The Kitáb-i-Aqdas - The Most Holy Book
Index term: followers of (Bábí­s), under Báb, the
k137.
O people of the Bayán! Fear ye the Most Merciful and consider what He hath revealed in another passage. He said: "The Qiblih is indeed He Whom God will make manifest; whenever He moveth, it moveth, until He shall come to rest." Thus was it set down by the Supreme Ordainer when He desired to make mention of this Most Great Beauty. Meditate on this, O people, and be not of them that wander distraught in the wilderness of error. If ye reject Him at the bidding of your idle fancies, where then is the Qiblih to which ye will turn, O assemblage of the heedless? Ponder ye this verse, and judge equitably before God, that haply ye may glean the pearls of mysteries from the ocean that surgeth in My Name, the All-Glorious, the Most High.
k140.
O people of the Bayán, I adjure you by your Lord, the God of mercy, to look with the eye of fairness upon this utterance which hath been sent down through the power of truth, and not to be of those who see the testimony of God yet reject and deny it. They, in truth, are of those who will assuredly perish. The Point of the Bayán hath explicitly made mention in this verse of the exaltation of My Cause before His own Cause; unto this will testify every just and understanding mind. As ye can readily witness in this day, its exaltation is such as none can deny save those whose eyes are drunken in this mortal life and whom a humiliating chastisement awaiteth in the life to come.
k176.
O people of the Bayán! We, verily, set foot within the School of God when ye lay slumbering; and We perused the Tablet while ye were fast asleep. By the one true God! We read the Tablet ere it was revealed, while ye were unaware, and We had perfect knowledge of the Book when ye were yet unborn. These words are to your measure, not to God’s. To this testifieth that which is enshrined within His knowledge, if ye be of them that comprehend; and to this the tongue of the Almighty doth bear witness, if ye be of those who understand. I swear by God, were We to lift the veil, ye would be dumbfounded.
n178.
Call ye to mind the shaykh whose name was Muhammad-Hasan
Shaykh Muhammad-Hasan, one of the leading exponents of Shí­'ih Islám, rejected the Báb. The author of voluminous writings on Shí­'ih jurisprudence, he is reported to have died around 1850.
Nabí­l, in The Dawn-Breakers, describes the encounter that took place in Najaf between Mullá ‘Alí­y-i-Bastámí­, one of the Letters of the Living, and Shaykh Muhammad-Hasan. During the meeting, Mullá ‘Alí­ announced the manifestation of the Báb and extolled the potency of His Revelation. At the instigation of the shaykh, Mullá ‘Alí­ was forthwith pronounced a heretic and expelled from the assembly. He was put on trial, transported to Istanbul, and condemned to hard labour.
n179.
a sifter of wheat and barley
This is an allusion to Mullá Muhammad Ja'far Gandum-Pák-Kun, the first person in Isfahán to accept the Faith of the Báb. He is mentioned in the Persian Bayán and praised as one who “donned the robe of discipleship”. In The Dawn-Breakers, Nabí­l describes the unreserved acceptance of the Message by the "sifter of wheat" and his zealous advocacy of the new Revelation. He joined the company of the defenders of the Fort of Shaykh Tabarsí­ and perished during that siege.
n185.
the School of Transcendent Oneness
In this verse and the ones which immediately follow it, Bahá’u’lláh confronts one of the reasons some of the Bábí­s rejected His claim to be the Promised One of the Bayán. Their rejection was based on a Tablet addressed by the Báb to "Him Who will be made manifest" on the reverse side of which the Báb had written: “May the glances of Him Whom God shall make manifest illumine this letter at the primary school.” This Tablet is published in Selections from the Writings of the Báb.
These Bábí­s maintained that, since Bahá’u’lláh was two years older than the Báb, it was not possible for Him to receive this Tablet “at the primary school”.
Bahá’u’lláh here explains that the reference is to events transpiring in the spiritual worlds beyond this plane of existence.
n187.
O people of the Bayán!
Reference to the followers of the Báb.