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The Sifter of Wheat of Isfáhán stands as a symbol. He is remembered by the Báb in the Persian Bayán:
In the land of Sád [Isfáhán], which to outward seeming is a great city, in every corner of whose seminaries are vast numbers of people regarded as divines and doctors 13ACT3 , yet when the time came for inmost essences to be drawn forth, only its sifter of wheat donned the robe of discipleship. This is the mystery of what was uttered by the kindred of the Prophet Muhammad 14ACT3 – upon them be the peace of God – concerning this Revelation, saying that the abased shall be exalted and the exalted shall be abased. 15ACT3
The Sifter of Wheat of Isfáhán is also remembered by Bahá’u’llah in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas when warning about how outward learning and pride become veils to recognizing the Manifestation of God of the Age for so many:
Call ye to mind the shaykh whose name was Muhammad-Hasan, who ranked among the most learned divines of his day. When the True One was made manifest, this shaykh, along with others of his calling, rejected Him, while a sifter of wheat and barley accepted Him and turned unto the Lord. Though he was occupied both night and day in setting down what he conceived to be the laws and ordinances of God, yet when He Who is the Unconstrained appeared, not one letter thereof availed him, or he would not have turned away from a Countenance that hath illumined the faces of the well-favored of the Lord. … Beware lest any name debar you from Him Who is the Possessor of all names, or any word shut you out from this Remembrance of God, this Source of Wisdom amongst you. … We, verily, see amongst you him who taketh hold of the Book of God and citeth from it proofs and arguments wherewith to repudiate his Lord, even as the followers of every other Faith sought reasons in their Holy Books for refuting Him Who is the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. Say: God, the True One, is My witness that neither the Scriptures of the world, nor all the books and writings in existence, shall, in this Day, avail you aught without this, the Living Book, Who proclaimeth in the midmost heart of creation: “Verily, there is none other God but Me, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise. 16ACT3
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