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| Muhammad Shah 1834-1848 |
The commotion [in Shiraz] had assumed such proportions that
the Sháh, unable any longer to ignore the situation, delegated the
trusted Siyyid Yahyáy-i-Darábí, surnamed Vahíd,
one of the most erudite, eloquent and influential of his subjects — a man who had committed to memory
no less than thirty thousand traditions —
to investigate and report to him the true situation. Broad-minded,
highly imaginative, zealous by nature, intimately associated with the court,
he, in the course of three interviews, was completely won over by the arguments
and personality of the Báb.
Their first interview centered around the metaphysical
teachings of Islám, the most obscure passages of the Qur’án, and the traditions
and prophecies of the Imáms. In the course of the second
interview Vahíd was astounded to find that the questions which he had intended
to submit for elucidation had been effaced from his retentive memory, and yet,
to his utter amazement, he discovered that the Báb was answering the very
questions he had forgotten. During the third interview the circumstances
attending the revelation of the Báb’s commentary on the súrih of Kawthar,
comprising no less than two thousand verses, so overpowered the delegate of the
Sháh that he, contenting himself with a mere written report to the Court
Chamberlain, arose forthwith to dedicate his entire life and resources to the
service of a Faith that was to requite him with the crown of martyrdom during
the Nayríz upheaval. He who had firmly resolved to confute the arguments of an
obscure siyyid of Shíráz, to induce Him to abandon His ideas, and to
conduct Him to Tihrán as an evidence of the ascendancy he had achieved over
Him, was made to feel, as he himself later acknowledged, as “lowly as the dust
beneath His feet.” Even Husayn Khán, [the governor of Fárs] who had been
Vahíd’s host during his stay in Shíráz, was compelled to write to the Sháh
and express the conviction that his Majesty’s illustrious delegate had become a
Bábí.
- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
