The Bab's Panj Sha'n (Five Modes)
by John Walbridge
Circumstances
of its composition.
We know
exactly when the Panj Shan was written: 19
March4 April 1850. The day it was begun was both
Naw-Rúz and 5 Jumádá I, the first day of the seventh
Bábí year and the sixth anniversary according to the
lunar calendar of the Bábs declaration of his mission
to Mullá Husayn. That day and on each of the following
sixteen days he wrote a passage in each of the five
styles in commentary on a name of God. In the published
Azalí edition, four parts are missing, corresponding
to the eighth, thirteen, fifteen, and sixteenth days,
and the Azalí scribe apologizes that one or two other
parts are taken from manuscripts of lesser authority.
Some, though not all, of the parts are dedicated to
individual believers.
We know
these particulars not from the text itself but from
a document published at the end of the Azalí edition.
This is evidently the Bábs correspondence log for
the period 19 March20 June 1850. It consists of entries
separated by horizontal lines. Each entry gives the
name of God for that day (of which more later), the
number of the day in the Bábí month, the day of the
week in the conventional Arabic name and the Bábí name,
and notes about what the Báb wrote on each day and
what was dispatched to believers. The whole is firmly
dated by a heading giving the opening date in both
the lunar and Bábí calendars. There are certain minor
difficulties relating to the dating, but nothing that
casts doubt on the authenticity of the document.
The notes
on the Bábs writings are divided into three columns.
The first is headed, that which was sent down from
God most high contains a note of the general content
of the Bábs writing that day. This gradually dwindles
from a long paragraph on the first day to a few words
or nothing later in the document. Beginning on the
second day, the second column contains a brief statement
about the amount and type of writing on that day.
For example on day 2, on which the Báb revealed a chapter
in each of the five styles on the theme, God is unique,
we read, "in commentary on the name unity revealed
in the five modes. That which flowed from the Pen
of God was five sheets. The third column, that which
ascended unto God most high by the Primal Point, seems
to be notes concerning outgoing correspondence, with
addressees indicated by abbreviations and numbers indicating
the number of sheets. In some cases, the addressees
can be identified, but not always.
The contents
of the present book are clearly indicated by the entries
for the month of Bahá, the first month of the Bábí
year; and it was this that enabled the Azalí scribe
to compile his edition and put the chapters in their
proper order. After 17 Bahá there are no further entries
indicating writing in this style, evidence that the
book as we have it is largely complete.
The log
continues for several more Bábí months. Many days
are blank except for the name of God for that day and
the dates. Other days record the writing of talismans,
prayers, etc. Mid-May saw a burst of correspondence,
ending abruptly on 14 May. This presumably marks the
departure of Sayyáh;, the last Bábí courier to leave
Chihríq, who carried the Bábs remaining papers to
Mullá `Abdul-Karím Qazvíní. Though the latter part
of the month saw considerable writing, it was mainly
prayers and other such things not necessarily intended
to be sent immediately to the believers. The last
recorded revelation was 1 Núr/3 June. The last ten
days bear the same name of God, God is most high
(Alláh A`lá). The log ends on Friday, 18 Núr/20
June 1850, apparently the day after the Báb reached
Tabríz. Most likely Sayyid Husayn Yazdí carried the
log with him to safety after the execution of the Báb.
Presumably it then passed into Baháúlláhs hands
and was among the Bábí manuscripts kept by Azal.
The historical
interest of this document is clear, but its full use
must await a more determined effort to decipher its
cryptic notations.
The
Style and Content of Panj Shan
The Panj
Shan, as I have indicated, consists of 14 sets
of passages in each of the five styles into which the
Báb conventionally divided his revelation:
verses
(ayát)
prayers
(munáját)
sermons
(Khutbih)
commentary
(tafsír)
Persian
(fársí)
Each day
of the monthand presumably yearwas assigned a name
of God. These are all in the elative and are repeated
twice:
1: al-alah
al-alah
2: al-awhad
al-awhad
3: al-ahad
al-ahad
4:
al-ahyá al-ahyá
These are
dedicatedsometimesto particular believers, including
Dayyán, Azal, Táhirih, Bahá'u'lláh, andforlornlythe
Bábs beloved uncle, Hájí Mírzá Sayyid `Alí, who had
been killed a month earlier in Tehran and of whose
death the Báb was never told. Others are more difficult
to identify.
The book
contains nothing that might reasonably be called an
argument. Instead names of God and invocations are
endlessly repeated and varied, often in ways unsanctioned
by Arabic usage. Syntax is nearly as ideosyncratic.
Thus, for example, the first page has Alláh
used as a superlative in the form alah, an
infinitive ilhán, participles mutalih, mulah,
and so on. To the extent that the book has content,
it is not in the form of an extended argument but in
enraptured rhapsodies about particular themes. Thus
the sermon on the first day rhapsodizes about the first
day of BaháNaw-Rúzas the day of God, the name given
it by the Báb in the Bayán. It such respects it is
similar to the Kitábul-Asmá, written sometime
earlier and also arranged on a calendrical basis.
Evaluation
The question
now arises as to why the Báb might have wished to write
such a strange bookand why many Bábís chose to copy
it and the Azalís to publish it. As one of my Baháí
teachers commented about the similar work, Kitábul-Asmá,
After a while a modern person gets bored, puts down
the book, and reads something else. But I don't think
that would be true of its intended readers.
In the
Persian Bayán viii:14 the Báb commands his followers
to recite 700 verses of the Bayán every twenty-four
hours. Bayán in the Bábs usage refers to his
writings in general, not just to the Bayán proper.
Each part of Panj Shan is about thirty pages
long, roughly equalling the requisite 700 verses (a
verse according to the Báb being forty letters or about
a line). Now it also seems clear that the Báb envisioned
the believer meditating on a different name of God
each day. Lists are given in the Kitábul-Asmá
and the correspondence log mentioned above (though
the lists do not agree). Thus the believer, I infer,
might fulfil his obligation by reciting one chapter
of five parts from the Panj Shan each day.
The Bábs
manipulation of Arabic morphology is certainly deliberate,
as is the case in his other Arabic works. An exact
knowledge of Arabic was the most prized possession
of the Islamic scholar, for the Arabic of the Qurán
was, as the Qurán itself testifies, a miracle sufficient
to demonstrate the truth of Muhammads prophethood.
Thus, when the Báb flouted the rules of Arabic morphology
and syntax and proclaimed the resulting works to be
scripture, he was proclaiming his own authority to
abrogate the whole Islamic religious system. The ulamá
understood this perfectly well and thus were extremely
anxious to dismiss the Bábs literary innovations as
the result of his ignorance of Arabic, for to acknowledge
his right to use Arabic in this way would have been
to implicitly acknowledge the old and hitherto unmet
challenge of the Qurán: Then produce a súrah like it, and call on whom you can, apart from God, if you speak truly. (10:39). It was exactly
the debate played out in the arts in modern Europe,
with modernists asserting their freedom by breaking
with traditional forms and styles and traditionalists
condemning them for being supposedly unable to master
the traditional forms.
With this
the stylistic quirks of the book begin to make sense.
The book is to be understood as a sort of Bábí breviary,
a work of devotions not of instruction. For this the
Bábs style is appropriate. While his style in this
work may be numbing in large doses, it is unquestionably
hypnotic in smaller doses. Recited, the Panj Shan
is akin to Sufi dhikr, in which the same evocative
words are repeated ceaselessly, in this case with gradual
variations. The utter freedom with which the Báb reinvents
Arabic grammar is an open proclamation of his claim
to prophethood. The aesthetic is thus rather modern
in certain ways, with its contempt for convention and
rigorous formal rules. Perhaps we should see Panj
Shan as a minimalist work or a sort of devotional
Finnegans Wake. There can be no doubt of its
ethereal beauty.
Appendix The Bab's Variations
on the Name "God" in five styles
Among the
last works of the Báb is a large book consisting of
rhapsodies on various names of God rendered in the
five literary styles into which he divided his writings
and written in a strange style full of artificially
constructions from Arabic roots. This work, the Panj
Shan or Five Modes, and similar works of the
Báb like the Kitábul-Asmá, are not
easily explicable to the contemporary mind. The following
is a very preliminary examination of this unusual work.
It is based on a quick examination of the work and
not a full reading of it. I have used the Azalí edition
published in Iran in the early 1960s. It should be
noted that there is also a Persian Panj Shan,
a much smaller book, that I have not seen.
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