The Báb, the Exalted One, is the Morn of Truth,
Whose Light shineth throughout all regions.
`ABDU'L-BAHÁ
O people of the Báb! sorely persecuted,
compelled to silence, but steadfast now as at
Sheykh Ṭabarsí and Zanján, what destiny is
concealed for you behind the veil of the Future?
EDWARD GRANVILLE BROWNE
PROLOGUE
I
About the time that the thirteen colonies of North America were gaining their independence to form the nucleus of the mighty Republic of the West, France was inching her way towards a revolution such as the world had never seen, and Britain was striding along the road to a revolution of a different kind, industrial, agrarian and economic in nature, a cleric of the Islamic Shí`ah persuasion left his island-home in the Persian Gulf for the great centres of Shí`ah learning and Shí`ah devotion in `Iráq. His purpose was to find a much larger audience in order to give voice to thoughts and presentiments that had developed with his years.
Shaykh Aḥmad-i-Aḥsá'í (1743-1826), the founder of the Shaykhí school, belonged to the ancient tribe of Banú-Ṣakhr, and his family originated from the region of Aḥsá on the Arabian mainland. His father's name was Shaykh Zayni'd-Dín, and Baḥrayn had been their home. Shaykh Aḥmad first visited Najaf, where the Tomb of `Alí, the first Imám, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muḥammad, is situated. Then in Karbilá, close by the Shrine of the martyred Ḥusayn, the third Imám, he began to preach and a circle of earnest students gathered round him. He asked the leading Shí`ah divines of the holy cities of `Iráq to issue him a licence which would give him recognition as a mujtahid in his own right, that is, a divine empowered to interpret and prescribe. They all declared that they considered Shaykh Aḥmad to be a man of knowledge and talent superior to their own, and that their testimonial was written solely at his request.
The fame of Shaykh Aḥmad soon spread throughout Írán. Fatḥ-`Alí Sháh (reigned 1797-1834) and Muḥammad-`Alí Mírzá,[A] a son of the Sháh who held the life-long tenure of the governorship of Kirmánsháh, were particularly desirous to meet him. But Shaykh Aḥmad preferred to go to Írán by way of Búshihr (Bushire) in the south, rather than by the nearer and more accessible route of Kirmánsháh in the west. From Búshihr he went to Shíráz and thence to Yazd, where he stayed for a number of years. Siyyid Káẓim-i-Rashtí, a young man barely out of his teens, who shared the same views, joined him there (sometime in 1231 A.H.: 1815-16). Shaykh Aḥmad was then making his final arrangements to go on pilgrimage to the holy city of Mashhad,[B] prior to his visit to Ṭihrán. He received Siyyid Káẓim with great affection and asked him to remain at Yazd to take up his own patient work of many years. In Mashhad and later in Ṭihrán, Shaykh Aḥmad was shown every mark of high respect and reverence.