I must confess that Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel's account of the fortune of the Bāb's relics appears to me, as well as to M. Nicolas, [Footnote: AMB, p. 380 n.] unsatisfactory and (in one point) contradictory. How, for instance, did he get possession of the relics? And, is there any independent evidence for the intermingling of the parts of the two corpses? How did he procure a crystal coffin to receive the relics? How comes it that there were Bahaites at the time of the Bāb's death, and how was Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel able to conceal the crystal coffin, etc., from his brother Baha-'ullah?
Evidently Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel has changed greatly since the time when both the brothers (half-brothers) were devoted, heart and soul, to the service of the Bāb. It is this moral transformation which vitiates Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel's assertions. Can any one doubt this? Surely the best authorities are agreed that the sense of historical truth is very deficient among the Persians. Now Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel was in some respects a typical Persian; that is how I would explain his deviations from strict truth. It may be added that the detail of the crystal coffin can be accounted for. In the Arabic Bayan, among other injunctions concerning the dead, [Footnote: Le Beyan Arabi (Nicolas), p. 252; similarly, p. 54.] it is said: 'As for your dead, inter them in crystal, or in cut and polished stones. It is possible that this may become a peace for your heart.' This precept suggested to Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel his extraordinary statement.
Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel had an imaginative and possibly a partly mystic nature. As a Manifestation of God he may have thought himself entitled to remove harmful people, even his own brother. He did not ask himself whether he might not be in error in attaching such importance to his own personality, and whether any vision could override plain morality. He was mistaken, and I hold that the Bāb was mistaken in appointing (if he really did so) Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel as a nominal head of the Bābīs when the true, although temporary vice-gerent was Baha-'ullah. For Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel was a consummate failure; it is too plain that the Bab did not always, like Jesus and like the Buddha, know what was in man.
SUBSEQUENT DISCOVERIES
The historical work of the Ezelite party, called The Eight Paradises, makes Ezel nineteen years of age when he came forward as an expounder of religious mysteries and wrote letters to the Bāb. On receiving the first letter, we are told that the Bāb (or, as we should rather now call him, the Point) instantly prostrated himself in thankfulness, testifying that he was a mighty Luminary, and spoke by the Self-shining Light, by revelation. Imprisoned as he was at Maku, the Point of Knowledge could not take counsel with all his fellow-workers or disciples, but he sent the writings of this brilliant novice (if he really was so brilliant) to each of the 'Letters of the Living,' and to the chief believers, at the same time conferring on him a number of titles, including Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel ('Dawn of Eternity') and Baha-'ullah ('Splendour of God ').
If this statement be correct, we may plausibly hold with Professor E. G. Browne that Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel (Mirza Yaḥya) was advanced to the rank of a 'Letter of the Living,' and even that he was nominated by the Point as his successor. It has also become much more credible that the thoughts of the Point were so much centred on Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel that, as Ezelites say, twenty thousand of the words of the Bayan refer to Ezel, and that a number of precious relics of the Point were entrusted to his would-be successor.
But how can we venture to say that it is correct? Since Professor Browne wrote, much work has been done on the (real or supposed) written remains of Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel, and the result has been (I think) that the literary reputation of Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel is a mere bubble. It is true, the Bāb himself was not masterly, but the confusion of ideas and language in Ezel's literary records beggars all comparison. A friend of mine confirms this view which I had already derived from Mirza Ali Akbar. He tells me that he has acquired a number of letters mostly purporting to be by Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel. There is also, however, a letter of Baha-'ullah relative to these letters, addressed to the Muḥammadan mullā, the original possessor of the letters. In this letter Baha-'ullah repeats again and again the warning: 'When you consider and reflect on these letters, you will understand who is in truth the writer.'
I greatly fear that Lord Curzon's description of Persian untruthfulness may be illustrated by the career of the Great Pretender. The Ezelites must, of course, share the blame with their leader, and not the least of their disgraceful misstatements is the assertion that the Bāb assigned the name Baha-'ullah to the younger of the two half-brothers, and that Ezel had also the [non-existent] dignity of 'Second Point.'
This being so, I am strongly of opinion that so far from confirming the Ezelite view of subsequent events, the Ezelite account of Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel's first appearance appreciably weakens it. Something, however, we may admit as not improbable. It may well have gratified the Bāb that two representatives of an important family in Mazandaran had taken up his cause, and the character of these new adherents may have been more congenial to him than the more martial character of Ḳuddus.