Another famous advocate of the Cause of the Báb, even
fiercer in zeal than Vahíd, and almost as eminent in rank, was Mullá Muhammad-‘Alíy-i-Zanjání,
surnamed Hujjat… a vehement controversialist, of a bold and independent temper
of mind, impatient of restraint, a man who had dared condemn the whole
ecclesiastical hierarchy… he had more than once, through his superior talents
and fervid eloquence, publicly confounded his orthodox Shí’ah
adversaries. Such a person could not remain indifferent to a Cause that was
producing so grave a cleavage among his countrymen. The disciple he sent to Shíráz
to investigate the matter fell immediately under the spell of the Báb. The
perusal of but a page of the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá, brought by that messenger to
Hujjat, sufficed to effect such a transformation within him that he declared,
before the assembled ‘ulamás of his native city, that should the Author of that
work pronounce day to be night and the sun to be a shadow he would
unhesitatingly uphold his verdict.
- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
