From Primordial Traditions publishers Ltd. in 2012, Trans. with Intro.

by N. Wahid Azal

Hajji Mirza Jani Kashani’s BOOK OF THE POINT OF KAF (kitab nuqtat’ul-kaf)

Book Description

Since E.G. Browne’s edition and publication of the Persian text of

Hájjí Mírzá Jání Káshání’s (d. 1852) Kitáb Nuqṭat’ul-Káf in 1910 from
two manuscripts in the Bibliothèque nationale of Paris, this historical narrative of early Bábism has generated endless controversy amongst religious sectarians and academic historians alike. Because it contradicted their own narratives in several significant places, the Bahá’í patriarch ‘Abbás Effendí ‘Abdu’l- Bahá’ (d. 1921) angrily asserted it to be an “Azali forgey” when on closer examination many of its idiosyncrasies even contradict the official doctrinal positions of the Bayánís (Azalí Bábís) themselves. The investigation of two earlier manuscripts at Princeton University during the last decade, and ones whose origins are located in a timeline closer to the author’s own death in 1852, finally vindicated Browne’s views regarding this text – as well as those of the pre-revolutionary Iranian historian Muḥíṭ Ṭabátabá’í – thereby once and for all discrediting the views of the Bahá’í authorities themselves and their century long campaign to dismiss and smear the authorship as well as the contents of this work.

Rather than being a history of a modern critical genre, the Book of the Point of Káf is instead a theophanological hiero-history reflecting the situation of early Bábism until 1852. A history of its founder, the Báb (d. 1850), and the first eight years of the Bábí movement in mid 19th century Iran, here we find actors within an Iranian Islamic Shi’ite gnostic dramaturgical theatre of unparalleled scope enacting a Grand Gnostic Resurrection and its Apocalypse much like the Ismá’ilí one at Alamút in the mid twelfth century CE. Here are met the two founders of the Shaykhí school, the Báb himself, his Letters of the Living and the movement’s successor Ṣubḥ-i-Azal, among others.

The Book of the Point of Káf begins with a long introductory, theological chapter detailing the author’s own metaphysical and Shi’ite gnostic points of departure wherein copious Shi’ite traditions (akhbár) are quoted and commented upon. E.G. Browne’s 1910 English introduction is reproduced in full and the translator’s own introduction brings us up to speed on the scholarship to the contemporary period. Twenty-two chapters in full plus a final conclusion, the English translation of this work will certainly challenge perceptions and change overall views regarding Bábism and Bahá’ism in the West forever – and, no doubt, produce even further controversies.
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Also by Primordial Traditions in 2012

Trans., Comment., Intro. & Arabic text by N. Wahid Azal with a Forward

by Hamid Dabashi

Subh-i-Azal’s ON THE SEVEN WORLDS AND SEVENFOLD METAPHYSICAL

SUBTLETIES (fi ‘awwalim al-saba’ wa al-masha’ir al-saba’)

And you are?

The announcement on the book description specifies the fact that in Nuqtat’ul-Kaf we are dealing with a hiero-history, not a critical piece of modern historiography (which, in any case, as a methodology comes with its own set of loaded problems and controversies over issues of “narrative,” etc, which critical theory has pretty much laid bare). But unlike the Baha’is who have made up a conflated history post facto and then attempted to whitewash and smear all earlier narratives, Nuqtat’ul-Kaf is the earliest known history of the Babi movement – and for all the transparent intellectual contortions made by Kavian S. Milani in the EI entry, it is still reflective of the thinking of early Babism. As such if you have worked on it you would know that the narrative of Nuqtat’ul-Kaf blatantly introduces notions that the Bayanis (Azali Babis) consider to be unkosher and generally heterodox: 1) that Quddus may have been greater than the Bab himself and 2) that Subh-i-Azal was He whom God shall make Manifest (both issues which Subh-i-Azal blatantly rejected in his correspondence with E.G. Browne in the 1890s while the latter was attempting to identify the assorted Bibliotheque Nationale mss. from the estate of Gobineau two of which were the two mss. of Nuqtat’ul-Kaf that later became his E.J.W. Gibb Memorial series vol. 15 1910 edition of the Persian text published by Leiden).

That aside, the complete translation of this text is long overdue. Whereas Shoghi Effendi essentially fabricated a sui generis history and attributed it to Nabil Zarandi, calling it the Dawn Breakers (when Zarandi only penned a historical poem and not a history), in Hajji Mirza Jani Kashani’s Nuqtat’ul-Kaf we have one of the earliest known (hiero-)histories of Babism written by one of the companions of the Bab himself (and, yes, Hajji Mirza Jani indeed did author this text as my forthcoming intro will prove). Now, while I believe (much like religious institutions and organizations) the Ivory Tower generally has its head in its backside on a great many issues, I am quite amenable to employing historical critical methods and especially solid methodologies of textual criticism and philology where they many apply. In that regard I can hold my own with the best of the folks in the Ivory Tower and so am quite looking forward to the debates and controversies that will surely transpire once this history is finally published. My interpretative approach to such texts, my hermenuetical approach, is from the perspective of phenomenology and specifically the phenomenology of Henry Corbin. Among other things, I am a lifelong student of Corbin’s oeuvrage and I believe his perspective is a valid one – especially when dealing with such material – and so probably one of the keys of penetrating deeper into the inner intentions of such texts where straight academic critical methodologies usually otherwise fail.

Feel free to contact me on email.

This is not *my* book. This is Hajji Mirza Jani Kashani’s book to which I am the translator and interpretor. Feel free to email me.