5.    Letters of The Living
There are 19 Letters in the formula Bismillah-Al-Amna’-Al-Aqdas (abbreviated as Bismillah), with which God’s Revelation opens, and which is used before commencing any action. Of these the Letter BA denotes the Manifestation of the Age, the Primal Point in Bayanic Dispensation. The remaining 18 Letters denote the Primal Point’s Letters of the Living, the 18 disciples who first believed in the Primal Point.

They were “the return of Muhammad, Ali, Fatima, the Eleven Imams, and the Four [original] Gates (BÂBs).” In the Primal Point’s view the “coming again” of them was fulfilled in the advent of the Letters of the Living.

In the Persian Bayan, Wáhid I, BÂB (Chapter) 3, the Primal Point says that “[Imam] Ali has returned to the world and id the second to believe in the Point after [the Letter] Sin [the second Letter of Bismillah].” This means that the Primal Point has credited the Letter Sin to take the First to believe and the station of Muhammad, and the Letter after Sin, namely, the Letter Mim, the third Letter of Bismillah, to be the second to believe and the station of Ali. This grading is from the point of faith, and it is confirmed in Wáhid I, BÂB (Chapter) 15, where the Primal Point says that “the Point of Bayan is mentioned first, and the Point of the Furqan [i.e. Muhammad] is mentioned second.”

This is confirmed in Wáhid III, BÂB (Chapter) 4, where the Primal Point says that a later Revelation and its Author are superior to an earlier Revelation and its author.

Among the Primal Point’s 18 Letters of the Living Mulla Husayn and Mulla Muhammad Ali ranked first and foremost. The former was the Letter Sin, the second Letter of Bismillah, and the First to believe; the Letter was the last latter of Bismillah, also the Letter Sin, and the Last to believe, whom the Primal Point addressed in the following terms: “O Name of the First Letter, the Apparent and the Hidden.” New History, Subh-i-Azal’s Narrative, P. 399.

This indicates that respective stations held by the 18 Letters of the Living were not governed by the order in which they entered in the faith. See also New History, PP. 43-44; Subh-i-Azal’s Narrative, P. 404.

In the Persian Bayan Wáhid I, BÂB (Chapter) 4, the Primal Point says that Fatima [daughter of the Prophet Muhammad has returned to the life of the world.”
The ‘Coming again’ of Fatima was fulfilled in the advent of Qurrat-al-Ayn. All these 18 Letters of the Living, like the Imams and the BÂBs in the Quranic cycle were mirror manifestation within the orbit of the major manifestation of the Primal Point. Grants of titles and names were the prerogative of the Primal Point to the exclusion of all others.

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