The Covenant of Baha'u'llah

by Adib Taherzadeh

chapter 2

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chapter 4

Chapter 3

Mirza Yahya, the Nominee of the Bab

Mirza Yahya was a paternal half-brother of Bahá'u'lláh. He was about fourteen years younger, and when their father died he was only a boy of eight. He thus grew up under the care and protection of Bahá'u'lláh, Who paid special attention to his education and upbringing. When the Bab declared His Mission in 1844, Mirza Yahya was thirteen years old. When the Message of the Bab reached Bahá'u'lláh, He helped Mirza Yahya to recognize the station of the Bab and to embrace the newly-born Faith, and encouraged him to read the Writings of the Bab and become familiar with their style of composition.

A few months before the Bab was martyred in 1850, Sayyah, one of His distinguished disciples, attained the presence of Bahá'u'lláh in Tihran. On this occasion Bahá'u'lláh sent a communication to the Bab through Sayyah. Nabil-i-A'zam records this account:

"Ere the departure of Sayyah from Tihran, Bahá'u'lláh entrusted him with an epistle, the text of which He had dictated to Mirza Yahya, and sent it in his name. Shortly after, a reply, penned in the Bab's own handwriting, in which He commits Mirza Yahya to the care of Bahá'u'lláh and urges that attention be paid to his education and training, was received." [3-1]

Thus Mirza Yahya grew up under the guidance of Bahá'u'lláh and became conversant with the Writings of the Bab.

In those days the believers who were educated used to make handwritten copies of the holy Words. In order to deepen his understanding of the Writings of the Bab, Bahá'u'lláh especially assigned Mirza Yahya the task of transcribing them. Consequently Mirza Yahya learnt not only the style of the composition of the Bab's Writings, but was also able to write in the same fashion and imitate the Bab's handwriting — an art which served him well some years later when he rebelled against Bahá'u'lláh, and by forging the Bab's handwriting interpolated his own words into the Bab's Writings to produce texts in his own favour.

The appointment by the Bab of Mirza Yahya as the leader of the Babi community took place on the advice of Bahá'u'lláh. Abdu'l-Bahá states that some time after the death of Muhammad Shah it became evident that Bahá'u'lláh's fame had spread far and wide in Persia and it was essential to divert public attention away from His Person. To achieve this aim Bahá'u'lláh advised the Bab to nominate Mirza Yahya. This advice was communicated through the medium of a trusted believer, Mulla Abdu'l-Karim of Qazvin, otherwise known as Mirza Ahmad, who was able to make contact with the Bab. The appointment of Mirza Yahya, who was then in his late teens, had the obvious advantage of enabling Bahá'u'lláh to direct the affairs of the community behind the scenes through the instrumentality of Mirza Yahya, who, in reality, was merely the ostensible head until the advent of 'Him Whom God shall make manifest'.

The Babi community was not informed of the reasons behind this appointment. It must have come as a surprise to many when they realized that the appointee of the Bab was a youth in his teens, and those who knew his personality were aware of his shallowness and vanity. Apart from Mulla Abdu'l-Karim, the only other person who was privy to this secret arrangement was Bahá'u'lláh's faithful brother, Mirza Musa, entitled Aqay-i-Kalim. It must be stated here that the Bab in all His Writings urged the believers to be ready for the manifestation of 'Him Whom God shall make manifest' and no one else. So emphatic was His advent and so close was the timing of His Revelation that the Bab never contemplated the appointment of a successor to Himself. Indeed, He confirms this in the Bayan, saying that in His Dispensation there was to be no mention of successorship. Yet Mirza Yahya, as we shall see later, broke the Covenant of the Bab and claimed to be His successor.

Mirza Yahya was devoid of outstanding qualities. He was easily influenced by people, ambitious and, above all, very timid by nature. At the age of nineteen he married his cousin and for some time they lived in the village of Takur in the province of Nur. The Babi community of Takur was one of the most thriving communities in Persia at the time. The reason for this was that as soon as the news of the Declaration of the Bab reached Bahá'u'lláh, He arose to teach the Faith to the members of His family and others in Nur. Many relatives and friends in that area embraced the Faith and through the influence of Bahá'u'lláh became staunch believers.

When the news of the Martyrdom of the Bab reached Mirza Yahya, he was so frightened for his own life that he disguised himself in the garb of a dervish and, leaving his wife and child behind, fled the mountains of Mazindaran. Soon after, Bahá'u'lláh left Persia for Iraq and Mirza Yahya could no longer avail himself of His protection and guidance. Thus he roamed the countryside in fear and trepidation. This behaviour, especially at a time when Bahá'u'lláh was absent from Persia, had a deadly effect upon the believers in the province of Nur. Through Mirza Yahya's cowardly behaviour and lack of faith in the religion of the Bab, many believers were disappointed in him as a leader, became disenchanted and left the Faith altogether.

This tragic situation brought great sorrow to Bahá'u'lláh. Some years later in Akka, He uttered these words on the subject as recounted by Nabil:

"God knows that at no time did We attempt to conceal Ourself or hide the Cause which We have been bidden to proclaim. Though not wearing the garb of the people of learning, We have again and again faced and reasoned with men of great scholarship in both Nur and Mazindaran, and have succeeded in persuading them of the truth of this Revelation. We never flinched in Our determination; We never hesitated to accept the challenge from whatever direction it came. To whomsoever We spoke in those days, We found him receptive to our Call and ready to identify himself with its precepts. But for the shameful behaviour of the people of Bayan, who sullied by their deeds the work We had accomplished, Nur and Mazindaran would have been entirely won to this Cause and would have been accounted by this time among its leading strongholds." [3-2]

When the attempt was made on the life of Nasiri'd-Din Shah by a few mentally disturbed Babis in 1852, hell broke loose upon the Babi community. Many of the followers of the Bab were martyred in the most cruel circumstances and Bahá'u'lláh, along with others, was imprisoned in the Siyah-Chal. The Shah ordered his Prime Minister, Mirza Aqa Khan,[1] who was a native of Nur himself, to send troops to Nur and arrest all the followers of the Bab in that area. The troops carried out their orders; some believers were killed and some were taken to the Siyah-Chal, their houses demolished and their properties confiscated. The house of Bahá'u'lláh, which was royally furnished, was turned into ruins. Its roof was destroyed and all items of exquisite furnishings confiscated. So terrified was Mirza Yahya as a result of these persecutions that he fled to Gilan in disguise and then to Kirmanshah in the west of Persia. There he decided to engage himself in a profession so that no one could identify him. He took work as a salesman with a certain Abdu'llah-i-Qazvini who was a maker of shrouds.
[1 He was related to Bahá'u'lláh through the marriage of his niece to Mirza Muhammad-Hasan, an elder half-brother of Bahá'u'lláh.]

Some months later Bahá'u'lláh and His family passed through Kirmanshah on their way to Baghdad. In Kirmanshah several people of rank and position came to visit Bahá'u'lláh and pay their respects, but Mirza Yahya was afraid to contact Him. Such was his state of mind that when Aqay-i-Kalim, Bahá'u'lláh's faithful brother, called on him, Mirza Yahya was apprehensive lest some one should recognize his true identity. After some persuasion by Aqay-i-Kalim, he went and visited Bahá'u'lláh, knowing that Bahá'u'lláh would extend to him His protection and guidance. Feeling secure in His presence, he expressed the desire to go to Baghdad and live alone, incognito, in a house close to Bahá'u'lláh's and engage in a trade there. Bahá'u'lláh gave him a small sum of money and he bought a few bales of cotton, disguised himself as an Arab and soon after Bahá'u'lláh's arrival in Baghdad, found his way to that city.

Being a master in the art of disguise, he arrived at Bahá'u'lláh's doorstep dressed as a dervish, kashkul (alms box) in hand. So well was he disguised that Aqay-i-Kalim, who answered the door, did not recognize him at first. He stayed for a few days in the house of Bahá'u'lláh, but asked that neither his identity nor his arrival in the city be divulged to the believers in Iraq. He was helped to secure a residence in the Arab quarter of the city where no Persians resided. There he spent his time in hiding during the day, emerging only at night when he would go to the house of Bahá'u'lláh, meet with Aqay-i-Kalim, and then return home in the late hours. He even had threatened that if anyone insisted on visiting him and revealing his identity, he would excommunicate him from the Babi community.

It must be noted that from the early days when the Bab announced him as the leader of the Babi community, Mirza Yahya, who was also a highly ambitious person, had entertained the thought of one day bypassing Bahá'u'lláh (who used to direct his activities) and independently asserting himself as the successor of the Bab. In those days before his rebellion, it was Bahá'u'lláh's practice to call Mirza Yahya into His presence to take down Bahá'u'lláh's words and communicate His message to the Babis in his own name as the leader of the Babi community.[1] But it is a well-known fact that whenever he entered into the presence of Bahá'u'lláh and came face to face with His majestic Person, he was unable to put forward his thoughts and became utterly speechless. Some individuals who were close to him have testified to this. Mirza Aqa Jan, Bahá'u'lláh's amanuensis, was at first surprised to find Mirza Yahya so helpless and mute in the presence of Bahá'u'lláh, until later he realized that Mirza Yahya was like anyone else in His presence.
[1 In one of His Tablets Bahá'u'lláh describes this period of the Faith. See The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh. vol. 2, pp. 241-3.]

Many Babis, through their devotion to the Faith, were eager to meet Mirza Yahya since he had been nominated by the Bab, but very few succeeded and these were utterly disappointed after meeting him. To cite an example: Shaykh Salman,[1] honoured by Bahá'u'lláh as the 'Messenger of the Merciful' and one of the outstanding believers who for almost forty years carried Tablets and messages from Bahá'u'lláh and Abdu'l-Bahá to the believers, was very eager to meet Mirza Yahya in the early days of Bahá'u'lláh's arrival in Baghdad. After much pleading by Shaykh Salman, Mirza Yahya agreed to meet him outside the city on a hilltop. When the interview took place, Mirza Yahya had nothing to say except trivialities. He was interested in the telegraph poles (a novelty in those days) and wanted Shaykh Salman to guess the distance between two poles for him! There were a few others who succeeded in meeting Mirza Yahya in Baghdad and they too recognized his ignorance and shallow-mindedness. Those few — and there were not many — who met him face to face knew that Mirza Yahya was merely the ostensible head appointed by the Bab for convenience.
[1 For an account of his services, see The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, vols. 1 and 2.]

But the Babi community as a whole was not aware of the true situation. Many, in the earlier part of Bahá'u'lláh's sojourn in Baghdad, were attracted to him. But this attraction was only to a name, for he was inaccessible to everybody. Gradually, as the followers of the Bab turned to Bahá'u'lláh, the truth of the Faith began to dawn on them. Many travelled to Baghdad, attained His presence and were vivified by the majesty and the glory of His Person. Some of them recognized Him as the Promised One of the Bayan but were not allowed to divulge their belief to others. But soon after Bahá'u'lláh's arrival, great tests surrounded the Babi community. A severe crisis assailed the infant Faith of God from within and shook it to its very foundations for almost two decades.

chapter 2

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chapter 4