Bahá'u'lláh's family came from Nur, a district in the
Iranian province of Mazandaran, the province in north Iran at the south end of
the Caspian Sea. This province has high mountain peaks in the south descending
to the northern coastal plain bordering the sea. Because of the dense
sub-tropical jungles of the lower parts of the province (a stark contrast to
the dry desert conditions in much of the rest of Iran), it was always a
difficult area for invaders to penetrate. The Zoroastrian royalty and nobility
fled to these parts after the Arab Islamic invasion of Iran in the seventh century
and Bahá'u'lláh's family are said to have been descended from the last
Zoroastrian monarch of Iran. Even when the people of this area finally
converted to Islam centuries after that invasion, they mainly converted to the
Zaydi form of Shi'i Islam as distinct from the Sunni Islam of most of the rest
of Iran. It was only when the Safavid monarchs imposed Twelver Shi'i Islam on
the whole country that Mazandaran fell into line with the rest of Iran.
The noble families of the Nur district, including Bahá'u'lláh's
family, had for generations provided the kings of Iran with well-educated
government officials: civil servants who would collect taxes, keep accounts,
pay the army and generally administer the government. Bahá'u'lláh's father,
Mirza Buzurg Nuri, rose in the ranks of these civil servants to become the
minister to a royal prince who was the commander of the royal guards. He was
later a vizier (minister), an official responsible for the collection of taxes,
in a province. He was given the village of Takur in the Nur region in lieu of
salary and he built a fine mansion there by the side of the Nur river as a
family home.
- Moojan Momen (‘Bahá'u'lláh, a Short Biography’)
