Claimants to The Office of He Whom God Will Make Manifest
Baha's Claim
Bahai Attempts to Discredit Subh-i Azal
4.9 Bahai Attempts to Discredit Subh-i Azal
In their bid to discredit and disparage Subh-i-Azal, the Bahai hierarchy and Bahai historians have swollen the number of his wives. In his Kitab-i-Iqlim-i-Nur, PP. 202-203, Muhammad Ali Malik Khosravi of Nur writes, alleges that Subh-i-Azal had married fourteen women including the Point’s widow Fatima Khanum daughter of Mulla Hasan preacher of Isfahan who was the Point’s second wife.
Contradicting Khosravi in his god passes by P. 125, Shoghi Effendi alleges that his [i.e. Subh-i-Azal’s] shamelessness and effrontery had waxed so great as to lead him to perpetrate himself and permit Sayyid Muhammad [of Isfahan] who he brands as “the black-hearted scoundrel” (ibid, P. 112), “the antichrist of the Bahai Revelation” (ibid, P.164), and who was murdered by Baha’s men in Acre in 1892] to repeat after him an act, so seditious that Baha characterized it as “most grievous betrayal” indicating dishonour upon the BÂB”.
Contradicting both Khosravi and Shoghi Effendi, Sir Abbas Effendi in an epistle to his followers says “As an instance the mother of the believers, the sister of Mulla Rajab Ali Qahir [i.e. Fatima Khanum] was one of the wives of perfect purity of His Holiness the supreme [i.e. the Primal Point], and union with her is strictly unlawful under the express provision of the Bayan. This notwithstanding, he [i.e. Subh-i-Azal] was familiar with her and, after a number of days he made a present of her to Sayyid Muhammad [of Isfahan] the notorious, and that virtuous woman was under bond of marriage contract with Sayyid Muhamad till the end of her life”.
Contradicting all and “speaking by the tongue of god Al-Ali-Al-Abha [i.e. Baha] posing as the Primal Point, Baha says that the term “the Best of woman” is first applied to “the mother of the Primal Point and then to “the Point’s [i.e. the Point’s first] wife, who passed without from the sanctuary of immaculation, and whom the hands of the perfidious touched not, and she who [i.e. the Point’s second wife Fatima] who betrayed herself has in fact defected from the Point” and has severed her connection with god”. Risala-i-Badi’ by Aqa Muhammad Ali of Isfahan, a Bahai historian, P. 356.
Fatima Khanum’s brothers were Aqa Ali Muhammad of Isfahan and Mulla Rajab Ali Qahir both of whom wrote refutations in rebuttal of Baha’s pretensions. Soon after they were assassinated by Baha’s men. Aqa Ali Muhammad in Baghdad, and Mulla Rajab Ali Qahir in Karbala. The Bahai hierarchy who sheds crocodile tears over Fatima Khanum had no compunction in disposing of her two brothers by foul play.
On the strength of Fatima Khanum’s written and sealed statement which appears in old BÂBi manuscripts , the Imam Jum’a [i.e. leading Imam] of Isfahan pestered her with suitors. Acting on the advice of Subh-i-Azal and Baha’s half sister, [Izziyya Khanum, the authoress of the Tanbih-al-Naimin] she fled from Isfahan to Iraq, accompanied by members of her family, her younger brother Aqa Ali Muhammad and Sayyid Muhammad of Isfahan, to join her elder brother Mulla Rajab Ali Qahir, who had taken up his residence in Karbala. In Kazamayn, the party was met by Baha’s full brother Mirza Musa who had come from Baghdad.
Fatima Khanum and her brother, Aqa Ali Muhammad “proceeded to Baghdad accompanied by Sayyid Muhammad to pay their respects to Subh-i-Azal.
Subh-i-Azal “gave me the marriage to Sayyid Muhammad”, accompanied by him and her younger brother, she proceeded to Karbala; “at this time, Mirza Husayn Ali Baha wanted to marry me.”
“The murder of Sayyid Muhammad’s maternal uncle Mirza Muhammad Rida, of her younger brother Aqa Ali Muhammad, of her elder brother Mulla Rajab Ali Qahir, and her husband Sayyid Muhammad” are attributed by Fatima Khanum to Baha’s enmity “ stemming from the day of her marriage to Sayyid Muhammad of Isfahan.
In his Risala-i-Raddiyya of 1867, PP. 63-64, Fatima Khanum’s brother Aqa Ali Muhammad of Isfahan states that “Sayyid Muhammad of Isfahan rendered the extreme of service to her [i.e. Fatima Khanum], he failed for a moment in honoring her, and he accepted his master’s bounty for the love of god”.
In his epistles, Subh-i-Azal rejects the allegation preferred against him as false and devoid of foundation.
On the strength of the Arabic Bayan, Wáhid (Unity) X, BÂB (Chapter) 10, “a surviving husband or wife may remarry within ninety or ninety five days from the death of his wife or her husband respectively”. Sir Abbas Effendi’s falsehood is unfortunate.
It appears that Baha himself was out to marry the Point’s widow Fatima Khanum, whereby to consolidate his position in his forthcoming pretensions. Failed in his attempt, he nursed his grievance and bided his time. As soon as he was in the saddle safe and secure, he put about these false and tendentious statements to discredit Subh-i-Azal and Sayyid Muhammad of Isfahan.
Sayyid Muhammad of Isfahan’s murder and scurrilous language used against him are to be traced to chez-chez la femme.
It is indeed strange and unfortunate that Baha who has preferred such a groundless allegation against Subh-i-Azal should himself offer his own daughter as a “Kaniz” to Subh-i-Azal or to his son Ahmad Bahaj during the Baghdad period of the BÂBi exile, an offer which Subh-i-Azal turned down. The text sums as follows:
The Tanbih-al-Naimin, PP. 19-20:
برای بردن نوشتجات حضرت نقطه آمده بود حکایت کرد که روزی جناب ایشان (بهاء) یعنی اَب بزرگوار آن نور چشم (عباس افندی) امر کردند که سلطان خانم (ملقب به بهیّه) همشیره آن نور چشم را لباس خانمی پوشانیدم و آرایشی دادم. فرمودند ببر خدمت حضرت ثمره (صبح ازل) و از زبان من عرض کن که این کنیزی است سالها در دامن خود پرورده ام و به دست خویش تربیت کرده ام اکنون برای خدمتکاری آن حضرت فرستاده ام استدعا دارم که منت بر جان من گذاشته و او را به کنیزی قبول فرمائید. من هم او را برداشته خدمت حضرت بردم و ایشان مشغول به نوشتن بودند. پس ازچندی سر بر آوردند و نگاهی به جانب ما فرمودند. من عرض کردم به آنچه مأمور بودم. در جواب فرمودند که سلطان خانم فرزند من است و البته او را برگردانید زیرا که الی کنون چنین حکمی جاری نشده ما مراجعت کردیم من فرمایشات حضرت را به ایشان رسانیدم بعد از قدری مکث فرمودند باز بروید و از زبان من عرض کنید که او را برای کنیزی آقا میرزا احمد فرستادم استدعا دارم دست رد بر سینه من نگذارید باز به خدمت حضرت رسیدم و گفتار ایشانرا به عرض رسانیدم فرمودند که او و میرزا احمد برای من یکسانند هردو فرزند من هستند خدا راضی نیست که شما در این باب اینقدر مبالغه و اصرار نمائید باز مراجعت کردم فرمایشات حضرت را رسانیدم چیزی نفرموده سکون کردند.
Please see the true accounts of Takur of Nour on Bahai attempts to inflate the number of Subh-i Azal's wives.
Please see here for a detailed family tree of Subh-i Azal in English.
Please see here for a detailed family tree of Subh-i Azal in Farsi.
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