There was silence—the pause that precedes the breaking of the dawn. Mullá Ḥusayn has told us that the silence was broken with 'vibrant voice' by his Host who declared to him:
Behold, all these signs are manifest in Me.
Mullá Ḥusayn was for the moment shocked and bewildered. He tried to resist a claim so breath-taking. But Truth looked him in the face. He marshalled arguments. But Truth is its own argument.
Mullá Ḥusayn said: 'He whose advent we await is a Man of unsurpassed holiness, and the Cause He is to reveal [is] a Cause of tremendous power. Many and diverse are the requirements which He who claims to be its visible embodiment must needs fulfil. How often has Siyyid Káẓim referred to the vastness of the knowledge of the promised One! How often did he say: "My own knowledge is but a drop compared with that with which He has been endowed. All my attainments are but a speck of dust in the face of the immensity of His knowledge. Nay, immeasurable is the difference!"'
In days gone by Mullá Ḥusayn had written a dissertation on some of the abstruse doctrines and teachings which Shaykh Aḥmad and Siyyid Káẓim had enunciated. He carried a copy of this treatise with him. He now presented it to his Host and asked Him to peruse it, and elucidate the mysteries which it contained. Not only did his Host after a rapid look through that treatise shed light upon it, He went far beyond it. Then Mullá Ḥusayn was given the proof of which he had ample knowledge. There is a Súrih (Arabic 'Súrah': chapter) in the Qur'án entitled the Súrih of Joseph.[R] It tells the story of Joseph, the son of Jacob, he whom his brothers betrayed and sold into slavery, who suffered imprisonment in Egypt, but rose to rule that land. It is highly allegorical. Siyyid Káẓim had told Mullá Ḥusayn, when requested by him to write a commentary on that chapter of the Qur'án: 'This is, verily, beyond me. He, that great One, who comes after me will, unasked, reveal it for you. That commentary will constitute one of the weightiest testimonies of His truth, and one of the clearest evidences of the loftiness of His position.'
Mullá Ḥusayn's Host told him: 'Now is the time to reveal the commentary on the Súrih of Joseph.'
'He took up His pen,' Mullá Ḥusayn related, 'and with incredible rapidity revealed the entire Súrih of Mulk, the first chapter of His commentary on the Súrih of Joseph. The overpowering effect of the manner in which He wrote was heightened by the gentle intonation of His voice which accompanied His writing. Not for one moment did He interrupt the flow of the verses which streamed from His pen. Not once did He pause till the Súrih of Mulk was finished. I sat enraptured by the magic of His voice and the sweeping force of His revelation.'
But Mullá Ḥusayn was anxious to rejoin his companions. Since that afternoon—and long ago it seemed—when he had sent them into the city and had himself lingered outside the city-gates, he had had no news of them nor they of him. So he rose and asked to be permitted to depart. His Host smilingly told him: 'If you leave in such a state, whoever sees you will assuredly say: "This poor youth has lost his mind."' 'At that moment,' Mullá Ḥusayn has said, 'the clock registered two hours and eleven minutes after sunset.'
In that moment a new Dispensation was born.