Episode XIII: Three Nights in Kashan

Before the horsemen reached the gate, the Guest had already announced Himself.

Hájí Mírzá Jání, surnamed Parpá, a noted resident of Káshán, dreamed that he stood late in the afternoon at the gate of Attár, one of the gates of the city. He saw the Báb on horseback. Not in His customary turban, but wearing the kuláh, the cap of a Persian merchant. Horsemen marched before Him and behind Him. The Báb saluted him and spoke: “Hájí Mírzá Jání, We are to be your Guest for three nights. Prepare yourself to receive Us.”

When Jání woke, the vividness of that dream struck him as a providential warning he was duty-bound to heed. He prepared his house for the reception of the Visitor. He arranged a banquet. Then he walked to the gate of Attár and waited, scanning the horizon for the first sign of horsemen.

At the appointed hour, he saw them, a company approaching in the distance. He ran to meet them. And what he found was exactly what he had been shown: the Báb surrounded by His escort, dressed in the same clothes, wearing the same expression he had seen the night before. Jání bent to kiss His stirrups. The Báb prevented him. “We are to be your Guest for three nights,” He said. “To-morrow is the day of Naw-Rúz; we shall celebrate it together in your home.”

It was the eve preceding the third Naw-Rúz since the Declaration of His Mission, the second day of the month of Rabí’u’th-Thání, in the year 1263 A.H.

Muhammad Big, riding close to the Báb, took Him for an intimate acquaintance of Jání’s. He turned to the merchant: “I am ready to abide by whatever is the desire of the Siyyid-i-Báb. I would ask you, however, to obtain the approval of my colleague who shares with me the charge of conducting the Siyyid-i-Báb to Tihrán.”

The second officer refused outright. “I decline your suggestion,” he told Jání. “I have been most emphatically instructed not to allow this youth to enter any city until his arrival at the capital. I have been particularly commanded to spend the night outside the gate of the city, to break my march at the hour of sunset, and to resume it the next day at the hour of dawn. I cannot depart from the orders that have been given to me.”

A heated altercation broke out between the two officers. Muhammad Big prevailed. The condition was set as an express understanding: on the third morning, Jání would safely deliver the Prisoner back into the escort’s hands.

When Jání offered to host the entire company, the Báb stopped him. “No one but you should accompany Me to your home.” And when Jání asked to pay for the horsemen’s stay in Káshán, the Báb answered: “It is unnecessary; but for My will, nothing whatever could have induced them to deliver Me into your hands. All things lie prisoned within the grasp of His might. Nothing is impossible to Him. He removes every difficulty and surmounts every obstacle.”

The horsemen were lodged in a caravanserai near the gate of the city. Muhammad Big accompanied the Báb as far as the neighbourhood of Jání’s house, noted its position, and returned to his companions.

That night, Siyyid Husayn-i-Yazdí, who had already come to Káshán at the Báb’s direction, was brought into the house and into the presence of his Master. The Báb began dictating a Tablet in Jání’s honour. While He dictated, a friend of Jání’s arrived, a certain Siyyid ‘Abdu’l-Báqí, noted in Káshán for his learning. The Báb invited him to enter. He permitted him to hear the verses being revealed. But He did not disclose His identity.

In the closing passages of that Tablet, the Báb prayed for Jání. He supplicated God to illumine his heart with the light of divine knowledge and to unloose his tongue for the service and proclamation of His Cause.

What that prayer gave an unlettered man was extraordinary. Hájí Mírzá Jání, unschooled and unlettered, was endowed with such power of speech that he could impress even the most accomplished divine of Káshán and silence every idle pretender who dared to challenge the precepts of his Faith. Even the haughty and imperious Mullá Ja’far-i-Naráqí, a man of consummate eloquence, was unable to resist the force of Jání’s argument. He was compelled to acknowledge outwardly the merits of the Cause, though at heart he refused to believe in its truth.

And the learned man who sat in that same room while the verses were being revealed answered differently.

Siyyid ‘Abdu’l-Báqí sat and listened to the Báb. He heard His voice. He watched His movements. He looked upon the expression of His face. He noted the words streaming unceasingly from His lips. And he was not moved. Wrapt in the veils of his own idle fancy and learning, he was powerless to appreciate the meaning of what he heard. He did not even trouble to ask the name or the character of the Guest before him. He rose. He left. He walked out of the most consequential hour of his life without knowing what it was.

A few days later, when he learned whom he had treated with such careless indifference, he was filled with chagrin and remorse. But it was too late. The Báb had already departed from Káshán. Siyyid ‘Abdu’l-Báqí renounced the society of his fellow men and lived in unrelieved seclusion to the end of his days.

The unlettered man who prepared the house left armed. The learned man who sat in the room left with nothing.

Among those privileged to meet the Báb during those three days was a man named Mihdí, who would later suffer martyrdom in Tihrán in the year 1268 A.H. He and a few others were affectionately entertained by Jání, whose lavish hospitality earned the praise and commendation of the Báb Himself. To even the members of the escort quartered near the gate, Jání extended the same loving-kindness, and by his liberality and charm of manner won their lasting gratitude.

For three days, that house held together custody, hospitality, revelation, and farewell.

On the morning of the second day after Naw-Rúz, mindful of his pledge, Hájí Mírzá Jání delivered the Prisoner back into the hands of the guards. He kept his word. And with a heart overflowing with grief, he bade Him a last and touching farewell, the man who had recognized the Guest before He arrived surrendering Him to men who still did not know what they carried.