Bab's notions did not contain much originality. Mahommedans... ought to be exterminated.

Bab's notions did not contain much originality. Atheism, under the disguise of pantheism, was the basis of his principles. Every single atom in the universe, he said, was actually God, and the whole universe collectively was God ; not a representative of, or emanation from God, but God himself. Everything in short was God. Bab was God, and every living creature down to each lowest insect. Death was not real it was only another form of divinity, if such language has any signification at all. Virtue had no existence, neither had vice; they were necessarily wholly indifferent, as being portions or emanations of the Godhead. Rights of property had no existence, excepting in the equal division of all things among the godly. But this was a fiction, the real doctrine being the reign of the Saints, that is, of the Babees, and their possession of the goods of the ungodly, in other words, the non-Babees. It was the simplest of religions. Its tenets may be summed up in materialism, communism, and the entire indifference of good and evil and of all human actions. There was no antipathy, it was affirmed, on the part of the Babees to Christians, or to the followers of any other creed excepting Mahommedans, who, as they slew Babees, ought to be exterminated.

(GLIMPSES OF LIFE AND MANNERS IN PERSIA, BY LADY SHEIL, p. 179)

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God hath heard that thou hast taken up residence in a new habitation.

God hath heard that thou hast taken up residence in a new habitation. By God, how excellent shall be your station in the most exalted Paradise and your seat in the Pavilion of the All-Glorious!

[A passage from a Tablet of Bahá’u’lláh, the original text of which appears in a manuscript collection held at the British Library (Or15696, pp. 93–94) translated by Adib Masumian]

https://adibmasumian.com/translations/bh09471_excerpt/

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Baha'i leaders were ordinary human beings.

Baha'u'llah's Chronic Issues: He suffered from a hernia (fateq), a condition his own sister pointed out he was unable to heal despite claims of divine power. He also had visible hand tremors or shaking; while his followers claimed this was the result of being poisoned by his brother, Mirza Yahya Subh-i-Azal, Avarih suggests this was a convenient excuse for a physical infirmity. Additionally, a traveler who met him noted that his left eye was significantly weaker or more damaged than his right.

Intoxication and Physical Collapse: Mirza Hussain Jarullah (a close confident of Baha'u'llah in Baghdad), found Baha'u'llah unconscious and physically ill from drinking too much wine. He was so intoxicated that he was unable to move or maintain basic hygiene.

Shoghi Effendi's Skin Condition: As a young man, Shoghi Effendi suffered from a skin disease (described as gal or a type of mange/itch) that affected his hands, forcing him to wear gloves while he was a student.

Abdul Baha's Final Sickness: Despite his followers viewing him as a source of healing, Abdul Baha died from a sudden fever. He had to rely on standard medical treatments, such as injections, which ultimately failed to save him.

Baha'u'llah's Cause of Death: He passed away after being bedridden for 22 days with a severe stomach illness and diarrhea (zahir).

(Kashful Hiyal (The Discovery of Deceptions) by Abdol Husayn Ayati 'Avarih')

https://archive.org/details/kashful-heel-part-3/Kashful%20Heel%20-%20Part%201/

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Beha was God Himself.

According to this doctor, Beha was God Himself. He teaches that God did not manifest through the personality of Beha, as in the case of Jesus, but that He really was God, and that He will not come again during this cycle. We are all called upon to believe this, or else forever lose our chance of salvation.

(E.G. Browne, Materials for the Study of the Babi Religion, p. 117)

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Baha'u'llah was God??

Explicit Claims and Interpretations of Divinity:

• Dr. I. G. Khayru'llah, an early Baha'i propagandist in America, made the most direct assertions concerning Baha'u'llah's divinity in his classes and teachings.
  • Khayru'llah taught that Baha'u'llah was God Himself.
  • He insisted that God did not manifest through the personality of Baha'u'llah (as in the case of Jesus), but that He really was God.
  • Khayru'llah stated that Baha'u'llah declared himself God to the world in 1866.
  • In the context of the Incarnation, Khayru'llah claimed that the Incarnation of God (Baha) appeared in 1852-1853.
  • Khayru'llah also taught that Baha'u'llah manifested himself for five days as the Lord of Hosts.
  • He asserted that Baha'u'llah explicitly declared that He was the Visage and Very Self of the Eternal Essence.
  • Khayru'llah also claimed Baha'u'llah was the Enunciator (mubayyin), that is, God.
• The fundamental belief required for salvation, as taught by Khayru'llah, was that Baha'u'llah himself was God, the Almighty.
• In one of Baha'u'llah's letters, a passage asks: "O thou who circlest round my Throne and art present before my Face, dost thou weep for God's own self working for His purpose, or do I weep with mine eyes for it?".
• A Babi poem (ascribed to Nabil) contains an address to the Manifestation, suggesting divine claim and affirmation: "Then speak the word, 'Am I not your Lord?' and 'Thou art, Thou art' we will all reply".

Claims to Supreme Divine Authority and Status:

• Baha'u'llah is referenced using titles that denote supreme spiritual authority:
  • He is called the Beauty of Eternity and the Sovereign One.
  • In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the recognition of the Dawning-place of His Revelation and the Day-spring of His Dispensation is stated as "the first thing which God [Baha'u'llah] hath prescribed unto His servants".
  • He addressed letters to rulers, calling upon them to throw their kingdoms at his feet and worship him.
• Baha'u'llah's brother, Musa, was entitled Kalim ("Talker"), because, like Moses, he conversed with God, i.e., Baha'u'llah.
• Baha'u'llah offered proof of his divinity to the Ottoman Sultan by writing a book larger than the Koran in six hours.

(Extracted from Materials for the Study of the Bábí Religion, by Edward G. Browne)

https://ia601303.us.archive.org/30/items/materialsforstud00browuoft/materialsforstud00browuoft.pdf

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a counter clockwise circumambulation of the Shrine.

Following the Readings we all commenced a counter clockwise circumambulation of the Shrine. This is the first thing I've done every time I've visited Bahjí but this circumambulation, the first from this trajectory was new and fresh.

(Impressions of Bahji, by Kevin Locke, 2001-05)

https://bahai-library.com/locke_impressions_bahji

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The evolving claims of the Bab

In the early writings it appears that the Báb is identifying Himself as the Gate (Báb) to the Hidden Imám. Less than halfway through the six years of His ministry, He begins to explicitly proclaim His station to be that of the Hidden Imám, a new Prophet, and the Manifestation of the Primal Will of God.

(Gate of the Heart by Nader Saiedi, p. 19)

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an American woman knelt to Abbas Effendi

Dr. Henry H. Jessup recounted an incident where an American woman knelt to Abbas Effendi, crying "My Lord, my Lord," believing herself to be "in the very presence of the Son of God, the Christ". Jessup questioned Abbas Effendi about accepting worship "due only to the Creator," to which Abbas Effendi reportedly smiled, seemed disturbed, and deflected the conversation to "theological themes". Speer stated, "This is not an attitude which we, as Christians, can approve".

(Robert Elliott Speer Manuscript Collection; Series II: Correspondence; Box 32, File 32:10)

https://archive.org/details/correspondenceba00unse_1/page/n1/mode/2up

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Quddus’s own claims to divine status for himself are reinforced by many of the Bab’s statements about him.

As in the case of claims of Qāʾimiyya, it seem to have been Muḥammad ʿAlī Bārfurūshī, Quddūs, who was the Bāb’s chief rival in respect of claims to some form of divinity. Abbas Effendi ʿAbd al-Bahāʾ, maintains that Quddūs’s commentary on the letter sād ̣ of the word al-samad ̣ (Qurʾān 112:2) which he “revealed” (nāzil farmūdand) at Shaykh Tabarsī, was ̣ “from beginning to end . . . (filled with the words) “Verily, I am God.” There certainly appears to be confirmatory evidence that, in the course of the Shaykh Tabarsī siege, Quddūs did, in fact, make claims of this ̣ kind. Zawāraʾī refers to him as a “place of God’s manifestation” (mazhar-i ̣ khudā) while a Bābī apostate who encountered him in Bārfurūsh after the end of the siege is said to have rebuked him with the words: “You claimed . . . that your voice was the voice of God.” Quddūs’s own claims to divine status for himself are reinforced by many of the Bāb’s statements about him. In a Tablet of visitation (ziyārat) written at some point after Quddūs’s death in 1849, the Bāb writes:

from all eternity you have existed in the exaltation of holiness and majesty, and unto all eternity you shall exist in the exaltation of holiness and majesty. You are the one who is manifested through the manifestation of your Lord (anta ’l-zāhir bi-z ̣ uhūri rabbika ̣ ) and the one who is concealed through the concealment of your Lord. In the beginning when there was no beginning but you, and in the end when there will be no end save you; you ascended through all creation to a horizon unto which none preceded you.” In a section of the Kitāb-i Panj shaʾn written for Mullā Shaykh ʿAlī Turshīzī, the Bāb explicitly declares that “the last name of God has shone forth and flashed and gleamed and become manifest; well is it with him who sees in him nothing but God.

Within the context of such statements, it may be possible to suggest a fresh dimension to our understanding of the events which occurred at the Bābī assembly at Bidasht in 1848, which is generally associated with the abrogation of the Islamic laws (sharīʿa), the proclamation of the inauguration of a new age of inner truth (though not, I am inclined to think, at this stage the implementation of a Bābī sharīʿa), and the announcement of the imminent appearance of the Qāʾim. (A secondary objective of the meeting was to draw up plans for the release of the Bāb from prison in Azerbaijan.) In what is in some respects a curious letter, ʿAbd al-Bahāʾ states that “many have manifested divinity (ulūhiyyat) and lordship (rubūbiyyat). . . . At Bidasht, her excellency Tahirih [Qurrat ̣ al-ʿAyn] to the highest heaven the cry of “Verily, I am God,” as did many of the friends at Bidasht.” Brief as it is and lacking in direct evidence, this theologically uncharacteristic statement is nonetheless extremely suggestive and may prove an important starting point for fresh inquiries into the significance of the Bidasht gathering. It may well be the case, for example, that the recorded divisions between the participants in the meeting, in particular that between Qurrat al-ʿAyn and Quddūs, relate in some way to the advancement of competing claims of this kind.

Certainly a number of Bābī texts of the post-Bidasht period contain what would only a few years previously have been regarded as pure blasphemy. Some of the Bāb’s later writings, including numerous sections of the Kitāb-i Panj shaʾn, contain exordia such as “this is a letter from God, the Protector, the Self-subsisting, to God, the Protector, the Self-Subsisting,” or ‘this is a letter from God to him whom God shall manifest.” Even more direct is the following passage from a letter of the Bāb to Mullā Ibrāhim Qazvīnī, Raḥīm: “ ʿAlī before Nabīl [i.e., ʿAlī Muḥammad, the Bāb] is the Self of God (nafs Allāh). . . and the name of al-Azal, al-Waḥīd [i.e., Mīrzā Yahyā Nūrī, Subh ̣ ̣-i Azal] is the Essence of God (dhāt Allāh).” In a letter also written to Qazvīnī after the Bāb’s death, the latter’s former amanuensis, Sayyid Ḥusayn Yazdī, declares “were it not for the existence of God in my beloved, the Eternal, the Ancient (al-azal al-aqdam)[i.e., Qazvīnī], I should not have addressed these words to you, my beloved,” and goes on to refer to the Bāb’s death as “the disappearance of God” ( ghaybat Allāh) and “the ascension of God” (suʿūd Allāh).”

(The Messiah of Shiraz, Dennis MacEoin, Page 333-335)

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Former Baha'i, Payam Aryan exposes Baha'i belief about Baha'u'llah

https://www.youtube.com/live/osoVlbf3Uzk?si=i3G4GegNqHIGIOhp&t=941

Starts at 15:40

Baha'u'llah is the sender of the prophets.

https://www.youtube.com/live/osoVlbf3Uzk?si=i3G4GegNqHIGIOhp&t=3180

Starts at 58:00

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Rashid Ridá's encounter with the Baha'i faith in Egypt

Rashid Ridá, then a student in Tripoli, read the al-Muqtataf article and with a group of friends wrote a letter to Gulpáygání protesting its contents. This was the beginning of Ridá's antipathy to the Bahá'í Faith. Later, when he arrived in Cairo, he met with Gulpáygání and was unhappy with the latter's exposition of the divinity of Bahá'u'lláh. As a strict Sunní Muslim, Ridá was unable or unwilling to understand the doctrine of theophany (zuhuru'lláh) preached by the Bahá'ís. It smacked to him of incarnationism and seemed to make the Bahá'í Faith far more similar to Christianity than to the transcendalist faith of Islám.

Juan R.I. Cole. "Muhammad `Abduh and Rashid Rida: A Dialogue on the Baha'i Faith." World Order Vol. 15, nos. 3-4 (Spring/Summer 1981):7-16.

https://www.h-net.org/~bahai/diglib/articles/A-E/cole/abduh/abduh.htm

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How Baha'i scholars understand the claims of divinity of the Bab and Baha'u'llah

In his Qayyum al-asma’ and innumerable other writings of his last years, the Bab frequently and in various contexts uttered the words, “I, verily, am God, no God is there except Me” (or the like). It was his conviction that the eschatological ‘‘Day of God” had come to realization and that he was a manifestation of Divinity.

As, furthermore, “Divinity” and “Lordship” were conferred by the Bab on certain of his major disciples, they too made exalted claims. The Babi cycle came to be seen as the cycle of the manifestation of Divinity in the person of the Bab and the leading Babis. The eschatological ”encounter with God” (liqa’ Allah) mentioned in the Qur’an found fulfillment through the Bab and the “pleroma of Divinity” manifested by his exalted disciples on the “Day of God.” It is in this context, and in view of the Bab’s assertion that the Babi messiah, “Him whom God shall make manifest” (man yuzhiruhu’llah), shall utter the words “I, verily, am God, no God is there except Me.” that certain of Baha’u’llah’s exalted claims are to be understood. Both the Bab and Baha’u’llah claimed divinity by uttering adapted versions of the Sinaitic declaration of divinity, though they did not thereby claim identity with the absolute Godhead. They saw themselves as pure mirrors reflecting the divinity of the transcendent and unknowable Lord and as manifestations of the eschatological advent of Divinity.

(Stephen Lambden in "Studies in the Babi and Baha’i Religions (formerly Studies in Babi and Baha’i History) Volume Five)

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It is Baha'u'llah Who, in the Old Testament hath been named YHWH (Jehovah)

In a number of his epistles of the late ‘Akka period, Baha’u’llah clearly claimed to be YHWH, the Divinity Who conversed with Moses from the burning bush and whose eschatological advent as “YHWH of hosts” (“the Lord of hosts’’) was predicted by the Israelite prophets. In, for example, the following lines addressed to a Jewish convert to the Baha’i Faith named Aga Jan, Baha’u’llah writes:

The Face of the Ancient One [Baha’u’llah] hath turned towards the sages (hukama) in the Land of al-ha and al-mim [Hamdadan, in Iran] and announceth unto them the glad-tidings of the Ridvan (Paradise) of God, the Lord of all the worlds: “By God! He Who hath been named YHWH ‘‘Jehovah” in the Torah hath come.

On similar lines is the following extract from an epistle of Baha’u’llah to the Baha’i poet ‘Andalib (and others):

He [Baha’u’llah] it is Who, in the Old Testament (Torah) hath been named YHWH “Jehovah”...

A good many passages are to be found in the Tablets of the late ‘Akka period in which Baha’u’llah refers to himself as “the Lord (YHWH) of hosts” (Arabic: rabb al-junud). One such passage reads as follows:

This is the Day in which He Who cried out on the Mount (munadi at-tur) hath held converse and the Lord of Hosts (rabb al-junud) proclaimed before all the world: ‘‘No God is there except Me, the Mighty, the Knowing.’’

‘Abdu’l-Baha specifically identified the Biblical ‘‘Lord of Hosts’’ with his father and spoke of the “hosts’’ as the stalwart members of the Baha’i community.”

(Stephen Lambden in "Studies in the Babi and Baha’i Religions (formerly Studies in Babi and Baha’i History) Volume Five)

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Baha'u'llah is the Self of God

The most great infallibility as a doctrine, Bahá'u'lláh says, acts to protect his religion. He reiterates that no one can share in it other than the Self of God. This phrase refers to the universal manifestation of God, who is the manifestation of the Self of God,...

(The Concept of Manifestation in the Bahá'í Writings by Juan Cole published in Bahá'í Studies, 9 Ottawa, ON: Bahá'í Studies Publications, 1982)

https://bahai-library.com/cole_concept_manifestation/

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Tablet of the Báb for Quddús as reproduced in Nabíl. Translation by Stephen Lambden

...“Verily He, no God is there except I myself" for all should be aware of Myself. And I verily, I am God! (innani anā Allāh) no God is there except I myself. This before any before relative to the very essences ["atoms", or dhurwa "uttermost acme"] of antecedence [“beforeness”] (min qabl qabl fī dharrat [dhurwa] al-qabl) as well as after the after within the very essences ["atoms", or dhurwa "uttermost acme"] of futurity [“afterwards”] (min ba`da ba`da fī dharrat [dhurwa] al-ba`da).

`Alī before the Quadruple Configuration [ḥarf al-rubā’ رباع , rubā` = 1-M 2-H 3-M 3-D = Muḥammad = the Bāb) is the Manifestation of Myself (maẓhar nafsī) while the Eighteenth Letter (of the Living = Quddūs) among the Letters [of the Living] is [even as] Mine Own Self (li- nafsihi). At My Command, as a result of My Command, do all derive existence! I, verily am God, no God is there except I Myself. Whatsoever is other than Me, is My creation.

Say: I Indeed am God! No God is there except I myself and all should direct themselves towards Me! There is no single thing but that it should offer glorification (s-b-ḥ) through my laudation (ḥ-m-d) yet shall these realities at the moment of my theophany [manifestation] (ẓuhūr), by virtue of the manifestation of Myself (maẓhar nafsihi), remain entirely veiled therefrom.

Say: Nothing at all should remain veiled for all should show piety [be God-fearing] before Me since I was thy Lord aforetime as well as in the hereafter. I Indeed, I am God, the Mighty, the Beloved (al-`azīz al-maḥbūb)!

This book (kitāb) [letter, Tablet] contains verses (al-āyāt) from Myself unto the Letter thā’ of Eternaled Pre-Eternity [= thamarah al-azal al-īzūl) [sic.] to the end that all may bear witness that he [Quddus] is My servant (`abdī). I [the Bab] divulged My glory (tajallyyat) unto Him through Mine own Logos-Self/Myself (nafsī) for there is no Deity except I Myself, God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting (al-muhayymīn al-qayyūm). I did cast into his [Quddus'] inmost heart (fū’ād) [such] expository verses (āyāt bayyināt), as, “I [Quddus] indeed am God the Ruler (al-malik) Almighty [sic] (al-qaydūr), I indeed am God, no God is there except I Myself. I created everything through My Command (bi-amrī) for I am indeed the Foreordainer (al-qaddār), the Sanctified (al-qaydūs)!

Say: Nothing can compromize [sic] mine inimitability within the Divine Realm (lāhūt), within the Omnipotent Domain (jabarūt) of everything (kull shay’). I [the Bab], verily, am the Omnipotent Ordainer (al-jabbār), the Supremely Great [sic.](al-`ayẓūm). Yet of a certainty (balā)! Thou [Quddūs] art indeed God, no God is there except Thee, the Supremely Powerful Lord (rabb al-muqtadir), the One of Talismanic Potency (al-badūḥ = 2-4-6-8)! Thou createth whatsoever thou willeth and thou will create whatsoever thou desireth. No God is there except thee. All should be worshipful of thee. There exists nothing but that it should offer glorification through the Praise of thyself. All should be especially mindful of thee. Thou art indeed God! No God is there except Thee. Before thee we are all in a state of certainty!

(Quddús: A Twenty-first Century Bahá’í Looks at the Life of a Nineteenth Century Bábí Hero, Master’s Thesis by Karen Anne Webb)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V-4t9v7haZXCuESbOSImVGxX9sj4C26f

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The One Who had sent down the Prophets

After my arrival in Haifa, Shoghi Effendi had often spoken of another task he would entrust to me, a task which he defined as ‘spiritual’. It concerned the erection of the Most Holy Shrine of the Bahá’í world: “The Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh, the One Who had sent down the Prophets”.

(Shoghi Effendi: Recollections by Ugo Giachery, Oxford: George Ronald, 1973)

https://bahai-library.com/giachery_shoghi_effendi_recollections

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Those who were connected to Baha'u'llah

Baha'u'llah's bread-maker was titled as "The Bread-maker of God", his amanuensis was titled as "Khadim'u'llah (the servant of God)", his barber was titled as "the barber of God", his tailor was titled as, "the tailor of God", his friends were titled as "the friends of God".

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Baha'u'llah's claims in Edirne and Acre

A full discussion of the claims eventually advanced by Bahā Allāh in Edirne and Acre would take us far beyond the dates assigned to this survey and would involve a lengthy and complex analysis of the abundant scriptural materials available. I shall instead conclude by drawing attention once more to a point I have mentioned elsewhere, namely that Bahāʾ Allāh’s developed claims represent the most extreme expression of Shīʿī and Bābī theories of theophany. With his mature writings, the themes discussed in this article and its predecessor reach their apogee in claims that come very close to assertion of out and out divinity or even incarnation.

One of the most striking references to this idea occurs in the undated (probably Acre—1868–92) Lawḥ-i mīlād-i ism-i aʿzaṃ , in which he declares that “he has been born who neither begets nor is begotten”—a direct allusion to and contradiction of Qurʾān 112. Similarly, in the Sūrat al-ḥajj, written in Edirne after the split with Azal, he declares that “the educator of all beings and their Creator has appeared in the garment of humanity, but you were not pleased with that, until he was imprisoned in this prison.”

That at least some of Bahāʾ Allāh’s followers endorsed a radical interpretation of such claims is evident from a number of sources. Ḥājī Mīrzā Haydar ʿAlī Isfahānī, a prominent Bahā ̣ ʾī missionary in late 19th-century Iran, describes a discussion he held with an Iranian ʿālim following a visit to Bahāʾ Allāh in Acre. In the course of their conversation, he stated: “He is unique by Himself. No one in the world can ever compare to Him. He is the One Whom the Qurʾān has declared to have neither father nor son [i.e. God].” The same writer also narrates an anecdote concerning Bahāʾ Allāh to the effect that, when told that Shaykh Muḥammad Bāqir Isfahānī asked for a translation of sūra 112 to be made and sent to him, ̣ retorted that “Moses had heard the call of ‘I am your God’ from a burning bush. Why not from a man?”

The authors of the Hasht bihisht quote two verses from the poetry of Mullā Muḥammad Nabīl Zarandī that indicate a strong tendency to the use of extreme hyperbole in reference to Bahāʾ Allāh:

Lordship has entered the plain of his majesty with lacerated chest. Divinity has become like a trembling willow in the garden of his exaltation.

And:

Men call you God, and I grow angry.

Draw aside the veil, and do not accept the shame of Godhood.

While in Kermān, E. G. Browne encountered a number of Bahāʾīs who entertained similarly exaggerated ideas about their prophet, among them a certain Shaykh Ibrāhīm, who told him: “God is something real, visible, tangible, definite. Go to Acre and see God!”

(The Messiah of Shiraz, Studies in Early and Middle Babism by Denis Martin MacEoin)

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Circumambulating Baha'u'llah

Bahá'u'lláh dismissed us from His presence, saying : "Go in God's care." Every one of us prostrated at His blessed feet and circumambulated His bed. We left the room in deepest sorrow, burning from separation from the Beloved.

(Moments with Baháʼuʼlláh - Memoirs of the Hand of the Cause of God Ṭarázuʼlláh Samandarí)

'Abdu'l-Bahá was present too; as I recall He was standing. He directed us to circumambulate the bed. Those of us in our group simply walked around Bahá'u'lláh's bed, and He said to us: "Fí amánu'lláh-go in God's care." We went out of the room. That was the very last time that I was present at the meeting with God.

(Moments with Baháʼuʼlláh - Memoirs of the Hand of the Cause of God Ṭarázuʼlláh Samandarí)

“By the one true God, Elijah hath hastened unto My court and hath circumambulated in the day time and in the night season My throne of glory.” “Solomon in all his majesty circles in adoration around Me in this day, uttering this most exalted word: ‘I have turned my face towards Thy face, O Thou omnipotent Ruler of the world! I am wholly detached from all things pertaining unto me, and yearn for that which Thou dost possess.’”

(Selections from the writings of Shoghi Effendi about Bahá’u’lláh published in The Bahá’í World, Volume 14)

When the ship reached Haifa the very thought of prostrating ourselves at His threshold and attaining His presence which the Prophets and His chosen ones had wished to attain invoked such eagerness and excitement in our hearts that with tears streaming down our cheeks, we were transported into a different world. We arrived at a spot where the souls of all the Manifestations of God were circumambulating day and night around His Blessed Person.

(The Revelation of Baháʼuʼlláh by Adib Taherzadeh - 1988)

‘Andalib, overtaken by grief and with tears flowing, exclaimed, ‘O, Baha! O, Baha!’ He gave us permission to leave. Immersed in sorrow and with hearts consumed with grief, we prostrated ourselves at His feet, circumambulated Him, and left the room.

(Ṭarázu’lláh Samandarí, Lights of Fortitude)

‘Abdu’l-Bahá described the arrival of the bearers of the narcissi to the first group of pilgrims who visited Him at the end of World War I, in 1919. "When the end of their wearisome journey drew nigh, and the city of Akká was unfolded to their expectant eyes, and when their gaze fell upon the majestic mansion which marked the limit of their destination, they forgot in a glance all their sufferings and cares, attained the gate with sore feet, swollen and blistered, and falling prostrate on the ground laid at the feet of the Blessed Beauty the token of their undying devotion, which they carried with such zeal and love. O, what a shower of blessings and of bounty and of favor were poured upon them! Their gift of living beauty was not only accepted, but was considered to be the most precious gem that could ever be presented, the richest and finest gift in the world.

(Flowers to `Akká by Abu'l-Qásim Faizí, published in Bahá'í News pp. 8-11, 1969-05)

https://bahai-library.com/faizi_flowers_akka

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if it was not for Him, no divine Messenger would have been raised

 ...it all comes from Baha'u'llah, from the soul of Baha'u'llah. Besides, as He Himself says that, if it was not for Him, no divine Messenger would have been raised up in this whole universal cycle on this planet.

-Hooper Dunbar

https://youtu.be/QS0mcaFGpKE?t=202

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