It would indeed be no exaggeration to say that
nowhere in the whole compass of the world's religious literature, except in the
Gospels, do we find any record relating to the death of any of the
religion-founders of the past comparable to the martyrdom suffered by the
Prophet of Shiraz. So strange, so inexplicable a phenomenon, attested by
eye-witnesses, corroborated by men of recognized standing, and acknowledged by
government as well as unofficial historians among the people who had sworn
undying hostility to the Bábí Faith, may be truly regarded as the most
marvelous manifestation of the unique potentialities with which a Dispensation
promised by all the Dispensations of the past had been endowed.
The passion of
Jesus Christ, and indeed His whole public ministry, alone offer a parallel to
the Mission and death of the Bab, a parallel which no student of comparative
religion can fail to perceive or ignore. In the youthfulness and meekness of
the Inaugurator of the Bábí Dispensation; in the extreme brevity and turbulence
of His public ministry; in the dramatic swiftness with which that ministry
moved towards its climax; in the apostolic order which He instituted, and the
primacy which He conferred on one of its members; in the boldness of His
challenge to the time-honored conventions, rites and laws which had been woven
into the fabric of the religion He Himself had been born into; in the role
which an officially recognized and firmly entrenched religious hierarchy played
as chief instigator of the outrages which He was made to suffer; in the
indignities heaped upon Him; in the suddenness of His arrest; in the
interrogation to which He was subjected; in the derision poured, and the
scourging inflicted, upon Him; in the public affront He sustained; and,
finally, in His ignominious suspension before the gaze of a hostile multitude
-- in all these we cannot fail to discern a remarkable similarity to the
distinguishing features of the career of Jesus Christ.
Shoghi Effendi,
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