Now it is time for some definitions: What is a verse? According to the Bab's "Bayan-i-farsi"(VI:l), a verse, called "bayt" in Arabic, is composed of 30 letters. There are 4600 verses in the 114 chapters (Surah=chapter) of the Quran. These were revealed over a period of some 22 years, from the first revelation to Muhammad c.610 A.D. and the last revelation c.632 A.D. The "Bayan-i-farsi" itself is composed of 8000 verses, while the "Qayyumu'l-Asma" comprises over 9300 verses. In "Bayan-i-farsi"(VI:ll) the Bab affirms that by the time of His arrival in Mah-Ku He had already revealed more than 500,000 verses. Elsewhere (II:1) He writes that 100,000 verses revealed by Him are now available for perusal. He also claims to be able to reveal 1000 verses in 5 hours (II:l);elsewhere He affirms that were He able to find an amanuensis capable of transcribing them He would reveal 6000 verses in the course of 48 hours (xx:x). What do these numbers amount to? First of all, inasmuch as most Arabic words are made up of three or four consonants and the "bayt" has been defined by the Bab as consisting of 30 consonants (40 with vowel marks) then each verse would comprise around ten words. Then if 100,000 verses of the Bab's Writings were distributed by 1848 when "Bayan-i-farsi" was revealed, then this means that a literature comprised of approximately 1,000,000 words or perhaps as much as 3,000 pages was available to the people. On the other hand, the Bab asserts that He had already revealed over 500,000 verses by that time, and this would bring His total to 5,000,000 words or about 15,000 pages. Still more astonishing is the statement made in "Tarikh-i-Jadid" of Mirza Husayn-i-Hamadani "on the authority of Mirza 'Abdu’l-Vahhab, the various writings of the Bab current in Tabriz alone amounted in all to not less than a million verses!" Of course, a million verses comes to 10,000,000 words and to 30,000 pages! To reveal 1000 verses in 5 hours means to physically write down 10,000 words or about 30 pages in that period, averaging 2000 words and 6 pages per hour; 6000 verses in 48 hours comes to 60,000 words or about 360 pages in that period, averaging over 1000 words and 4 pages per hour.
It may not seem amazing to a professional writer or graduate student with an immanent deadline to write 4 to 6 pages of prose in an hour. But to keep it up for hours at a time! To write 360 pages in 48 hours, or even to write 30 pages in five hours would tax the most prolific author and might well prove to be impossible. Isaac Asimov wrote 8 hours a day, a 300 page book every month, for years at a stretch, but at that rate it would have taken him 10 years to write 30,000 pages. If Mirza 'Abdu'l-Vahhab remembered incorrectly and the Bab had revealed only over 500,000 verses, which might come to 15,000 pages, this might seem to be attainable for an author as prolific as Asimov — perhaps he could have written as many pages in 3 years. Then we must consider that the Bab was busy with lots of other things besides revealing verses, that he did not have access to an electric typewriter, and that His capacity during this same five year period according to His own testimony would have been to reveal 1000-2000 words (4-6 pages) per hour and in eight hours he would have revealed 8000-16,000 words (32-48 pages); at this rate he would reveal 2,400,000-4,800,000 words (960-1440 pages) in a month. This is roughly three times as much production as what Asimov, that incredibly prolific writer was able to churn out on his electric typewriter.
Now, let us introduce a reality check into this equation. So far we have been considering the speed of the Bab's revelation of verses and comparing this to a modern author of science fiction and scientific texts. The big awakening comes when we consider that Baha'u'llah threw away hundreds of thousands of verses — and each hundred thousand represents about 1,000,000 words and 3000 pages — and that a witness has acknowledged that the speed at which He revealed verses exceeded that of the Bab.
Proofs of the Prophets--The Case for Baha'u'llah, By Peter Terry
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