The Conference of Badasht

In 1848, eighty one Babi’s gathered at a caravansarie at the Hamlet of Badasht near the Caspian Sea in Northern Persia. Baha’u’llah rented three gardens and the new believers gathered to celebrate their new Faith and to break with the long established laws of Islam. The Conference lasted for three weeks and every day Baha’u’llah recited a new tablet revealed by the Bab and bestowed upon each believer a new name. It was here that Quarratu’l-Ayn was given the title Tahirih.

One day Tahirih suddenly appeared unveiled and adorned before the assembled believers, and proclaimed “I am the blast of the trumpet, I am the call of the bugle, like Gabriel, I will awaken sleeping souls” Many of the Babi’s stood mesmerized and speechless and Abdu’l Khaliqi-Isfahani found the scene so disturbing he slit his own throat and ran from the scene renouncing the new religion. Baha’u’llah instructed the believers to recite a Surah from the Quran entitled “The Terror” to emphasize that the Day of Resurrection had overtaken them and that mankind was passing into a new cosmic cycle requiring a new set of laws and customs.

From an original painting by Ivan Lloyd © 1993