Ponder upon the people unto whom the Gospel was given. Their
religious leaders were considered as the true Guides of the Gospel, yet when
they shut themselves out from Muhammad, the Apostle of God, they turned into
guides of error, notwithstanding that all their lives they had faithfully
observed the precepts of their religion in order to attain unto Paradise; then
when God made Paradise known unto them, they would not enter therein. Those
unto whom the Qur’án is given have wrought likewise. They performed their acts
of devotion for the sake of God, hoping that He might enable them to join the
righteous in Paradise. However, when the gates of Paradise were flung open to
their faces, they declined to enter. They suffered themselves to enter into the
fire, though they had been seeking refuge therefrom in God.
- The Báb (‘Selections from the Writings of the Báb’)
