Nabil writes that Mirzá Áqá Jan further related to him that the Abhá Beauty (Bahá’u’lláh) said to him: “‘If you see Me in the marketplace, do not show any sign of recognition, unless I call you Myself.’” That day, when I went out to the bazar, I encountered His Blessed Person. He called out loudly for me and I ran into His presence. For a while, an hour or more, He spoke to me there in the market-place. Afterwards, He went to Najaf. He instructed me: ‘Stay in Karbilá. When I return [from Najaf], should I pass this way, I shall take you with Myself to Baghdad, and should I go [to Baghdád] by way of Hillih, I shall send for you.’
“I stayed in Karbilá for three months. I used to gather thorn and sell it to the bath-keepers. One day. Shaykh Abú-Turáb [-i-Ishtahárdí] told me, ‘If I could get hold of a copy of the Persian Bayán, I would read something out of it to you.’ I said: ‘It can be found.’ ‘Where?’ enquired Shaykh Abú-Turáb. I replied that Háji ’Abdu’l-Majíd-i-Shírází in Kázimayn had a copy, and I left that very hour for Kázimayn to obtain it. When I neared Baghdád I ran into Abu’l-Qásim-i-Káshání and enquired about Háji ‘Abdu'l-Majid. At first, he thought that I intended to meet Azal, but when he realized that my heart had been captivated by someone else, he asked me for a reason, and, when I mentioned the gait and the speech of the Abhá Beauty, he gave me a luminous Tablet revealed for me, in which the People of Bahá and the qualities of the Abhá Beauty had been mentioned. When the news of my coming was given to His Blessed Person, He summoned Me and said that He had intended to send for me.”
Thus began Mirzá Áqá Ján's forty-year-long service to Bahá'u'lláh as attendant, amanuensis and companion.
- Hasan Balyuzi (‘Bahá’u’lláh King of Glory’)
