The Rise of Baha

1.     Baha’s Date of Birth

1.2    Uncertainty Surrounding Baha’s Date of Birth
It is doubtful whether there was any law regarding the registration of birth and death at the time of the family ancestor Mirza Buzurg. Even if it were to be assumed that there was any such law, it does not appear to have been strictly enforced. The Iranians were therefore as a rule, very careless about dates, and even well educated men were often unable to state their exact age. To this rule, Subh-i-Azal were no exception.

Baha’s date of birth, strange!, is given as Muharram 2, A.H. 1233 (November 12, 1817). This date is accepted by Baha’s followers as Baha’s exact date of birth.

On the strength, however, of a family tradition handed down to posterity from the common ancestor Mirza Buzurg, he wrote down the names of his children and their dates of birth in the inside cover of a priceless Quran which was gifted, together with other articles of virtue, by the authoress of the Tanbih-un-Naimin to the then grand Vizier as an inducement to bring about the release from imprisonment of Baha, who was jailed following the attempt on the then Shah’s life in August 1852.

The absence of documentary evidence establishing Baha’s exact date of birth raises a presumption of fact that Baha’s alleged date of birth is fictitious, dictated by considerations of expediency subsequent to Baha’s pretensions in Edirne in 1866 and not before.

To read more about Baha's members of family, got to the main page, select 'Bahaism -> THe Rise of Baha' and navigate through the index.

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