Production of revelation-like verses

Baha'u'llah complains that Azal has asserted that whereas the production of eloquent divine verses [of the sort Baha'u'llah produced] constituted a valid proof of prophethood in the time of the Bab, this particular feat was no longer probative later in the Babi dispensation. I have not read enough of Azal to know the details of this controversy, but it could be that Azal was convinced that no new prophet could arise so soon, and if it was not the right time for a prophet to appear then the production of revelation-like verses was not in itself enough to establish prophethood. There were after all many eloquent self-proclaimed prophets in Islamic history long before the Bab, including the famed poet al-Mutanabbi (who gave up his claims and turned to earning a nice living praising princes). They couldn't from a Babi point of view have been prophets, because it wasn't 1260/1844. In the same way, Azal felt that no prophet was expected in the 1280s/1860s, so the production of verses that sounded like the Qur'an and the Bayan was irrelevant.

-Juan Cole

https://www.h-net.org/~bahai/trans/vol5/son/son.htm