Whoso turneth towards God must distinguish himself from
others by his every deed, and follow that which hath been enjoined upon him in
the Book. Thus hath it been decreed in a lucid Tablet. Those, however, who cast
behind their backs the commandments of God, and follow the prompting of their
own desires, are, verily, in grievous error. 
Call Thou to mind God’s mercy unto Thee; how, when Thou wert
imprisoned with a number of other souls, He delivered Thee and aided Thee with
the hosts of the seen and the unseen, until the King sent Thee to ‘Iráq after
We had disclosed unto him that Thou wert not of the sowers of sedition. Those
who follow their corrupt desires and lay aside the fear of God are indeed in
grievous error. They that spread disorder in the land, shed the blood of men,
and wrongfully consume the substance of others — We, verily, are clear of them,
and We beseech God not to associate Us with them, whether in this world or in
the world to come, unless they should repent unto Him. He, verily, is of those
who show mercy the most merciful.
Whensoever the clouds of tribulation have rained down the
darts of affliction in the path of God, the Lord of all names, I have hastened
to meet them, as every fair-minded and discerning soul shall attest. How many the nights which found the beasts of
the field resting in their lairs, and the birds of the air lying in their
nests, while this Youth languished in chains and fetters with none to aid or
succour Him!
O brother, we should open our eyes, meditate upon His Word,
and seek the sheltering shadow of the Manifestations of God, that perchance we
may be warned by the unmistakable counsels of the Book, and give heed to the
admonitions recorded in the holy Tablets; that we may not cavil at the Revealer
of the verses, that we may resign ourselves wholly to His Cause, and embrace
wholeheartedly His law, that haply we may enter the court of His mercy, and
dwell upon the shore of His grace. He, verily, is merciful, and forgiving
towards His servants.
Give ear unto God’s holy Voice, and heed thou His sweet and
immortal melody. Behold how He hath solemnly warned them that have repudiated
the verses of God, and hath disowned them that have denied His [the Báb’s] holy
words. Consider how far the people have strayed from the Kawthar of the divine
Presence, and how grievous hath been the faithlessness and arrogance of the
spiritually destitute in the face of that sanctified Beauty. Although that
Essence of lovingkindness and bounty caused those evanescent beings to step
into the realm of immortality, and guided those destitute souls to the sacred
river of wealth, yet some denounced Him as “a calumniator of God, the Lord of
all creatures,” others accused Him of being “the one that withholdeth the
people from the path of faith and true belief,” and still others declared Him
to be “a lunatic” and the like.
…the people of the Qur’án, like unto the people of old, have
allowed the words “Seal of the Prophets” to veil their eyes. And yet, they
themselves testify to this verse: “None knoweth the interpretation thereof but
God and they that are well-grounded in knowledge.” [Qur’án 3:7] And when He Who
is well-grounded in all knowledge, He Who is the Mother, the Soul, the Secret,
and the Essence thereof, revealeth that which is the least contrary to their
desire, they bitterly oppose Him and shamelessly deny Him.
Verily I say, the human soul is, in its essence, one of the
signs of God, a mystery among His mysteries. It is one of the mighty signs of
the Almighty, the harbinger that proclaimeth the reality of all the worlds of
God. Within it lieth concealed that which the world is now utterly incapable of
apprehending. Ponder in thine heart the revelation of the Soul of God that
pervadeth all His Laws, and contrast it with that base and appetitive nature
that hath rebelled against Him, that forbiddeth men to turn unto the Lord of
Names, and impelleth them to walk after their lusts and wickedness. Such a soul
hath, in truth, wandered far in the path of error...
Every created thing in the whole universe is but a door
leading into His [God’s] knowledge, a sign of His sovereignty, a revelation of
His names, a symbol of His majesty, a token of His power, a means of admittance
into His straight Path....
Much hath been written in the books of old concerning the
various stages in the development of the soul, such as concupiscence,
irascibility, inspiration, benevolence, contentment, Divine good-pleasure, and
the like; the Pen of the Most High, however, is disinclined to dwell upon them.
Every soul that walketh humbly with its God, in this Day, and cleaveth unto
Him, shall find itself invested with the honor and glory of all goodly names
and stations.
Whoso hath, in this Day, refused to allow the doubts and
fancies of men to turn him away from Him Who is the Eternal Truth, and hath not
suffered the tumult provoked by the ecclesiastical and secular authorities to
deter him from recognizing His Message, such a man will be regarded by God, the
Lord of all men, as one of His mighty signs, and will be numbered among them
whose names have been inscribed by the Pen of the Most High in His Book.
Blessed is he that hath recognized the true stature of such a soul, that hath
acknowledged its station, and discovered its virtues.
O Ye that Pride Yourselves on Mortal Riches! Know ye in
truth that wealth is a mighty barrier between the seeker and his desire, the
lover and his beloved. The rich, but for a few, shall in no wise attain the
court of His presence nor enter the city of content and resignation. Well is it
then with him, who, being rich, is not hindered by his riches from the eternal
kingdom, nor deprived by them of imperishable dominion. By the Most Great Name!
The splendor of such a wealthy man shall illuminate the dwellers of heaven even
as the sun enlightens the people of the earth!
For every land We have prescribed a portion, for every
occasion an allotted share, for every pronouncement an appointed time and for
every situation an apt remark. Consider Greece. We made it a Seat of Wisdom for
a prolonged period. However, when the appointed hour struck, its throne was
subverted, its tongue ceased to speak, its light grew dim and its banner was
hauled down. Thus do We bestow and withdraw. Verily thy Lord is He Who giveth
and divesteth, the Mighty, the Powerful.
Say, O people of the earth! Beware lest any reference to
wisdom debar you from its Source or withhold you from the Dawning-Place
thereof. Fix your hearts upon your Lord, the Educator, the All-Wise.
This is a Tablet wherein the Pen of the Unseen hath
inscribed the knowledge of all that hath been and shall be—a knowledge that
none other but My wondrous Tongue can interpret. Indeed My heart as it is in
itself hath been purged by God from the concepts of the learned and is
sanctified from the utterances of the wise. In truth naught doth it mirror
forth but the revelations of God. Unto this beareth witness the Tongue of
Grandeur in this perspicuous Book.
The first person who devoted himself to philosophy was
Ídrís. Thus was he named. Some called him also Hermes. In every tongue he hath
a special name. He it is who hath set forth in every branch of philosophy
thorough and convincing statements. After him Bálinus derived his knowledge and
sciences from the Hermetic Tablets and most of the philosophers who followed
him made their philosophical and scientific discoveries from his words and
statements...
After Socrates came the divine Plato who was a pupil of the
former and occupied the chair of philosophy as his successor. He acknowledged
his belief in God and in His signs which pervade all that hath been and shall
be. Then came Aristotle, the well-known man of knowledge. He it is who
discovered the power of gaseous matter. These men who stand out as leaders of
the people and are pre-eminent among them, one and all acknowledged their
belief in the immortal Being Who holdeth in His grasp the reins of all
sciences.
O My beloved friends! You are the bearers of the name of God
in this Day. You have been chosen as the repositories of His mystery. It
behoves each one of you to manifest the attributes of God, and to exemplify by
your deeds and words the signs of His righteousness, His power and glory. The
very members of your body must bear witness to the loftiness of your purpose,
the integrity of your life, the reality of your faith, and the exalted
character of your devotion. ... Beseech the Lord your God to grant that no
earthly entanglements, no worldly affections, no ephemeral pursuits, may
tarnish the purity or embitter the sweetness of that grace which flows through
you. I am preparing you for the advent of a mighty Day. Exert your utmost
endeavour that, in the world to come, I, who am now instructing you, may,
before the mercy-seat of God, rejoice in your deeds and glory in your
achievements. –
All glory be to Thee, O Lord my God! I bear witness for Thee
to that whereto Thou Thyself didst bear witness for Thine own Self, ere the day
Thou hadst created the creation or made mention thereof, that Thou art God, and
that there is none other God beside Thee. From eternity Thou hast, in Thy
transcendent oneness, been immeasurably exalted above Thy servants’ conception
of Thy unity, and wilt to eternity remain, in Thine unapproachable singleness,
far above the praise of Thy creatures. No words that any one beside Thee may
utter can ever beseem Thee, and no man’s description except Thine own
description can befit Thy nature. All who adore Thy unity have been sore
perplexed to fathom the mystery of Thy oneness, and all have confessed their
powerlessness to attain unto the comprehension of Thine essence and to scale
the pinnacle of Thy knowledge.
The Day Star of Divine Revelation, that shineth in the
plenitude of its glory in the heaven of this Prison, beareth Me witness. They
whose hearts are turned towards Him Who is the Object of the adoration of the
entire creation must needs, in this Day, pass beyond and be sanctified from all
created things, visible and invisible. If they arise to teach My Cause, they
must let the breath of Him Who is the Unconstrained, stir them and must spread
it abroad on the earth with high resolve, with minds that are wholly centered
in Him, and with hearts that are completely detached from and independent of
all things, and with souls that are sanctified from the world and its vanities.
It behoveth them to choose as the best provision for their journey reliance
upon God, and to clothe themselves with the love of their Lord, the Most
Exalted, the All-Glorious. If they do so, their words shall influence their
hearers.
And when Thou didst purpose to make Thyself known unto men,
Thou didst successively reveal the Manifestations of Thy Cause, and ordained
each to be a sign of Thy Revelation among Thy people, and the Day-Spring of
Thine invisible Self amidst Thy creatures, until the time when, as decreed by
Thee, all Thy previous Revelations culminated in Him Whom Thou hast appointed
as the Lord of all who are in the heaven of revelation and the kingdom of
creation, Him Whom Thou hast established as the Sovereign Lord of all who are
in the heavens and all who are on the earth. He it was Whom Thou hast
determined to be the Herald of Thy Most Great Revelation and the Announcer of
Thy Most Ancient Splendor. In this Thou hadst no other purpose except to try
them who have manifested Thy most excellent titles unto all who are in heaven
and on earth. He it was Whom Thou hast commanded to establish His covenant with
all created things.
Beware lest ye deal with Me as ye dealt with My Herald. Do
not object, when the verses of God are sent down unto you from the Court of My
favour, saying, “these do not proceed from an innate and untaught nature”, for
that nature itself hath been created by My word and circleth round Me, if ye be
of them that apprehend this truth.
O Salmán! Say: O people! Tread ye in the path of the one
true God and ponder the ways and words of Him Who is the Manifestation of His
ancient Being, that perchance ye may attain unto the Wellspring of the living
waters of the All-Glorious. Were believers and non-believers to occupy the same
station, were the worlds of God to be confined to this ephemeral plane, never
would My previous Manifestation have surrendered Himself into the hands of His
foes or laid down His life as a sacrifice. I swear by the dawning-light of this
Cause that were the people to grasp the barest intimation of the fervour and
longing which overcame that sovereign Beauty when His celestial Temple was
suspended in the air, all would, in the intensity of their own yearning, offer
up their souls in the path of this Manifestation of supernal glory.
The more He [the Báb] extolled the remembrance of God, the
greater they waxed in their oppression, until all the divines pronounced
sentence against Him, save those that were acquainted with the precepts of God,
the All-Glorious, the Best-Beloved. Matters came to such a pass that they
united to put Him to death. They suspended Him in the air, and the hosts of
misbelief flung at Him the bullets of malice and hatred, piercing the body of
the One unto Whom the Holy Spirit is a humble servant, the dust of Whose feet
is the object of adoration of the Concourse on high, and from Whose very
sandals the inmates of Paradise seek a blessing.
No Prophet have We ever raised up except that He was
repudiated by the divines whilst they prided themselves in their learning, even
as they do in this day. Say: O concourse of divines! Do ye worship the Calf and
abandon the One Who hath created you and taught you that which ye knew not?
The voice of the Divine Herald, proceeding out of the throne
of God, declareth: O ye My loved ones! Suffer not the hem of My sacred vesture
to be smirched and mired with the things of this world, and follow not the
promptings of your evil and corrupt desires.
In the year sixty He Who heralded the light of Divine
Guidance—may all creation be a sacrifice unto Him—arose to announce a fresh
revelation of the Divine Spirit, and was followed, twenty years later, by Him
through Whose coming the world was made the recipient of this promised glory,
this wondrous favor. Behold how the generality of mankind hath been endued with
the capacity to hearken unto God’s most exalted Word—the Word upon which must
depend the gathering together and spiritual resurrection of all men....
The thing that must come hath come suddenly; behold how they
flee from it! The inevitable hath come to pass; witness how they have cast it
behind their backs! This is the Day whereon every man will fly from himself,
how much more from his kindred, could ye but perceive it. Say: By God! The
blast hath been blown on the trumpet, and lo, mankind hath swooned away before
us! The Herald hath cried out, and the Summoner raised His voice saying: “The
Kingdom is God’s, the Most Powerful, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting.”
O King of the Earth!
Hearken unto the call of this Vassal: Verily, I am a Servant Who hath believed in God and in His signs, and
have sacrificed Myself in His path. Unto
this bear witness the woes which now beset Me, woes the like of which no man
hath ever before sustained. My Lord, the
All-Knowing, testifieth to the truth of My words. I have summoned the people unto none save
God, thy Lord and the Lord of the worlds, and have endured for love of Him such
afflictions as the eye of creation hath never beheld. To this testify those whom the veils of human
fancy have not deterred from turning unto the Most Sublime Vision, and, beyond
them, He with Whom is the knowledge of all things in the preserved Tablet.
Say: O people!... He that hath
appeared with the power of truth is indeed the Glory of the worlds, could ye
but perceive it. He, verily, is the Glory of God; upon Him be the remembrance
of God and His praise, and the praise of the Concourse on high, and of the
dwellers of the everlasting realm, and of all things at all times. Beware lest
ye become veiled by aught that hath been created in heaven or on earth. Hasten
unto the paradise of His good-pleasure and be not of them that slumber.
QUESTION: Concerning observance of the Fast by people
engaged in hard labour during the month of fasting.