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7. The Epistle of Jud
“In the year A.H. 1305 (A.D. 1887-1888) Mirza Abul-Fazl of Gulpaygan wrote at the request of certain elders of the Jews a treatise entitled Risala-i Ayubiyya (‘the Epistle of Jud’)”. The treatise is otherwise known as Istidlaliyya (evidence). The treatise is intended to prove by quotations and arguments drawn from the Old Testament that Baha is the promised Messiah and deliverer of Israel, and is addressed chiefly to the Jews.
In this treatise the date of Baha’s (alleged) manifestation is given as A.H. 1285 (A.D. 1868). In the treatise the author ‘fixed the date of the second restoration of the Holy Temple at four hundred and thirty years, whereas other chronologists have stated it to be six hundred years’. Page xxxv Introduction to the Tarikh-i Jadid (The New History of Mirza Ali Muhammad the BÁB) by Mirza Husayn of Hamadan, translated from the Persian by Professor E. G. Browne.
Footnote 3 by Browne in the same page: “The objection which I raised to Mirza Abdul Fazl’s chronology is neither very clearly nor very accurately stated here.
His contention was that the 2300 days (i.e. years) during which the sanctuary shall be trodden under fort, as mentioned in the Book of Dannial (Ch. Viii, V. 14), came to an end at the time of Baha’s “manifestation” in A.H. 1285 (A.D. 1868), and the quarter raised bore reference to the terminus a quo.’
See also P. 45 Persian Introduction to the Nuqtatul-Kaf.
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