Claimants to the Office of He Whom God Will Make Manifest

The Pretenders

1. The Pretenders
Alphabetical list of some of the pretenders who had prior pretensions to be Him-Whom-God-Will-Make-Manifest and/or the return of the Imam Husayn is subjoined:

Abd-al-Karim-i-Tabrizi
Abdullah Gawhar
Ali Akbar-i-Shirazi
Assadullah Dayyan
Hashim-i-Kashi-Haji Mulla
Husayn-Ali Nuri (Baha)
Husayn-i-Hindiyani or Hindigani
Husayn-i-Milani known as Husayn Jan
Ismail-i-Isfahani
Mahdi Ardastani
Muhammad Karawi
Muhammad Nabil Zarandi, author of Nabil's Narrative
Musa Sumi, Haji
Sayyid Ama
Sayyid Uluv

Extracted from BÂBi manuscripts.

These pretenders based their pretensions on a passage in the Arabic Bayan, Wáhid VI, BÂB 15, which runs as follows: “In the year Nine ye will attain unto all good.”

فلتقو من انتم کلکم اجمعون اذا تسمعن ذکر من تظهره باسم القائم و لتراقبن فوق القائم والقیوم ثم فی سنة التسع کّل خیر تدرکون

There is nothing in the passage to invalidate the limit of the time fixed by the Primal Point in the Bayan for the appearance of Him-Whom-God-Will-Make-Manifest, a minimum period of 1511 years, and a maximum period of 2001 years, from the time of the Primal Point.

Shoghi Effendi, on the testimony of Sir Abbas Effendi, states that "no less than twenty-five persons had the presumption to declare themselves to be the promised One foretold by the Primal Point."

Under the terms of the Primal Point's Testamentary dispositions addressed to him Subh-i-Azal was to bequeath the command to One like unto him if such an One were to appear in his days. In default thereof Subh-i-Azal was to render up the Command to God and to ordain witnesses to maintain the law after him. J.R.A.S July 1892, P. 478; See section 5.8.7 for the Primal Point's Testamentary disposition. The Primal Point gave the same rank and titles to Subh-i-Azal as to himself. Pretensions of all these pretenders, Baha including amounted to self-condemnation. Accordingly Subh-i-Azal passed judgment on them and treated them as imposters.

Mirza Jani speaks of a number of 'claimants' in general, and refers to two of them in particular, namely, Zabih and Basir, whom he identifies with John the Baptist and the Imam Husayn, foretold by the Primal Point, according to Mirza Jani in his communication addressed by him to Mulla Shaykh Ali surnamed "Azim". Mirza Jani in New History PP. 384-394.

Mirza Jani was mistaken in connecting these two "claimants" with the prediction contained in the Primal Point's communication to Azim. The Point’s prediction in the communication applied to the two Wahids, namely, Sayyid Yahya of Darab, who was killed in the Niriz upheaval and to Mirza Yahya Subh-i Azal. See the next section "The Two Wahids".

These pretenders based their pretensions on:

passage in the Arabic Bayan, Wáhid VI, BÂB 15, which runs as follows: "In the year Nine ye will attain unto all good." This passage, these pretenders misinterpreted as meaning that a major manifestation was imminent within nine years from the time of the Primal Point. There is nothing in this passage to invalidate the limit of the time fixed by the Primal Point in the Bayan for the advent of Him-Whom-God-Will-Make-Manifest a minimum period of 1511 years or a maximum period of 2001 years from the time of the Primal Point;
Mirza Jani speaks of a number of such pretenders and their pretensions and emphatically refers to them as 'claimants' and to their pretensions as "manifestations".
In particular he speaks of "two manifestations" which the Reminder [i.e. the Primal Point] and [Mulla Shaykh Ali surnamed] Azim had foretold, saying "After Me there will be two manifestations, one the manifestation of Husayn, and the other the manifestation of Yahya, and neither will remain in the womb more than nine month." Mirza Jani in New History, appendix II, P.394.
the Point's communication to Azim, which was meant for "the two Wahids", and which the pretenders appropriated wrongly to themselves. See the Primal Point’s communication to Azim