Know thou moreover that thy letter reached Our presence and
We perceived and perused its contents. We noted the questions thou hast asked
and will readily answer thee. It behoveth everyone in this Day to ask God that
which he desireth, and thy Lord will heed his petition with wondrous and
undeniable verses. 
The clear tokens of My power roused the envy of My foes, and
the compelling evidences of My wisdom stirred the hatred of the malevolent: Not
a single night did I repose in peace; not a single morn did I awake in
tranquillity. I swear by the beauty of God that Husayn shed tears of anguish at
the wrongs I suffered and Abraham cast Himself into the flames for the sake of
the afflictions I sustained. Wert thou to gaze with discernment, thou wouldst
behold the Eye of Grandeur weeping sore beneath the tabernacle of sanctity, and
the Essence of Majesty lamenting within the realms of loftiness. Unto this
beareth witness the Tongue of truth and glory.
A Word hath, as a token of Our grace, gone forth from the
Most Great Tablet—a Word which God hath adorned with the ornament of His own
Self, and made it sovereign over the earth and all that is therein, and a sign
of His greatness and power among its people, that all may glorify thereby their
Lord, the Almighty, the All-Powerful, the All-Wise, and extol the praise of
their Creator and the sanctity of the Soul of God that holdeth sway over all
created things. This, verily, is none other than a Word sent down by Him Who is
the All-Knowing, the Ancient of Days.
There hath branched from the Sadratu’l-Muntahá this sacred
and glorious Being, this Branch of Holiness; well is it with him that hath
sought His shelter and abideth beneath His shadow. Verily the Limb of the Law
of God hath sprung forth from this Root which God hath firmly implanted in the
Ground of His Will, and Whose Branch hath been so uplifted as to encompass the
whole of creation. Magnified be He, therefore, for this sublime, this blessed,
this mighty, this exalted Handiwork! Draw nigh unto Him, O people, and taste
the fruits of wisdom and knowledge that have proceeded from Him Who is the
Almighty, the All-Knowing. Whoso hath failed to taste thereof is deprived of
God’s bounty, though he partake of all that the earth can produce, could ye but
perceive it!
Strive, O people, to enter beneath the sheltering shadow of the
Word of God. Quaff, then, from it the choice wine of inner meaning and
explanation, for it is the repository of the living waters of the All-Glorious
and hath appeared from the horizon of the Will of the All-Merciful with
matchless splendour. Say: Out of this Most Great Ocean there hath branched the
Pre-existent Sea; blessed the one that hath attained and found repose upon its
shores.
The All-Merciful saith in the Qur’án, His abiding testimony
unto all the peoples of the world: “Wish ye then for death, if ye be men of
truth.” [Qur’an 2:94, 62:6] Behold how
He hath declared the yearning for death to be the touchstone of sincerity! And,
in the luminous mirror of thy judgement, it is doubtless clear and evident
which people have chosen, in this day, to lay down their lives in the path of
the Beloved of the worlds. Indeed, were the books supporting the beliefs of
this people to be written with the blood spilled in the path of God—exalted be
His glory!—then countless volumes would have already appeared amongst men for
all to see.
O King! The breezes of the grace of the All-Merciful have
transformed these servants and attracted them unto His Holy Court. “The witness
of a true lover is upon his sleeve.” Nevertheless, some of the outwardly learned have troubled the luminous
heart of the King of the Age concerning these souls who revolve round the
Tabernacle of the All-Merciful and who seek to attain the Sanctuary of true
knowledge. Would that the world-adorning wish of His Majesty might decree that
this Servant be brought face to face with the divines of the age, and produce
proofs and testimonies in the presence of His Majesty the Sháh! This Servant is
ready, and taketh hope in God, that such a gathering may be convened in order
that the truth of the matter may be made clear and manifest before His Majesty
the Sháh. It is then for thee to command, and I stand ready before the throne
of thy sovereignty. Decide, then, for Me or against Me.
O Pen of Glory! Intone the anthems of grandeur, for We have
inhaled the fragrance of reunion at the approach of that Day whereon the
kingdom of names was adorned with the ornament of Our Name, the Exalted, the
Most High. No sooner was this Day mentioned before the Throne than the Maids of
Heaven chanted a wondrous melody, the Nightingale pealed out its heavenly song,
and the All-Merciful gave voice to that which enraptured the souls of the
Messengers of God, His chosen ones, and those who enjoy near access to Him.
Lo, the Tongue of Glory hath called aloud and the Word of
God hath cried out, proclaiming: “The Kingdom is God’s, the Creator of the
heavens and the Lord of all names!” And yet the people, for the most part, are
heedless. The entire creation resoundeth with the melodies of the All-Merciful,
the realms of sanctity are redolent with the fragrance of His raiment, and the
Most Great Name hath shed the splendour of His glory upon all who dwell on
earth, and yet the people are wrapped in a palpable veil.
…O ye lovers of the beauty of the All-Glorious! O ye that
ardently seek the court of the presence of the Almighty! This is the day of
nearness and reunion, not the time for contention and idle words. If ye be
sincere lovers, behold the beauty of the Best-Beloved shining clear and
resplendent as the true morn. It behoveth you to be free from all attachment,
whether to yourselves or to others; nay, ye should renounce existence and
non-existence, light and darkness, glory and abasement alike. Sever your hearts
from all transitory things, from all idle fancies and vain imaginings, that ye
may, pure and unsullied, enter the realm of the spirit and partake with radiant
hearts of the splendours of everlasting holiness.
That concealed Word upon which the souls of all the
Messengers of God and His Chosen Ones have ever depended hath manifested itself
out of the invisible world into the visible plane. No sooner had this hidden
Word shone forth from the Realm of inmost being and absolute singleness to
illumine the peoples of the earth than a breeze of mercy wafted therefrom,
purifying all things from the stench of sin and arraying the countless forms of
existence and the reality of man with the vesture of forgiveness. So great was
the wondrous grace which pervaded all things that through the utterance of the
letters “B” and “E” the gems that lay hid within the repositories of this
contingent world were brought forth and made manifest. Thus were the seen and
the unseen joined in one garment, and the hidden and the manifest clothed in a
single robe; thus did utter nothingness attain the realm of eternity, and pure
evanescence gain admittance into the court of everlasting life.
Say, I swear by God! In this Revelation even before a single
verse was sent down from the realm of holiness and sublimity, the supreme
testimony of God had been fulfilled for all the inmates of heaven and the
dwellers on earth; moreover, We have revealed the equivalent of whatsoever was
sent down in the Dispensation of the Bayán. Fear ye God and suffer not your
deeds to be rendered vain and be not of them that are sunk in heedlessness.
Open your eyes that ye may behold the Ancient Beauty from this shining and
luminous station.
John, son of Zacharias, [John the Baptist] said what My
Forerunner [the Báb] hath said: “Saying, repent ye, for the Kingdom of heaven
is at hand. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He [Jesus]
that cometh after Me is mightier than I, Whose shoes I am not worthy to bear.”
Wherefore, hath My Forerunner [the Báb], as a sign of submissiveness and
humility, said: “The whole of the Bayán is only a leaf amongst the leaves of
His Paradise.” And likewise, He saith: “I am the first to adore Him, and pride
Myself on My kinship with Him.” And yet, O men, the people of the Bayán have
acted in such a manner… This Wronged One hath, in the face of all religions,
busied Himself day and night with the things that are conducive unto the
exaltation of the Cause of God, whereas those men have clung unto that which is
the cause of humiliation and injury.
They [Bábis] that have turned aside from Me have spoken even
as the followers of John (the Baptist) spoke. For they, too, protested against
Him Who was the Spirit (Jesus) saying: “The dispensation of John hath not yet
ended; wherefore hast thou come?” Now, too, they that have repudiated Us,
though they have never known Us and have been at all times ignorant of the
fundamentals of this Cause, knowing not from Whom it proceeded or what it
signifieth, have spoken that which hath made all created things to sigh and
lament. By My life! The mute can never confront the One Who incarnateth in
Himself the kingdom of utterance. Fear God, O people, and peruse, then, that
which hath been sent down with truth in the eighth Chapter of the sixth Vahíd
of the Bayán, and be not of such as have turned aside. He, likewise, hath
commanded: “Once every nineteen days this Chapter should be read, that haply
they may not be veiled, in the time of the revelation of Him Whom God shall
make manifest, by considerations foreign to the verses, which have been, and
are still, the weightiest of all proofs and testimonies.”
Alas, alas, for the things which have befallen Me! By God!
There befell Me at the hands of him whom I have nurtured (Mírzá Yaḥyá), by day
and by night, what hath caused the Holy Spirit, and the dwellers of the
Tabernacle of the Grandeur of God, the Lord of this wondrous Day, to lament.
Arise thou to serve the Cause and say: I swear by the
righteousness of God! Verily this is the Primal Point, arrayed in His new
attire and manifested in His glorious Name. He at present beholdeth everything
from this Horizon. Indeed He is supreme over all things. Amongst the Concourse
on High He is known as the Most Great Announcement and in the Realms of
Eternity as the Ancient Beauty, and before the Throne by this Name [1] which
hath caused the footsteps of them that are endued with understanding to slip.
I, verily, have not fallen short of My duty to admonish that
people, and to devise means whereby they may turn towards God, their Lord, and
believe in God, their Creator. If, on the day of His Revelation, all that are
on earth bear Him allegiance, Mine inmost being will rejoice, inasmuch as all
will have attained the summit of their existence, and will have been brought
face to face with their Beloved, and will have recognized, to the fullest
extent attainable in the world of being, the splendor of Him Who is the Desire
of their hearts. If not, My soul will indeed be saddened. I truly have nurtured
all things for this purpose. How, then, can anyone be veiled from Him? For this
have I called upon God, and will continue to call upon Him. He, verily, is
nigh, ready to answer.
To transgress the limits of one’s own rank and station is,
in no wise, permissible. The integrity of every rank and station must needs be
preserved. By this is meant that every created thing should be viewed in the
light of the station it hath been ordained to occupy.
How puny and insignificant is the evanescent drop when
compared with the waves and billows of God’s limitless and everlasting Ocean,
and how utterly contemptible must every contingent and perishable thing appear
when brought face to face with the uncreated, the unspeakable glory of the
Eternal!... How can a fleeting fancy compare with the Self-Subsisting, and how
can the Creator be likened unto His creatures, who are but as the script of His
Pen? Nay, His script excelleth all things, and is sanctified from, and
immeasurably exalted above, all creatures.
He [Baha’u’llah]—glorified be His mention—resembleth the
sun. Were unnumbered mirrors to be placed before it, each would, according to
its capacity, reflect the splendor of that sun, and were none to be placed
before it, it would still continue to rise and set, and the mirrors alone would
be veiled from its light.
O Vafa! [1]… It behoveth thee, however, to exert thine
utmost to attain the very essence of fidelity. This implieth to be well assured
in thy heart and to testify with thy tongue to that whereunto God hath
testified for His Own exalted Self, proclaiming: ‘Verily, self-subsisting am I
within the Realm of Glory.’ Whoso is enabled in these days to solemnly affirm
this truth, hath attained unto all good, and the heavenly Spirit shall descend
upon him in the daytime and in the night season, shall graciously assist him to
glorify the Name of his Lord and suffer him to unloose his tongue and uphold
with his words the Cause of his Lord, the Merciful, the Compassionate. And none
can ever achieve this except he who hath purged his heart from whatsoever is
created between heaven and earth, and hath entirely detached himself from all
but God, the sovereign Lord, the Almighty, the Gracious.
O Vafa! [1] Render thanks unto thy Lord for having aided
thee to embrace His Cause, enabled thee to recognize the Manifestation of His
Own Self and raised thee up to magnify Him Who is the Most Great Remembrance in
this glorious Announcement.
And I praise and glorify that primal Sea which hath branched
out from the ocean of the unseen Essence, and that primal Morn which hath
broken forth upon the horizon of Singleness, and that primal Sun which hath
risen in the heaven of everlasting splendour, and that primal Fire which was
kindled from the Lamp of eternity within the Niche of oneness: He Who is called
“Ahmad” in the kingdom of the exalted ones, and “Muhammad” amongst the
concourse of the favoured ones, and “Mahmúd” in the realm of the sincere; [1]
and in the hearts of the knowing, “whichsoever ye call upon, most beauteous are
His names.” [2] And upon His kindred and His companions be abundant, abiding,
and eternal peace!
Far be it from us to despair at any time of the incalculable
favours of God, for if it were His wish He could cause a mere atom to be
transformed into a sun and a single drop into an ocean. He unlocketh thousands
of doors, while man is incapable of conceiving even a single one.
The essential requirement for whoso advanceth a claim is to
support his assertions with clear proofs and testimonies. Beyond this, the
rejection of the people, whether learned or ignorant, hath never been, nor
shall it ever be, of any consequence. The Prophets of God, those Pearls of the
ocean of Divine Unity and the Repositories of Divine Revelation, have ever been
the object of men’s repudiation and denial. Even as He saith: “Each nation hath plotted darkly against their
Messenger to lay violent hold on Him, and disputed with vain words to
invalidate the truth.” [Qur’an 40:5] And again: “No Messenger cometh unto them
but they laugh Him to scorn.” [Qur’an 36:30]
Let no one imagine that by Our assertion that all created
things are the signs of the revelation of God is meant that—God forbid—all men,
be they good or evil, pious or infidel, are equal in the sight of God. Nor doth
it imply that the Divine Being—magnified be His name and exalted be His
glory—is, under any circumstances, comparable unto men, or can, in any way, be
associated with His creatures. Such an error hath been committed by certain
foolish ones who, after having ascended into the heavens of their idle fancies,
have interpreted Divine Unity to mean that all created things are the signs of
God, and that, consequently, there is no distinction whatsoever between them.
Some have even outstripped them by maintaining that these signs are peers and
partners of God Himself. Gracious God! He, verily, is one and indivisible; one
in His essence, one in His attributes. Everything besides Him is as nothing
when brought face to face with the resplendent revelation of but one of His
names, with no more than the faintest intimation of His glory—how much less
when confronted with His own Self!
…these servants regard the one true God as He Who “doeth as
He willeth” [Qur’an 3:40; 14:27; 22:18] and “ordaineth as He pleaseth”.[Qur’an
5:1] Thus they view not as impossible the continued appearance in the
contingent world of the Manifestations of His Unity. Should anyone hold otherwise, how would he be
different from those who believe the hand of God to be “chained up”? [Qur’an 5:64] And if the one true
God—glorified be His mention!—be indeed regarded as unconstrained, then
whatever Cause that Ancient King may please to manifest from the wellspring of
His Command must be embraced by all. No refuge is there for anyone and no haven
to hasten unto save God; no protection is there for any soul and no shelter to
seek except in Him.
Consider…how frequently doth man become forgetful of his own
self, whilst God remaineth, through His all-encompassing knowledge, aware of
His creature, and continueth to shed upon him the manifest radiance of His
glory. It is evident, therefore, that, in such circumstances, He is closer to
him than his own self. He will, indeed, so remain for ever, for, whereas the
one true God knoweth all things, perceiveth all things, and comprehendeth all
things, mortal man is prone to err, and is ignorant of the mysteries that lie
enfolded within him....
Concerning thine own affairs, if thou wouldst content
thyself with whatever might come to pass it would be praiseworthy. To engage in
some profession is highly commendable, for when occupied with work one is less
likely to dwell on the unpleasant aspects of life. God willing thou mayest
experience joy and radiance, gladness and exultation in any city or land where
thou mayest happen to sojourn.