The Dawn-Breakers: History Inspiring Creativity and Spirituality

The panorama of a gorgeous landscape, a vista of the night sky, or the crimson light slanting through soft clouds at sunset can open the gate of inspiration and spark surging creativity in our souls.

Before long, the imagination soars. 

The artist takes the brush to paint the majestic mountain, the tree, and the moon; the sculptor tries to capture the beauty of nature; and the poet rushes to depict inner emotions on paper, each trying to emulate the master Creator. 

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Art made in search of meaning, in praise of the beauty of creation, in line with our luminous reality and lighted by the knowledge of our Maker, can open the gate to a deeper spiritual life for everyone.

However, one of the most mystical untapped sources for inspiration, evoking transcendence, stimulating imagination, and galvanizing creativity, can be history itself — the narrative that ushers the reader to the arena of the lives of the great spiritual giants. With their works of love, historians and biographers can narrate the mystery of life through those who, in the quietude of their self-mastery and the nobility of their actions, embrace and empower us. 

These chronicles let students of life discover the magnanimity of the thoughts and actions of those blazing souls — the ones who emerge as the true orators of love of God for humanity and stir our inner beings and transform our hearts. Those who recount such heroic lives can identify that indissoluble bond, that romance between the pilgrim on the path of truth and the ancient longing to unveil the sacred place of certitude.

Why such phenomena, and why such a connection? 

We might want to ponder this insight from the Universal House of Justice, the democratically-elected global leadership body of the world’s Baha’is: 

History is a powerful instrument. At its best, it provides a  perspective on the past and casts a light on the future. It populates human consciousness with heroes, saints, and martyrs whose example awakens everyone touched by its capacities they had not imagined they possessed. It helps make sense of the world – and human experience. It inspires, consoles, and enlightens. It enriches life. 

One of the best ways to reach out to a history that awakens, consoles, and enlightens us, can be found in a wondrous, awe-inspiring book called The Dawn-Breakers, also known as Nabil’s Narrative.

The Dawn-Breakers contains the Persian historian Nabil-i-Azam’s eyewitness account of the earliest years of the Babi and Baha’i Faith, translated into English by Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith. 

Because Nabil himself participated in many of the events he recounts in the book, its value lies not only in its eyewitness accounts but also in its spirit of tremendous devotion, love, and sacrifice.

The Dawn-Breakers narrates a universal sacred story – one of enormous trials and tribulations overcome by faith, dedication, and incredibly heroic deeds. Imagine what it would be like to read a first-person account of the life and early history of the revelation of Jesus Christ or Buddha or Moses, including the stories of their earliest disciples, and then read The Dawn-Breakers – it tells the same story.

In it, these heroes, saints, and martyrs come to life and become our companions in times of difficulties. We long to be closer to the divine messengers who inspired them, realizing that they are, in the words of Baha’u’llah:

… responsible for the progress of the world and the advancement of its peoples. They are like unto leaven which leaveneth the world of being, and constitute the animating force through which the arts and wonders of the world are made manifest. 

In The Dawn-Breakers, the lives of these spiritual thralls, these falcons of the sphere of love, the early Baha’is, are recounted in poetry and beautiful, stirring prose — serene, active, and spiritual, with a peculiar refinement, embodying simplicity, courage, and contentment. 

As we imbibe their stirring stories we discover God-intoxicated characters whose response to the new revelation affects our thoughts and emotions, ushers us into the realm of spirit, and inspires us to harness the fruits of our positive emotions. We gasp for breath as we witness their flight to the next world while in chains, their glowing souls lighting the darksome nights. They lived, loved, and sacrificed, mastering the art of life, their aspiration for the unity of humanity personified by this passage from Baha’u’llah: 

Exert yourselves that ye may attain this transcendent and most sublime station, the station that can ensure the protection and security of all mankind. This goal excelleth every other goal, and this aspiration is the monarch of all aspirations.

Because the beauty of sacrifice and its perpetual mystery never fades, the meteoric lives of these heroes remain a source of inspiration for any seeking heart. 

How can we not be dazzled by Badi, the Baha’i youth whose breathtaking sacrifice shook the ground of oppression? Or how can we fail to be inspired by the unparalleled life of Tahirih, the Persian poet who gave her life for the emancipation of women, and who Abdu’l-Baha described as  “… a burning brand of the love of God, a lamp of His bestowal …” No one could forget Tahirih, whose courage and discernment removed the veils of limitations to recognition, the one whose debates brought praise and awe, whose beauty bewildered all and whose command in prose and poetry became her chosen tongue to enlighten the hearts. 

In the pages of The Dawn-Breakers these heroes live and breathe again. Yes, indeed, they have more to say, more to share, and much more to inspire. Every word, phrase, and stanza of their story has tremendous beauty, making Nabil’s Narrative a true book of meditation.

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Fascinated by the simplicity and creativity of their lives and their infinite love for humanity, we, who crave authenticity, wholeness, and unity, can tread the path towards the examples these heroes created for us, and be embraced by them through the pages of history. In an essay, Mary Maxwell, the Canadian writer later known as Amatu’l-Baha Ruhiyyih Khanum, beautifully captured the emotions and grandeur of The Dawn-Breakers:

One of the most inspiring things about Nabíl’s Narrative, The Dawn-Breakers, is that it … opens before us a stage which was a nation and an epoch in history, on which a pageant of romance, adventure, and heroism unequaled by any crusade plays itself before us. And slowly, as we become more en rapport with the thought and mode of expression of Nabíl, that pageant and its figures begin to take hold on of us, to live for us as realisms; or perhaps something deeper still, we take hold of them and, inspired by their deeds and the lofty atmosphere of their lives, try to carry out into our own far Western World that same banner of shining belief and inner conviction that they raised aloft in Persia not eighty years ago.’

Thus, in the world of creativity and art, our aspiration, which pulls us to the future and forms our vision, can be sublime — transcendent. Free from division and dichotomies, whatever we create then would have a universal effect. Let us introduce ourselves to the true heroes and allow them to inspire us!

The Dawn-Breakers, also known as Nabil’s Narrative, is available free of charge as an e-publication here: https://www.bahaiebooks.org/publications/thedawnbreakers/