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issue.
15
However, Cole, in discussing his own interpretation of the Book of the
River, suggests that the tablet
raises the most acute questions about the nature of the “intimation” Baha’u’llah is said
to have experienced in the Siyah Chal. If one reads the account in Epistle to the Son of
the Wolf carefully, it appears that it consisted more of ilham or inspiration than of
wahy or revelation, and that Baha’u’llah began thinking of islah or reform of Babism
rather than of making any claim of his own. (“Commentary”)
But in fact, Bahá’u’lláh has explicitly used the term
wahy
(
vah. y
) and not
ilham
with regard to his Síyáh-Chál experience. In another tablet, Bahá’u’lláh gives
the same account of the experience in different words and adds that this is
already mentioned in the Tablet to the Shah—obviously he means the same
account of what happened in the Síyáh-Chál. However, here he uses the word
vah. y
. Bahá’u’lláh says:
By God! Verily I was asleep, when lo! the breezes of Revelation [
vah. y
] bestirred
Me. I was silent, and thy Lord, the Almighty, the All-Powerful, caused Me to speak
forth. Were it not for His behest I would not have revealed Myself. Verily, His Will
prevailed over My will and raised Me up to establish a Cause which hath made Me
the target of the darts of the infidels. Read what We have revealed to the kings that
thou mayest be assured that this Servant speaketh as bidden by the All-Knowing,
the All-Informed. (
Majmú‘iy-i-Alváh.
234; provisional translation)
It should also be noted in this connection that Bahá’u’lláh uses the same
concept and same wording in the Kitáb-i-Badí‘, which was written at the end of
the Adrianople period—the same period as the revelation of the Tablet to the
Shah—to discuss his station explicitly as the Manifestation of God and the
Promised One of the Bayán. These repeated statements of Bahá’u’lláh clearly
show that the statement in the Tablet to the Shah unequivocally refers to the
inception of Bahá’u’lláh’s new Revelation. For instance, asserting that he is the
Promised One of the Bayán, Bahá’u’lláh writes the following:
O people! I am ‘Alí Himself [the Báb] and the Beauty of Muh. ammad amongst you
and the essence of Spirit [Jesus] between the heavens and the earth. O people, fear
ye God! Verily, I am a servant Who truly believeth in God and in His verses. I was
asleep upon My couch, when lo, the breezes of the All-Glorious were wafted over
Me, and awakened Me to the Truth, and taught Me the knowledge of all that hath
been and all that is to be, and revealed Me by the ornament of His own Self, and
caused Me to speak His praise, should ye understand. O people! even if ye fail to
believe in Me, at least do not protest against Me. . . . O people, fear ye God. I was
THE J OURNAL OF BAHÁ ’ Í S TUD I E S 9 . 3 . 1 9 9 9
50
15. See Shoghi Effendi,
God Passes By
101–2.