Section One: Key Events in Vahíd’s Life leading to Naw-Rúz of 1850
Vahíd’s Background
Vahíd was considered to be one of the most learned, wise and impartial of the religious scholars of the land at that time. He was generally known during his lifetime as Siyyid Yahyáy-i-Dárábí
,
2_ACT11although history will know him as Vahíd [meaning unique or peerless], the title given to him by the Báb.
3_ACT11 He was the son of Siyyid Ja’far, surnamed Kashfí
,
4_ACT11 who in his time had been considered as one of the greatest and most celebrated
‘ulama of that period. Here was a celebrated son of a celebrated father. In 1846, the Sháh [Muhammad Sháh] had selected Vahíd from amongst all the
‘ulama to go meet the Báb, assess His claims and report back to the Sháh. It was after three meetings with the Báb in Shíráz that Vahíd recognized the station of the Báb. We have already described what happened at Vahíd’s meetings with the Báb in detail in DB 8-9, Section 4. Some years later, when Vahíd was being attacked by the very populace that had once bowed before him, and his horse was brought to him so he could get away from the mob, he remarked reflecting on how it all started:
This very steed, the late Muhammad Sháh gave me, that with it I might undertake the mission with which he entrusted me, of conducting an impartial investigation into the nature of the Faith proclaimed by the Siyyid-i-Báb. He asked me to report personally to him the results of my enquiry, inasmuch as I was the only one among the ecclesiastical leaders of Tihrán in whom he could repose implicit confidence. I undertook that mission with the firm resolution of confuting the arguments of that Siyyid, of inducing Him to abandon His ideas and to acknowledge my leadership, and of conducting Him with me to Tihrán as a witness to the triumph I was to achieve. When I came into His presence, however, and heard His words, the opposite of that which I had imagined took place. In the course of my first audience with Him, I was utterly abashed and confounded; by the end of the
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