In the village of Yalrud which is near Bahá'u'lláh’s
ancestral home in Takur, in northern Iran, there lived a mujtahid by the name
of Shaykh Muhammad-Taqi who was well-famed throughout the land. He had a
thousand scholars of divinity around him, whom he taught and, from time to time,
presented with a complex question to resolve.
Whenever Bahá'u'lláh returned to His home in Takur, He would usually stop for a while in Yalrud, and here He would visit the mujtahid, who was distantly related to His family.
During a visit to Yarud, when Bahá'u'lláh was sitting in the company of Shaykh Muhmmmad-Taqi and other scholars and divines, He was asked to resolve a question they had been unable to answer to the mujtahid's satisfaction.
The problem was this:
An Islamic tradition states that ‘Fatimih is the best of the women of this world, but for the one born of Mary’. But since Mary had no daughter, what did this conundrum mean?
Bahá'u'lláh replied that the initial statement emphasized the impossibility of its alternative, since there could be no other woman comparable to Fatimih. It was like saying that a certain monarch is the greatest of the kings of this world, except for the one who comes down from Heaven; since no king has or will come down from Heaven, the uniqueness of that one monarch is stressed.
Bahá'u'lláh’s explanation left the great mujtahid silent, but next day he upbraided his disciples for having let him down badly. 'I have taught and trained you for years on end,' he complained, 'but when the need arises, I find you wanting in understanding, whereas an unturbaned youth has brilliantly explained the problem I had presented to you.'
(Adapted from ‘Bahá'u'lláh,
The King of Glory’, by H.M. Balyuzi)
