In an electronic mail message dated 30 August 1994, Mr. xxxx requested information on a quotation from Bahá'u'lláh, cited by the Guardian in God Passes By:

...the Letters of the Bayan, whose station is ten thousand times more glorious than that of the Letters of the Qur'anic Dispensation...¹

Mr. xxxx wishes to know if the "Letters of the Bayan" are the same as the Letters of the Living. Also, he asks the identity of the "Letters of the Qur'anic Dispensation". These questions were referred to the Research Department, and we offer the following response. The word "Letters" (huruf), used in the quotation above, has a definite background in the Writings of the Bab. The Bab used the term huruf in a number of ways that are similar but not identical in meaning. For instance, He used huruf to indicate all followers of a religion. As an example, in the Persian Bayan, Vahid 2, chapter 4, we find "Huruf-i-Alif" as a reference to the generality of the followers of Jesus Christ. In the same chapter, the term "Huruf-i-Qur'an" is a reference to Muslims in general.

The term huruf is also used in the Persian Bayan (Vahid 4, chapter 6) to describe the earliest believers of the Prophet Muhammad, i.e., those followers through whom other people accepted Islam. In the same manner, the Bab identified his own earliest believers as the "Huruf-i-Hayy" or Letters of the Living.

In addition, huruf is found in the Persian Bayan as an appellation of the Shi'ih Imams. In Vahid 2, chapter 17, for example, Imam Husayn is referred to as the "Harf-i-Khamis" or the "Fifth Letter" (Harf is the singular form of Huruf).

The Research Department has not, to date, found any authoritative interpretation of the quoted passage from God Passes By and therefore Mr. xxxx is free to decide for himself in which context the term should be understood.

1. God Passes By (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1987), p. 98.