The Báb's writings are enormous — estimates run to hundreds of thousands of verses — and very little has been translated or published. The principal works are the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá', revealed on the night of the declaration; the Persian Bayán and the shorter Arabic Bayán, written in prison at Máh-Kú and Chihríq; and a large body of prayers and commentaries. The Bayán contains laws of remarkable severity and impracticality — restrictions on possessions, on travel, on marriage, and provisions concerning the destruction of non-Bábí books — and Bahá'í interpretation holds that these were never intended for implementation. The Báb's own repeated statement is that his dispensation's purpose was to prepare for Him Whom God shall make manifest, who would appear soon and whose word would supersede his own entirely, and that no one should let anything in the Bayán prevent them from recognising that figure. On this reading the severity is a demonstration of authority and a test rather than a code, which is unusual as a theory of one's own legislation.