It is sometimes referred to as the completion of the Persian Bayán. The Íqán constitutes the major theological work of Baháʼu'lláh, and hence of the Baháʼí Faith. Christopher Buck, author of a major study of the Íqán, has referred to this theme of the book as its 'messianic secret,' paralleling the same theme in the Gospel of Mark. References to his own station therefore appear only in veiled form. black-pit), a dungeon in Tehran, he had not yet openly declared his mission. While Baháʼu'lláh had claimed to have received a revelation some ten years earlier in the Síyáh-Chál (lit. Shoghi Effendi, the translator of this version of the Kitáb-i-Íqán gave it the english name The Book of Certitude, and described it as: A model of Persian prose, of a style at once original, chaste and vigorous, and remarkably lucid, both cogent in argument and matchless in its irresistible eloquence, this Book, setting forth in outline the Grand Redemptive Scheme of God, occupies a position unequalled by any work in the entire range of Bahá'í literature, except the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Bahá'u'lláh's Most Holy Book.The work was composed partly in Persian and partly in Arabic by Baháʼu'lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, in 1861, when he was living as an exile in Baghdad, then a province of the Ottoman Empire. Bahá’u’lláh revealed the entirety of the Íqán-in Arabic and Persian-in under two days in response to his questions.

He wrote to Bahá’u’lláh with a series of questions regarding the Báb and Islámic prophecy. Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid Muḥammad was a devout Muslim, and upon hearing that his own (then deceased) nephew had declared himseld to be the Mahdi of Islám, was thrown into confusion. The Íqán was written in response to questions recieved from Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid Muḥammad, the uncle of the Báb, the Prophet-Founder of the Bábí Religion. At this point in time he was a member of the Bábí community, not yet having founded his own religion. The Íqán was written in 1861, when Bahá’u’lláh was resident in Baghdad, Iraq. Bahá’u’lláh’s Kitáb-i-Íqán is the major theological treatise of Bahá’í scripture.

The Kitáb-i-Íqán by Bahá'u'lláh