O people of the Bayán! Would ye deny Him Whose presence is the very object of your creation,
while ye rejoice idly upon your couches? Would ye laugh to scorn and contend with Him, a single hair of Whose
head excelleth, in the sight of God, all that are in the heavens and all that
are on the earth? O people of the Bayán! Produce, then, that which ye possess, that I
may know by what proof ye believed aforetime in the Manifestations of His
Cause, and by what reason ye now wax so disdainful!
I swear by Him Who hath fashioned Me from the light of His
own Beauty! None have I ever seen that
surpasseth you in heedlessness or exceedeth you in ignorance. Ye seek to prove your faith in God through
such holy Tablets as ye possess, yet when the verses of God were revealed and
His Lamp was lighted, ye disbelieved in Him Whose very Pen hath fixed the
destinies of all things in the Preserved Tablet. Ye recite the sacred verses and yet repudiate
Him Who is their Source and Revealer.
Thus hath God blinded your eyes in requital for your deeds, would ye but
understand. Day and night ye transcribe
the verses of God, and yet ye remain shut out, as by a veil, from Him Who hath
revealed them. (Baha’u’llah, Súriy-i-Haykal, ‘The Summons of the Lord of
Hosts’)
