extraordinary men but extraordinary women qualified even to represent
God, and to lead their less gifted fellow-men or fellow-women up the
heights of sanctity. The idea of a woman-Bab is so original that it
almost takes one's breath away, and still more perhaps does the
view--modestly veiled by the Haji--that certain men and even women are
of divine nature scandalize a Western till it becomes clear that the
two views are mutually complementary. Indeed, the only difference in
human beings is that some realize more, and some less, or even not at
all, the fact of the divine spark in their composition. Kurratu'l
'Ayn certainly did realize her divinity. On one occasion she even
reproved one of her companions for not at once discerning that she was
the _Kibla_ towards which he ought to pray. This is no poetical
conceit; it is meant as seriously as the phrase, 'the Gate,' is meant
when applied to Mirza 'Ali Muhammad. We may compare it with another
honorific title of this great woman--'The Mother of the World.'

The love of God and the love of man were in fact equally prominent in
the character of Kurratu'l 'Ayn, and the Glorious One (el-Abha) had
endowed her not only with moral but with high intellectual gifts. It
was from the head of the Sheykhi sect (Haji Sayyid Kazim) that she
received her best-known title, and after the Sayyid's death it was she
who (see below) instructed his most advanced disciples; she herself,
indeed, was more advanced than any, and was essentially, like Symeon
in St. Luke's Gospel, a waiting soul. As yet, it appears, the young
Shiraz Reformer had not heard of her. It was a letter which she wrote
after the death of the Sayyid to Mulla Huseyn of Bushraweyh which
brought her rare gifts to the knowledge of the Bab. Huseyn himself
was not commissioned to offer Kurratu'l 'Ayn as a member of the new
society, but the Bab 'knew what was in man,' and divined what the
gifted woman was desiring. Shortly afterwards she had opportunities of