Hasht Bihisht's Description of Aqa Jan of Kashan

According to the Hasht-Bihisht (see Hasht Bihisht), (Chapters on the Elucidation of the Encounters of the calf and Samiri, and on the Elucidation of the Direful Mischief, pp. 301-326, allusion is made to the golden calf which the children of Israel were misled into worshiping. By “the Calf” is meant Baha, by “Samiri” Mirza Aqa Jan of Kashan, designated as the “Scald-headed Soap-Seller of Kashan”, who greatly encouraged Baha to stake out his claim to be “He Whom God Shall Manifest’ .” He is also called “The First to believe اوّل مَن آمن (in Baha)[1].

According to Hasht-Bihisht, PP. 310-312, the scald-headed hew had saved a sum of five hundred pounds, during the days when he disported himself in the game of god-casting, which he employed at interest and some business at Acre. When Abdul Baha Abbas became aware of this, he ‘blocked’ the sum on the grounds the scald-headed hew, as a domestic in Baha’s household, could not have money of his own. To this, the scald-headed hers restorted to Abdul Baha as follows: “I have never been a domestic of you. If you desire to know the truth here it is: I was the mentor and tutor of your father, he was the Ass and I was Anti-Christ; he was the Craft and I was Samiri; he was a Creature and I was the Creator. The Cow has calved [you are a piece of good fortune]; you are my child; I was the one who indoctrinated into him the ‘loving’ (of the Calf) “Verily I am God; all his verses [inspired words] are my fabrications or forgeries.”

Faced with the brazen-facedness and impudence of the scald-headed hew, Abdul Baha Abbas resorted to intimidations and threats of murder which put the scald-headed hew to flight. He took up his residence in Haifa where he set himself to the task of revealing and despatching epistles to Iran and other places. Several Bahai exiles in Acre Became well-disposed towards him.

In view of this development, Abdul Baha Abbas produced out of Pandora’s box Baha’s letter, penned in his own handwriting, couched in a minatory tone, and addressed to his sons wherein the “servant of the presence”, The First to believe in Baha, the pilgrim after truth (سالک حقیقت) who composed the Risala-i Ithbatiyya (رساله اثباتیه) in Edirne in support of Baha’s mission, was branded as “renegade and apostate, puffed up with overwearing conceit like unto Lucifer and Iblis”. However Baha, as “God the Clement and Concealer [ستّار]” would not “unmask” the pilgrim after truth unless he first “displayed the cloven hoof”, when Baha’s sons were commanded to “strike him with the sword of wrath or violence”.

Unable to deny Baha’s handwriting, the pilgrim after truth “gave unbridled licence to an outburst, invectives and vituperation against Baha” saying: “This accused one was the idol whom I moulded into shape with my own hands to serve as a stalking-horse for the promotion of my own cause … He is bereft of one iota of fidelity and gratitude. He is puffed up with arrogance and conceit like unto lapidated Satan”.

In the face of mounting intimidations and threats of Abdul Baha Abbas, this outburst of the pilgrim after truth proved abortive. In the end, he repented and recanted and crawled back into his shell, biding his time to introduce intrigue between Abdul Baha Abbas and his younger brother Muhammad Ali. Evil deeds come home to roost and the pilgrim after truth, amidst scenes of belief or disbelief and anathema, passed to the mercy of god.

Note
[1] According to the Persian Bayan, the Primal Point will be the first person who will believe in He-Whom-God-Will-Make-Manifest in the next resurrection. This would make Aqa Jan described above, the return of the Primal Point!

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