Concealment and Revelation

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Concealment and Reve lat ion

revelation in the Síyáh-Chál as the beginning of a new prophetic era, as recorded in the Tablet to the Shah of Iran, is confirmed and supported explicitly by numerous other writings. The central misconception underlying the thesis is very similar to that of a few other writers who contend that the Báb’s early works indicate no prophetic consciousness and suggest that it was not until some four years after his 1844 Declaration that the Báb first began to consider himself the Qá’im and a new Manifestation of God. It is also similar to some discussions of the early writings of Bahá’u’lláh—such as the Hidden Words, the Four Valleys, and the Seven Valleys—that understand those early works as reiterating typical Sufi ideas and find discontinuity and inconsistency between the conceptual content of Bahá’u’lláh’s early “mystical” writings and that of his later writings, such as the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, which have a social, legal, or administrative orientation and an emphasis on covenant. Early Writings of Bahá’u’lláh Those analyses, along with the theory which will be examined in this article, have family resemblances and are all, in my opinion, based upon a reductionistic logic which misconstrues the early and the later writings of both Bahá’u’lláh and the Báb. 1 Although a full discussion of all these issues is beyond the scope of this article, it can be demonstrated that Bahá’u’lláh’s early texts are in perfect harmony with his later ones, including the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, as well as with the principle of covenant and with all the diverse social, historical, and legal aspects of the Bahá’í Faith. In addition, Bahá’u’lláh’s early texts, like his later ones, can be seen to disclose a logic of discourse, a worldview, and a spiritual and sociological insight that are not reducible to any Eastern or Western system either in the past or in the present. The early writings of Bahá’u’lláh, in fact, embody the same logic found in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. Bahá’u’lláh’s Four Valleys is an explication of an epistemology which is neither solely mystical, legal, nor rational but the harmonious unity of all three in a novel creative and historical framework. The Hidden Words, rather than being solely mystical, is a discourse on covenant which includes an outline of the new world order of Bahá’u’lláh (Saiedi “Kalimát-i-Maknúnih”). Moreover, these early writings of Bahá’u’lláh clearly show that the incomparable author of those texts claims the highest possible spiritual station for himself. For instance, Bahá’u’lláh describes the Hidden Words as the “inner essence” of all the divine revelations of the past. He claims that he understands that inner essence of all that has been “uttered by the tongue of power and

1. Elsewhere (Saiedi “Tah. lílí”) I have discussed aspects of the Báb’s concept of gatehood, showing the inadequacy of that approach with regard to the Báb’s writings.