When thou art departed out of the court of My presence, O
Muhammad, direct thy steps towards My House (Baghdád House), and visit it on
behalf of thy Lord. When thou reachest its door, stand thou before it and say:
Whither is the Ancient Beauty gone, O most great House of God, He through Whom
God hath made thee the cynosure of an adoring world, and proclaimed thee to be
the sign of His remembrance unto all who are in the heavens and all who are on
the earth? Oh! for the former days when thou, O House of God, wert made His
footstool, the days when in ceaseless strains the melody of the All-Merciful
poured forth from thee! What hath become of thy jewel whose glory hath
irradiated all creation? Whither are gone the days in which He, the Ancient
King, had made thee the throne of His glory, the days in which He had chosen
thee alone to be the lamp of salvation between earth and heaven, and caused
thee to diffuse, at dawn and at eventide, the sweet fragrance of the
All-Glorious?
- Baha’u’llah (‘Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah’)
