Baha’s Writings
Baha’s Access to News
4. Baha’s Writings
4.4 Baha’s Access to News
Baha, radiating from Acre, had agents posted in principal cities in the Ottoman Empire, such as Beirut, Cairo, Damascus and Istanbul, who furnished him regularly with daily papers, periodicals and books on world problems and who reported to him movements of men of mark. Proof of his studies of books and newspapers is established by specific instances dealt with by him in his tablet.
Noted Pan-Islamist Sayyid Jamal-al-Din Afghani or Asad-abadi proceeded from Teheran to Istanbul at the invitation of the then Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. In Istanbul the Sayyid contributed to the Akhtar, a Persian Periodical that appeared in Istanbul edited by Iranian émigrés, who stood for constitutional reform in Iran. The Sayyid contributed an article to the Arabic Encyclopedia called Daierat-al Ma’arif of Beirut on the BÂBi movement to which Dr Browne refers and from which he quotes, in J.R.A.S October 1889, pp.942-943.
When the Sayyid became persona non grata in the eyes of Sultan of the then Khediv of Egypt took him to Cairo. From there the Sayyid made his way to Paris, where he edited the Urwatu’l-Wuthya periodical and sent a copy of it to Baha.
In one of his tablets Baha speaks of the Sayyid by intimation and implication, places on record his displeasure of the warm reception accorded to the Sayyid in Iran by Iranian dignitaries, whom the Sayyid had “harnessed into his Will,” refers to the Sayyid’s contributions to the “Egyptian Newspapers” and to the Arabic Encyclopedia called “Daierat-al-Ma’arif of Beirut” concerning “this sect”, notes the receipt by him of a copy of the Sayyid’s “Daierat-al-Ma’arif”, which he puts down to a gesture of friendship on the part of the Sayyid, and composes a special prayer of forgiveness to be said by the Sayyid. Baha does not, however state whether the prayer was even sent or received by the Sayyid. Apparently Baha’s utterance was intended for home consumption.
Facsimile of extracts from a Tablet of Baha, in the handwriting of Mirza Muhammad Ali, which indicates that Baha was in close touch with events in the outside world forms item number 73 of the documents made available to Miller.
In one of his letters Shoghi Effendi brands the Sayyid as “the implacable malevolent enemy, who was afflicted with cancer, whose tongue was amputated and who in the end as a result of this malignant disease took the shortest of perdition.”
Subhi’s Payam-i- Pedar, P.214.