This work is one of two companion books derived from a lengthy manuscript that we were fortunate to receive from noted Bahá’í scholar Bíjan Bei?áíe, son of renowned scholar Dhuká’í Bei?áíe who had originally submitted this facsimile to the Bahá’í archives of Iran. This amazing repository of the poetry of ?áhirih in the original language and calligraphy contained previously unpublished and largely unknown poem, works that constitute ?áhirih’s more industrious and more serious and complex works.
This first volume, unlike the shorter more ecstatic verse of the first volume The Poetry of ?áhirih, reveals ?áhirih’s insight into the process by which God empowers His Messengers to educate humankind. The poems further examine how the Prophets of the past established the foundation for all that has followed. These demonstrated with unmistakable clarity that ?áhirih was firmly convinced she was living in the “Day of Resurrection” foretold in the Qur’án, that the Báb was the long-awaited Qá’im, and that what the Báb refers to as “the Latter Resurrection” was soon to occur with the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. All of this and much more she sets forth both with both allusive symbols and with explicit statements of fact.
Her central theme in this volume is her explication of Adam’s longing and heartfelt wish that the transformation of humankind destined to occur in time, take place immediately. The broader discourse in these pieces concerns the early stage of the Adamic or Prophetic Cycle, a period of religious history that begins with the dispensation of Adam and ends with the dispensation of Mu?ammad. Consequently, there is so much remarkable intellectual matter in some of these poems that portions of them have the tenor of a religious or philosophical treatise rather than the passionate lyric quality of some of her best-known shorter poems, a distinction that has caused some scholars to reject these poems as being hers, though no one has discovered any evidence to support such a thesis.
Of special note is the remarkable tone of conviction and authority in some of these poems, confirming for the attentive reader that ?áhirih was a special figure in the religious history of the Bahá’í Faith. Indeed, one senses that she is possessed of a degree of knowledge, capacity, and a station that set her above other of the heroic and astute followers of the Bábí movement.
What is perhaps equally important to the standing of this work, especially insofar as future scholarship is concerned, is that, as before, we have included the original Persian and Arabic in this book, but, in this case, scanned from the original hand-written manuscript that was most probably copied down contemporaneously with, or shortly after, the events surrounding the heroic life of ?áhirih.