The Bab commanded all books to be destroyed

It is unlawful to teach books other than the Bayan unless there be therein something related to Scholastic philosophy, but Logic, "principles", and Jurisprudence, philosophy, and dead languages, and the like, are forbidden, as also what has been written on Grammar and Syntax unless anyone should desire to learn so much of the latter as may suffice him to read the Bayan, though there are so many of the writings of the point in persian that this is unnecessary for him. Nor must he learn more than this, nor other than this. This is the straight path for the believers until the day when the Tree of Truth shall become manifest. (Bayan 4.10)

This is one of the most interesting commands in the Bayan The Bab (who, incidently calls himself "the point"), forbids Babis from studying grammar, philosophy and dead languages. But why?

The first point I would like to make is that this law has a clear limit. It is in force until "the day when the Tree of Truth shall become manifest." The Tree of Truth is "Him Who God Will Make Manifest", or Baha'u'llah. That is, UNTIL BAHA'U'LLAH MANIFESTS HIMSELF, Babis were forbidden to study philosophy, grammar, law and dead languages. The command, then, relates to a specific time and to a specific group of people the disciples of the Bab.

I would like to relate this command to two other commands.

The Bab commanded all books to be destroyed, including books of the Muslims, except the Qur'an (Bayan 6.6). Secondly, Babis were only permitted to own 19 books. (19, as I am sure you all know, was the Bab's favourite number!)

I believe that these three commands forbidding the study of philosophy, the burning of libraries and the limit of 19 books, was directed at the Muslim theologians, lawyers and doctors. It meant that those who followed the Bab were required to burn their libraries and stop their academic study. It is likely that we associate book burnings with fundamentalism and the rejection of human knowledge. In one sense, the religion of the Bab was also "fundamentalist" in that it demanded an extreme, uncompromising devotion to one set of religious ideas at the exclusion of any other. It is also true to say, I believe, that the Bab was rejecting human knowledge.

The point is that the Bab began an entirely new Dispensation, in which old knowledge no longer applied. Islamic law was no longer relevant or authoritative. What, then, was the point of studying it? What was the point in keeping volumes of Islamic law when they had been superceded by a more authoritative legislation? Specifically, what was the point of Babis, who had been Islamic lawyers, keeping their old books when those books may either prevent them, intellectually, from embracing the full revelation of the Bab, or may prevent them from the study of the words of the Bab by providing, in terms of time, a distraction and diversion.

http://web.mit.edu/mitba/Library/Essays/Aqdas-essay