Arabic and Persian Babi Texts
Interior of House of the Bab
The Bab's Tafsir Surah Wa'l-`Asr: Commentary on the Surah of the Afternoon

Sayyid `Ali Muhammad "the Bab" Shirazi. Tafsir Surah Wa'l-`Asr. (Commentary on the Surah of the Afternoon). University of Michigan British Manuscript Project Microfilm 745 (1). Digitally published in facsimile. (Lansing, MI: H-Bahai, 1998). Available on the World Wide Web at /~bahai/areprint/bab/S-Z/sharhasr/asr.htm

    References: MacEoin, Sources for Early Babi Doctrine and History, p. 78. Abbas Amanat, Resurrection and Renewal: The Making of the Babi Movement in Iran, 1844-1850 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 257-59 (this work not mentioned); B. Todd Lawson, "The Dangers of Reading: Inlibration, Communion and Transference in the Qur'an Commentary of the Bab," in Moojan Momen, ed., Scripture and Revelation, Baha'i Studies Volume 3 (Oxford: George Ronald, 1997), pp. 171-215. (An extensive analysis of the Tafsir Surah Wa'l-`Asr.)

    Notes: MacEoin remarks: "Only two works of any importance were penned in Isfahan. The first of these was the commentary on the Sura wa'l-`asr, written for the city's Imam-Jum`a, Mir Sayyid Muhammad Sultan al-`Ulama' [Khatunabadi]. According to Zarandi, this lengthy commentary was written early in the Bab's stay, while he was living at the Imam-Jum`a's home. The book was written spontaneously at the request of Mir Sayyid Muhammad himself, its first section being completed one evening between the end of supper and midnight. As a result of witnessing this tour de force, Mulla Muhammad Taqi Harawi (the translator of the Risala furu` al-`adliyya) was converted to the new prophet's cause. According to the version of this incident given in the Nuqtat al-Kaf, a clock was actually set out in order to time the Bab's writing! On this basis, it was estimated that he had written one thousand verses every six hours."


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