The Báb's Star Tablet: A Temple of Words

In 2019, to mark two hundred years since the birth of the Báb, the British Library put on display a sheet of paper covered in fine Arabic script. The lines of writing were not laid out in rows. They formed a five-pointed star, each of its five strokes made of words, the whole in the Báb's own hand. The Báb called such a figure a haykal, a "temple", and he wrote many of them: prayers, talismans and letters in the shape of the human body.

The Báb

• Siyyid ʻAlí-Muḥammad Shírází (1819–1850), a merchant of Shiraz, declared in 1844 that he was the Báb, the "Gate", and later that he was the promised Qāʼim of Shiʻi Islam, the bearer of a new revelation.
• His movement spread rapidly in Iran and was violently suppressed. He was imprisoned in the fortresses of Mākū and Chihrīq and executed by firing squad in Tabriz in 1850; thousands of his followers were killed.
• He foretold "Him whom God shall make manifest". Most Bábís came to recognise that figure in Baháʼu'lláh, whose followers founded the Baháʼí Faith. The Báb is revered by Baháʼís as a Manifestation of God and the forerunner of their faith.

The star tablets

In his book the Persian Bayán, the Báb gave instructions for writing a haykal. Its five lines frame the star, and he wrote verses into them, often made up of derivatives of a single word. One famous tablet, addressed to Baháʼu'lláh, consists of 360 derivatives of the word Bahá, "glory" or "splendour", the root of Baháʼu'lláh's title. The Báb said men should carry such a star as a talisman; for women he prescribed a design of concentric circles.

The interactive star above is schematic: its lines repeat an invocation and derivatives of Bahá in the manner of the star tablets, and it can show the human form the star stands for and the numbers inside it.

Symbology and sacred encoding

The body as temple. The five points of the haykal are the head, two hands and two feet. In the Báb's writings the human being is a temple of God, and the star makes the text into a body.

Abjad numbers. In the abjad system each Arabic letter has a number, and the Báb used it constantly. The haykal's five lines give the letter hāʼ (ه = 5) and its six chambers the letter wāw (و = 6), which together spell huwa (هو), "He", a name for God in Islamic mysticism. The Báb also organised his calendar and writings around 19, the value of wāḥid, "one": the Badíʻ calendar has 19 months of 19 days.

Bahá. The name Bahá has the abjad value 9, which is why nine became a symbol of the Baháʼí Faith, and the source of its nine-pointed star.

No image of the Báb. Baháʼís treat photographs and portraits of the Báb and Baháʼu'lláh with great reverence and do not display them publicly, so this entry shows none.

Connections

Baháʼí & New Faiths (ch65), with Islam (ch21) and Sufism (ch27) for the Shiʻi and mystical background. Compare the Sana'a Palimpsest (V29) and the Birmingham Qur'an (V28) for other Arabic sacred manuscripts, and the Kartarpur Bir (V33) for a founder's scripture.

From The Divine Archives · https://getconexto.com/vault/bab-star-tablet.html