In like manner, strive thou to comprehend from these lucid,
these powerful, conclusive, and unequivocal statements the meaning of the
“cleaving of the heaven”—one of the signs that must needs herald the coming of
the last Hour, the Day of Resurrection. As He hath said: “When the heaven shall
be cloven asunder.” [Qur’án 82:1] By “heaven” is meant the heaven of divine
Revelation, which is elevated with every Manifestation, and rent asunder with
every subsequent one. By “cloven asunder” is meant that the former Dispensation
is superseded and annulled. I swear by God! That this heaven being cloven
asunder is, to the discerning, an act mightier than the cleaving of the skies!
Ponder a while. That a divine Revelation which for years hath been securely
established; beneath whose shadow all who have embraced it have been reared and
nurtured; by the light of whose law generations of men have been disciplined;
the excellency of whose word men have heard recounted by their fathers; in such
wise that human eye hath beheld naught but the pervading influence of its
grace, and mortal ear hath heard naught but the resounding majesty of its
command—what act is mightier than that such a Revelation should, by the power
of God, be “cloven asunder” and be abolished at the appearance of one soul?
Reflect, is this a mightier act than that which these abject and foolish men
have imagined the “cleaving of the heaven” to mean? (Baha’u’llah, ‘The
Kitab-i-Iqan’)
