While Bahá’u’lláh was spreading the Divine Message of the
Báb in the district of Nur in northern Iran in 1844, an amazing incident took
place which Nabil recorded:
One day, in the course of one of His riding excursions into
the country, Bahá’u’lláh, accompanied by His companions, saw, seated by the
roadside, a lonely youth. His hair was dishevelled, and he wore the dress of a
dervish. [1] By the side of a brook he had kindled a fire, and was cooking his
food and eating it. Approaching him, Bahá’u’lláh most lovingly enquired: “Tell
Me, dervish, what is it that you are doing?” “I am engaged in eating God,” he
bluntly replied. “I am cooking God and am burning Him.” The unaffected
simplicity of his manners and the candour of his reply pleased Bahá’u’lláh
extremely. He smiled at his remark and began to converse with him with
unrestrained tenderness and freedom. Within a short space of time, Bahá’u’lláh
had changed him completely. Enlightened as to the true nature of God, and with
a mind purged from the idle fancy of his own people, he immediately recognised
the Light which that loving Stranger had so unexpectedly brought him. That
dervish, whose name was Mustafá, became so enamoured with the teachings which
had been instilled into his mind that, leaving his cooking utensils behind, he
straightway arose and followed Bahá’u’lláh. On foot, behind His horse, and
inflamed with the fire of His love, he chanted merrily verses of a love-song
which he had composed on the spur of the moment and had dedicated to his
Beloved. “Thou art the Day-Star of guidance,” ran its glad refrain. “Thou art
the Light of Truth. Unveil Thyself to men, O Revealer of the Truth.” Although,
in later years, that poem obtained wide circulation among his people, and it
became known that a certain dervish, surnamed Majdhúb, and whose name was
Mustafá Big-i-Sanandají, had, without premeditation, composed it in praise of
his Beloved, none seemed to be aware to whom it actually referred, nor did
anyone suspect, at a time when Bahá’u’lláh was still veiled from the eyes of
men, that this dervish alone had recognised His station and discovered His
glory.
- Nabil (‘The Dawn-Breakers’,
translated and edited by Shoghi Effendi)
[1] Poor one, Religious mendicant, Islamic mystic
