Episode XVI: The Hidden Treasure of Mazindaran

‘Alí Khán, the warden who had fallen at his prisoner’s feet, now begged Mullá Husayn to stay. He offered comfort, provisions, every facility for the road ahead. Mullá Husayn refused it all. He would not delay a single day. The Báb had given him a task, and obedience came before rest.

The task was threefold. Stop at every town and village on the road south. Strengthen the believers. Carry to each of them the love, the greetings, and the assurances of their Master. Then proceed to Mázindarán, where a hidden treasure would be revealed.

So Mullá Husayn walked out of the mountains and into the towns of Persia, gathering the faithful community by community, quickening their zeal, and binding them afresh to the Cause. In Tihrán he entered the presence of Bahá’u’lláh and received from His hands the spiritual sustenance that would enable him, with undaunted courage, to brave the perils closing in on the final days of his life.

From Tihrán he pressed on to Mázindarán. The hidden treasure was waiting, though he did not yet know its form.

Quddús was at that time living in Barfurúsh, in the house that had belonged to his own father. He moved freely among all classes of people, and the gentleness of his character and the breadth of his learning had won the unqualified admiration of the town. When Mullá Husayn arrived, he went directly to that house. Quddús received him with deep affection. He waited on his guest with his own hands. He removed the dust of the road. He washed the blistered skin from his feet. He gave him the seat of honour before the assembled believers and introduced each one of them with extreme reverence.

That evening, after the guests had returned to their homes, the two men were alone. Quddús turned to Mullá Husayn and asked him to speak more particularly of what he had seen and heard at Máh-Kú.

Mullá Husayn told him everything. “Many and diverse were the things which I heard and witnessed in the course of my nine days’ association with Him,” he said. The Báb had spoken of matters bearing directly and indirectly on the Faith. He had given no definite direction for how the Cause should be spread. All He had said was this: on the road to Tihrán, visit the believers in every town and village. From Tihrán proceed to Mázindarán. There a hidden treasure would be revealed, a treasure that would unveil to his eyes the character of the task he was destined to perform.

But from the Báb’s allusions, Mullá Husayn had perceived, however dimly, the glory of the Revelation. And he had discerned the signs of the Cause’s future ascendancy. He had gathered something else, too: that he would eventually be called upon to sacrifice his life.

On every previous parting, the Báb had assured Mullá Husayn that they would meet again. This time He had given no such promise. He had not even alluded to the possibility of seeing his face once more in this world.

The Báb’s last words to him had been these: “The Feast of Sacrifice is fast approaching. Arise and gird up the loin of endeavour, and let nothing detain you from achieving your destiny. Having attained your destination, prepare yourself to receive Us, for We too shall ere long follow you.”

Before the hidden treasure was unveiled, the shadow of sacrifice had already fallen.

Then Quddús asked whether Mullá Husayn had brought any of the Báb’s writings. He had none. Quddús placed before him the pages of a manuscript of his own and asked him to read.

After a single page, Mullá Husayn’s countenance underwent a sudden and complete change. His features betrayed an expression of admiration and surprise that he could not contain. The loftiness of those words, their profundity, and above all their penetrating influence provoked intense agitation in his heart and drew from him the utmost praise.

He laid the manuscript down and said: “I can well realise that the Author of these words has drawn His inspiration from that Fountainhead which stands immeasurably superior to the sources whence the learning of men is ordinarily derived. I hereby testify to my whole-hearted recognition of the sublimity of these words and to my unquestioned acceptance of the truth which they reveal.”

From the silence Quddús kept, and from the expression on his face, Mullá Husayn understood. No one else could have written those pages.

He rose instantly from his seat. He stood at the threshold of the door with his head bowed and declared: “The hidden treasure of which the Báb has spoken now lies unveiled before my eyes. Its light has dispelled the gloom of perplexity and doubt. Though my Master be now hidden amid the mountain fastnesses of Ádhirbayján, the sign of His splendour and the revelation of His might stand manifest before me. I have found in Mázindarán the reflection of His glory.”

And here is where the scale of this recognition demands that we pause.

Hájí Mírzá Aqásí, the Prime Minister, had condemned the Báb to a life of exile in the remotest corner of Ádhirbayján. He imagined that by locking the Flame of God’s Fire inside a mountain fortress, he would hide it from the eyes of Persia. He did not perceive that by setting the Light of God upon a hill, he was helping to proclaim its glory. By his own miscalculations, instead of concealing that heavenly Flame, he gave it still further prominence and helped to excite its glow.

And consider the man now standing at the threshold. Mullá Husayn was no minor figure yielding out of sentiment. Had he wished, after the death of Siyyid Kázim, he could have declared himself the promised Qá’im, and the most distinguished among his fellow-disciples would have acknowledged the claim. Mullá Muhammad-i-Mamaqání, that noted disciple of Shaykh Ahmad, had said plainly after meeting him: “I take God as my witness! Had this claim which the Siyyid-i-Báb has made been advanced by this same Mullá Husayn, I would, in view of his remarkable traits of character and breadth of knowledge, have been the first to champion his cause and to proclaim it to all people. As he, however, has chosen to subordinate himself to another person, I have ceased to have any confidence in his words and have refused to respond to his appeal.”

Siyyid Muhammad-Báqir-i-Rashtí, after hearing Mullá Husayn resolve the perplexities that had long afflicted his mind, had testified: “I, who fondly imagined myself capable of confounding and silencing Siyyid Kázim-i-Rashtí, realised, when I first met and conversed with him who claims to be only his humble disciple, how grievously I had erred in my judgment. Such is the strength with which this youth seems endowed that if he were to declare the day to be night, I would still believe him able to deduce such proofs as would conclusively demonstrate, in the eyes of the learned divines, the truth of his statement.”

That was the stature of the man who now bowed. On the very night he had first met the Báb, Mullá Husayn had arrived conscious of his own superiority, predisposed to belittle the claims of an obscure merchant’s son from Shíráz. Yet as soon as the Báb began to unfold His theme, Mullá Husayn perceived the incalculable truth latent in that Revelation, embraced it, and disdainfully abandoned everything that might hamper its promotion. Now, given the opportunity to recognize the transcendent gifts of Quddús, he did the same. The vastness of his own learning dwindled into insignificance before the all-encompassing virtues that the spirit of Quddús displayed. That moment, he pledged his undying loyalty. He felt it his first obligation to subordinate himself entirely to Quddús, to follow in his footsteps, to abide by his will, and to ensure by every means in his power his welfare and safety. Until the hour of his martyrdom, Mullá Husayn kept that pledge. No other consideration drove him to such deference. Only the conviction that what he saw was real.

The transformation was visible to everyone. When the believers gathered the next morning, they found that the honoured guest of the night before, the man upon whom every kindness had been lavished, who had held the seat of honour, had given his seat to his host and now stood at the threshold in an attitude of complete humility.

Into that silence, Quddús spoke his first command. “Now, at this very hour, you should arise and, armed with the rod of wisdom and of might, silence the host of evil plotters who strive to discredit the fair name of the Faith of God. You should face that multitude and confound their forces. You should interview the Sa’ídu’l-‘Ulamá’, that notorious and false-hearted tyrant, and should fearlessly disclose to his eyes the distinguishing features of this Revelation. From thence you should proceed to Khurásán. In the town of Mashhad, you should build a house so designed as both to serve for our private residence and at the same time afford adequate facilities for the reception of our guests. Thither we shall shortly journey, and in that house we shall dwell. To it you shall invite every receptive soul who we hope may be guided to the River of everlasting life. We shall prepare and admonish them to band themselves together and proclaim the Cause of God.”

Mullá Husayn set out the next day at the hour of sunrise. Alone and unaided, he sought the presence of the Sa’ídu’l-‘Ulamá’ and, in the midst of the cleric’s assembled disciples, pleaded the Cause of the Báb with fearlessness and eloquence. He called upon the Sa’ídu’l-‘Ulamá’ to demolish the idols his own idle fancy had carved and to plant upon their shattered fragments the standard of divine guidance. He appealed to him to disentangle his mind from the creeds of the past and hasten, free and untrammelled, to the shores of eternal salvation.

With characteristic vigour, Mullá Husayn defeated every argument the Sa’ídu’l-‘Ulamá’ raised and exposed, by unanswerable logic, the fallacies of every doctrine he tried to propound. The cleric saw it happening. His own congregation was leaning toward the visitor. Seized by the fear that his disciples might unanimously rally around Mullá Husayn, the Sa’ídu’l-‘Ulamá’ abandoned argument altogether and had recourse to the meanest of devices. He hurled his calumnies into the face of Mullá Husayn and, contemptuously ignoring every proof and testimony placed before him, asserted without the least justification that the Cause was futile.

Mullá Husayn saw the man’s utter incapacity. He rose and said: “My argument has failed to rouse you from your sleep of negligence. My deeds will in the days to come prove to you the power of the Message you have chosen to despise.”

He spoke with such vehemence and emotion that the Sa’ídu’l-‘Ulamá’ was utterly confounded. The cleric could not reply.

Then Mullá Husayn turned to a member of the audience who seemed to have felt the influence of his words and charged him to relate the whole encounter to Quddús. “Say to him,” he added, “‘Inasmuch as you did not specifically command me to seek your presence, I have determined to set out immediately for Khurásán. I proceed to carry out in their entirety those things which you have instructed me to perform.’”

Alone, and with a heart wholly detached from all else but God, Mullá Husayn set out for Mashhad. His only companion on the road was the thought of accomplishing faithfully the wishes of Quddús. His only sustenance was the consciousness of that unfailing promise.

He went directly to the home of Mírzá Muhammad-Báqir-i-Qá’iní and was soon able to buy, in the neighbourhood of that house in Bálá-Khiyabán, a tract of land. On it he raised the house Quddús had commanded him to build and gave it the name Bábíyyih, a name it bears to this day.

Shortly after, Quddús arrived and took up residence. A steady stream of visitors, whom Mullá Husayn’s energy and zeal had already prepared, poured into his presence, acknowledged the Cause, and enlisted under its banner. The vigilance with which Mullá Husayn spread the new Revelation and the masterly manner in which Quddús edified its growing adherents gave rise to a wave of enthusiasm that swept over the entire city of Mashhad and spread beyond the borders of Khurásán. The Bábíyyih became a rallying centre for a multitude fired with an inflexible resolve to demonstrate the energies of their Faith.

A warden offered comfort, and Mullá Husayn refused it. A prisoner’s last words carried no promise of reunion. A manuscript revealed a station. A man of formidable learning and courage stood at a threshold with his head bowed. A command was given and obeyed at sunrise. A cleric was silenced. A house was built. And into that house walked the very person whose glory had shaken the first believer to his knees, to dwell there, to teach, and to prepare the community for what was coming.

The Feast of Sacrifice was fast approaching. Mullá Husayn had heard the words. He had not flinched. And the place from which the next great struggle would begin to gather was now standing, stone by stone, exactly where he had been told to raise it.