The Reconciliation of Races and ReligionsCheyne, T. K. (Thomas Kelly)
Religion
The Reconciliation of Races and Religions
Cheyne, T. K. (Thomas Kelly)
Bahais
Of course, the new names were given with a full consciousness of the
inwardness of names. There was a spirit behind each new name; the
revival of a name by a divine representative meant the return of the
spirit. Each Bābī who received the name of a prophet or an Imām
knew that his life was raised to a higher plane, and that he was to
restore that heavenly Being to the present age. These re-named
Bābīs needed no other recompense than that of being used in the
Cause of God. They became capable of far higher things than before,
and if within a short space of time the Bāb, or his Deputy, was to
conquer the whole world and bring it under the beneficent yoke of the
Law of God, much miraculously heightened courage would be needed. I am
therefore able to accept the Muslim authority's statement. The
conferring of new names was not to add fuel to human vanity, but
sacramentally to heighten spiritual vitality.
Not all Bābīs, it is true, were capable of such insight. From the
Bābī account of the night-action, ordered on his arrival at Sheykh
Tabarsi by Ḳuddus, we learn that some Bābīs, including those of
Mazandaran, took the first opportunity of plundering the enemy's
camp. For this, the Deputy reproved them, but they persisted, and the
whole army was punished (as we are told) by a wound dealt to Ḳuddus,
which shattered one side of his face. [Footnote: _NH_, 68
_f_.] It was with reference to this that the Deputy said at last
to his disfigured friend, 'I can no longer bear to look upon the wound
which mars your glorious visage. Suffer me, I pray you, to lay down my
life this night, that I may be delivered alike from my shame and my
anxiety.' So there was another night-encounter, and the Deputy knew
full well that it would be his last battle. And he 'said to one who
was beside him, "Mount behind me on my horse, and when I say, 'Bear me
to the Castle,' turn back with all speed." So now, overcome with
faintness, he said, "Bear me to the Castle." Thereupon his companion
turned the horse's head, and brought him back to the entrance of the
Castle; and there he straightway yielded up his spirit to the Lord and
Giver of life.' Frail of form, but a gallant soldier and an
impassioned lover of God, he combined qualities and characteristics
which even in the spiritual aristocracy of Persia are seldom found
united in the same person.
MULLĀ MUḤAMMAD 'ALI OF BARFURUSH
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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