Letters of the Living-7

The Eighteen Letters of the Living

“Eighteen souls must, in the beginning, spontaneously and of their own accord, accept Me and recognise the truth of My Revelation. Unwarned and uninvited, each of these must seek independently to find Me.”

These had been the words of the Báb to Mullá Husayn on that night when he recognized the Báb, and became the first of the eighteen souls whose names would be immortalized as the Letters of the Living – the first to cross the Bridge of Sirát and recognize the Promised One. We know their names, but not the exact order in which each came to their Beloved. This is because each person had to find the Promised One “unwarned and uninvited”, so each kept their meeting a secret. What we know for certain is that Mullá Husayn was the first, Mullá ‘Alíy-i-Bastámí was the second and Quddús was the last (the eighteenth) of the Letters of the Living. It follows that we have a similar situation when it comes to the date of when the Letters of Living recognized the Báb. We know that Mullá Husayn recognized the Báb on the eve of 22 May 1844, and that it was forty days later that Mullá ‘Alíy-i-Bastámí recognized the Báb, but we don’t know the exact dates of when the other Letters of the Living did so. We also know that while the eighteen Letters of the Living were special souls in that they of their own accord and intuition came to recognize the Báb, like all other souls they were tested and had to sacrifice to cross the many crossings of the metaphoric Bridge of Sirát.

⁴⁹ “Understand in the same way the beginning of the manifestation of the Bayán: during forty days no one but the letter Sín believed in B.” From the Persian Bayán quoted in Dawn-Breakers Chapter 3 p66 footnote 1. Also, God Passes By, Chapter 1, p7, notes: “Not until forty days had elapsed, however, did the enrollment of the seventeen remaining Letters of the Living commence.”

⁵⁰ For a summary of the background of each of the Letters of the Living and what happened to them, see Afnan et al, 2009, Bahá’í Encyclopedia Letters of the Living Note: It seems that three of the Letters of the Living don’t make it through all the crossings of the Bridge: #7 Mullá Hasan-i-Bajistání left the Faith, as he felt he was unworthy; #8 Mírzá Hadí distanced himself from the Bábís, and later became a follower of Mírzá Yahyá; and #15 Mullá Khudá-Bakhsh-i-Qúchání returned to Karbalá’ from Shíráz but did not actively participate in the Bábí community. It is also noted that #12 Mírzá Muhammad Rawdih-Khán-i-Yazdí married into the family of the Shaykhí leader Muhammad Karím Khán-i-Kirmání, an arch-enemy of the Báb. It seems that because of the persecution of the Bábí’s, he chose not to reveal his beliefs, but it is recorded by Fádil-i-Mázindarání that he remained faithful and continued to teach the Bábí Faith covertly to the end of his life.

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