A Tablet of the Báb Revealed in Honor of Áqá Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ardīstānī

Abstract: The present study offers a provisional English rendering of a hallowed Tablet revealed by the Báb during His confinement in the fortress of MáKú, between early July 1847 and early April 1848. Addressed to Áqá Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ardīstānī, this Arabic Tablet belongs to the corpus of the Báb’s early prison writings and bears witness to the exalted style and profound theological concerns that pervade His Revelation in this seminal period. Preserved in ʿAhd-i-Aʿlá, p. 237, the Tablet opens with solemn affirmations of divine testimony, declares the Báb’s identity as the long-expected Qāʾim, and proceeds with precise instructions for the transcription, arrangement, and preservation of sacred writings.

The text is particularly notable for its symbolic use of the number nineteen, the emphasis it places on the sanctity of the revealed Word, and its assertion of the infinite value of even a single letter of God’s utterance.