Thy vision is obscured by the belief that divine revelation
ended with the coming of Muhammad, and unto this We have borne witness in Our
first epistle. Indeed, He Who hath revealed verses unto Muhammad, the Apostle
of God, hath likewise revealed verses unto ‘Alí-Muhammad. For who else but God
can reveal to a man such clear and manifest verses as overpower all the
learned? Since thou hast acknowledged the revelation of Muhammad, the Apostle
of God, then there is no other way open before thee but to testify that
whatever is revealed by the Primal Point hath also proceeded from God, the Help
in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. Is it not true that the Qur’án hath been sent
down from God and that all men are powerless before its revelation? Likewise
these words have also been revealed by God, if thou dost but perceive. What is
there in the Bayán which keepeth thee back from recognizing these verses as
being sent forth by God, the Inaccessible, the Most Exalted, the All-Glorious?
The essence of these words is this: Were We to bring thee to
a reckoning, thou wouldst prove thyself empty-handed; We in truth know all
things. Hadst thou uttered ‘yea’ on hearing the Words of God, thou wouldst have
been seen to have been worshipping God from the beginning that hath no
beginning until the present day, never to have disobeyed Him, not even for the
twinkling of an eye. Yet, neither the upright deeds thou hast wrought during
all thy life, nor the exertions thou didst make to banish every thought from
thy heart save that of the good-pleasure of God, none of these did in truth
profit thee, not even to the extent of a grain of mustard seed, inasmuch as
thou didst veil thyself from God and tarried behind at the time of His
manifestation. (The Báb, from an address to a Muslim divine; ‘Selections from
the Writings of the Báb)
