Claimants to The Office of He Whom God Will Make Manifest
Subh-i Azal’s Refutation of Dayyan
5. Dayyan
5.2 Subh-i Azal’s Refutation of Dayyan
Subh-i Azal wrote the Mustayghath in Arabic in Baghdad. It is a commentary and explanation of the Point’s First Book (Kitab-i-Awwal). The book is intended to prove the falsity of the pretensions of a number of pretenders, including Dayyan. Towards the end of the book Subh-i Azal quotes a number of the Point’s documents addressed to him as well as to prominent BÂBis in support of his claim to be the Point’s successor. Most of the originals of these documents which were available at the time of the composition of the book, pp.348-349, “were carried off by Baha. T.A Note U, PP.335-343.
In the Mustayghath Subh-i Azal condemns Dayyan for his vain claim and censures Sayyid Ibrahim for his subservience to him. He calls them Father of Evils and the Father Calamities respectively. As regards Dayyan, he says in ibid P.15: “You keep mute in your seats and do not bring this accrued one down with your arrows.”
The text runs as follows:
« و انتم صامتون فی مقاعدکم و لا ترمون هذا الملعون برماحکم »
which passage he explains in ibid, p.44 as follows: “you do not cut the tongues of his bowels from your hands and do not bring him down with the arrows of your lips of dominance.”
The text runs as follows:
« و لا تقطعون السته امعائه من ایدیکم و لاترمونه برماح شفاه قهاریتکم »
Similar metaphor is used in these passages. “To cut the tongues of his bowels” means that Dayyan should be reduced to silence and routed by dealing with him not by physical means but by “the arrows of the lips of dominance”, namely by discussion and argument in the armory of moral suasion to flow from the mouth, as organ of speech.
In fact the Mustayghath contains no decree of murder in respect of any of the pretenders. The translation of the relevant passage as appearing in the Materials, P.218, is faulty, incomplete and misleading.
The marginal name in Enclosure X (Baha’s letter marked no. 60) indicates that the letter was addressed to Sayyid Ibrahim. In his Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, Shoghi Effendi’s translation Baha refers to Dayyan and Sayyid Ibrahim” and says that they were “surnamed by him [Mirza Yahya Subh-i Azal] Father of Inequities and Father of Calamities.” Therefore the addressee of Baha’s letter marked no 60 is identical with Sayyid Ibrahim surnamed Khalid and Rahim. The internal evidence contained in the letter itself confirms this.