Morning
Those divines …who are truly adorned with the ornament of knowledge and of a goodly character are, verily, as a head to the body of the world, and as eyes to the nations. The guidance of men hath, at all times, been, and is, dependent upon such blessed souls. We beseech God to graciously aid them to do His will and pleasure. He, in truth, is the Lord of all men, the Lord of this world and of the next.
- Baha’u’llah (’Epistle to the Son of the Wolf’)
Evening
Ponder likewise the Dispensation of the Apostle of God which lasted twelve hundred and seventy years [1] till the dawn of the manifestation of the Bayán. He directed everyone to await the advent of the Promised Qá’im. All deeds which in the Islamic Dispensation began with Muḥammad should find their consummation through the appearance of the Qá’im. God hath made Him manifest invested with the proof wherewith the Apostle of God was invested, so that none of the believers in the Qur’án might entertain doubts about the validity of His Cause, for it is set down in the Qur’án that none but God is capable of revealing verses. During the period of 1270 years no one among the followers of the Qur’án ever witnessed a person appearing with conclusive proofs. Now the Ever-Living Lord hath made manifest and invested with supreme testimony this long-awaited Promised One from a place no one could imagine and from a person whose knowledge was deemed of no account. His age is no more than twenty-five years, yet His glory is such as none of the learned among the people of Islám can rival; inasmuch as man’s glory lieth in his knowledge. Behold the learned who are honoured by virtue of their ability to understand the Holy Writings, and God hath exalted them to such a degree that in referring to them He saith: ‘None knoweth the meaning thereof except God and them that are well-grounded in knowledge.’ [Qur’án 3:5] How strange then that this twenty-five-year-old untutored one should be singled out to reveal His verses in so astounding a manner.
- The Báb (From ‘The Seven Proofs’; ‘Selections from the Writings of the Báb')
[1] From the Declaration of Muhammad; this occurred ten
years before the Hijrah which marks the starting point of the Muslim calendar]
