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Please support this online re-printing by ordering a published edition of this book, Symbol and
Secret: Qur’an Commentary in Bahá’u’lláh’s Kitáb-i-Íqán.
See also the following reviews of this book:
Review by Moojan Momen, in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 7.2 (1997).
Review by Frank Lewis, in Baha’i Studies Review, vol. 6 (1996).
Review by Jonah Winters, in Iranian Studies 32:1 (1999).
Review by Jonah Winters, in Journal of Bahá’í Studies 9:3 (1999).
Review by John Hatcher, in Middle East Studies Association Bulletin (1996).
See also the following studies related to this book:
Ahang Rabbani, “The Conversion of the Great-Uncle of the Báb” (dating
the revelation of the Book of Certitude to January 1861).
Christopher Buck, “Beyond the ‘Seal of the Prophets’: Bahā’u’llāh’s Book
of Certitude (Ketāb-e Iqān).”
“The Kitáb-i Íqán: An Introduction to Bahá’u’lláh’s Book of Certitude,
with Two Digital Reprints of Early Lithographs.”
“Bahāʾīs.” Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān: Supplement (original version).
“The Seal of the Prophets, Unsealed.”
See also the following recommended self-study guides to the Book of Certitude:
Sohrab Kourosh, Ph.D., Self Study Notes for The Kitáb-i-Íqán, The Book of
Certitude, Volumes I and II (Kindle Edition) (Vol. III forthcoming).
Fazel Naghdy, Ph.D., A Tutorial on the Kitáb-i-Íqán: A Journey through the
Book of Certitude (Kindle Edition).
See also the following recommended introduction to the Bahá’í Faith:
Christopher Buck, Bahá’í Faith: The Basics (2021).
[p. iv]
MANUSCRIPT ORIGINAL
Fig. 1: The opening page of the original manuscript of the Kitáb-i Íqán in the handwrit-
ing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, produced in 1278 A.H. (1861–62 C.E.). Minor marginal additions
were made by Bahá’u’lláh himself. The manuscript was given to Ḥájí Mírzá Sayyid
Muḥammad in Baghdad, in reply to his questions, and remained in his family until 1948,
when it was donated to the Bahá’í World Centre. (Courtesy of the Bahá’í World Centre.)
[p. v]
STUDIES IN THE BÁBÍ AND BAHÁ’Í RELIGIONS
VOLUME SEVEN
General Editor
ANTHONY A. LEE
SYMBOL AND SECRET:
QUR’AN COMMENTARY IN
BAHÁ’U’LLÁH’S KITÁB-I ÍQÁN
By
CHRISTOPHER BUCK
KALIMÁT PRESS
LOS ANGELES
[p. vi] Copyright © 1995, 2004 by Kalimát Press.
All rights reserved.
First Edition.
Reprint 2004.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
(Revised for vol. 5)
Studies in Bábí and Bahá’í history.
Vols. 5-has title: Studies in the Bábí and Bahá’í religions. Includes bibliographies.
Contents: v. 1 [no title]-v. 2 From Iran east and west / edited by Juan R. Cole and Moojan
Momen-[etc.]-v. 7. Symbol and Secret: Qur’an commentary in Bahá’u’lláh’s Kitáb-i Íqán /
by Christopher Buck. 1. Baha’i Faith-History. 2. Babism-History. I. Momen, Moojan. II.
Cole, Juan Ricardo. III. Smith, Peter, 1947, Nov. 27-. IV. R. Jackson Armstrong-Ingram. V.
Title: Studies in the Bábí and Bahá’i Religions.
BP330.S78 1982 297.89 83-227
ISBN 0-933770-16-2 (v. 1)
ISBN 0-933770-78-2 (v. 7, casebound)
ISBN 0-933770-80-4 (v. 7, paperbound)
[p. vii]
Yet, shouldst thou reflect upon these statements [Rev. 1:16–17], thou wouldst find them to be of such
surpassing eloquence and clarity as to mark the loftiest heights of utterance and the epitome of wisdom.
Methinks it is from them that the suns of eloquence have appeared and the stars of clarity have dawned
forth and shone resplendent.
… Know then that He [Jesus] who uttered these words in the realms of glory meant to describe the
attributes of the One Who is to come in such veiled and enigmatic terms as to elude the understanding
of the people of error.
Bahá’u’lláh
Gems of Divine Mysteries, 52–53; 54–55.
[p. viii]
[This page intentionally blank.]
[p. ix]
CONTENTS
Foreword by Juan R. I. Cole xi
Acknowledgements v
Introduction xix
Chapter One
Bahá’u’lláh and the Book of Certitude 1
Chapter Two
Exegesis and Ideology: The Doctrinal Content
of the Book of Certitude 51
Chapter Three
Beyond Islam: Hermeneutical Terminology in the
Book of Certitude 81
Chapter Four
Exegetical Techniques in the Book of Certitude 109
Chapter Five
Conclusion: The Other Side of the Bridge 233
Bibliography 305
Appendix: Qur’án verses cited in the Íqán 325
[p. x]
FINAL PAGE OF ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT
Fig. 2: Last page of original manuscript of the Kitáb-i Íqán in the hand of ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá. Note that the term “revealed” (al-manzúl) appears in Bahá’u’lláh’s own
colophon. (Courtesy of the Bahá’í World Centre.)
[p. xi]
FOREWORD
Bahá’u’lláh (1817–1892), the Prophet–Founder of the Bahá’í religion, penned an enormous
number of works, but it can be argued that the 1862 Book of Certitude (the Kitáb-i Íqán) is his
masterpiece. Christopher Buck has, in this well-argued book, advanced our understanding of
the context, literary techniques, and interpretive aims of Bahá’u’lláh’s Book of Certitude, pro-
ducing the first book-length academic study devoted entirely to a major work of Bahá’í scrip-
ture.
No reader of the Book of Certitude can fail to be struck by how much of it consists of
commentaries and references to verses of the Qur’án. Its first audience was after all a Shiite
Muslim, an uncle of Bahá’u’lláh’s predecessor, the Báb (1819–1850). The traditions and sciences
of the Qur’án commentary constitute one of the more important branches of Islamic learning.
It is the virtue of Symbol and Secret that it takes account of several overlapping intellectual tra-
ditions in elucidating the Book of Certitude’s approach to Islamic scripture. The author shows
an awareness of the main schools of Muslim Qur’án commentary, and also of contemporary
academic scholarship on the subject. It is the latter, especially the work of scholars such as
Wansbrough and Rippin, that provide the author with the analytical leverage to illuminate for
us the place of the Qur’án in the Book of Certitude. Buck succeeds in demonstrating how im-
portant academic training and a knowledge of Islamics are for a profounder appreciation of
Bahá’í scripture. [p. xii]
As soon as it was penned, friend and foe recognized the Book of Certitude as an extraor-
dinarily powerful book, written in a crisp and straightforward style (commented on favorably
by the Cambridge Orientalist E. G. Browne in his A Literary History of Persia). It exhibits a lucid
and tantalizing view of sacred history, theology, and the mystical path that attempted to vindi-
cate the Bábí movement and yet to prepare the way for the emergence from it of something
new. It was authored only a year or so before Bahá’u’lláh’s initial declaration of himself as the
promised one of the Báb at the Garden of Necip Paşa (the “Garden of Riḍván”) in Baghdad.
There is little doubt that the early Bahá’í community in Iran considered it their most central
text of scripture, and it was perhaps the first Bahá’í book to be printed, in Bombay, around
1882. Bahá’u’lláh himself referred to it, in a letter to the Zoroastrian agent in Tehran, as the
“Lord of Books” (sayyid-i kutub), and he put forward its framework for the understanding of
universal religious history as a way of reconciling the “prophetologies” of Hinduism, Chris-
tianity, Zoroastrianism, and Islam.
The eminent Bahá’í scholar Mírzá Abu’l-Faḍl Gulpáygání (1844–1914) initially refrained
from writing anything about the Bahá’í religion, after adopting it in 1876, feeling that such
works of Bahá’u’lláh as the Book of Certitude made any further discussion unnecessary. Even
once he was prevailed upon to begin writing on Bahá’í spirituality and doctrine, Mírzá Abu’l-
Faḍl referred frequently to this book. He wrote to a correspondent in 1888: “It is therefore in-
cumbent upon you to cup your hand and drink from the spring of certitude [the Kitáb-i Íqán]
that has flowed from the pen of the All-Merciful throughout these times. It is, for all its con-
ciseness, the key to the psalms and tablets, and is the interpreter of the books of God, Who
dispels the darkness at each dawn. Thereby have the seals of the prophets been broken and the
abstrusities of the allusions of past scriptures [p. xiii] been resolved. Exert yourself to the ut-
most and reflect on this holy book, that you might be inspired to the correct understanding of
every chapter.” Mírzá Abu’l-Faḍl Gulpáygání’s own masterwork, his 1898 Kitáb al-
Fará’id (“Book of Priceless Gems”) was devoted to the rebuttal of an attack on the Book of Cer-
titude by a Shiite cleric resident in Tiflis (Tiblisi), Georgia.
The salience of the Book of Certitude has not lessened with time. An English translation
by Ali-Kuli Khan, published in New York in 1904, became popular in the nascent American
Bahá’í community of the early twentieth century. The work’s continued significance for those
from a Christian background is no doubt related to the attention Bahá’u’lláh gives to the
Gospel verses and prophecies, discussion of which occupies some one-fourth of the book.
Bahá’u’lláh’s great-grandson, Shoghi Effendi Rabbání (1897–1957), the Guardian of the
Bahá’í Faith, published a fresh translation of the Book of Certitude in 1931 and elsewhere
called it “foremost among the priceless treasures cast forth from the billowing ocean of
Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation.” He adds: “Well may it be claimed that of all the books revealed by
the Author of the Bahá’í Revelation, this Book alone, by sweeping away the age-long barriers
that have so insurmountably separated the great religions of the world, has laid down a broad
and unassailable foundation for the complete and permanent reconciliation of their followers.”
Juan R. I. Cole
Ann Arbor, Michigan
9 February 1995
[p. xiv]
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