Vahíd’s Second Meeting with the Báb
In the course of his second interview, Siyyid Yahyá, to his amazement, discovered that all the questions which he had intended to submit to the Báb had vanished from his memory. He contented himself with matters that seemed irrelevant to the object of his enquiry. He soon found, to his still greater surprise, that the Báb was answering, with the same lucidity and conciseness that had characterised His previous replies, those same questions which he had momentarily forgotten. “I seemed to have fallen fast asleep,” he later observed. “His words, His answers to questions which I had forgotten to ask, reawakened me. A voice still kept whispering in my ear: “Might not this, after all, have been an accidental coincidence?” I was too agitated to collect my thoughts. I again begged leave to retire.
‘Azím, whom I subsequently met, received me with cold indifference, and sternly remarked: “Would that schools had been utterly abolished, and that neither of us had entered one! Through our little-mindedness and conceit, we are withholding from ourselves the redeeming grace of God, and are causing pain to Him who is the Fountain thereof. Will you not this time beseech God to grant that you may be enabled to attain His presence with becoming humility and detachment, that perchance He may graciously relieve you from the oppression of uncertainty and doubt?” 96ACT4
Vahíd’s Third Meeting with the Báb: Commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar
I resolved that in my third interview with the Báb I would in my inmost heart request Him to reveal for me a commentary on the
Súrih of
Kawthar [Chapter of Abundance].
I determined not to breathe that request in His presence. Should he, unasked by me, reveal this commentary in a manner that would immediately distinguish it in my eyes from the prevailing standards current among the commentators on the
Qur’án, I then would be convinced of the Divine character of His Mission, and would readily embrace His Cause. If not, I would refuse to acknowledge Him.
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