As to the words—“Immediately after the oppression of those
days”[1]—they refer to the time when men shall become oppressed and afflicted,
the time when the lingering traces of the Sun of Truth and the fruit of the
Tree of knowledge and wisdom will have vanished from the midst of men, when the
reins of mankind will have fallen into the grasp of the foolish and ignorant,
when the portals of divine unity and understanding—the essential and highest
purpose in creation—will have been closed, when certain knowledge will have
given way to idle fancy, and corruption will have usurped the station of
righteousness. Such a condition as this is witnessed in this day when the reins
of every community have fallen into the grasp of foolish leaders, who lead
after their own whims and desire. On their tongue the mention of God hath
become an empty name; in their midst His holy Word a dead letter. Such is the
sway of their desires, that the lamp of conscience and reason hath been
quenched in their hearts, and this although the fingers of divine power have
unlocked the portals of the knowledge of God, and the light of divine knowledge
and heavenly grace hath illumined and inspired the essence of all created
things, in such wise that in each and every thing a door of knowledge hath been
opened, and within every atom traces of the sun hath been made manifest. And
yet, in spite of all these manifold revelations of divine knowledge, which have
encompassed the world, they still vainly imagine the door of knowledge to be
closed, and the showers of mercy to be stilled. (Baha’u’llah, ‘Kitab-i-Iqan’)
[1] Matthew 24:29-31
