July 27

The Shí‘ihs believed in fourteen immaculate Souls and four Gates. The fourteen immaculate Souls are Muhammad, Fátimih, and the twelve Imáms. The four Gates are the four individuals who succeeded one another as the leaders of the Shí‘ihs after the twelfth Imám. Thus these eighteen souls [Letters of the Living] were appointed to match those eighteen—the main intent was the number. The Báb Himself was the nineteenth. Such is the basis of the number nineteen that has been mentioned in all the Books and Tablets of the Báb…

The greatness and glory of most of these Letters of the Living resides solely in the fact that they professed their faith at the very beginning. Among them and in terms of importance, a few souls occupy a primary position—Mullá Ḥusayn, Quddús, and Ṭáhirih; a few other blessed souls occupy a secondary position; and the rest are honoured solely for having believed in the very beginning—two of them even, like Judas Iscariot, recanted their faith later. 

- ‘Abdu’l-Baha  (From a talk, new resources prepared by the Baha’i World Center, 2019; Online Baha’i Reference Library)