Who is the Báb? Who are the Letters of the Living? How were they chosen?

1. May 23, 1844, signalizes the commencement of the most turbulent period of the Heroic Age of the Bahá'í Era, an age which marks the opening of the most glorious epoch in the greatest cycle which the spiritual history of mankind has yet witnessed. No more than a span of nine short years marks the duration of this most spectacular, this most tragic, this most eventful period of the first Bahá'í century. [...] The heroes whose deeds shine upon the record of this fierce spiritual contest, involving at once people, clergy, monarch and  government, were the Báb's chosen disciples, the Letters of the Living, and their companions, the trail-breakers of the New Day, who to so much intrigue, ignorance, depravity, cruelty, superstition and cowardice opposed a spirit exalted, unquenchable and awe-inspiring [...] The opening scene of the initial act of this great drama was laid in the upper chamber of the modest residence of the son of a mercer of Shiraz, in an obscure corner of that city. The time was the hour before sunset, on the 22nd day of May, 1844. The participants were the Báb, a twenty-five year old siyyid, of pure and holy lineage, and the young Mulla Husayn, the first to believe in Him. Their meeting immediately before that interview seemed to be purely fortuitous. The interview itself was protracted till the hour of dawn. [...] "I sat spellbound by His utterance, oblivious of time and of those who awaited me," he himself has testified, after describing the nature of the questions he had put to his Host and the conclusive replies he had received from Him, replies which had established beyond the shadow of a doubt the validity of His claim to be the promised Qa'im. [...] "This Revelation," Mulla  Husayn has further testified, "so suddenly and impetuously thrust upon me, came as a thunderbolt which, for a time, seemed to have benumbed my faculties. I was blinded by its dazzling splendor and overwhelmed by its crushing force. Excitement, joy, awe, and wonder stirred the depths of my soul.  Predominant among these emotions was a sense of gladness and strength which seemed to have transfigured me. How feeble and impotent, how dejected and timid, I had felt previously! Then I could neither write nor walk, so tremulous were my hands and feet.  Now, however, the knowledge of His Revelation had galvanized my being.  I felt possessed of such courage and power that were the world, all its peoples and its potentates, to rise against me, I would, alone and undaunted, withstand their onslaught. The universe seemed but a handful of dust in my grasp. I seemed to be the voice of Gabriel personified, calling unto all mankind:  `Awake, for, lo! the morning Light has broken. Arise, for His Cause is made manifest. The portal of His grace is open wide; enter therein, O peoples of the world! For He Who is your promised One is come!'" [...] With this historic Declaration [of the Báb,] the dawn of an Age that signalizes consummation of all ages had broken. [...]  Not until forty days had elapsed, however, the enrollment of the seventeen remaining Letters of the Living commence. Gradually, spontaneously, some in sleep, others while awake, some through fasting and prayer, others through dreams and visions, they discovered the Object of their quest, and were enlisted under the banner of the new-born Faith.             

- Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, Chap. I, "TheBirth of the Bábí Revelation", pp. 3 - 7

Note: In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many Muslims began to anticipate and prepare for the coming of a Promised One, the Qa'im,  who would bring peace to all mankind, based on their reading of the Qur'an. Many Christian believers, based on their reading of the Bible, also awaited the Promised One, the return of Christ, who would bring universal peace. In both cases, the expected date was 1843-1844. For further reading on the events preceding the Declaration of the Báb, see The Dawnbreakers by Nabil, The Báb by H.M. Balyuzi  and, particularly concerning Christian prophecies, Thief in the Night  by William Sears. 

According to the Báb's own words, what is the "day of resurrection" and what is the role He was destined to play in it ?

1. The substance wherewith God hath created Me is not the clay out of which others have been formed.  He hath conferred upon Me that which the worldly-wise can never comprehend, nor the faithful discover... I am one of the sustaining pillars of the Primal Word of God. [...] I am the Primal Point from which have been generated all created things. I am the Countenance of God Whose splendour can never be obscured, the Light of God Whose radiance can never fade. [...] God beareth Me witness, I was not a man of learning, for I was trained as a merchant. In the year sixty* God graciously infused by soul with the conclusive evidences and weighty knowledge which characterize Him Who is the Testimony of God...

- The Báb, Selections from the Writings of the Báb, p. 11

Note:  For further reading on the nature of the Divine Manifestations and the difference between their human and spiritual conditions, see Chapters 38 and 39 of  Some Answered Questions by 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

2. O Peoples of the earth! By the righteousness of God, this Book hath, through the potency of the sovereign Truth, pervaded the earth and the heaven with the mighty Word of God concerning Him Who is the supreme Testimony, the Expected Qá'im, and verily God hath knowledge of all things. This divinely inspired Book hath firmly established His Proof for all those who are in the East and in the West.

- The Báb, Selections from the Writings of the Báb, (Qayyúmu'l-Asmá LIX) p.59-60

3. Issue forth from your cities, O peoples of the West and aid God ere the Day when the Lord of mercy shall come down unto you in the shadow of the clouds with the angels circling around Him, exalting His praise and seeking forgiveness for such as have truly believed in Our signs. Verily His decree hath been issued, and the command of God, as given in the Mother Book, hath indeed been revealed... Become as true brethren in the one and indivisible religion of God, free from distinction, for verily God desireth that your hearts should become mirrors unto your brethren in the Faith, so that ye find yourselves reflected in them, and they in you. This is the true Path of God, the Almighty, and He is indeed watchful over your actions.

- The Báb, Selections from the Writings of the Báb, (Qayyúmu'l-Asmá XLVI) p.56

4. O My servants! This is God's appointed Day which the merciful Lord hath promised you in His Book; wherefore, in very truth, glorify ye abundantly the name of God while treading the Path of the Most Great Remembrance [The Báb] ...

- The Báb, Selections from the Writings of the Báb, (Qayyúmu'l-Asmá LXXXVII), p. 72

5. Say: Behold! Verily the Moon hath faded; verily the night hath retreated; verily the dawn hath brightened; verily the command of God, your true Lord, hath been accomplished....

- The Báb, Selections from the Writings of the Báb, (Qayyúmu'l-Asmá LVIII) p.58

6. All men have proceeded from God and unto Him shall all return. All shall appear before Him for judgement.  He is the Lord of the Day of Resurrection, of Regeneration and of Reckoning, and His revealed Word is the Balance. True death is realized when a person dieth to himself at the time of His Revelation in such wise that he seeketh naught except Him. True resurrection from the sepulchres means to be quickened in conformity with His Will, through the power of His utterance. Paradise is attainment of His good-pleasure and everlasting hell-fire His judgement through justice. The Day He revealeth Himself is Resurrection Day which shall last as long as He ordaineth. Everything belongeth unto Him and is fashioned by Him. All besides Him are His creatures.

- The Báb, Selections from the Writings of the Báb, p. 157-158

7. Say, O peoples of the world!  Do ye dispute with Me about God by virtue of the names which ye and your fathers have adopted for Him at the promptings of the Evil One? God hath indeed sent down this Book unto Me with truth that ye may be enabled to recognize the true names of God, inasmuch as ye have strayed in error far from the Truth.               

- The Báb, Selections from the Writings of the Báb, (Qayyúmu'l-Asmá LXVIII)  p.65

What were the major events marking the Heroic Age of the Bahá'í Faith (1844-1853)?

1. Governors, magistrates and civil servants, throughout the provinces, instigated by the monstrous campaign of vilification conducted by the clergy, and prompted by their lust for pecuniary rewards, vied in their respective spheres with each other in hounding and heaping indignities on the adherents of an outlawed Faith. [...] Government, clergy and people arose, as one man, to assault and exterminate their common enemy.

- Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, Chap. III, p. 37 Note:  Twenty thousand followers of the new Faith were martyred in the first years of its existence.

2. The avowed purpose of that convocation [in Tabriz] was to arraign the Prisoner, and deliberate on the steps to be taken for the extirpation of His so-called heresy.  It instead afforded Him the supreme opportunity of His mission to assert in public, formally and without any reservation, the claims inherent in His Revelation.  In the official residence, [...] the Báb [...] gave, in ringing tones, His celebrated answer to the question put to Him by the President of that assembly. "I am," He exclaimed, "I am, I am the Promised One!  I am the One Whose name you have for a thousand years invoked, at Whose mention you have risen, Whose advent you have longed to witness, and the hour of Whose Revelation you have prayed God to hasten.  Verily, I say, it is incumbent upon the peoples of both the East and the West to obey My word, and to pledge allegiance to My person." [...] Already in Shiraz, at the earliest stage of His ministry, He had revealed what Bahá'u'lláh has characterized as "the first, the greatest, and mightiest of all books" in the Bábi Dispensation, the celebrated commentary on the surih of Joseph, entitled the Qayyumu'l-Asma' , whose fundamental purpose was to forecast what the true Joseph (Bahá'u'lláh) would, in a succeeding Dispensation, endure at the hands of one who was at once His arch-enemy and blood brother. [...] It was this Book which the Bábis universally regarded, during almost the entire ministry of the Báb, as the Qur'an of the people of the Bayan; whose first and most challenging chapter was revealed in the presence of Mulla Husayn, on the night of its Author's Declaration; some of whose pages were borne, by that same disciple, to Bahá'u'lláh, as the first fruits of a Revelation which instantly won His enthusiastic allegiance; whose entire text was translated into Persian by the brilliant and gifted Tahirih; whose passages inflamed the hostility of Husayn Khan and precipitated the initial outbreak of persecution in Shiraz; a single page of which had captured the imagination and entranced the soul of Hujjat; and whose contents had set afire the intrepid defenders of the Fort of Shaykh Tabarsi and the heroes of Nayriz and Zanjan.                    

- Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, Chap. II, "The Báb's Captivity in Ádhirbáyján", pp. 21-23 Note:  For further reading, see Chapter III of God Passes By, "Upheavals in Mázindarán, Nayríz and Zanján", p. 35 - 48

3. A fast ebbing life, so crowded with the accumulated anxieties, disappointments, treacheries and sorrows of a tragic ministry, now moved swiftly towards its climax.  The most turbulent period of the Heroic Age of the new Dispensation was rapidly attaining its culmination. The cup of bitter woes which the Herald of that Dispensation had tasted was now full to overflowing. Indeed, He Himself had already foreshadowed His own approaching death.  In the Kitab-i-Panj-Sha'n, one of His last works, He had alluded to the fact that the sixth Naw-Ruz after the declaration of His mission would be the last He was destined to celebrate on earth. In His interpretation of the letter Ha, He had voiced His craving for martyrdom, while in the Qayyumu'l-Asma' He had actually prophesied the inevitability of such a consummation of His glorious career. Forty days before His final departure from Chihriq He had even collected all the documents in His possession, and placed them, together with His pen-case, His seals and His rings, in the hands of Mulla Baqir, a Letter of the Living, whom He instructed to entrust them to Mulla Abdu'l-Karim-i-Qazvini, surnamed Mirza Ahmad, who was to deliver them to Bahá'u'lláh in Tihran.

- Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, chap. IV, "The Execution of the Báb", pp. 50-51

4. The farrash-bashi had abruptly interrupted the last conversation which the Báb was confidentially having in one of the rooms of the barracks with His amanuensis Siyyid Husayn, and was drawing the latter aside, and severely rebuking him, when he was thus addressed by his Prisoner: "Not until I have said to him all those things that I wish to say can any earthly power silence Me. Though all the world be armed against Me, yet shall it be powerless to deter Me from fulfilling, to the last word, My intention." To the Christian Sam Khan - the colonel of the Armenian regiment ordered to carry out the execution - who, seized with fear lest his act should provoke the wrath of God, had begged to be released from the duty imposed upon him, the Báb gave the following assurance: "Follow your instructions, and if your intention be sincere, the Almighty is surely able to relieve you of your perplexity." Sam Khan accordingly set out to discharge his duty. A spike was driven into a pillar which separated two rooms of the barracks facing the square.  Two ropes were fastened to it from which the Báb and one of his disciples, the youthful and devout Mirza Muhammad-'Ali-i-Zunuzi, surnamed Anis, who had previously flung himself at the feet of his Master and implored that under no circumstances he be sent away from Him, were separately suspended. The firing squad ranged itself in three files, each of two hundred and fifty men. Each file in turn opened fire until the whole detachment had discharged its bullets. So dense was the smoke from the seven hundred and fifty rifles that the sky was darkened. As  soon as the smoke had cleared away the astounded multitude of about ten thousand souls, who had crowded onto the roof of the barracks, as well as the tops of the adjoining houses, beheld a scene which their eyes could scarcely believe. The Báb had vanished from their sight!  Only his companion remained, alive and unscathed, standing beside the wall on which they had been suspended. The ropes by which they had been hung alone were severed.  "The Siyyid-i-Báb has gone from our sight!" cried out the bewildered spectators. A frenzied search immediately ensued.  He was found, unhurt and unruffled, in the very room He had occupied the night before, engaged in completing His interrupted conversation with His amanuensis. "I have finished My conversation with Siyyid Husayn" were the words with which the Prisoner, so providentially preserved, greeted the appearance of the farrash-bashi, "Now you may proceed to fulfill your intention."  Recalling the bold assertion his Prisoner had previously made, and shaken by so stunning a revelation, the farrash-bashi quitted instantly the scene, and resigned his post. Sam Khan, likewise, remembering, with feelings of awe and wonder, the reassuring words addressed to him by the Báb, ordered his men to leave the barracks immediately, and swore, as he left the courtyard, never again, even at the cost of his life, to repeat that act. Aqa Jan-i-Khamsih, colonel of the body-guard, volunteered to replace him.  On the same wall and in the same manner the Báb and His companion were again suspended, while the new regiment formd in line and opened fire upon them.  This time, however, their breasts were riddled with bullets, and their bodies completely dissected, with the exception of their faces which were but little marred. "O wayward generation!" were the last words of the Báb to the gazing multitude, as the regiment prepared to fire its volley, "Had you believed in Me every one of you would have followed the example of this youth, who stood in rank above most of you, and would have willingly sacrificed himself in My path.  The day will come when you will have recognized Me; that day I shall have ceased to be with you." Nor was this all. The very moment the shots were fired a gale of exceptional violence arose and swept over the city.  From noon till night a whirlwind of dust obscured the light of the sun, and linded the eyes of the people. In Shiraz an "earthquake," foreshadowed in no less weighty a Book than the Revelation of St. John, occurred in 1268 A.H. which threw the whole city into turmoil and wrought havoc amongst its people, a havoc that was greatly aggravated by the  outbreak of cholera, by famine and other afflictions.  In that same year no less than two hundred and fifty of the firing squad, that had replaced Sam Khan's regiment, met their death, together with their officers, in a terrible earthquake, while the remaining five hundred suffered, three years later, as a punishment for their mutiny, the same fate as that which their hands had inflicted upon the Báb.

- Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, Chap. IV, pp. 52-54

Note: The execution of the Báb fell on the 9th of July 1850, during the thirty-first year of His age and the seventh of His ministry. Shoghi Effendi wrote in God Passes By , (Chap. IV, pp. 55-56) : 'So momentous an event could hardly fail to arouse widespread and keen interest even beyond the confines of the land in which it had occurred. [...] In countries as remote as those of Western Europe an interest no less profound was kindled, and spread with great rapidity to literary, artistic, diplomatic and intellectual circles. "All Europe," attests [a noted] French publicist, "was stirred to pity and indignation.... Among the ltterateurs of my generation, in the Paris of 1890, the martyrdom of the Báb was still as fresh a topic as had been the first news of His death."  It would indeed be no exaggeration to say that nowhere in the whole compass of the world's religious literature, except in the Gospels, do we find any record relating to the death of any of the religion-founders of the past comparable to the martyrdom suffered by the Prophet of Shiraz. So strange, so inexplicable a phenomenon, attested by eye-witnesses, corroborated by men of recognized standing, and acknowledged by government as well as unofficial historians among the people who had sworn undying hostility to the Bábí Faith, may be truly regarded as the most marvelous manifestation of the unique potentialities with which a Dispensation promised by all the Dispensations of the past had been endowed. The passion of Jesus Christ, and indeed His whole public ministry, alone offer a parallel to the Mission and death of the Báb, a parallel which no student of comparative religion can fail to perceive or ignore. [...] He Who was, in the words of Abdu'l-Bahá, the "Morn of Truth" and "Harbinger of the Most Great Light," Whose advent at once signalized the termination of the "Prophetic Cycle" and the inception of the "Cycle of Fulfillment," had simultaneously through His Revelation banished the shades of night that had descended upon His country, and proclaimed the impending rise of that Incomparable Orb Whose radiance was to envelop the whole of mankind.

- Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, Chap. IV, pp. 56-5 Note:  The parallels between the lives of Christ and the Báb are enumerated in God Passes By, pp. 56-57.

What is the Báb's "twofold station"?

1. There can be no doubt that the claim to the twofold station ordained for the Báb by the Almighty, a claim which He Himself has so boldly advanced, which Bahá'u'lláh has repeatedly affirmed, and to which the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha has finally given the sanction of its testimony, constitutes the most distinctive feature of the Bahá'í Dispensation.  It is a further evidence of its uniqueness, a tremendous accession to the strength, to the mysterious power and authority with which this holy cycle has been invested.  Indeed the greatness of the Báb consists primarily, not in His being the divinely-appointed Forerunner of so transcendent a Revelation, but rather in His having been invested with the powers inherent in the inaugurator of a separate religious Dispensation, and in His wielding, to a degree unrivaled by the Messengers gone before Him, the scepter of independent Prophethood. The short duration of His Dispensation, the restricted range within which His laws and ordinances have been made to operate, supply no criterion whatever wherewith to judge its Divine origin and to evaluate the potency of its message. "That so brief a span," Bahá'u'lláh Himself explains, " should have separated this most mighty and wondrous Revelation from Mine own previous Manifestation, is a secret that no man can unravel and a mystery such as no mind can fathom.  Its duration had been foreordained, and no man shall ever discover its reason unless and until he be informed of the contents of My Hidden Book." "Behold," Bahá'u'lláh further explains in the Kitáb-i-Badí , [...] "how immediately upon the completion of the ninth year of this wondrous, this most holy and merciful Dispensation, the requisite number of pure, of wholly consecrated and sanctified souls had been most secretly consummated." The marvelous happenings that have heralded the advent of the Founder of the Bábi Dispensation, the dramatic circumstances of His own eventful life, the miraculous tragedy of His martyrdom, the magic of His influence exerted on the most eminent and powerful among His countrymen, to all of which every chapter of Nabil's stirring narrative testifies, should in themselves be regarded as sufficient evidence of the validity of His claim to so exalted a station among the Prophets.

- Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh,  pp. 123-124

Note: For further reading on the return of the Prophets, see Chapter 33, p. 132, of Some  Answered Questions by 'Abdu'l-Bahá. The Bahá'í views on reincarnation, a separate question, are also found in that book, Chapter 81, p. 282.

2. "The germ," the Báb asserts in the Persian Bayán, "that holds within itself the potentialities of the Revelation that is to come is endowed with a potency superior to the combined forces of all those who follow me." "Of all the tributes," He again affirms, "I have paid to Him Who is to come after Me, the greatest is this, My written confession, that no words of Mine can adequately describe Him, nor can any reference to Him in My Book, the Bayán, do justice to His Cause."   [...] "Today the Bayán is in the stage of seed; at the beginning of the manifestation of 'Him Whom God shall make manifest' its ultimate perfection will become apparent." [...] "By the righteousness of Him Whose power causeth the seed to germinate and Who breatheth the spirit of life into all things, were I to be assured that in the day of His manifestation thou wilt deny Him, I would unhesitatingly disown thee and repudiate thy faith... If, on the other hand, I be told that a Christian, who beareth no allegiance to My Faith, will believe in Him, the same will I regard as the apple of Mine Eye."

- Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, pp. 100-101