The Word Bahá’: Quintessence of the Greatest Name of God

Abstract

This article is a revised version of one previously published in the Baha'i Studies Review 3.1 (1993)

This article is an attempt to explore some linguistic, historical, and theological aspects of the Arabic word bahá’, which is viewed by Bahá’ís as the quintessence of the greatest name of God, one form of which is the title Bahá’u’lláh. Considered alone, the word Bahá’ is a verbal noun meaning, among other things, “beauty,” “excellence,” “goodliness,” “divine majesty,” radiant “glory,” “splendor,” “light,” and “brilliancy.” There exist a wide range of other nominal and verbal senses also. It was at the 1848 Bábí conference of Badasht that Mírzá Ḥusayn-‘Alí Núrí (1817-1892), the Founder of the Bahá’í Faith and a one-time leading Bábí, bestowed a new name upon each of the 81 (= 9 x 9) participants. He himself, to quote The Dawn-Breakers (Táríkh-i-Zarandí), “was henceforth designated by the name of Bahá” (Nabíl, The Dawn-Breakers 293). Bahá’u’lláh thus, from very early on—while outwardly a leading Bábí or Sufi dervish—sometimes used the word/title (Jináb-i) Bahá’ as a personal designation or proper name. It shall be illustrated below that the word Bahá’ was a term of considerable importance in Islamic and Bábí literatures. On occasion, it occurred in contexts that had, or came to be interpreted as having, prophetic and messianic import.