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conceal it from anyone except Mullá ‘Abdu’l-Karím, also entitled Mírzá Ahmad, who had been one of the amanuenses of the Báb. 4_ACT13 Nabíl records:
Mullá Báqir departed forthwith for Qazvín. Within eighteen days he reached that town and was informed that Mírzá Ahmad had departed for Qum. He left immediately for that destination and arrived towards the middle of the month of Sha‘bán [towards end June 1850]. I [Nabíl] was then in Qum, … living in the same house with Mírzá Ahmad. … In those days Shaykh ‘Azím, Siyyid Ismá‘íl, and a number of other companions likewise were dwelling with us. Mullá Báqir delivered the trust into the hands of Mírzá Ahmad, who, at the insistence of Shaykh ‘Azím, opened it before us. We marvelled when we beheld, among the things which that coffer contained, a scroll of blue paper, of the most delicate texture, on which the Báb, in His own exquisite handwriting, which was a fine Shikastih script,5_ACT13 had penned, in the form of a pentacle, what numbered about five hundred verses, all consisting of derivatives from the word “Bahá.”6_ACT13 That scroll was in a state of perfect preservation, was spotlessly clean, … So fine and intricate was the penmanship that, viewed at a distance, the writing appeared as a single wash of ink on the paper. We were overcome with admiration as we gazed upon a masterpiece which no calligraphist, we believed, could rival. That scroll was replaced in the coffer and handed back to Mírzá Ahmad, who, on the very day he received it, proceeded to Tihrán. Ere he departed, he informed us that all he could divulge of that letter [the Báb’s letter to him] was the injunction that the trust was to be delivered into the hands of Jináb-i-Bahá [Bahá’u’lláh].
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