Sayyid Kāẓim al-Ḥusaynī al-Rashtī
(d. 1243/1843)
"Within the bosom of Islam (ṣadr
al-islām) many were submerged in the ocean of idle fancies and
vain imaginings. Subsequent to the Seal of the Prophets (khātam-i
anbiyā’) [= Muhammad] and to the purified [Twelver] Imams (a’imih-yi
ṭāhirīn) two souls attained unto the reality of Truth (bi-ḥaqq)
and were embellished with the ornament of awareness (bi-ṭarāz-i
agāhī), the late Shaykh [Aḥmad al-Aḥsā’ī] and Sayyid [Kāzim
Rashtī] upon the both of them be the Glory of God, the
All-Glorious (bahā’ Allāh al-abhā’)... We [= Baha'u'llah]
took refuge with these two [Shaykh Aḥmad and Sayyid Kāzim] and
heard from these twain what hath not been realized by any except
God, the Knowing, the Discerning..." (Tablet cited in Ma'idih
4:134-5)
As the above extract from an important Tablet of Bahā'u'llāh (d.
Acre, 1892, the founder of the Baha'i religion) indicates, the
Persian born Sayyid Kāẓim al-Ḥusaynī al-Rashtī (d. 1243/1843) was a
figure of the greatest importance. His many Arabic and Persian
writings, however, remain almost completely unknown, untranslated
and unstudied by modern Baha'is. Sayyid Kāẓim was the most important
and learned among the thousands of Persian followers of the
Arab-born Shaykh Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-Dīn al-Aḥsā'ī (d. Medina, 1826),
the founder of al-Shaykhiyya, the Shaykhī ("Shaykh [Aḥmad]
centered") school of Shī`ī Islam who was referred to by
Bahā'u'llāh in his Lawḥ-i Qinā' (Tablet of the Veil) as "the most
glorious, most gracious Shaykh who was manifested as the very Lamp
of Knowledge (sirāj al-`ilm) throughout all the worlds". Shaykh
Ahmad and his successor Sayyid Kāẓim are regarded by Bahā'īs as two
spiritually luminous figures within the history of Islam and two
heralds of the Babi-Baha'i religions.
Before he commenced his prophetic mission in mid 1844 CE Sayyid `Ali
Muhammad Shirazī, the Bāb for several months attended the learned
discourses of the second Shaykhī leader Sayyid Kazim Rashti in Iraq.
In his very early Risāla fi'l-suluk (Treatise
on the Pathway to God) the Bāb refers to Sayyid Kāẓim in the
following manner,
قد كتبها سيدی ومعتمدی و معلمی الحاج سيد كاظم الرشتی
اطال الله بقائه مخصل
"Thus
wrote my Lord (sayyidī), my firm support (mu`tammadī) and My
teacher (mu`allimī), al-Ḥajji Sayyid Kāẓim Rashtī, may God
extend his specified eternality" .
In his Persian Dalā'il-i Sab`ah (Seven
Proofs) the Bāb not only refers to the learned of the Shaykhiyya
-- the Shaykh Ahmad followers -- after Shaykh Ahmad but
also to the Siyyidiyya after Sayyid Kāẓim.!
