gh the teachings of the Bayan have been
abrogated and superseded by the laws of the Aqdas, yet due to the
fact that the Bab considered Himself as the Forerunner of
Baha'u'llah, we would regard His Dispensation together with that
of Baha'u'llah as forming one entity, the former being
introductory to the advent of the latter.

The Bab states that His laws are provisional and depend upon the
acceptance of the future Manifestation. This is why in the Book of
Aqdas Baha'u'llah sanctions some of the laws found in the Bayan,
modifies others and sets aside many.

Just as the Bayan had been revealed by the Bab at about the mid-point of
His Ministry, Baha'u'llah revealed the Kitab-i-Aqdas around 1873, some
twenty years after He had received, in the Siyah-C{~COMBINING MACRON BELOW~}h{~COMBINING MACRON BELOW~}al of Tihran, the
intimation of His Revelation. In one of His Tablets He indicates that even
after its revelation the Aqdas was withheld by Him for some time before it
was sent to the friends in Iran. Thereafter, as Shoghi Effendi has
related:

The formulation by Baha'u'llah, in His Kitab-i-Aqdas, of the
fundamental laws of His Dispensation was followed, as His Mission
drew to a close, by the enunciation of certain precepts and
principles which lie at the very core of His Faith, by the
reaffirmation of truths He had previously proclaimed, by the
elaboration and elucidation of some of the laws He had already
laid down, by the revelation of further prophecies and warnings,
and by the establishment of subsidiary ordinances designed to
supplement the provisions of His Most Holy Book. These were
recorded in unnumbered Tablets, which He continued to reveal until
the last days of His earthly life...

Among such works is the Questions and Answers, a compilation made by
Zaynu'l-Muqarrabin, the most eminent of the transcribers of Baha'u'llah's
Writings. Consisting of answers revealed by Baha'u'llah to questions put
to Him by various believers, it constitutes an invaluable appendix to the
Kitab-i-Aqdas. In 1978 the most noteworthy of the other Tablets of this
nature were published in English as a compilation entitled Tablets of
Baha'u'llah revealed after the Kitab-i-Aqdas.

Some years after the revelation of the Kitab-i-Aqdas, Baha'u'llah had
manuscript copies sent to Baha'is in Iran, and in the year 1308 A.H.
(1890-91 A.D.), towards the end of His