Forty days before the arrival of that officer at Chihríq,
[to transfer the Báb to Tabriz for His execution] the Báb collected all the
documents and Tablets in His possession and, placing them, with His pen-case,
His seals, and agate rings, in a coffer, entrusted them to the care of Mullá
Báqir, one of the Letters of the Living. To him He also delivered a letter
addressed to Mírzá Ahmad, His amanuensis, in which He enclosed the key to that
coffer. He urged him to take the utmost care of that trust, emphasised the
sacredness of its character, and bade him conceal its contents from anyone
except Mírzá Ahmad.
Mullá Báqir departed forthwith for Qazvín. Within eighteen
days he reached that town and was informed that Mírzá Ahmad had departed for
Qum. He left immediately for that destination and arrived towards the middle of
the month of Sha’bán. I was then in Qum, together with a certain
Sádiq-i-Tabrízí, whom Mírzá Ahmad had sent to fetch me from Zarand. I was
living in the same house with Mírzá Ahmad, a house which he had hired in the
Bagh-Panbih quarter. In those days Shaykh Azím, Siyyid Ismá’íl, and a number of
other companions likewise were dwelling with us. Mullá Báqir delivered the
trust into the hands of Mírzá Ahmad, who, at the insistence of Shaykh Azím,
opened it before us. We marvelled when we beheld, among the things which that
coffer contained, a scroll of blue paper, of the most delicate texture, on
which the Báb, in His own exquisite handwriting, which was a fine shikastih
script, had penned, in the form of a pentacle, what numbered about five hundred
verses, all consisting of derivatives from the word “Bahá.” That scroll was in a state of perfect
preservation, was spotlessly clean, and gave the impression, at first sight, of
being a printed rather than a written page. So fine and intricate was the
penmanship that, viewed at a distance, the writing appeared as a single wash of
ink on the paper. We were overcome with admiration as we gazed upon a
masterpiece which no calligraphist, we believed, could rival. That scroll was
replaced in the coffer and handed back to Mírzá Ahmad, who, on the very day he
received it, proceeded to Tihrán. Ere he departed, he informed us that all he
could divulge of that letter was the injunction that the trust was to be
delivered into the hands of Jináb-i-Bahá [Baha’u’llah] in Tihrán.
- Nabil (‘The Dawn-Breakers’; translated and
edited by Shoghi Effendi)
