“While these events were taking place in the north of
Persia, the central and southern provinces were deeply roused by the fiery
eloquence of the missionaries of the new doctrine. The people, light,
credulous, ignorant, superstitious in the extreme, were struck dumb by the
incessant miracles which they heard related every moment; the anxious priests,
feeling their flock quivering with impatience and ready to escape their
control, redoubled their slanders and infamous imputations; the grossest lies,
the most bloody fictions were spread among the bewildered populace, torn
between horror and admiration.... Siyyid Ja’far [the envoy’s father] was
unacquainted with the doctrine of the Shaykhís as he was with those of Mullá
Sadrá. Nevertheless, his burning zeal and his ardent imagination had carried
him, towards the end of his life, out of the ways of the orthodox Shí’ite. He
interpreted the ‘hadíths’ differently from his colleagues and claimed even, so
they said, to have fathomed the seventy inner meanings of the Qur’án. His son,
who was to outdo these oddities, was at that time about thirty-five years of
age. After the completion of his studies, he came to Tihrán where he became
intimately associated with all that the court counted of great personages and
distinguished men. It was upon him that the choice of His Majesty fell. He was,
therefore, commissioned to go to Shíráz to make contact with the Báb and to
inform the central authority, as exactly as possible, of the political
consequences which would result from a reform which seemed likely unsettle
heart of the country.”
(A. L. M. Nicolas’ “Siyyid ‘Alí-Muhammad dit le Báb,”
pp. 387–388.; Footnotes to Chapter 9 provided by Shoghi Effendi)
