Mihraban Rustam Bulbulan

Mihraban Rustam Bulbulan (185? - 1940) was a Persian Bahá’í who received a Tablet from Bahá’u’lláh.

Biography

Mihraban was born in the village of Maryamabad in the Persian province of Yazd in the 1850's into a Zoroastrian family of farmers. He received a rudimentary education at Zoroastrian temple learning basic literacy and some Zoroastrian prayers but became a farmer like his family working from sunrise to sunset from his youth.

Mihraban was introduced to the Bahá’í Faith in 1869 when two Bahá’ís being chased by a mob came to his farm and requested his protection. He allowed them to hide in a barn on his property and when the group chasing them arrived he convinced them they were no longer in the area. He then lent them one of his donkeys and refused to accept payment in return but asked them why they had been being chased. They informed Mihraban that they were Bahá’ís and were travelling to the Holy Land on pilgrimage to meet with Bahá’u’lláh and Mihraban asked them to mention him to Bahá’u’lláh.

When the pilgrims met with Bahá’u’lláh in Akka He reportedly told them that they had forgotten something and they eventually remembered Mihraban and shared the story of Mihraban protecting them and his request that he be mentioned to Bahá’u’lláh. As a result Bahá’u’lláh revealed a Tablet for Mihraban. While Mihraban received the Tablet he did not associate with the Bahá’ís as at the time the Bahá’í community was uninterested in teaching non-Muslims. In the late 1870's a Zoroastrian, Mulla Bahram, became a Bahá’í through Hájí Muhammad-Táhir-i-Málmírí and began teaching the religion within the Zoroastrian community of Yazd and Mihraban became a Bahá’í through Bahram, and received a Tablet from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at some point.

In later life Mihraban moved to India to live with his daughter who had settled in the country, married, and had a family including a daughter Salisa. Mihraban passed away in India in 1940 at over eighty years of age.