath repaired unto the retreats of its ancient sovereignty. Once more hath the eternal Spirit breathed into the mystic trumpet.⁴⁴

Bahá'u'lláh's exegetical rationale for nonliteral readings of scripture is consistent with these earlier definitions of figurative language (majáz). He points out that when the proper meaning of a text turns into an absurdity, the implausible reading acts as a flag, marking the incidence of figurative language:

This is the significance of the well-known words: "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together." [Isa. 65:25] Behold the ignorance and folly of those who, like the nations of old, are still expecting to witness the time when these beasts will feed together in one pasture! Such is their low estate. Methinks, never have their lips touched the cup of understanding ... Besides, of what profit would it be to the world were such a thing to take place?⁴⁶

Bahá'u'lláh's argument for reading the Qur'án symbolically is predicated on the presence of figurative language in scripture. This figuration-based rationale for the nonliteral reading of scripture is the semantic (or semiotic) component of Bahá'u'lláh's exegetical approach. This is not to say that The Book of Certitude draws from the discipline of Islamic rhetoric as such. It does not, as the specific technical terminology of rhetoric is largely (though not wholly) absent in the text. But the two approaches share some basic similarities as to rationale.

The fact that Bahá'u'lláh takes pains to demonstrate the existence of figurative language in the Qur'án is essential to an understanding of the persuasive strategy of The Book of Certitude. The work assumes a slavish literalism in the indoctrinated Muslim's comprehension of text. The book also assumes that the average Muslim's view of text, gained through exposure to men of the clerical turban, is not only

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deficient but wrong. What the reader has likely been taught in the mosque is a view of scriptural inerrancy based on literal truth. In the fundamentalist Islamic perspective, all scripture is to be read literally.

This kind of religious indoctrination assured that the eschaton remained essentially a cosmic combat myth, filled with bizarre, macabre, and supernatural elements, effectively a barrier to its own realization. Barring the suspension of natural law, the eschaton could never be realized, much less a new worldview embraced. The eschaton remained in the hands of the sacerdotal mythmakers in the Shifi world, whose apocalyptic fiction was supported by a plethora of spurious traditions.

Tradition had its impact on the reader's (or, more accurately, the hearer's) encounter with the Qur'án. Being told that the ass of the Antichrist would be forty miles wide, or that the blood shed in the crusade waged by the Qá'im would reach to the stirrups of his steed, biased the average Shí'í against a symbolic reading of the text. If traditions were so phantastic in nature, one could hardly expect otherwise in interpreting the Qur'án.

To counter the monopoly of orthodox literalism, Bahá'u'lláh argues by appeal to absurdity: "Were the prophecies recorded in the Gospel [and, by implication, the Qur'án] to be literally fulfilled," Bahá'u'lláh reasons, "... who would dare ... wax disdainful?"⁴⁷ "In such utterances [speaking of scripture that should not admit of literal interpretation] the literal meaning, as generally understood by the people, is not what hath been intended."⁴⁸ "Be fair," the reader is counselled, "Were these people to acknowledge the truth of these luminous words and holy allusions.... how could they continue to cleave unto these glaring absurdities?"⁴⁹ Speaking of the denials ascribed to the Jews of Muhammad's time, Bahá'u'lláh draws the analogy to this day, saying: "Behold the absurdity of their saying; how far it hath strayed from the path of knowledge and understanding! Observe how in this day also, all these people

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have occupied themselves with such foolish absurdities."⁵⁰

Bahá'u'lláh's various appeals to absurdity are calculated to rule out received understandings of text. He exposes the contextual element of a text, arguing the unlikelihood of a given word or phrase taken at its face value. By so doing, the nonliteral dimension is opened up to idiomatic or even symbolic possibilities. Bahá'u'lláh then adduces figurative traditions as extra-quranic examples of revelation, much as a rhetorician would adduce specimens of pre-islamic poetry to throw light on an uncertain verse, though the poetry itself is not considered revelation, nor is any quranic passage considered "verse."

This analysis—comparing Bahá'u'lláh's rationale for quranic figuration with that of Islamic rhetoric—is not original. Mírzá Abd'l-Fadl Gulpaygani, whose Kitáb al-Fará'id is an important Bahá'í work in defense of The Book of Certitude, explicitly invokes the findings of rhetoric in justifying Bahá'u'lláh's symbolic interpretation of the Qur'án. Abú'l-Fadl emphasizes the distinction between books of rhetoric (Bayániyya) and demonstrative treatises (istidláliyya).⁵¹ as if to suggest that this is why the categories of rhetoric are absent in The Book of Certitude. Whether or not this implication is correct, Abu'l-Fadl does refer to a work of rhetoric, the Sharh al-Talkhis of al-Taftazani⁵² (d. 1389 C.E.), for whom he expresses respect.⁵³ The thrust of Abú'l-Fadl's subsequent remarks is that Bahá'u'lláh's figurative reading of prophetic quranic verses does have an empirical basis, supported in a general way by the findings of rhetoric. In their seminary training, Muslim clerics were normally taught the rudiments of 'ilm al-Bayán, the science of rhetoric. This included some familiarity with figures of speech in Arabic. For the benefit of his learned opponent, or at least for the benefit of the reader in general, Abu'l-Fadl reviews figures of speech in the Qur'án.

Elsewhere in Kitáb al-Fará'id, Abu'l-Fadl states that literal interpretation is normally indicated for passages in

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scripture pertaining explicitly to laws and to history, whereas symbolic interpretation (ta'wíl) is indicated for eschatological texts.⁵⁴ In another work, Miracles and Metaphors, he also observes:

They [the Prophets] conversed as was appropriate to their audience and hid certain realities behind the curtain of allusion. They have secluded the holy maidens of meaning in the palaces of sacred verses, veiling them in eloquent metaphors.... The possibility that these verses should be interpreted figuratively is hardly a remote one .... Moreover, the traditions and practice of the Prophet have genuinely established and made it abundantly clear that the verses of the Qur'án have mysterious and profound esoteric meanings and exalted, subtle, figurative interpretations.... By figurative interpretation is meant only the original meanings intended, which God veiled in the inner depths of the verses and hid behind a curtain of metaphors.⁵⁵

To put the matter more clearly: there is no doubt that the prophets to whom the books were revealed were human beings like all other men and spoke in the same way that other human beings speak. They expressed what was revealed to them in the same way that others express their own consciences. It is not rationally untenable that some of these expressions contain metaphors and figures of speech, metonymies, and similes.⁵⁶

... The meaning of "interpretation" is the concealed signifi cance with which He has endued these words through metaphors, similes, metonymies, and other figurative usages.⁵⁷

[On Qur'án 13:2: "God is He Who raised up the heavens without pillars you can see."] In the holy Book of Certitude, the meaning of the term "heavens" was explained as referring to the religions.... The word "heavens" was metaphorically applied to religion because of its loftiness and majesty.... It is not possible to interpret the term "heavens" in this noble verse literally, to mean the sky. Anyone with a knowledge of astronomy knows that the physical sky cannot have pillars, since it is inconceivable that this outward sky should rest on any support, whether one depends on the ancient Ptolemaic form of astronomy or the new European form.⁵⁸

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This kind of argument represents an extension of Bahá'u'lláh's appeal to absurdity against the excesses of literalism. Abu'l-Fadl simply invokes the categories of Islamic rhetoric to establish Bahá'u'lláh's attitude to text on an empirical rhetorical basis. Whenever a literal reading presents an absurdity, Bahá'u'lláh would habituate the reader into questioning: "If they maintain that these terms bear reference to this material universe, how could it be possible ... ?"⁵⁹ The Book of Certitude did more than explicate some important eschatological texts. It established a method of interpretation.

BAHÁ'U'LLÁH'S EXEGETICAL TECHNIQUES:
WORLDS OF CORRESPONDENCES AND EXEGETICAL METAPHORS

Thanks to the elegant theoretical groundwork laid out by Wansbrough in his Quranic Studies, we were able to show how Bahá'u'lláh's tools of exegesis were drawn from the dozen or so kinds of procedural devices which the great Muslim scholars had at their disposal within the classical tafsír tradition. If the reader were to put all of Bahá'u'lláh's stylistic and exegetical metaphors together, an allegorical picture of a spiritual world would emerge from the resulting literary montage. This symbolically parallel universe is filled with celestial imagery, rife with metaphors from nature, and infused with what one might call royalist imagery. Allegory does require some sort of conceptual framework within which to create its extended metaphor, and this is achieved metaphysically in The Book of Certitude through reference to a world of correspondences.

This is as much a question of style as of content. Bahá'u'lláh's writing is infused with nature imagery, and his method of discourse involves frequent use of genitive-metaphors. In early Islamic linguistic exegesis, when confronted with difficult passages in the Qur'án exegetes would endeavor to restore the text to its natural mode of expression. One such

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technique was recourse to the "exegetical genitive" (idáfat al-tafsír).⁶⁰ Our author has employed such "exegetical genitive for stylistic as well as explicative purposes.

Behind his poetic style is a rich Persian literary heritage. For lack of space, I cannot enumerate the many resonances struck between Bahá'u'lláh's writing style and its Persian literary background. One recent study, however, attempts recapitulate an important conceptual element in that literaryy background. In her study of "Allegorical Gardens in the Pesian Poetic Tradition," Meisami's observations on the Persian religious literary tradition are relevant to an appreciation Bahá'u'lláh's mode of discourse:

Allegorical gardens abound throughout the literatures of the world but especially in medieval literature, both Western and Islamic; they reflect an important characteristic aspect of medieval thought. The medieval conception of the garden was of a place wherein the soul might read the most profound spiritual lessons.

The idea of the Book of Nature, "written" by God to provide signs of Himself, is found both in Christianity and in Islam: the Augustinian view "that beauty is not mere spectacle but God's rhetoric in the book of creation" is echoed in the Islamic, that "Nature is a fabric of symbols, which must be read according to their meanings."

... Although the concept of things as signs was primarily a theological rather than a literary notion, the view of creation as God's rhetoric undoubtedly supported the figurative use of the garden in secular literature—a usage further supported by the medieval habit of analogical thought. The medieval period (for Islam no less than Christianity) was "an era of the symbol," itself conceived of "as an instrument capable of penetrating truth, over and beyond any brief and incidental use in mere illustration."

While the concept of natural objects as "signs" is essentially metaphorical, analogical symbolism is based on the conception of the existence of harmonies and correspondences between the

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various orders of nature, the most thoroughgoing expression of which is the parallelism between the macrocosm, nature, and the microcosm, man.⁶¹

Not everything medieval is backward, and perhaps it could be said that this view of the universe pervades all religious literature, whether in the writings of mystics, in the homilies of moralists, or in formal cosmologies. Bahá'u'lláh reflects this religious heritage in The Book of Certitude.

At the center of paradise, in its allegorical garden, stands the eschatological king. Royalist imagery pervades—one might even say, dominates—all of Bahá'u'lláh's writings wherever references to authority occur. One important point that needs to be made is that all of the eschatological imagery concerning the station of the Báb was later generalized to dignify Bahá'u'lláh himself. In the course of his post-declaration proclamation to kings and ecclesiastics, Bahá'u'lláh assumed the panoply of messianic dignities originally associated with his precursor.

This was made possible because, doctrinally, The Book of Certitude articulated an inclusivist, mystical prophetology in which every prophetic dignity was shared by one and all of the Manifestations of God. The constellation of images for one Manifestation of God is transferable to the next such figure in salvation history. Bahá'u'lláh inherits crown and sceptre from the Báb and rules from the same spiritual throne.

The rupture with Islam having been effected by the Báb, the Bahá'í religion accepted this break and rationalized it. Though overtly Islamic in its hermeneutical enterprise, The Book of Certitude takes on a unique role as a non-Muslim work of quranic exegesis. Bahá'u'lláh moved beyond Islam in his subsequent role as legislator. His followers could argue his authority to do so on the basis of that text.

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TRANSFORMING ESCHATOLOGY INTO AUTHORITY:
BAHÁ'U'LLÁH'S MESSIANIC SECRET

The fact of Bahá'u'lláh's charisma is freely acknowledged in all sources. Because of this personal magnetism, the majority of Bábís were drawn to him. One could also say that Bahá'u'lláh's writings possessed a certain literary charisma as well. The question that has to be answered is this: His personal charisma apart, is there evidence that a least a few Bábís discerned in Bahá'u'lláh's Baghdad writings a veiled theophanic claim? Was a messianic secret encoded within The Book of Certitude?⁶²

In his pre-declaration writings (1852-63), Bahá'u'lláh's theophanic expressions could have been construed as ecstatic Sufi locutions. On the face of it, resemblance to Sufi mystical claims presents a case against messianic secrecy. Cole, on the other hand, explains that Bahá'u'lláh had indeed adapted Bábí ideas and motifs to Sufi conventions for some very good reasons.⁶³

Beyond Cole's analysis is perhaps another dynamic at work. The stylized nature of Bahá'u'lláh's theophanic locutions was an artifice of ambiguity to mask, in Sufi dress, a claim to revelation, yet still allow for possible messianic readings. Some of those who personally knew the Bábí leader saw through the artifice. As Salmani the Barber recounts of Bahá'u'lláh in perhaps the very year The Book of Certitude was revealed: "The Blessed Beauty [Bahá'u'lláh]... had not yet made an explicit declaration of His Mission. He would say whatever the Manifestation of God would say, but in all He uttered there was no: 'I am He!.'"⁶⁴

Without attempting a formal study of other texts in the Baghdad period, it is important to see The Book of Certitude in its historical context. MacEoin has stated rather categorically that four of the major works of the period are of limited value (at best) in determining Bahá'u'lláh's sense of mission and status, and that other writings betray a marked Sufi influence sufficient to explain Bahá'u'lláh's theophanic ebullience:

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The best-known of Bahá Alláh's Baghdad works, such as the Kitáb-i Íqán, Jawáhir al-Asrár, Kalimat-i maknuna, Haft wadi—all of which can be dated with a high degree of certainty—are, unfortunately, of restricted usefulness as sources for a serious discussion of his developing claims. Along with several other works written either in Kurdistan or in the years after his return from there (such as the Qasida 'izz warqaiyya, Lawh-i huriyya, or Lawh-i ghulam al-khuld) these writings show strong traces of Sufi influence, employing language and concepts that need not have attracted undue attention at the time of their composition.

The Sufi traditions of shathiyyat (ecstatic utterances often voiced in the first person as though spoken by the divinity) and visionary experiences are so well established that it would be unwise to lay undue stress on similar statements in Bahá' Alláh's writings, let alone use them as evidence of unusual or unique claims. It is, of course, conceivable that the repeated use of shathiyyat may have worked its influence on Nuri's [i.e. Bahá'u'lláh's] mind and facilitated the subsequent shift to theophanic utterance of a more personal kind.⁶⁵

There is one methodological irony to this: MacEoin relies heavily on a passage in The Book of Certitude to argue in the other direction: that Bahá'u'lláh points to Subh-i Azal as the locus of revelation at the time.⁶⁶ thus minimizing considerations of Bahá'u'lláh's own sense of what MacEoin terms "divine afflatus."

This is an interesting hypothesis, which reads Bahá'u'lláh's self-references in light of his references to Azal. An equally nuanced developmental approach has been presented by Cole, who was the first to argue, in an academic context, the role of messianic secrecy in Bahá'u'lláh's Baghdad writings.⁶⁷

One methodological issue is left unaddressed: what of the oral history of the period? Do we discount wholesale the testimony of those who read Bahá'u'lláh's writings at the time and who drew their own conclusions? Should we overrule the evidence of Bábí converts to Bahá'u'lláh prior to his declaration?

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Among the primary sources MacEoin deems of limited use for charting the development of Bahá'u'lláh's claims is the "Ode of the Dove" (Qasida 'izz warqáiyya). After reading this text, an eminent early Bahá'í, Mulla Muhammad-Rida of Yazd, became one of the first to perceive the mission of Bahá'u'lláh prior to his declaration. The mulla saw the messianic writing on the wall, so to speak, and figured out who Bahá'u'lláh "really was" purely on the basis of this ode. Samandar (one of the nineteen "Apostles of Bahá'u'lláh") writes:

He himself [Mulla Muhammad-Ridal has been heard to say: "When Radiu'r-Rúh, one of the most eminent divines to believe [in the Bábl, Came from Baghdad to Yazd, he had certain Writings with him, including Qasidiy-i-izz-i-Varqaiyyih. [Bahá'u'lláh composed this ode in Sulaymaniyyih.] As soon as I set eyes on it, I exclaimed spontaneously: Man-yuzhiruhu'lláh of the Bayán has come." He said: "The One Whose words these are has not made such a claim." I replied: "On the throne of these words I see the Promised One of the Bayán seated." Then Radiu'r-Ruh said: "Henceforth it is difficult to consort with you."⁶⁸

Cole has detected in the language of this poem some rather explicit prophetological self-references (lines 91-94), over which MacEoin and Cole had a debate.⁶⁹ In a study which focuses on this ode, Cole argues that the presence in this mystical poem of the terms for prophetic mission (batha), mystical ascent (mi'ráaj), and exile (hijra) indicates that Bahá'u'lláh has drawn an exact parallel to the major prophetic events in the career of the prophet Muhammad.⁷⁰ This argument based on key words in the text is not without controversy, since MacEoin's translation of this passage stands as an alternative to Cole's.⁷¹

Messianic secrecy is bound up with the theme of concealment. Another of the texts MacEoin dismisses is "The Essence [lit., Gems] of the Mysteries" (Jawähir al-Asrár), to which Bahá'u'lláh alludes in The Book of Certitude.⁷² In the opening

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of this Tablet, Bahá'u'lláh states that he has concealed himself in the "nest" of his "Mystery," forbidden from revealing the wonders of God's knowledge, the gems of His wisdom, and the glories of His power which God has bestowed upon him.⁷³ Writing at a time of intense personal oppression at the hands of the proverbial "hounds" and "jackals" of the land, Bahá'u'lláh has chosen to impart a few of the "mysteries" to the recipient of this Tablet, but has left certain of the mysteries veiled.⁷⁴ He indicates that one such mystery, if disclosed, would trigger such ecstasy and instill such devotion in the hearts of men that they would willingly sacrifice their lives for its sake. But no permission had as yet been granted to unveil this concealed mystery. The secret thus remained hidden in the treasureholds of power.⁷⁵

Space does not permit a detailed survey of the forty or so works of the Baghdad period for further evidences of Bahá'u'lláh's messianic secrecy.⁷⁶ I Will simply mention such works as the "Tablet of the City of Radiant Acquiescence" (Lawh madinat al-rida).⁷⁷ the "Chapter of Counsel" (Surat al-nush).⁷⁸ the poem "From the Divine Garden" (Az-bagh-i ilahi).⁷⁹ and so forth, which are expressive of Bahá'u'lláh's impending declaration.⁸⁰

Methodologically, an interpretive strategy that takes into account the reactions of fellow Bábís to Bahá'u'lláh's writings is a sound one. MacEoin uses it to support his reconstruction of stages in Bahá'u'lláh's evolving self-consciousness. Oral sources suggesting that some Bábís at least did perceive in Bahá'u'lláh's writings a veiled claim are underrepresented in MacEoin's argument. Of course, these pro-Bahá'í sources are overrrepresented in Bahá'í discussions.

A controversy such as this is not to be "won," but to be learned from. A certain tolerance of open discussion of these issues is academically necessary. Otherwise, the conversation lapses into polemic. In the treatment that follows, the reader should bear in mind that MacEoin is to be credited with having

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raised these issues to the level of current topical discussion within an academic context. The frequent references to MacEoin's argument in the following pages are not intended as an attack. Irrespective of the outcome of the scholarly debate, it is important to maintain an attitude of decorum, one that has not always characterized such deliberations.

To resume, if the basic problem of history is vulnerability to denial, the messianic secrecy hypothesis cannot stand on anecdotal material alone, especially if any of the reminiscences is the reflex of selective memory and verges on the hagiographical. Anecdotal material should be balanced by evidence from antagonistic sources, as well as from disinterested sources.

On methodological grounds, the way in which The Book of Certitude was read and understood by the Bábís themselves provides a check and balance to a purely textual approach. The sociology of religion has taught us one basic rule of interpretation: Associated with every important scripture is a faith community, a fact which must place constraints on interpretation. The Bábí community provides the key interpretational context for The Book of Certitude.⁸¹ From its very reception, this work had a tremendous impact among the Bábís. In Isfahan as early as 1862, initial Bábí response to The Book of Certitude was overwhelming, so much so that the partisans of Subh-i Azal started the rumor that Azal had actually written it.

Doctrinally, The Book of Certitude partakes of religious reform, taking religion out of the hands of divines. The Báb had advanced his claim; Bahá'u'lláh had not. He could be open about his predecessor; his own self-references were couched in innuendo. One must appreciate this striking element of authorial reflexivity. On it depends a proper interpretation of The Book of Certitude, without which an important dimension of the sub-text is lost.

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MESSIANICALLY CHARGED CIRCUMLOCUTIONS

For the sake of recapitulation, some possible instances of messianically charged circumlocutions in The Book of Certitude will be presented. Ten texts have been selected. These will be accompanied with a few remarks on some significant features of the Persian (and occasionally Arabic) original.

The messianic secrecy hypothesis requires evidence. To assert is not to prove. The countercase against messianic secrecy argues along developmental lines, in which Bahá'u'lláh's self-consciousness is shown to have gradually evolved. In support of the messianic secrecy approach, the following texts may be adduced:

And now take heed, O brother! If such things be revealed in this Dispensation, and such incidents come to pass, at the present time, what would the people do? . . . How far are they from hearkening unto the voice that declareth: Lo! a Jesus hath appeared out of the breath of the Holy Ghost, and a Moses summoned to a divinely-appointed task!

. . . If the eye of justice be opened, it will readily recognize, in the light of that which hath been mentioned, that He, Who is the Cause (maghar) and ultimate Purpose of all these things, is made manifest in this day.

. . . Great God! When the stream of utterance reached this stage, We beheld, and lo! the sweet savours of God were being wafted from the day-spring of Revelation, and the morning breeze was blowing out of the Sheba of the Eternal.... Without word It unfoldeth the inner mysteries (ramz-i ma'áni) and without speech it revealeth the secret of the divine sayings (Asrár-i tibyan).

. . . Upon the anenomes of the garden of love It bestoweth the mysteries of truth, and within the breasts of lovers. It entrusteth the symbols (rumuz) of the innermost subtleties (raqáyiq). At this hour, so liberal is the outpouring of Its grace that the holy Spirit (ruh al-quddus) itself is envious!

. . . The universe is pregnant with these manifold bounties, awaiting the hour when the effects of Its unseen gifts will be made manifest in the world . . . Verily, I say, so fierce is the

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⁸³

All that is lacking in this discourse is an explicit claim to revelation. The language of secrecy is obvious. "Mysteries of truth" (asrár-i haqáyiq) and "symbols" (rumúz) are characterized by their "innermost subtleties" (raqáyiq). Bahá'u'lláh's use of such terms deserves comment. Two levels of discourse are operative. Ostensibly, Bahá'u'lláh is talking about the Báb, who is already "manifest." There is a skillful ambiguity at play here. Bahá'u'lláh could just as easily be speaking of himself, without drawing undue attention.

Then there is a transition to reflexive discourse. The author speaks of the Holy Spirit, itself the medium of revelation in Islamic context. This passage has the appearance of a mystical discourse. The author is God-into-Nicated. The description of the universe could be simply poetic, inspirational. But as one works through this and later texts, one cannot escape the feeling that the author knows something we do not. Bahá'u'lláh is privy to a secret.

How, for instance, does he know that "the universe is [eschatologically] pregnant?" At least on a literary level, Bahá'u'lláh sees into the heart of the universe, perceives the workings of a spiritual force more profound than the Holy Spirit, and describes his devotion to God in the superlative. He either is given to unbridled hyperbole or is on the verge of some spiritual discovery or disclosure. Then comes the classic revelatory signature that marks Bahá'u'lláh's style: "Thus have We illuminated the heavens of utterance with the splendours of divine wisdom and understanding."⁸⁴ This literary flourish is a classic revelatory give-away. This kind of statement is a stylistically identifiable characteristic of Bahá'u'lláh's later w-ritings. It is so recurrent as to be formulaic. It is the imprimatur of

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revelation.

The possibility is entertained that a new Jesus or a Moses (va ya Musa) might appear. The "Bush of love" (sidrahy-i 'ishq) and the "Sinai of the heart" (sináy-i hubb) are genitive metaphors which draw from a rich tradition of biblical and quranic imagery. Allusion to the Burning Bush on Mount Sinai is familiar; it recalls the revelation given to Moses. Bahá'u'lláh's use of such imagery here is self-referential. His identification with Moses is figurative, symbolic, secretive. At the same time, it is circumlocutional and expressive of his messianic secret. The universe is pregnant, because of an impending revelation. "This Phoenix of the undying fire" (in samandar- i núri) is about to reemerge from the ashes of the past. Clearly, the eschatological tension is building.

We have digressed (dur mandim) from the purpose of Our argument, although whatsoever is mentioned serveth only to confirm Our purpose. By God! however great Our desire to be brief (mikhaham ikhtisar namayam), yet We feel (mi-binam) We cannot restrain Our pen!

Notwithstanding all that We have mentioned, how innumerable are the pearls which have remained unpierced in the shell of Our heart! How many the huris of inner meaning that are as yet concealed within the chambers of divine wisdom! None hath yet approached them;—huris, "whom no man nor spirit hath touched before." (Qur'án 55:56.)

Notwithstanding all that hath been said, it seemeth as if not one letter of Our purpose hath been uttered, nor a single sign (rarwi) divulged concerning Our object. When will a faithful seeker be found who will don the garb of pilgrimage, attain the Ka'bih of the heart's desire, and, without ear or tongue, discover the mysteries (asrár) of divine utterance?⁸⁵

The passage above has taken on the tone of a lamentation. There appears to be recourse to Oriental hyperbole, exaggeration for effect. The hyperbole is itself exaggerated, and in support of this assertion one genitive metaphor may be adduced,

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which Shoghi Effendi translates as "the chambers of divine wisdom." In the Persian text, we read ghuraf-háy-i hikmat. Here we encounter a curious stylistic feature in Bahá'u'lláh's writings: the use of a compound plural in two languages at once (i.e., creating a syntactically Persianized hybrid of an Arabic loan-word for effect). In the singular, the Arabic word for "chamber" is ghurfa, from which derives the Arabic sound plural ghúraf.⁸⁶ On top of this is the Persian enclitic há, the plural marker classically used for irrational beings and inanimate objects. The effect of this compound plural, with a Persian suffix grafted onto an Arabic loan-word already in plural form, is to give emphasis to the superlative number of secret chambers which the elusive húrís of paradise inhabit.

On closer examination, the element of exaggeration dissolves when we consider that figuratively Bahá'u'lláh may simply be stating that his messianic status has, for the most part, escaped the discernment of his fellow Bábís. Bahá'u'lláh clearly has some secrets. The real secret is that he is the secret: 'Weditate profoundly, that the secret of things unseen may (Asrár-i umzir-i ghaybi) be revealed unto you, that you may inhale the sweetness of a spiritual and imperishable fragrance."⁸⁷ Subliminal hints such as this abound in The Book of Certitude. Taken singly, each proves nothing. Taken together, much is said that is left unsaid.

Paradise is somehow secreted within Bahá'u'lláh's heart. The húrís, who represent the inmost thoughts of our author, have not been profaned, nor has their existence ever been guessed at. The subtext of "chambers of divine wisdom" is the "chambers of [Bahá'u'lláh'sl divine wisdom." This allusion to his prophetic credentials is followed by a lamentation to the effect that it seemed as though not "a single sign" (ramzi) had been "divulged concerning Our object." In other words, Bahá'u'lláh is the subject.

Reference to pilgrimage comes as a surprise, the not-sosubtle hint that Bahá'u'lláh himself should be an object of veneration.⁸⁸ For Islam, no earthly symbol could be more holy

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than the Kaaba in Mecca.

Ere long, thine eyes will behold the standards of divine power unfurled throughout all regions, and the signs of His triumphant might and sovereignty manifest in every land. . . . Such are the strains of the celestial melody which the immortal Bird of Heaven, warbling upon the Sadrih of Bahá, poureth out upon thee, that, by the permission of God, thou mayest tread the path of divine knowledge and wisdom.⁸⁹

The first sentence cited above is a prophecy: "Ere long" ('an qarib). Bahá'u'lláh promises that the recipient of The Book of Certitude—the Báb's uncle—would soon witness the evidences of divine influence at work in the world. The problem was that he could not see any such evidences. Hence his questions-doubts which occasioned the revelation of The Book of Certitude. Note that it is individual perception that is assured here, not a collective realization. Beyond all the symbolic proofs following reproofs of literalists, this prophecy should have had a psychological effect. It must have contributed to the process of transforming the uncle's doubt into certitude. The reader should see invisibly what cannot be visibly seen.

The second sentence in this passage represents one of Bahá'u'lláh's flights of Arabic in the otherwise Persian Kitáb-i Íqán. The obvious self-reference by name employs the metaphor of a celestial perch upon which the Bird of Heaven sings. This is no ordinary bird, so this can be no ordinary tree. The tree bears a name, the Sidra of Bahá (Sidrat al-Bahá, Lote-Tree of Splendor), and the reader has to discern if this is merely a poetic metaphor as part of an ornate narrative style: Or is there something of deeper significance being communicated here?

The "bird of heaven" turns out to be either a "dove of eternity" or an "immortal pigeon" (hamámat al-baqá'). Should this be a Persian literary pigeon in Arabic plumage, it might well be a messenger pigeon.⁹⁰ On comparative grounds, and as far

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back as ancient Egypt, birds have symbolized spirits. If indeed a celestial pigeon, then poetically this bird of heaven is privy to revelations from Heaven. The Sidra of Bahá is an intermediary, an agent of revelation. The branch becomes the locus of revelation. Upon it, God sings. The bird sings of God, of course. But in this case, God sings through the bird. This is an interpretive reading of the text, to be sure. Yet the text is capable of supporting such a reading without demanding it.

The ambiguity is important. It is the artifice. It obscures the obvious for those who are oblivious to Bahá'u'lláh's eschatological hints. It makes obvious the obscure for the discerning-those who are willing to suspend belief in the prodigious eschaton of Shí'í tradition and who are willing to extend belief to the idealized, realized eschaton which breaks from that past while claiming continuity with it. The fulfillment motif functions as a doctrinal and legal transcendence. It is cast in the language of tradition, but redefines every decisive word within it. There may not be a new heaven and a new earth except in a poetic manner of speaking. But there is a new worldview of heaven and earth, as seen in the bird's-eye view of the "immortal Bird of heaven, warbling upon the Sadrih of Bahá."

A messianic secret is hardly a literary secret if it has no clue, nor would it invite speculation unless ambiguity were maintained. No reading of a skillfully ambiguous text can claim certainty. The intrusion of Bahá'u'lláh's name here in the narrative cannot have been whimsical, whatever the author would have had us understand by it.

And now, We beseech the people of the Bayán, all the learned, the sages, the divines, and witnesses amongst them, not to for get the wishes and admonitions revealed in their Book. Let them, at all times, fix their gaze upon the essentials of His Cause, lest when He, Who is the Quintessence of truth, the in most Reality of all things, the Source of all light, is made manifest, they cling unto certain passages of the Book, and

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Bayán

⁹¹

The Mustagháth is a kind of eschatological mystery figure. We see his shadow, and that is about all. The admonition to the Babis to be "watchful" has a definite hint of imminence, and succeeds in keeping taut the wire of eschatological tension. The Báb, after all, spoke over and over of the Mustagháth, in whom the eschaton will reach its final consummation. Bahá'u'lláh is at pains to remind the Bábís of such. Having as a community paid with its blood to prove allegiance to the Báb, it could not have been an easy leap of faith to transfer allegiance to another messianic claimant.

Despite certain long-term expectations connected with the numerical value of the code word Mustagháth, there is evidence to support a short-term expectancy associated with this figure. A bit of oral history will throw some light on the nature of this expectancy. Hájí Mírzá Haydar-'Ali (d. 1920) relates:

In those days everyone was convinced that the coming of "Him Whom God shall make manifest" was at hand. I often used to say ... that if the Dispensation of the Báb . . . were not followed immediately by the Dispensation of "Him Whom God shall make manifest," then all the writings, tablets and testimonies of the Báb would remain unfulfilled and were useless.⁹²

The confidence with which Bahá'u'lláh writes of the Mustagháth must have aroused some suspicion that he knew more than he was letting on. The ambiguity of the messianic secret is adroitly maintained in The Book of Certitude through

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third-person self-references such as the excerpt above. Bahá'u'lláh strives to point the reader beyond the Báb. The reader will feel obliged to start looking, to keep his eyes open, and possibly to look to Bahá'u'lláh for further guidance on this question. Indeed, he makes no claim here. But, implicitly, he claims to know.

Our hope is that, God willing, the breeze of mercy may blow, and the divine Springtime clothe the tree of being with the robe of a new life; so that we may discover the mysteries of divine Wisdom, and, through His providence, be made independent of the knowledge of all things. We have, as yet, descried none but a handful of souls, destitute of all renown, who have attained unto this station. Let the future disclose what the Judgment of God will ordain, and the Tabernacle of His decree reveal.⁹³

Disclosure of some kind of secret is imminent. The secret is not, however, impenetrable. "As yet" (tá hál), Bahá'u'lláh informs us, a "handful [of souls]" (ma'dúdi qalil) have already discovered the "mysteries of divine wisdom" (Asrár-i hikmat-i rabbáni). They are endowed with the "robe of a new life" (khil'at-i jadid) as a result. This is a robe of honor. As Steingass informs us, a khil'at is "an honorific dress with which princes confer dignity upon subjects, consisting at least of turban, robe, and girdle."⁹⁴ The dominant imagery in this passage is vernal: the "divine Springtime" (rabi' iláhi) has arrived. The imagery is also eschatological. Our author wishes the reader to remain expectant. The "breeze of mercy" (nasim-i rahmati) carries whispers on the wind, intimations of a future revelation.

Say: O people of the earth! Behold this flamelike Youth that speedeth across the limitless profound of the Spirit, heralding unto you the tidings: "Lo: the Lamp of God is shining," and summoning you to heed His Cause which, though hidden beneath the veils of ancient splendor, shineth in the land of 'Iraq above the day-spring of holiness.⁹⁵

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The "people of the earth" (ahl al-ard) are clearly addressed here. For the message to be equal to the audience, it must be of universal moment, and of world-historical consequence. Accordingly, this Arabic passage breathes an air of authority. Attention is called to the author himself, "this flamelike Youth" (hadhá fatá núri), who traverses the spiritual realmwithin the human psyche—heralding the glad-tidings that the Cause (al-amr) or religion of God is to be discovered in the land of Iraq. The "Lamp of God" (siráj Alláh) refers to the source of revelation, of illumination. The Lamp of God is Bahá'u'lláh in poetic guise.

Translucent "beneath the veils of [ancient] splendor (tahta hujubáti al-núri), this Lamp is hidden (bi'l-sirr), yet witnessable (mashhúdan). The Lamp is not impossible to find. A veil normally allows a certain amount of light to pass through. The Lamp is so powerful that a single veil could hardly dim its light. Literally, the text suggests there are myriads of veils under which the Lamp is hidden. (The term hujub-át is the Arabic broken plural of hujub-át, affixed with fem. pl. -át.) This Lamp, who is Bahá'u'lláh, still shines through, no matter how many veils are used to conceal it. Ironically, the veils of which Bahá'u'lláh speaks are not spun from cloth. Rather, they are veils of light. In Islamic tradition, veils of light had prevented Muhammad, during his mystical transport or ascent (miráj) to heaven, from beholding God. These veils not only have the power to blind. They have the power to burn. Bahá'u'lláh is speaking as though it were God that was hidden. God was indeed hidden-hidden inside Bahá'u'lláh. This is the classic dichotomy of theophany: polarization between revelation and concealment.

May God assist us and assist you, O concourse of the Spirit! that perchance ye may in the time of His Manifestation be graciously aided to perform such deeds, and may in His days attain unto the Presence of God. Furthermore, among the "veils of glory"

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⁹⁶

This is another exhortation, addressed to Bábís. Eschatological tension is maintained with the hope, if not the promise, that fulfillment is at hand and that the Bábí must purify himself to become worthy of the requital he longs to see fulfilled. A curious pattern emerges for the more important exhortations in The Book of Certitude: A number of these are in Arabic, as in the first part of the excerpt above. In the Arabic text of this exhortation, the Bábí prophetic code word al-mustagháth (which the translator has rendered "Manifestation") is used.

As if to reinforce previous exegesis, there is a deliberate association made here between the Mustagháth and the "Presence of God" (liqá-'Alláh). The Mustagháth, as the Bábí Messiah, is linked to the numinous "Presence," which is the hidden Messiah of the Qur'án, emerging from behind the (hermeneutical) veil. This eschatological "Presence" undergoes an exegetical transformation at the hands of Bahá'u'lláh, in this interpretive sequence: In a momentary flash of literalism, God appears (the beatific vision), then disappears (anti-anthropomorphism), emerges again as an eschatological idea (Qur'án 33:44), incarnates into a "Manifestation of God," and is at last identified with the Mustagháth, who is secretly, but perceptibly, Bahá'u'lláh.

Were these people, wholly for the sake of God, . . . to ponder the verses of the Book [the Qur'án] in their heart, they would of a certainty find whatsoever they seek. In its verses would they find revealed and manifest all the things, be they great or small, that have come to pass in this Dispensation. They would even recognize in them references unto the departure of the

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⁹⁷

It is a common Muslim folk belief, with which the orthodox doubtless agree, that all knowledge in the universe, past and future, is somehow encoded in the Qur'án. For this reason, the holy book is used for purposes of divination, much as one would "throw" the l-Ching. Bahá'u'lláh takes advantage of this sense of quranic totality by asserting that all of the events of which he has been speaking are present in the divinatory dimension of the divine Book.

This passage evokes the quranic description of Paradise as a place of repose. But, on a subtle level, it is mundane geography, not the cartography of paradise, implied here. We know this because Bahá'u'lláh has assured the reader that the Qur'án specifies "in an appointed and specially designated land" (dar ard-i ma'lúm-i makhsús) the place in which the "Universal Manifestation" (mazhar-i kulliyyih) would appear.

As if to plant the clue directly beneath the reader's nose, Bahá'u'lláh then adduces two verses which, especially for the local Bábí exiles, would surely have recalled the 'Abbássid Caliph al-Mansúr's original name for Baghdad in 763 C.E.: Dár al-Salám, the Abode of Peace.⁹⁸ By calling attention to

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Baghdad.⁹⁹ and in using its eschatological epithet, Bahá'u'lláh drops another clue as to his messianic secret.

The theme of exile is also introduced here. The Báb had not been exiled out of his native land. Bahá'u'lláh had. Associating Baghdad with exile is eschatologically flirtatious: Obviously, the Bábís do not have to look very far for the place of exile in "an appointed and specially designated land." It is in their diasporal midst, just as the Qur'án had hinted at all along. In the final analysis, what matters here is not the Qur'án but the exegesis. The Qur'án provides the authority. The exegesis produces the meaning. In effect, the exegesis becomes the Qur'án, in its role as the source of guidance.

What is the purpose of the secrecy motif? Perhaps a complex of factors, not the least of which was timing. Somehow the Bábí community had to be consolidated first, while at the same time being eschatologically primed for new leadership.

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, and immensely glorified beyond that which hath streamed from this Pen.

Let the future disclose the hour when the Brides of inner 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.... All proclaim His Revelation, and all unfold the mysteries of His Spirit.¹⁰⁰

This passage openly betrays a secrecy motif, easily interpreted as hidden knowledge the author possesses regarding the eschaton, bordering on the prophetic. Unless taken as pure hyperbole, Bahá'u'lláh's stated ability to unfold "innumerable mysteries"¹⁰¹ suggests an infinitude of knowledge and is tantamount to a revelatory claim. This is understood as supernatural knowledge, which the future alone will disclose.

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The last sentence in this citation is another exclamation in Arabic, the Islamic language of revelation. The "mysteries of His spirit" (Asrár al-rúh) recall the song of the "Bird of Heaven" which unfolds "innumerable mysteries" (rumúz-há). An apocalypse is like a dream. Its "dream logic" requires decoding. The interpretation of the quranic, eschatological dream makes Bahá'u'lláh a kind of Joseph. The dream interpreter and the interpreter of prophecy not only explicate symbolism, they influence the future. In this sense, the interpretation of prophecy is a self-fulfilling prophecy. In practical terms Bahá'u'lláh will fulfill prophecy by redefining it.

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!¹⁰²

Browne was fully alive to the implications of this colophon.¹⁰³ Most puzzling was the fact that Bahá'u'lláh appeared to claim revelation, yet elsewhere in The Book of Certitude he disavowed having made any claim over any one.¹⁰⁴ (See discussion in Chapter 1.) In retrospect, such hints at revelation, along with self-denials, are consistent with messianic secrecy.

These citations do not exhaust the self-referential evidence in The Book of Certitude. Taken together, the preceding ten excerpts are intended to give a fair representation of the secrecy motif, which is the principal sub-text in The Book of Certitude. The Qur'án has symbols. Each symbol has a secret. The one who knows the secret, in this case, is the Secret. The exegete is the exegesis. Beyond exegesis, the one who has the authority to interpret will assert the authority to legislate. In this light, The Book of Certitude would soon be adduced as proof of Bahá'u'lláh's prophetic credentials, enabling him to prosecute his reforms as "World Reformer."¹⁰⁵

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MYSTIC LOCUTION OR THEOPHANIC CLAIM?

This study has taken an affirmative position on the question of Bahá'u'lláh's messianic secret. The secrecy motif has heuristic value in tracing the development of Bahá'u'lláh's messianic consciousness. The passages from The Book of Certitude cited above, as other writings of the Baghdad period, appear to encode artfully crafted "secret messages" intended to sensitize and prepare the Bábí community for the impending shift from Bahá'u'lláh's de facto leadership of a seemingly insignificant reform movement to his claim to be the messianic founder of a more international and universal system of belief. Elements of messianic secrecy, as woven into the discourse in The Book of Certitude, may be broken into the following components:

Time: first, Bahá'u'lláh exhorts his fellow Bábís to be watchful, indicating that his contemporaries should maintain an air of expectancy as the advent of the Mustagháth draws near;

Place: Next, there is the reference to Iraq and the citation of quranic verses alluding to Baghdad, whence Bahá'u'lláh "revealed" The Book of Certitude;

Agent: Bahá'u'lláh suggests that his powers of sagacity are untapped and undisclosed. He employs reflexive celestial imagery excessive for even a Sufi ecstatic. Mystics are, after all, typically "vertical" in their self-identifications. Founders of religions display a universal sense of mission.

Bahá'u'lláh posits the eventuality of two "books" of revelation destined to supersede the Qur'án. In the excerpt below, we see an epitome of salvation history, in which the Qur'án is not the final revelation and in which there is no Islamic renewal as such, no harking back to a pristine past, no revitalization movement, no drive toward Islamic reform, no alternative "modern" Islam. There is only the future, and it is clearly post-islamic:

Wherefore, O my friend, it behooveth us to exert the highest endeavour to attain unto that City, and, by the grace of God and

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His loving-kindness, rend asunder the "veils of glory"; so that, with inflexible steadfastness, we may sacrifice our drooping souls in the path of the New Beloved.... That city is none other than the Word of God revealed in every age and dispensation. In the days of Moses it was the Pentateuch; in the days of Jesus the Gospel; in the days of Muhammad the Messenger of God the Qur'án; in this day the Bayán; and in the dispensation of Him Whom God will make manifest His own Book—the Book unto which all the Books of former Dispensations must needs be referred, the Book which standeth amongst them all transcendent and supreme.¹⁰⁶

The "New Beloved" (mahbúb-i tázih) may be another circumlocution for Bahá'u'lláh. He certainly assumed such messianic dignities following his declaration, after which such an interpretation of this passage was inevitable. Evidence that this passage is reflexive occurs prior, when Bahá'u'lláh states that once one enters the City of Certitude, therein he will "perceive all the hidden teachings (ishárát) ... and with his inner eye will discover the mysteries (Asrár) of 'return' and 'revival.'"¹⁰⁷ Bahá'u'lláh speaks here of a realized eschaton. Considering the text an extended discourse on such "mysteries," the reader need only draw the conclusion that Bahá'u'lláh is "the Tree" (shajarihy-i án) which "flourisheth in that City" (án madinih).¹⁰⁸

Such internal evidence will have to be weighed against other documents in which Bahá'u'lláh's expressions of deference toward Subh-i Azal, the Bábí figurehead, must be explained. MacEoin proposes that the Kitáb-Íqán has little evidential value for the problem of Bahá'u'lláh's self-consciousness in the later Baghdad period. As mentioned, MacEoin's answer to Bahá'u'lláh's intimations of revelation is to reduce such language to the status of mystic effusion.¹⁰⁹

The problem MacEoin raises here was also raised by Browne, who discussed it with Bahá'ís in Yazd in 1888.¹¹⁰ Is there any difference between the God-talk of a mystic and that of a prophet? MacEoin's position assumes Bahá'u'lláh's

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revelatory discourse to be of the same order as a Sufi's identification with God. In other words, a sense of divine mission is equated with mystic rapture. I am of the opinion that the former subsumes the latter, but the reverse does not hold.

There is little consensus on the phenomenologies of revelation and mysticism. Despite overlap, the two do appear to be distinct. Revelation indicates more a "horizontal" or socially directed state of mind, while ecstasy remains a psychic phenomenon more "vertical" or personal in nature. The prophet is driven by a revelatory experience in which the "descent" of a divine mandate takes place, investing the prophet with his "burden" or social gospel. The mystic, on the other hand, at the pinnacle of his "ascent" toward reality, is caught up in rapture and wholly identifies with God as "Truth" or "Reality." The consequences of prophetic and mystic experiences are different. The mystic might write poetry (as Bahá'u'lláh did), but not law.

Bahá'u'lláh's Baghdad works, MacEoin concedes, do show a progression in which "several shifts of consciousness" are observable, leading to a personal conviction of divine status in 1863.¹¹¹ According to the Bahá'í chronicler Nabil, during the period leading up to the year 1863 there were visible changes in Bahá'u'lláh's appearance and demeanor.¹¹² Dahají tells us that some men in Baghdad began to say that Bahá'u'lláh was the sun and Azal was but its mirror.¹¹³

MacEoin has taken no formal position on Bahá'u'lláh's own testimony that his prophetic annunciation had taken place in 1852 in the Siyah-Chal dungeon in Tehran. Omission of this kind of evidence is problematic. Why not, as MacEoin elsewhere suggests, "take Bahá' Alláh at his word?"¹¹⁴ On his own messianic secrecy, therefore, Bahá'u'lláh will have the final say. In an Arabic Tablet known as "The Sura of Blood" (Súrat al-damm), revealed c. 1864, after his declaration.¹¹⁵ Bahá'u'lláh is explicit about his "set time of concealment."¹¹⁶

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The mystical model fails to account for Bahá'u'lláh's reformist vocation. Put simply, Bahá'u'lláh experienced his visionary "annunciation" (to use a Christian term) during his incarceration in 1852, made his "declaration" in 1863 in Baghdad, and thereafter in Constantinople and Adrianople (1863-68) prosecuted his open "proclamation" to the most powerful monarchs and pontiffs of the last century. Following this, he began an extended legislative period in Akk.a (1868-92) during which he perfected his system for world reform.

BABI RESPONSES TO THE BOOK OF CERTITUDE AND ITS AUTHOR

After his declaration, Bahá'u'lláh used The Book of Certitude as proof of his own mission. In various Tablets, there are a number of exhortations that refer readers to this work. Among such endorsements, the most accessible in translation are references in Bahá'u'lláh's Tablet of the Proof (Lawh-i burhán)¹¹⁷ and the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf.¹¹⁸ So successful was The Book of Certitude in its appeal to Bábís that Bahá'u'lláh's arch-rival Subh-i Azal was falsely rumored to have authored the work himself. A reference in the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf indicates that the rumor had persisted for some years.¹¹⁹

One of the nineteen "Apostles of Bahá'u'lláh" was Hájí Mulla 'Ali-Akbar (Hájí Akhund). Taherzadeh states that Hájí Akhund was a youth of nineteen years when, "in about the year 1861" (sic!), he had the opportunity to read one of the few manuscript copies of the Kitáb-i Íqán then circulating and was deeply impressed.¹²⁰ It is interesting to note that the youth was won over to Bahá'u'lláh as a result, despite the fact that the work focuses on the Báb. Various personal memoirs attest to the role the Kitáb-i Íqán later played in early conversions to the Faith.¹²¹

As mentioned, The Book of Certitude possessed an engaging simplicity of style, sometimes giving the initial impression

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of ordinariness. Hájí Mírzá Haydar-'Ali (d. 1920), recounts in his memoirs that: "The words and passages in the Kitábi Íqán were of a style easy to apprehend yet impossible to imitate."¹²² Mírzá Abu'l-Fadl Gulpaygani at first thought he could write better than Bahá'u'lláh, but was mysteriously overcome by a psychological impotence to compose even the simplest letter.¹²³ After his conversion, this Islamic scholar proved to be the ablest defender of The Book of Certitude.¹²⁴

For its immediate Bábí audience, and for Bahá'ís soon after, The Book of Certitude could not fail to impress. Its simplicity, cogency, and poetic style reflected more on the author than on the subject. The Báb was vindicated, yet the literary charisma of the text drew the reader to Bahá'u'lláh himself.

TRANSFORMING AUTHORITY INTO REFORM

The Book of Certitude was charged with ideological charisma. For converts, the text revolutionized the traditional Islamic eschatological worldview. All the phantastic and surreal images in the Qur'án were demystified and personalized. Both popular as well as official speculations on the eschaton were overturned, and the Resurrection became decidedly this worldly. Bábís were dazzled by Bahá'u'lláh's interpretive ingenuity, so completely independent of the authority of the mosque. Bahá'u'lláh emerged as a new authority figure on the religious horizon. All of the Last Day savior imagery was considered "fulfilled" in the person of Bahá'u'lláh. The eschatological linkage was crucial.

Authority to reveal had to be argued before Bahá'u'lláh could openly prosecute his reformist agenda. After establishing his claim to authority, he began to effect reforms and enact laws. It is with this rich fund of legislation that The Book of Certitude later became associated. It is inadvisable to atomize The Book of Certitude simply as a work of exegesis. Its

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argument effectively established Bahá'u'lláh's authority within a short time, confirming the faith of those who were charismatically drawn to him and, later, were won over to his global peace initiative.

There were certain reforms Bahá'u'lláh envisioned which were at first local, directed at the revitalization of the Bábí community in Persia and its diasporal center in Baghdad. Once his leadership had proven itself indispensable, and the force of his charisma had impelled the allegiance of the majority of Bábís, Bahá'u'lláh could publicly announce his mission as a reformer. This mission was cast in decisive eschatological terms, requiring acceptance or rejection. For God was presented as speaking to the world in this religious figure. So the question of faith was put in terms of the belief or denial of God himself, represented by proxy.

BEYOND ISLAMIC REFORM:
FACTORS IN THE CONCEPTION OF WORLD REFORM

At the heart of Bahá'u'lláh's system is his vision of world unity—a fact that should never be lost on the reader. The Bahá'í Faith is founded on a wholly different paradigm than that of Islam. To be sure, the spirit of Islam was breathed into the Bahá'í system. This Islamic heritage is proudly acknowledged. A reductive argument could even be made asserting the new Faith's essentially Islamic character. It is as if Bahá'u'lláh conserved, in reworked form, the five Pillars of the witness to faith (shaháda), prayer (salát), charity (zakát), fasting (sawm), and pilgrimage (hájj), though the laws governing these practices are, of course, transformed in the Bahá'í system. The fundamental elements of religion held in common by Sunnis and Shí'ís—Unity of God (tawhid), Prophethood (nabuwwa) and the Resurrection (ma'ád, albeit redefined)—are likewise acknowledged in Bahá'í teachings. Specifically Shí'í emphases are preserved, although also

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transformed: the institution of the Imamate (imáma) and the principle of Divine Justice ('adl). New converts to the Faith must recognize the place of Islam in Bahá'í salvation history. In the Christian West, Bahá'ís take various opportunities to rehabilitate and correct the largely negative image of Islam that has become one of the entrenched prejudices of mass culture.

Notwithstanding, these Islamic carryovers are insufficient as a definition of what is quintessentially Bahá'í. What is Islamic in form in the Bahá'í Faith is not Islamic in content.In the course of time, the conversion of non-Muslim minorities into the new Faith made its distinctive character more apparent. One might even say that the Bahá'í movement represented not only an alternative to Islam but a reaction against its perceived excesses and limitations.

An obvious case in point is the Islamic policy of holy war (jihad) and pretexts for its justification. It was clear to Bahá'u'lláh that the doctrine of holy war presented a real barrier to world unity. (Note that unity is the governing paradigm here, not submission or surrender as in Islam.) The counterproductivity of holy war was decisively proven in the failure of Bábí militarism. Since his worldview is post-islamic, it is not surprising that the abrogation of holy war represents Bahá'u'lláh's first legislative act in 1863.

On the question of authority, The Book of Certitude had far-reaching religious implications. It provided the rationale for looking beyond Islam. Without a corresponding vision of what a realized eschatology might look like in the realm of human affairs, The Book of Certitude would be little more than a theological, evidentiary work, invoking Qur'án and tradition to vindicate the Báb's revelatory claims. To see in what direction it steered a religious movement, the text should be examined from the perspective of its reformist associations.

For his converts, Bahá'u'lláh's theme of progressive revelation, founded on The Book of Certitude, effectively overcame the dogma of the finality of revelation vested in

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Muhammad. Once this was accomplished, Bahá'u'lláh undertook the most public form of proclamation possible in order to announce the new Faith: the publication of open epistles to kings and ecclesiastics, Occidental and Oriental. Thereafter, Bahá'u'lláh systematized the legislation needed to give structure to Bahá'í reform.

Although outside the scope of this study, a word may be said about the nature and widening of Bahá'u'lláh's reforms. Three stages of reform can be seen within the expansion of Bahá'u'lláh's influence, culminating in activism beyond the pale of Islam. The Book of Certitude was written as a preparatory stage in Bahá'u'lláh's reformist ministry. As a reformer, Bahá'u'lláh was concerned: (1) initially with Bábí reform; (2) intermittently, with Persian reform; and (3) preponderantly, with world reform. For most of his ministry, he was fully absorbed with world reform.¹²⁵ The exposure of messianic paradigms to new historical circumstances was such that, according to Amanat:

The Bahá'í religion came to represent revisionist tendencies within the movement that sought to achieve further religious innovation by means of moral aptitude and adoption of modern social reforms.¹²⁶

Historical context makes sense of Bahá'u'lláh's mission. Persian reformers were making their presence felt, and there were other reformers in the Muslim world at large. Broadly speaking, reform in modern Islam ranges from strategies of Islamic resurgence to avowed secularism. For Bahá'u'lláh, progress became a global issue beyond Islam, and beyond the Bábí movement as well. In this sense, Bahá'u'lláh never directly pursued Islamic reform because he bypassed it.

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THE BOOK OF CERTITUDE AND BABI REFORM

The Book of Certitude was revealed at a time when its author was committed to the moral reform of the Bábí community. He was not at that time bent on the reform of Islam, Persia, or the world. In the power vacum created by Azal's inaccessibility, the need arose for an effective Bábí leader. Prompted by Azal's timidity and ineffectuality as nominal chief of the Bábís, Bahá'u'lláh's post-exile (1856-92) role as leader-accepted with some reluctance-was solicited by certain of the Bábís themselves. The growth and expansion of the Bábí movement would scarcely have been possible without such leadership. This was, after all, a movement with missionary objectives. It had to carry on, to promote its own vision of reform, or suffer the fate of increasing marginalization.

In a sense, it was useful that a power crisis developed between Bahá'u'lláh and Azal in 1866-67, for it brought matters to a head and brought about the emergence of that nucleus of believers from which the Bahá'í Faith sprang. A problem does arise in trying to reconstruct Bahá'u'lláh's sense of mission as it developed during the Baghdad period, and to determine at which point that sense of destiny took on clearly messianic overtones.

In one of several autobiographical remarks in The Book of Certitude, Bahá'u'lláh discloses:

In these days ... odors of jealousy are diffused .... For a number of people who have never inhaled the fragrance of justice, have raised the standard of sedition, and have leagued themselves against Us. On every side We witness the menace of their spears, and in all directions We recognize the shafts of their arrows.¹²⁷

Although I never exalted myself over any one in any matter, nor sought for authority over any one, I associated with every one with the utmost affection, and [was] extremely patient and accessible, and with the poor was as the poor, and with the learned and great [I was] perfectly contented.¹²⁸

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... I swear by God, the one true God! grievous as have been the woes and sufferings which the hand of the enemy and the people of the Book inflicted upon Us, yet all these fade in utter nothingness when compared with that which hath befallen Us at the hand of those who profess to be Our friends.¹²⁹

A question that should be asked here concerns the redactional intent of the passage: Does Bahá'u'lláh wish to say that consolidation efforts within the Bábí community were met with ill-deserved opposition due to rivalry? We can only speculate as to whether such machinations had the object of undermining Bahá'u'lláh's role as de facto leader only, or whether there was also a perception of Bahá'u'lláh's implicit theophanic claims and a negative reaction to them.

When did Bahá'u'lláh begin thinking seriously about world reform? A clue to this may be seen in the following anecdote. In his last major work, the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf (1890), Bahá'u'lláh recounts an episode in his personal life which illustrates his thinking on the problem of language barriers:

One day, while in Constantinople, Kamal Pasha visited this Wronged One. Our conversation turned upon topics profitable to man. He said that he had learned several languages. In reply We observed: "You have wasted your life."

"It beseemeth you and the other officials of the Government to convene a gathering and choose one of the divers languages, and likewise one of the existing scripts, or else to create a new language and a new script to be taught children in schools throughout the world."

"They would, in this way, be acquiring only two languages, one their own native tongue, the other the language in which all the peoples of the world would converse. Were men to take fast hold on that which hath been mentioned, the whole earth would come to be regarded as one country, and the people would be relieved and freed from the necessity of acquiring and teaching different languages."

When in Our presence, he acquiesced, and even evinced great

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joy and complete satisfaction. We then told him to lay this matter before the officials and ministers of the Government, in order that it might be put into effect throughout the different countries.

However, although he often returned to see Us after this, he never again referred to this subject, although that which had been suggested is conducive to the concord and the unity of the peoples of the world.¹³⁰

According to this self-disclosure, Bahá'u'lláh's thinking on global reform commenced no later than the Constantinople period (1863), not long after the revelation of The Book of Certitude. Considering Bahá'u'lláh's focus on Bábí reform was just months earlier, the transition from so circumscribed a purview to a global reformist context is rather sudden. True, the vocation of an Islamic Mahdist figure was clearly to "fill the earth with justice and equity." But the thinking that had to have preceded Bahá'u'lláh's reformist objectives—which were already crystallizing in 1863—had to reach back well before this time.

SPECIFIC BABI REFORMS IN THE BOOK OF CERTITUDE

In the aftermath of three bloody Bábí defensive battles (at Shaykh Tabarsi, Nayriz and Zanjan) followed by the attempt on the life of the shah (1852), Bahá'u'lláh adopted a quietest stance. His primary concern was for the Bábí community, which was faced with the external threats of state persecution and internal threats of internecine factionalism. Within its ranks, about twenty-five Bábís entertained messianic pretensions in the leadership crisis caused by Azal's absence.

Bahá'u'lláh's pacifism served to distance the Bábís from their revolutionary stigma by disavowing violence altogether. To effect internal consolidation, Bahá'u'lláh urged moral

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reform. The moral consolidation of the Bábí community concentrated on the integrity of the individual, but also affected the collective Bábí response to state authority. The strategy was clear: Only through moral reform could the Bábí community cohere and remain viable as an agent for change.

Bahá'u'lláh linked moral purity with spiritual perspicuity. This becomes evident in a section of The Book of Certitude known among Bahá'ís as the "Tablet of the True Seeker." Here, the ability to make sense of the cryptic quranic warnings concerning the eschaton is imparted only to the pure in heart. In turn, this purity is conditioned on moral rectitude. Elements of the moral dimension of Bahá'u'll.ah's reformist teachings may be found in The Book of Certitude itself, which speaks of ethical preconditions to spiritual perception:

Inner Purification:
0 my brother, when a true seeker determines to take the step of search in the path leading to the knowledge of the Ancient of Days, he must, before all else, cleanse and purify his heart, which is the seat of the revelation of the inner mysteries of God, from the obscuring dust of all acquired knowledge, and the allusions of the embodiments of satanic fancy.¹³¹

Detachment:
He must purge his breast, which is the sanctuary of the abiding love of the Beloved, of every'defilement, and sanctify his soul from all that pertaineth to water and clay, from all shadowy and ephemeral attachments. He must so cleanse his heart that