DAYYAN
We have already been introduced to a prominent Ba?„bi?„, variously
called Asadu'llah and Dayyan; he was also a member of the hierarchy
called 'the Letters of the Living.' He may have been a man of
capacity, but I must confess that the event to which his name is
specially attached indisposes me to admit that he took part in the
so-called 'Council of Tihran.' To me he appears to have been one of
those Ba?„bi?„s who, even in critical periods, acted without
consultation with others, and who imagined that they were absolutely
infallible. Certainly he could never have promoted the claims of
S??ubh??-i-Ezel, whose defects he had learned from that personage's
secretary. He was well aware that Ezel was ambitious, and he thought
that he had a better claim to the supremacy himself.
It would have been wiser, however, to have consulted Baha-'ullah, and
to have remembered the prophecy of the Ba?„b, in which it was
expressly foretold that Dayyan would believe on 'Him whom God would
make manifest.' S??ubh??-i-Ezel was not slow to detect the weak point
in Dayyan's position, who could not be at once the Expected One and a
believer in the Expected One. [Footnote: See Ezel's own words in
_Mustaikaz_, p. 6.] Dayyan, however, made up as well as he could
for his inconsistency. He went at last to Baha-'ullah, and discussed
the matter in all its bearings with him. The result was that with
great public spirit he retired in favour of Baha.
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