Epistle of the Báb on the Mi'rāj of the Prophet Muhammad, Addressed to Mīrzá Ḥasan Nūrī

Abstract: Debates surrounding the nature of prophetic embodiment have long occupied the intersection of theology, philosophy, and cosmology in nineteenth-century Iranian thought. This study examines a short but conceptually profound Arabic Epistle revealed by the Báb in Isfahán in 1846, commonly known as Risālah fī Jasad al-Nabī or Sharḥ Kayfiyyāt al-Mi‘rāj, composed in response to questions concerning the bodily Ascension of the Prophet Muḥammad.

Addressed to Mīrzá Ḥasan Nūrī, an Ishrāqī philosopher of the Mullā Ṣadrā tradition, the Epistle intervenes in ongoing Shaykhī and Bābī debates regarding whether the Mi‘rāj should be understood in purely corporeal, allegorical, or metaphysical terms. The Báb articulates a sophisticated cosmological framework structured around three modes of existence — Sarmad, Dahr, and Zamān — within which the Prophet’s body is understood not as an elemental form bound by temporal limitation, but as a symbolic and spiritual reality (Hurqalyā) capable of simultaneous presence across multiple realms. While affirming the factual reality of the Mi‘rāj as bodily, the Epistle underscores the epistemic limits of ordinary intellect and situates true comprehension within the domain of spiritual insight and gnosis. By reconciling corporeality and omnipresence within a unified ontological scheme, the Báb advances a nuanced position that transcends both strict literalism and reductive allegory.

This provisional translation, based on INBA Vol. 53, pp. 402–403, seeks to preserve the elevated diction and theological precision of the original Arabic.