# Book of the River [Tigris]: Introduction

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-22 — 1 clipping.*

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> see translation
> 
> 
> This is a Baghdad-era work.  Sahifih means scroll and is used in the Qur'an to
> refer to the books of the biblical patriarchs (a reference to the Torah
> scroll no doubt).  Shatt can mean river but also can refer directly to the
> Tigris river upon which Baghdad is situated.  Since there are other more
> common words for "river" and we know Bahá'u'lláh was speaking of the Tigris,
> I think he is using it in the latter sense, and so have translated it as
> "The Book of the Tigris."  The text is from `Abdu'l-Hamid Ishraq-Khavari,
> ed., Ma'idih-i Asmani, 4:142-149.
> 
> It is not a book, of course, but a short letter.  It quotes a Hidden Word,
> No. 1 of the Arabic (but with the grammatical difference that the plural
> imperative is used, whereas in the text of the Hidden Words we now have the
> grammar is singular).  My guess is therefore that it was written around 1857
> shortly before Bahá'u'lláh put the Hidden Words into final shape.
> 
> This work is the clearest indication I know of Bahá'u'lláh's self-conception
> before about 1859, when he appears to have begun telling people like Fitnih
> and Nabil-i Akbar that he was the promised one.  Denis MacEoin pointed out
> in his 1989 BRISMES article that Bahá'u'lláh in this work disclaims having
> any "Cause" at that point, and my rereading it now in conjunction with my
> translation convinces me that Denis is right.  He has no "iqbal bar amri,"
> is making no claim to have a divine Cause.
> 
> This work gives us a humanist Bahá'u'lláh, who sternly denies being able to
> work any miracles, who defers humbly to the Mirrors of the Babi
> dispensation, who gives us a catechism that includes belief in God, the Bab,
> Quddus, and the "Living Countenance" (Denis thinks this is Azal;  I don't
> know Babi terminology well enough to have an opinion).  Indeed, the argument
> seems to be made that just as plagues no longer break out in Iraq every 30
> years as they had in past centuries (owing to Ottoman quarantines, by the
> way), that after the Bab's death the age of miracles is over with.  This is
> in turn an announcement of a profound secularization of sorts, isn't it?
> 
> This brief letter seems to me proof that Bahá'u'lláh's "messianic secret"
> (for which I have argued) probably should not be dated further back than
> about 1859, from which time we begin getting independent eyewitness accounts
> of his having privately put forth a claim.  In short, it raises the most
> acute questions about the nature of the "intimation" Bahá'u'lláh is said to
> have experienced in the Siyah Chal.  If one reads the account in Epistle to
> the Son of the Wolf carefully, it appears that it consisted more of ilham or
> inspiration than of wahy or revelation, and that Bahá'u'lláh began thinking
> of islah or reform of Babism rather than of making any claim of his own.  If
> in fact the Book of the Tigris post-dates the poetry of the Sulaymaniyyah
> period, I probably should retract my messianic reading of the Ode of the
> Dove in favor of seeing it as an example of Sufi effusion or ecstatic
> enthusiasm (shath).
> 
> On the other hand, Bahá'u'lláh is after all in this letter speaking rather
> authoritatively and handing out spiritual advice.  If the title "Sahifih"
> goes back to the Baghdad period then he is using a word normally employed
> for scripture.  To put it bluntly, who does he think he is?  A sort of Babi
> Sufi shaykh?  A manifestation of the attributes of Imam Husayn alongside
> other Babi manifestations?  What is clear is that his self-conception
> changed mightily between the early 1850s and the later 1850s.
>
> — *Book of the River [Tigris]: Introduction (Used by permission of the curator)*