Why did Baha’i Leaders conceal the Book ” Nuqtatu’l-Kaf”

  In the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris Edward Brown found a copy of the lost history written by Mirza Jani, entitled the Nuqtatu’l-Kaf!’ This manuscript was one of the Babi books brought back from Iran by the Comte de Gobineau and sold at auction after his death.

Comte de Gobineau

Browne eagerly compared this book with the New History, and discovered that while the New History embodied a great deal of what Mirza Jani had written in his history, a considerable amount of the material in the older history had been either changed or omitted by the authors of the New History. For example, while Mirza Jani gave a full account of the appointment of Subh-i-Azal by the Bab as his successor, and a detailed explanation of the exalted position which he occupied, one of equality with the Bab, the author of the New History omitted all this, and portrayed Baha as the greater person.(1)

Hence, when Browne published his translation of the New History in 1893, he included in it as an Appendix the most important passages of the Nuqtatu’l-Kaf which had been omitted or altered in the New History. (2)

Why was this done?

”The earliest, fullest and most interesting history of the Bab and his immediate disciples….was almost completely suppressed,”(4) wrote Browne,(5) ”because it reflected the opinion which prevailed immediately after the Bab’s martyrdom that his successor was Mirza Yahya Subh-i-Azal, and thus came into conflict with the Baha’i contention which arose ten or fifteen year later, and a recension of it was prepared (known as ’the New History! ..) in which all references to Subh-i-Azal were eliminated or altered, and other features regarded as undesirable were suppressed or modified.” (3)  . . .

References:

1.   The New History of the Bab, pp. 374-382, Nuqtatu’l-Kaf, Int. in English, pp. XXXVI, XXXVII.

2.   The New History of the Bab, translated by E. G. Browne, Cambridge, 1893.

3.The New History of the Bab, pages 327-396.

4.   Only two complete copies of the Nuqtatu’l-Kaf in manuscript are known to be in existence today, one being that discovered by Browne in the Bibliotheque Nationale (Suppl. Pers. l071), from which he printed the Persian text, and the other in. the Library of Princeton University. See English Int. to Nuqtatu’l-Kaf pp. XIII, New History Int., pp. XXIX, XXX, and Notes of Dr. Sa’eed, pp. 5, 6 (also in the Princeton Library).

5.   Materials for the Study of the Babi Religion, by E. G. Browne, Cambridge 1918, Int. p. XXIII, Nuqtatu’l-Kaf, English Int., p. XXXIV.

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