A Study of Baha’u’llah’s
Kitab-i-Iqan, The Book of Certitude
|
The word Bayan literally means utterance, explanation or exposition. This term is used to refer to the whole of the Bab’s Revelation. Two specific books of the Bab are also called the Bayan. One of these is mostly in Persian and the other is entirely in Arabic.
In the Persian Bayan the Bab writes: “The substance of this chapter is this, that the writings of the Point (i.e. the Bab) are named Bayan.” Baha’u’llah confirms this in this passage:
“I swear by Thy glory, O Thou Who beholdest me from Thine all-glorious horizon, and hearest the voice of the Lote-Tree beyond which there is no passing! Should any one consider Thy Books which Thou didst name the Bayan, and ponder in his heart what hath been revealed therein, he would discover that each of these Books announceth my Revelation, and declareth my Name, and testifieth to my Self, and proclaimeth my Cause, and my Praise, and my Rising, and the radiance of my Glory. And yet, notwithstanding Thy proclamation, O my God, and in spite of the words Thou didst utter, O my Beloved, Thou hast seen and heard their calumnies against me, and their evil doings in my days.”
(Baha'u'llah, Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah, p. 285 )
The Persian Bayan is described by Shoghi Effendi in the following words:
… the Bayan (Exposition) -- that monumental repository of
the laws and precepts of the new Dispensation and the treasury enshrining most
of the Bab's references and tributes to, as well as His warning regarding,
"Him Whom God will make manifest" … Peerless among the doctrinal
works of the Founder of the Babi Dispensation; consisting of nine Vahids
(Unities) of nineteen chapters each, except the last Vahid comprising only ten
chapters; not to be confounded with the smaller and less weighty Arabic Bayan,
revealed during the same period; fulfilling the Muhammadan prophecy that
"a Youth from Bani-Hashim ... will reveal a new Book and promulgate a new
Law;" wholly safeguarded from the interpolation and corruption which has
been the fate of so many of the Bab's lesser works, this Book, of about eight
thousand verses, occupying a pivotal position in Babi literature, should be
regarded primarily as a eulogy of the Promised One rather than a code of laws
and ordinances designed to be a permanent guide to future generations. This
Book at once abrogated the laws and ceremonials enjoined by the Qur'an
regarding prayer, fasting, marriage, divorce and inheritance, and upheld, in
its integrity, the belief in the prophetic mission of Muhammad, even as the
Prophet of Islam before Him had annulled the ordinances of the Gospel and yet
recognized the Divine origin of the Faith of Jesus Christ. It moreover
interpreted in a masterly fashion the meaning of certain terms frequently
occurring in the sacred Books of previous Dispensations such as Paradise, Hell,
Death, Resurrection, the Return, the Balance, the Hour, the Last Judgment, and
the like. Designedly severe in the rules and regulations it imposed,
revolutionizing in the principles it instilled, calculated to awaken from their
age-long torpor the clergy and the people, and to administer a sudden and fatal
blow to obsolete and corrupt institutions, it proclaimed, through its drastic
provisions, the advent of the anticipated Day, the Day when "the Summoner
shall summon to a stern business," when He will "demolish whatever
hath been before Him, even as the Apostle of God demolished the ways of those
that preceded Him."
It should
be noted, in this connection, that in the third Vahid of this Book there occurs
a passage which, alike in its explicit reference to the name of the Promised
One, and in its anticipation of the Order which, in a later age, was to be
identified with His Revelation, deserves to rank as one of the most significant
statements recorded in any of the Bab's writings. "Well is it with
him," is His prophetic announcement, "who fixeth his gaze upon the
Order of Baha'u'llah, and rendereth thanks unto his Lord. For He will assuredly
be made manifest. God hath indeed irrevocably ordained it in the Bayan."
It is with that self-same Order that the Founder of the promised Revelation,
twenty years later -- incorporating that same term in His Kitab-i-Aqdas --
identified the System envisaged in that Book, affirming that "this most
great Order" had deranged the world's equilibrium, and revolutionized
mankind's ordered life. It is the features of that self-same Order which, at a
later stage in the evolution of the Faith, the Center of Baha'u'llah's Covenant
and the appointed Interpreter of His teachings, delineated through the
provisions of His Will and Testament. It is the structural basis of that
self-same Order which, in the Formative Age of that same Faith, the stewards of
that same Covenant, the elected representatives of the world-wide Baha'i
community, are now laboriously and unitedly establishing. It is the
superstructure of that self-same Order, attaining its full stature through the
emergence of the Baha'i World Commonwealth -- the Kingdom of God on earth --
which the Golden Age of that same Dispensation must, in the fullness of time,
ultimately witness.
(Shoghi
Effendi, God Passes By, p. 24 )
The term “the people of the Bayan” is a reference to the followers of the Bab.