Mullá Husayn’s first stop: City of Isfáhán – Reaction from disciples of eminent mujtahid, Hájí Siyyid Muhammad-Báqir

circa 1935: madrisih of Ním-Ávard in Isfahan

With these noble words [The Báb’s reassuring words] ringing in his ears, Mullá Husayn embarked upon his perilous enterprise. Wherever he went, to whatever class of people he addressed himself, he delivered fearlessly and without reserve the Message with which his beloved Master had entrusted him. Arriving in Isfáhán, he established himself in the madrisih of Ním-Ávard. Around him gathered those who on his previous visit to that city had known him as the favoured messenger of Siyyid Kázim to the eminent mujtahid, Hájí Siyyid Muhammad-Báqir.  He, being now dead, had been succeeded by his son, who had just returned from Najaf and was now established upon the seat of his father. Hájí Muhammad-Ibráhím-i-Kalbásí had also fallen seriously ill, and was on the verge of death. The disciples of the late Hájí Siyyid Muhammad-Báqir, now freed from the restraining influence of their departed teacher, and alarmed at the strange doctrines which Mullá Husayn was propounding, vehemently denounced him to Hájí Siyyid Asadu’lláh, the son of the late Hájí Siyyid Muhammad-Báqir. “Mullá Husayn,” they complained, “was able, in the course of his last visit, to win the support of your illustrious father to the cause of Shaykh Ahmad. No one among the Siyyid’s helpless disciples dared to oppose him. He now comes as the upholder of a still more formidable opponent and is pleading His Cause with still greater vehemence and vigour. He is persistently claiming that He whose Cause he now champions is the Revealer of a Book which is divinely inspired, and which bears a striking resemblance to the tone and language of the Qur’án. In the face of the people of this city, he has flung these challenging words: ‘Produce one like it, if you are men of truth.’ The day is fast approaching when the whole of Isfáhán will have embraced his Cause!” Hájí Siyyid Asadu’lláh returned evasive answers to their complaints. “What am I to say?” he was at last forced to reply. Do you not yourselves admit that Mullá Husayn has, by his eloquence and the cogency of his argument, silenced a man no less great than my illustrious father? How can I, then, who am so inferior to him in merit and knowledge, presume to challenge what he has already approved? Let each man dispassionately examine these claims. If he be satisfied, well and good; if not, let him observe silence, and not incur the risk of discrediting the fair name of our Faith.” 
(Chapter 4, ‘The Dawn-Breakers’)