Bahā'-Allāh's extant writings very largely date from the last 40 years of his life (1852-1892 CE) and were written in Arabic and / or Persian, and sometimes a mixture of these languages. The Persian of Baha'-Allah is often highly Arabized. For the most part his writings are letters written in honor of and /or in reply to Bābīs and Bahā'īs, varying in length from a few lines to several hundred pages.  Though largely untitled a proportion, perhaps  500 (?) or more, usually of the more weighty, doctrinally significant writings have specific designations. In line with the conviction that they were expressions of waḥy (divine revelation), the kalimat Allāh (Word of God), like the (original) Torah, Gospels and Qur'ān, many of these revelations are referred to by the following time-honored (largely) Abrahamic religions  names:

(a) لوح, الواح    lawḥ (pl. alwāḥ), scriptural `tablets’, cf. Heb XXXXXX, Ar. Qur'ān 7: 1XX, etc.

(b) سورة / سور   sūrah,  (pl. suwar).

(c)  كِتَاب/  كُتُب    kitāb  (pl. kutub), book, writings, letters, pages .. hence kitāb-i ------ ,

(d) صَحِيف / صُحُف    ṣaḥīfa  (pl. ṣuḥuf )  ------(scrolls..),

        Occurring eight times in the Qur'an (=Q.), the originally Sabaic word ṣaḥīfa (`document’, pl. ṣuḥuf ) according to the Arabic sources indicates a `sheet’ or piece of material for writing upon; hence, `page of writing’, `scroll’, `scripture’, etc (Jeffery, 1938:192-4; Ghédira, `ṣuḥuf’', EI² VIII: 834-5; Maraqten, 1998:309). Though the Q. says very little about divine revelations sent down prior to the time of Moses, the word ṣuḥuf  ("scriptures") is used in this connection. There is mention of the "earlier scriptures" (al-ṣuḥuf al-ulā), the ṣuḥuf Ibrahīm wa mūsā ("The Scriptures of Abraham and Moses" Q. 87:19).

        In one way or another the Arabic words ṣaḥīfa and ṣuḥuf are quite common in Bābī-Bahā'ī sacred literatures, often indicating specific revealed writings as well as indicating pre-Islamic or especially pre-Mosaic divine revelation. Both the Bāb and Bahā'-Allāh used ṣaḥīfa  in varied and diverse ways  to indicate portions of their sacred writings. The Bāb, for example, wrote a Ṣaḥīfa bayn al-ḥaramayn  usually loosely rendered `Epistle between the Two Shrines' [Mecca and Medina],  (Muḥarram 1261/ mid.Jan. 1845) and Bahā'-Allāh authored the Ṣaḥīfa-yi Shaṭṭiyya (Scroll of the Raging Torrent, c.1857-8) as well as a  Ṣaḥīfat Allah ("The Scroll of God", c. 1858) perhaps 25 or more years later (from near Acre in Ottoman Palestine) addressed especially to a group of Iranian Jewish converts.

 (e) risāla [-yi] ----- ) treatises

 (f) tafsīr-i ----- ( commentaries).

 

 Very few  of these writings are studied or systematic compositions. In excess of 500  (?)  works of Bahā'-Allāh were specifically  titled   by their author after terms or themes of central importance, or after the name or title of the recipient (s). Some writings have several titles or names e.g. Lawḥ-i kāf-zā' (`Tablet of K and Ẓ') an allusion to his major disciple Kāẓim Samandar who is honored therein)  and  Lawḥ-i Fu`ad Pasha, the one-time Turkish Foreign Minister (ADD   ) he being the one directly addressed.

        Only a small proportion of Bahā'-Allāh's "revelations" were written down by Bahā'-Allāh himself; largely revelations dating before the mid-1860s. The vast majority of them were rapidly dictated to amanuenses and subsequently `transcribed', neatly written for distribution and checked by their author. [1] A good many alwaḥ contain sometimes abrupt changes of language, form, style and/or content and exhibit grammatical peculiarities. [2] Some were written as if by the Bāb or leading Bābīs, most notably Mīrzā Āqā Jān of Kāshān, Khadim-Allāh (d.190X) Bahā'-Allāh's leading amanuensis. [3]

        Between 1852 and 1892 Bahā'-Allāh wrote or dictated in excess of  perhaps 20,000 items of sacred scripture. There writings include a large numbers of Arabic and Persian poetic compositions, large quantities of prayers,  meditations and various kinds of devotional texts including a large numbers of  celebratory ziyarāt-namih compositions (commemoratory, `Visiting tablets'), as well as Dhikr-type litanies, mystical revelations, visionary narratives, allegorical prophecies, ritual and legalistic directives, ethical exhortations, theophanological proclamations and commentaries upon biblical, qur'ānic and other sacred texts and religious traditions.

        Apart from thousands of letters to communities, groups and individual Bābīs and Bahā'īs, Bahā'ī scripture includes a fairly large number of epistles addressed to Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Sunnī or Shī`ī and Shaykhī Muslims, Azalī Bābīs, diverse oriental rulers, diplomats and freethinkers and a number of Western monarchs and leaders. [1] By the time of his residence in Edirne (1863-8) Bahā'-Allāh claimed to have revealed the equivalent of all that God had communicated to past prophets and Messengers. Towards the end of his life he estimated that his collected revelations would fill 100 volumes (Lawḥ-i Shaykh, XX ETr. ESW:115, 165 cf. GPB:xxx ).

        The present writer is aware of about 35 major titled writings dating from the Iraq period (1853-1863), 50 or more from the Istanbul-Edirne period (1863-1868) and 100 or more from he Ottoman Palestinian, West Galilean or (loosely) Acre (=`Akkā') period (1868-1892).  Bahā'-Allāh did not keep a complete, centralized collection of his writings or arrange for such a collection to be made during his lifetime, though many important sometimes large manuscript collections were made before (and of course) after his passing in 1892. In his Persian lawḥ-i Sarrāj (c. 1867) he explicitly states that he did not desire any systematic collection and circulation of volumes of his writings as this could only be befittingly accomplished in the future (Lawḥ-i Sarrāj, 91 cf. RB2:269).

        By no means all of Bahā'-Allāh's writings have, to date, been collected together, classified, collated or studied by researchers working at the Bahā'ī world center in Haifa (Israel) or by scholars working elsewhere. Only a small proportion of them (largely major titled alwaḥ ) have been published in the original languages and even fewer translated into English (or other languages). [3] Much research will need to be carried out before the Sitz-im-leben  and hence the specific meaning of a good many writings becomes clear. The exact or even general dating of certain major and many minor revelations is uncertain. Only a limited number of alwaḥ are dated; most notably revelations as if by the aforementioned Mīrzā Āgā Jān of the mid-late West Galilean (Acre) period. Some works are of doubtful authenticity and contain faulty insertions, others  exist in several evolving recensions all "sound" expressions of the revelation of their author (e.g. Rashh-i `ama'  1852/60s/ etc and Surat al-haykal, 1867-8+73?). Critical editions of Bahā'ī scripture remain a thing of the future as does the befitting scholarly publication of  autograph and scholarly editions.

         Bahā'-Allāh used at least ten variously inscribed seals; see the Jewish mystical, sefirot, "emanations" type arrangement pictured in the plate facing p.78 of Taherzadeh's RB1). He did not, however, seal all his revelations and a proportion of which have been interpolated. Printed scientific critical editions of Bābī and Bahā'ī scripture are largely a thing of the future. Currently published editions of Bahā'-Allāh's writings (or those printed in compilations) are by no means always based on autograph or reliable mss. In certain  printed volumes,   including  Ishrāq Khāvarī's 9 volume Ma'idih yi āsmānī  ("The Heavenly Table"), errors are legion, especially in Arabic alwāḥ copied by Persians and others without an adequate knowledge of Bābī-Bahā'ī scriptural Arabic, an admittedly complicated body of religious literature.

    The exact person or multiple persons to whom many scriptural writings or (collectively) alwah were addressed, remains uncertain or unknown. This in part due to Bahā'-Allāh's extensive use of alphabetic and other ciphers (largely for security reasons) and the fact that many of the individuals addressed bore the same name(s). All in all the scholarly study of Bahā'-Allāh's writings has hardly begun. Many fascinating discoveries await the patient researcher of Bābi-Bahā'ī doctrine and history.