The Undeclared Mission
7. The Undeclared Mission
A mission Baha never declared. A mission Baha never proclaimed. All he did was to conduct his mission on paper in Edirne as well as in Acre, strictly intended for circulation among his followers, and to cook, as an afterthought in Acre, a declaration for the garden of Ridvan.
Shoghi Effendi’s authorities in ‘god passes by’ are Baha’s Chronicler Nabil; Mirza Aqa Jan [of Kashan], the first to believe in Baha, Baha’s amanuensis, companion and attendant for forty years (P.115, ibid); Baha’s full brother Mirza Musa, and Baha’s son Sir Abbas Effendi, who, one and all, contributed their mite to Baha’s practice of god-craft on paper within the four walls of his place of abode in Edirne and Acre.
In god passes by, PP. 153-154, Shoghi Effendi says: “As to the significance of that declaration [in garden of Ridvan] let Baha himself reveal to us its impart. Acclaiming that historic occasion as the Festival of god, he has in his Kitab-i-Aqdas, characterized it as the Day whereon “All created things were immersed in the sea of purification ‘(see Elder’s translation, P. 45).”
Now “the Aqdas was revealed in Acre in about 1873” God passes by P. 213. It was expurgated and revised years later and then printed. See section 9.18.2.
Examination of Shoghi Effendi’s Account
The fact that Shoghi Effendi refers his readers to the Aqdas goes to prove that no such purificatory statement was ever made by Baha in the Ridvan garden, either verbally or in writing.
If Baha had in fact made such an utterance on that occasion, Shoghi Effendi would have advertised it with a flourish of trumpets.
What Baha is alleged to have “revealed on the first day of Ridvan was” not the purificatory passage in the Aqdas, but “the Verse of Patience which exalts Wahid [Sayyid Yahya of Darab] and his fellow-sufferers in Niriz.” God passes by P. 140.
“The Najibiyya Garden was subsequently designated, not by Baha but by his followers the garden of Ridvan.”
Where the principal, namely alleged declaration in the Ridvan, fails, the accessory, namely the purificatory provision in so far as it is alleged to have been made in the Ridvan, also fails.
The circumstances in which the BÂBis in general and Baha in particular came to be removed from Baghdad are dealt with in The Order of Banishment.
Following the established practice to collect deportees in a place in a specified place in advance of their removal, the BÂBi exiles were assembled by the Ottoman by the Ottoman authorities in the Najibiyya garden preparatory to their removal. The BÂBi exiles, Baha including, had a lurking fear as to their ultimate disposal. They did not know what the future had in store for them. With his own future at stake, Baha was not in a frame of mind to declare himself or reveal anything.
The Purificatory Provision in The Aqdas
As regards the purificatory provision in the Aqdas in its relation to the Ridvan, Shoghi Effendi admits that up to the date of “the declaration of his prophetic mission in the Ridvan in 1279 A.H. (1863)” Baha posed as a :disciple of the BÂB.” God passes by, P. 128.
This means that there was no declaration by Baha in Baghdad in 1269 A.H. (1853)” upon expulsion from Iran. Ibid, P. 109. This also means that there was no declaration of mission by Baha in Baghdad in between these two dates. No record exists of Baha’s alleged declaration in the Ridvan. Baha was removed from Baghdad in 1279 A.H. (1863).’ Ibid, P. 155.
Baha had to find a date for the declaration of his mission.