Who is “Bahaullah”?? Hussein Ali Nouri OR Yahya Nouri

According to Hajji Mirza Jani Kashani (or whoever was actually responsible for penning the NUQTAT’UL-KAF), Husayn Avarih Ayati, E.G. Browne, Miller and an aside by Fazel Mazandarani in his 3rd volume of the HISTORY OF THE MANIFESTATION OF THE TRUTH, the title “Baha’u’llah” (Splendor or Glory of God) was used not only by the Bab in his works but was also a title of reference to Mirza Yahya Nuri Subh-e Azal in the early Baghdad period.

In the Qayyum al-Asma as well as the Persian Bayan (and elsewhere) the Bab directly refers to Himself on numerous occasions as Baha’u’llah (the Splendour of God) and apart from the honorific Tahirih (the pure), Baha’ was a title he had also bestowed upon Umm Salmih Zarrin Taj Fatimih Baraghani Qurrat’ul-`Ayn prior to the Badasht conference.

According to the NUQTAT’UL-KAF, Jalal Azal, Miller and other non-Baha’i sectarian accounts of the Badasht conference in 1848, it was not the Bab but in fact TahirihQurrat’ul-`Ayn who had bestowed the title BAHA’ upon Mirza Husayn Ali Nuri, and not one which Mirza Husayn Ali had taken for himself.

Miller, for instance, correctly points out that “…Others may have called him [Mirza Husayn Ali Nuri] by this title [Baha\'], but there is no valid evidence that the Bab ever did so [p.119].”

He goes on to point out that “On March 27, 1850, only three months before his death, the Bab, according to the notation of his personal Diary, wrote an epistle to “238″, the brother of the Fruit.”… the Fruit [Thamarih] was Subh-e Azal. The numerical value of the Arabic letters in Husayn Ali is 238. Hence, it seems that when the Bab wrote his epistle to Mirza Husayn Ali, charging him to take the utmost care of Subh-e Azal, he used no title in addressing him, but referred to his younger brother as “The Most Glorious (Abha) Element.” The epistle clearly indicates that it was written by a superior to an inferior [ibid].”

We, now have it from the Bab himself that Mirza Yahya is “Baha’u’llah” and that therefore all references to Baha’ and Baha’u’llah which the Baha’is latter appropriated to refer to Mirza Husayn Ali was in fact understood by the Bab to be first referring to himself than to his successor, Subh-e Azal. I have been told on very reliable authority that in Azal’s first major work as Babi chief, the Kitab-i-Nur (the Book of Light), he in fact does call himself by that title.

In His longer Will and Testatment (which Browne did not translate and which I am currently in the process of translating in full) the Bab bestowed all of his rank and authority upon his successor, Subh-e Azal, and states that the rank of Mirza Yahya is co-equal to his own.
Therefore, it is not merely the case that Subh-e Azal was being referred also as Waheed Thani (the second unity) because Wahid had been the honorific of Siyyid Yahya Darabi who had just perished in the Babi uprisings, and thus his title “Waheed” had now spiritually ‘transmigrated’ or passed on to Azal. Rather Subh-e Azal was being referred to as Waheed Thani because the First Unity was primarily none other than the Bab himself sitting at the apex of his own religious hierarchy, i.e. himself as the Point (nuqta) with the 18 Letters of the Living which consistute the First collective Unity (waahid) of the First Cycle of All-Things (Kullu Shay’, i.e. 361) of the mystico-religio-political Babi hierarchy. The Bab, as with everything he ever wrote and did, was being consciously deliberate in designations of titles and rank to people. Unfortunately both sectarian Baha’i hagiographies as well as works purporting to be of a scholarly nature have seemingly and very deliberately glossed over these facts and retrospectively elevated the role of Mirza Husayn AliNuri even in the early period beginning with the titles “Baha’” and “Baha’u’llah.” Perusal of these earliest (non-Baha’i) source texts and the more reliable accounts they provide – accounts which the Baha’is have either systematically tried to suppress or twist the facts in their own favour  prove what the actual case was, and that is that the title Baha’u’llah was earlier one belonging to Azal and on which Mirza Husayn Ali later appropriated.

www.bahaifaith.com