Table of Contents
Your Honour, I have not come hither of My own accord. I have been summoned to this place.
Mulla Muhammad furiously retorted:
Hold your peace, you perverse and contemptible follower of Satan!
The Bab politely answered:
Your Honour, I maintain what I have already declared.
The Nizamu’l-‘Ulamá then stepped in, and asked the Báb:
The claim which you have advanced is a stupendous one; it must needs be supported by the most incontrovertible evidence.
The Báb replied:
The Nizamu’l-‘Ulamá then asked:
Describe orally, if you speak the truth, the proceedings of this gathering in language that will resemble the phraseology of the verses of the Qur’án so that the Valí-‘Ahd and the assembled divines may bear witness to the truth of your claim.
The Báb accepted and began to speak; but no sooner had He uttered the words, “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, praise be to Him who has created the heaven and the earth”, than Mullá Muhammad-i-Mámáqání interrupted Him. Mocking with scorn, he said:
This self-appointed Qa’im of ours, has at the very start of his address betrayed his ignorance of the most rudimentary rules of grammar!
The Báb responded to him:
The Qur’án itself, does in no wise accord with the rules and conventions current amongst men. The Word of God can never be subject to the limitations of His creatures. Nay, the rules and canons which men have adopted have been deduced from the text of the Word of God and are based upon it. These men have, in the very texts of that holy Book, discovered no less than three hundred instances of grammatical error, such as the one you now criticise. Inasmuch as it was the Word of God, they had no other alternative except to resign themselves to His will.