Sequential excerpts (including footnotes) from ‘The Dawn-Breakers’ by Nabil-i-‘Azam, translated and edited by Shoghi Effendi

June 18, 2020

The Báb created a list of the first 361 believers – to be given to Baha’u’llah

As the Báb bade farewell to the Letters of the Living, He instructed them, each and all, to record separately the name of every believer who embraced the Faith and identified himself with its teachings. The list of these believers He bade them enclose in sealed letters, and address them to His maternal uncle, Hájí Mírzá Siyyid ‘Alí, in Shíráz, who would in turn deliver them to Him. “I shall classify these lists,” He told them, “into eighteen sets of nineteen names each. Each set will constitute one váhid.[1] All these names, in these eighteen sets, will, together with the first váhid, consisting of My own name and those of the eighteen Letters of the Living, constitute the number of Kull-i-Shay’.[2]  Of all these believers I shall make mention in the Tablet of God, so that upon each one of them the Beloved of our hearts may, in the Day when He shall have ascended the throne of glory, confer His inestimable blessings, and declare them the dwellers of His Paradise.” 
(Chapter 6, ‘The Dawn-Breakers’)
[1] The numerical value of the word “váhid,” which means “unity,” is 19
[2] The numerical value of “Kull-i-Shay’,” which means “all things,” is 361, or 19 X 19.