The First Awakener-12 – Dawn Breakers

Be assured of the grace of God. Be not grieved at their doings. The mystery of this Cause must needs be made manifest, and the secret of this Message must needs be divulged. I can say no more, I can appoint no time. His Cause will be made manifest after Hín.

Ask me not of things which, if revealed unto you, might only pain you

In 1826, Shaykh Ahmad passed away in Medina and was laid to rest in the Báqí cemetery, situated not far from the revered mosque where the blessed remains of Prophet Muhammad rest. Siyyid Kázim was now alone with his handful of followers.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

³⁴ The Arabic word Hín is usually taken to mean “the time is nigh” but the reference here is to its numerical value. The semitic languages have an alphanumeric system, that is each alphabet is given a numerical value. Arabic uses the Abjad system. It was not unusual in the past, especially in scholarly circles, to represent a number by a word or vice versa, and sometimes interchange words that had the same numerical value. The word Hín has the numerical value of 68. Siyyid Kázim understood that this was referring to the year 68, which for him meant the Islamic calendar year of 1268 AH [which is 1852 CE]. The year 1852 is when Bahá’u’lláh received the intimation of His mission while imprisoned in the Síyáh-Chál prison in Tihrán. This year is also referred to by the Báb as the “year nine” and discussed in Act 15 Chapter 1. For more information on Islamic calendar see Appendix: Brief Background on Shí’a Islam. For more information on the Abjad system, see these sources: F. Lewis 1999 Overview of the Abjad Numerological System and Wikipedia Abjad Numerals.

³⁵ Dawn-Breakers Chapter 1, p17-18

³⁶ The Báqí cemetery in Medina is where a number of the Shí’a Imáms are also buried and it is close to the mosque [known as Al-Masjid An-Nabawī ] where the Prophet Muhammad is buried. This mosque, therefore holds profound significance in all Islam, being the second holiest site on earth after the Ka’ba in Mecca. For details see Appendix: Brief Background on Shí’a Islam.

12 / 803