Abstract

 

This commentary responds to Anthony A. Lee’s sounding, “The Declaration of the Báb in Bahá’í Imagination” (Bahá’í Studies Review, 2026). Lee contends that Khadíjih Bagum, the wife of the Báb, and Ḥájí Mubárak, His Ethiopian servant, have been erased from the Bahá’í memory of the Declaration of the Báb, and that they should be restored to it as witnesses and participants. While affirming the value of recovering the histories of both figures, this response argues that Lee’s sounding rests on problematic conceptual and methodological foundations. First, it does not consider the implications of many statements in the Writings of the Báb, which consistently frame the Declaration around Mullá Ḥusayn’s recognition of the Báb and identify him as the first believer. Second, it conflates distinct claims (physical presence, overhearing, comprehension, and acceptance) that rest on evidence of widely varying strength, and it substitutes conjectural language for documentation. Third, it reads omission from Nabíl-i-A‘ẓam’s narrative as exclusion without considering the spiritual and theological purposes that shaped his account. Drawing on the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, the Báb, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, this response argues that the Bahá’í Writings frame the Declaration as the start of a new spiritual creation, realised through recognition of the Manifestation of God. The recovery of neglected voices, while valuable, should proceed with historical restraint, maintain a distinction between evidence and possibility, and not attempt to redefine the meaning of events whose significance is articulated in earlier and more authoritative sources.

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