- Friends and fellow-heirs of the Kingdom of Bahá'u'lláh:
- A tempest, unprecedented in its violence, unpredictable in its course,
catastrophic in its immediate effects, unimaginably glorious in its ultimate
consequences, is at present sweeping the face of the earth. Its
driving power is remorselessly gaining in range and momentum. Its
cleansing force, however much undetected, is increasing with every
passing day. Humanity, gripped in the clutches of its devastating power,
is smitten by the evidences of its resistless fury. It can neither perceive
its origin, nor probe its significance, nor discern its outcome. Bewildered,
agonized and helpless, it watches this great and mighty wind of God
invading the remotest and fairest regions of the earth, rocking its
foundations, deranging its equilibrium, sundering its nations, disrupting the
homes of its peoples, wasting its cities, driving into exile its kings,
pulling down its bulwarks, uprooting its institutions, dimming its light,
and harrowing up the souls of its inhabitants.
- "The time for the destruction of the world and its people," Bahá'u'lláh's
prophetic pen has proclaimed, "hath arrived." "The hour
is approaching," He specifically affirms, "when the most great convulsion
will have appeared." "The promised day is come, the day when
tormenting trials will have surged above your heads, and beneath your
feet, saying: `Taste ye what your hands have wrought!'" "Soon shall the
blasts of His chastisement beat upon you, and the dust of hell enshroud
you." And again: "And when the appointed hour is come, there shall
suddenly appear that which shall cause the limbs of mankind to quake."
"The day is approaching when its [civilization's] flame will devour the
cities, when the Tongue of Grandeur will proclaim: `The Kingdom is
God's, the Almighty, the All-Praised!'" "The day will soon come," He,
referring to the foolish ones of the earth, has written, "whereon they will
cry out for help and receive no answer." "The day is approaching," He
moreover has prophesied, "when the wrathful anger of the Almighty will
have taken hold of them. He, verily, is the Omnipotent, the All-Subduing,
the Most Powerful. He shall cleanse the earth from the
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defilement of their corruption, and shall give it for an heritage unto such
of His servants as are nigh unto Him."
- "As to those who deny Him Who is the Sublime Gate of God," the Báb,
for His part, has affirmed in the Qayyúm-i-Asmá', "for them We have
prepared, as justly decreed by God, a sore torment. And He, God, is the
Mighty, the Wise." And further, "O peoples of the earth! I swear by your
Lord! Ye shall act as former generations have acted. Warn ye, then,
yourselves of the terrible, the most grievous vengeance of God. For God is,
verily, potent over all things." And again: "By My glory! I will make the
infidels to taste, with the hands of My power, retributions unknown of
anyone except Me, and will waft over the faithful those musk-scented
breaths which I have nursed in the midmost heart of My throne."
- Dear friends! The powerful operations of this titanic upheaval are
comprehensible to none except such as have recognized the claims of
both Bahá'u'lláh and the Báb. Their followers know full well whence it
comes, and what it will ultimately lead to. Though ignorant of how far it
will reach, they clearly recognize its genesis, are aware of its direction,
acknowledge its necessity, observe confidently its mysterious processes,
ardently pray for the mitigation of its severity, intelligently labor to
assuage its fury, and anticipate, with undimmed vision, the consummation
of the fears and the hopes it must necessarily engender.
This Judgment of God
- This judgment of God, as viewed by those who have recognized
Bahá'u'lláh as His Mouthpiece and His greatest Messenger on earth, is
both a retributory calamity and an act of holy and supreme discipline. It
is at once a visitation from God and a cleansing process for all mankind.
Its fires punish the perversity of the human race, and weld its component
parts into one organic, indivisible, world-embracing community. Mankind,
in these fateful years, which at once signalize the passing of the
first century of the Bahá'í Era and proclaim the opening of a new one, is,
as ordained by Him Who is both the Judge and the Redeemer of the
human race, being simultaneously called upon to give account of its
past actions, and is being purged and prepared for its future mission. It
can neither escape the responsibilities of the past, nor shirk those of the
future. God, the Vigilant, the Just, the Loving, the All-Wise Ordainer,
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can, in this supreme Dispensation, neither allow the sins of an unregenerate
humanity, whether of omission or of commission, to go unpunished,
nor will He be willing to abandon His children to their fate,
and refuse them that culminating and blissful stage in their long, their
slow and painful evolution throughout the ages, which is at once their
inalienable right and their true destiny.
- "Bestir yourselves, O people," is, on the one hand, the ominous
warning sounded by Bahá'u'lláh Himself, "in anticipation of the days of
Divine Justice, for the promised hour is now come." "Abandon that
which ye possess, and seize that which God, Who layeth low the necks of
men, hath brought. Know ye of a certainty that if ye turn not back from
that which ye have committed, chastisement will overtake you on every
side, and ye shall behold things more grievous than that which ye beheld
aforetime." And again: "We have fixed a time for you, O people! If ye fail,
at the appointed hour, to turn towards God, He, verily, will lay violent
hold on you, and will cause grievous afflictions to assail you from every
direction. How severe indeed is the chastisement with which your Lord
will then chastise you!" And again: "God assuredly dominateth the lives
of them that wronged Us, and is well aware of their doings. He will most
certainly lay hold on them for their sins. He, verily, is the fiercest of
Avengers." And finally: "O ye peoples of the world! Know verily that an
unforeseen calamity is following you and that grievous retribution
awaiteth you. Think not the deeds ye have committed have been blotted
from My sight. By My Beauty! All your doings hath My pen graven with
open characters upon tablets of chrysolite."
- "The whole earth," Bahá'u'lláh, on the other hand, forecasting the
bright future in store for a world now wrapt in darkness, emphatically
asserts, "is now in a state of pregnancy. The day is approaching when it
will have yielded its noblest fruits, when from it will have sprung forth the
loftiest trees, the most enchanting blossoms, the most heavenly blessings."
"The time is approaching when every created thing will have cast
its burden. Glorified be God Who hath vouchsafed this grace that
encompasseth all things, whether seen or unseen!" "These great
oppressions," He, moreover, foreshadowing humanity's golden age, has
written, "are preparing it for the advent of the Most Great Justice." This
Most Great Justice is indeed the Justice upon which the structure of the
Most Great Peace can alone, and must eventually, rest, while the Most
Great Peace will, in turn, usher in that Most Great, that World Civilization
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which shall remain forever associated with Him Who beareth the
Most Great Name.
- Beloved friends! Well nigh a hundred years have elapsed since the
Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh dawned upon the world--a Revelation, the
nature of which, as affirmed by Himself, "none among the Manifestations
of old, except to a prescribed degree, hath ever completely
apprehended." For a whole century God has respited mankind, that it
might acknowledge the Founder of such a Revelation, espouse His
Cause, proclaim His greatness, and establish His Order. In a hundred
volumes, the repositories of priceless precepts, mighty laws, unique
principles, impassioned exhortations, reiterated warnings, amazing
prophecies, sublime invocations, and weighty commentaries, the
Bearer of such a Message has proclaimed, as no Prophet before Him has
done, the Mission with which God had entrusted Him. To emperors,
kings, princes and potentates, to rulers, governments, clergy and peoples,
whether of the East or of the West, whether Christian, Jew,
Muslim, or Zoroastrian, He addressed, for well-nigh fifty years, and in
the most tragic circumstances, these priceless pearls of knowledge and
wisdom that lay hid within the ocean of His matchless utterance.
Forsaking fame and fortune, accepting imprisonment and exile, careless
of ostracism and obloquy, submitting to physical indignities and
cruel deprivations, He, the Vicegerent of God on earth, suffered Himself
to be banished from place to place and from country to country, till
at length He, in the Most Great Prison, offered up His martyred son as a
ransom for the redemption and unification of all mankind. "We verily,"
He Himself has testified, "have not fallen short of Our duty to exhort
men, and to deliver that whereunto I was bidden by God, the Almighty,
the All-Praised. Had they hearkened unto Me, they would have beheld
the earth another earth." And again: "Is there any excuse left for anyone
in this Revelation? No, by God, the Lord of the Mighty Throne! My signs
have encompassed the earth, and My power enveloped all mankind, and
yet the people are wrapped in a strange sleep!"
What Response to His Call?
- How--we may well ask ourselves--has the world, the object of such
Divine solicitude, repaid Him Who sacrificed His all for its sake? What
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manner of welcome did it accord Him, and what response did His call
evoke? A clamor, unparalleled in the history of Shí'ih Islám, greeted, in
the land of its birth, the infant light of the Faith, in the midst of a people
notorious for its crass ignorance, its fierce fanaticism, its barbaric
cruelty, its ingrained prejudices, and the unlimited sway held over the
masses by a firmly entrenched ecclesiastical hierarchy. A persecution,
kindling a courage which, as attested by no less eminent an authority
than the late Lord Curzon of Kedleston, has been unsurpassed by that
which the fires of Smithfield evoked, mowed down, with tragic swiftness,
no less than twenty thousand of its heroic adherents, who refused
to barter their newly born faith for the fleeting honors and security of a
mortal life.
- To the bodily agonies inflicted upon these sufferers, the charges, so
unmerited, of Nihilism, occultism, anarchism, eclecticism, immorality,
sectarianism, heresy, political partisanship--each conclusively disproved
by the tenets of the Faith itself and by the conduct of its
followers--were added, swelling thereby the number of those who,
unwittingly or maliciously, were injuring its cause.
- Unmitigated indifference on the part of men of eminence and rank;
unrelenting hatred shown by the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the Faith
from which it had sprung; the scornful derision of the people among
whom it was born; the utter contempt which most of those kings and
rulers who had been addressed by its Author manifested towards it; the
condemnations pronounced, the threats hurled, and the banishments
decreed by those under whose sway it arose and first spread; the distortion
to which its principles and laws were subjected by the envious and
the malicious, in lands and among peoples far beyond the country of its
origin--all these are but the evidences of the treatment meted out by a
generation sunk in self-content, careless of its God, and oblivious of the
omens, prophecies, warnings and admonitions revealed by His Messengers.
- The blows so heavily dealt the followers of so precious, so glorious, so
potent a Faith failed, however, to assuage the animosity that inflamed its
persecutors. Nor did the deliberate and mischievous misrepresentations
of its fundamental teachings, its aims and purposes, its hopes and
aspirations, its institutions and activities, suffice to stay the hand of the
oppressor and the calumniator, who sought by every means in their
power to abolish its name and extirpate its system. The hand which had
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struck down so vast a number of its blameless and humble lovers and
servants was now raised to deal its Founders the heaviest and cruelest
blows.
- The Báb--"the Point," as affirmed by Bahá'u'lláh, "round Whom the
realities of the Prophets and Messengers revolve"--was the One first
swept into the maelstrom which engulfed His supporters. Sudden arrest
and confinement in the very first year of His short and spectacular
career; public affront deliberately inflicted in the presence of the
ecclesiastical dignitaries of Shíráz; strict and prolonged incarceration in
the bleak fastnesses of the mountains of Ádhirbayján; a contemptuous
disregard and a cowardly jealousy evinced respectively by the Chief
Magistrate of the realm and the foremost minister of his government; the
carefully staged and farcical interrogatory sustained in the presence of
the heir to the Throne and the distinguished divines of Tabríz; the
shameful infliction of the bastinado in the prayer house, and at the
hands of the Shaykhu'l-Islám of that city; and finally suspension in the
barrack-square of Tabríz and the discharge of a volley of above seven
hundred bullets at His youthful breast under the eyes of a callous
multitude of about ten thousand people, culminating in the ignominious
exposure of His mangled remains on the edge of the moat without
the city gate--these were the progressive stages in the tumultuous and
tragic ministry of One Whose age inaugurated the consummation of all
ages, and Whose Revelation fulfilled the promise of all Revelations.
- "I swear by God!" the Báb Himself in His Tablet to Muhammad Sháh
has written, "Shouldst thou know the things which in the space of these
four years have befallen Me at the hands of thy people and thine army,
thou wouldst hold thy breath from fear of God.... Alas, alas, for the
things which have touched Me!... I swear by the Most Great Lord! Wert
thou to be told in what place I dwell, the first person to have mercy on Me
would be thyself. In the heart of a mountain is a fortress [Mákú] ... the
inmates of which are confined to two guards and four dogs. Picture, then,
My plight.... In this mountain I have remained alone, and have come
to such a pass that none of those gone before Me have suffered what I have
suffered, nor any transgressor endured what I have endured!"
- "How veiled are ye, O My creatures," He, speaking with the voice of
God, has revealed in the Bayán, "...who, without any right, have
consigned Him unto a mountain [Mákú], not one of whose inhabitants is
worthy of mention.... With Him, which is with Me, there is no one
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except him who is one of the Letters of the Living of My Book. In His
presence, which is My Presence, there is not at night even a lighted lamp!
And yet, in places [of worship] which in varying degrees reach out unto
Him, unnumbered lamps are shining! All that is on earth hath been
created for Him, and all partake with delight of His benefits, and yet they
are so veiled from Him as to refuse Him even a lamp!"
- What of Bahá'u'lláh, the germ of Whose Revelation, as attested by
the Báb, is endowed with a potency superior to the combined forces of
the Bábí Dispensation? Was He not--He for Whom the Báb had
suffered and died in such tragic and miraculous circumstances--made,
for nearly half a century and under the domination of the two most
powerful potentates of the East, the object of a systematic and concerted
conspiracy which, in its effects and duration, is scarcely paralleled in the
annals of previous religions?
- "The cruelties inflicted by My oppressors," He Himself in His anguish
has cried out, "have bowed Me down, and turned My hair white.
Shouldst thou present thyself before My throne, thou wouldst fail to
recognize the Ancient Beauty, for the freshness of His countenance is
altered and its brightness hath faded, by reason of the oppression of the
infidels. I swear by God! His heart, His soul, and His vitals are melted!"
"Wert thou to hear with Mine ear," He also declares, "thou wouldst hear
how `Alí [the Báb] bewaileth Me in the presence of the Glorious Companion,
and how Muhammad weepeth over Me in the all-highest Horizon,
and how the Spirit [Jesus] beateth Himself upon the head in the
heaven of My decree, by reason of what hath befallen this Wronged One
at the hands of every impious sinner." "Before Me," He elsewhere has
written, "riseth up the Serpent of wrath with jaws stretched to engulf Me,
and behind Me stalketh the lion of anger intent on tearing Me in pieces,
and above Me, O My Well-Beloved, are the clouds of Thy decree, raining
upon Me the showers of tribulations, whilst beneath Me are fixed the
spears of misfortune, ready to wound My limbs and My body." "Couldst
thou be told," He further affirms, "what hath befallen the Ancient
Beauty, thou wouldst flee into the wilderness, and weep with a great
weeping. In thy grief, thou wouldst smite thyself on the head, and cry out
as one stung by the sting of the adder.... By the righteousness of God!
Every morning I arose from My bed I discovered the hosts of countless
afflictions massed behind My door, and every night when I lay down, lo!
My heart was torn with agony at what it had suffered from the fiendish
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cruelty of its foes. With every piece of bread the Ancient Beauty breaketh
is coupled the assault of a fresh affliction, and with every drop He
drinketh is mixed the bitterness of the most woeful of trials. He is preceded
in every step He taketh by an army of unforeseen calamities, while in His
rear follow legions of agonizing sorrows."
- Was it not He Who, at the early age of twenty-seven, spontaneously
arose to champion, in the capacity of a mere follower, the nascent
Cause of the Báb? Was He not the One Who by assuming the actual
leadership of a proscribed and harrassed sect exposed Himself, and His
kindred, and His possessions, and His rank, and His reputation to the
grave perils, the bloody assaults, the general spoliation and furious
defamations of both government and people? Was it not He--the Bearer
of a Revelation, Whose day "every Prophet hath announced," for which
"the soul of every Divine Messenger hath thirsted," and in which "God
hath proved the hearts of the entire company of His Messengers and
Prophets"--was not the Bearer of such a Revelation, at the instigation of
Shí'ih ecclesiastics and by order of the Sháh himself forced, for no less
than four months, to breathe, in utter darkness, whilst in the company
of the vilest criminals and freighted down with galling chains, the
pestilential air of the vermin-infested subterranean dungeon of
Tihrán--a place which, as He Himself subsequently declared, was
mysteriously converted into the very scene of the annunciation made to
Him by God of His Prophethood?
- "We were consigned," He wrote in His "Epistle to the Son of the
Wolf," "for four months to a place foul beyond comparison. As to the
dungeon in which this Wronged One and others similarly wronged were
confined, a dark and narrow pit were preferable.... The dungeon was
wrapped in thick darkness, and Our fellow prisoners numbered nearly a
hundred and fifty souls: thieves, assassins, and highwaymen. Though
crowded, it had no other outlet than the passage by which We entered. No
pen can depict that place, nor any tongue describe its loathsome smell.
Most of these men had neither clothes nor bedding to lie on. God alone
knoweth what befell Us in that most foul-smelling and gloomy place!"
"`Abdu'l-Bahá," writes Dr. J.E. Esslemont, "tells how one day He was
allowed to enter the prison-yard to see His beloved Father when He
came out for His daily exercise. Bahá'u'lláh was terribly altered, so ill He
could hardly walk. His hair and beard unkempt, His neck galled and
swollen from the pressure of a heavy steel collar, His body bent by the
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weight of His chains." "For three days and three nights," Nabíl has
recorded in his chronicle, "no manner of food or drink was given to
Bahá'u'lláh. Rest and sleep were both impossible to Him. The place was
infested with vermin, and the stench of that gloomy abode was enough
to crush the very spirits of those who were condemned to suffer its
horrors." "Such was the intensity of His suffering that the marks of that
cruelty remained imprinted upon His body all the days of His life."
- And what of the other tribulations which, before and immediately
after this dreadful episode, touched Him? What of His confinement in
the home of one of the kad-khudás of Tihrán? What of the savage
violence with which He was stoned by the angry people in the neighborhood
of the village of Níyálá? What of His incarceration by the emissaries
of the army of the Sháh in Mazindarán, and His receiving the
bastinado by order, and in the presence, of the assembled siyyids and
mujtahids into whose hands He had been delivered by the civil authorities
of Ámul? What of the howls of derision and abuse with which a
crowd of ruffians subsequently pursued Him? What of the monstrous
accusation brought against Him by the Imperial household, the Court
and the people, when the attempt was made on the life of Násiri'd-Dín
Sháh? What of the infamous outrages, the abuse and ridicule heaped on
Him when He was arrested by responsible officers of the government,
and conducted from Níyávarán "on foot and in chains, with bared head
and bare feet," and exposed to the fierce rays of the midsummer sun, to
the Síyáh-Chál of Tihrán? What of the avidity with which corrupt
officials sacked His house and carried away all His possessions and
disposed of His fortune? What of the cruel edict that tore Him from the
small band of the Báb's bewildered, hounded, and shepherdless followers,
separated Him from His kinsmen and friends, and banished Him,
in the depth of winter, despoiled and defamed, to `Iráq?
- Severe as were these tribulations which succeeded one another with
bewildering rapidity as a result of the premeditated attacks and the
systematic machinations of the court, the clergy, the government and
the people, they were but the prelude to a harrowing and extensive
captivity which that edict had formally initiated. Extending over a
period of more than forty years, and carrying Him successively to `Iráq,
Sulaymáníyyih, Constantinople, Adrianople and finally to the penal
colony of `Akká, this long banishment was at last ended by His death, at
the age of over three score years and ten, terminating a captivity which,
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in its range, its duration and the diversity and severity of its afflictions,
is unexampled in the history of previous Dispensations.
- No need to expatiate on the particular episodes which cast a lurid light
on the moving annals of those years. No need to dwell on the character
and actions of the peoples, rulers and divines who have participated in,
and contributed to heighten the poignancy of the scenes of this, the
greatest drama in the world's spiritual history.
Features of This Moving Drama
- To enumerate a few of the outstanding features of this moving drama
will suffice to evoke in the reader of these pages, already familiar with
the history of the Faith, the memory of those vicissitudes which it has
experienced, and which the world has until now viewed with such frigid
indifference. The forced and sudden retirement of Bahá'u'lláh to the
mountains of Sulaymáníyyih, and the distressing consequences that
flowed from His two years' complete withdrawal; the incessant intrigues
indulged in by the exponents of Shí'ih Islám in Najaf and Karbilá,
working in close and constant association with their confederates in
Persia; the intensification of the repressive measures decreed by Sultán
`Abdu'l-`Azíz which brought to a head the defection of certain prominent
members of the exiled community; the enforcement of yet another
banishment by order of that same Sultán, this time to that far off and
most desolate of cities, causing such despair as to lead two of the exiles to
attempt suicide; the unrelaxing surveillance to which they were subjected
upon their arrival in `Akká, by hostile officials, and the insufferable
imprisonment for two years in the barracks of that town; the
interrogatory to which the Turkish páshá subsequently subjected his
Prisoner at the headquarters of the government; His confinement for no
less than eight years in a humble dwelling surrounded by the befouled
air of that city, His sole recreation being confined to pacing the narrow
space of His room--these, as well as other tribulations, proclaim, on the
one hand, the nature of the ordeal and the indignities He suffered, and
point, on the other, the finger of accusation at those mighty ones of the
earth who had either so sorely maltreated Him, or deliberately withheld
from Him their succor.
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- No wonder that from the Pen of Him Who bore this anguish with
such sublime patience these words should have been revealed: "He Who
is the Lord of the seen and unseen is now manifest unto all men. His
blessed Self hath been afflicted with such harm that if all the seas, visible
and invisible, were turned into ink, and all that dwell in the kingdom
into pens, and all that are in the heavens and all that are on earth into
scribes, they would, of a certainty, be powerless to record it." And again:
"I have been, most of the days of My life, even as a slave, sitting under a
sword hanging on a thread, knowing not whether it would fall soon or
late upon him." "All this generation," He affirms, "could offer Us were
wounds from its darts, and the only cup it proffered to Our lips was the
cup of its venom. On Our neck We still bear the scar of chains, and upon
Our body are imprinted the evidences of an unyielding cruelty." "Twenty
years have passed, O kings!" He, addressing the kings of Christendom, at
the height of His mission, has written, "during which We have, each
day, tasted the agony of a fresh tribulation. No one of them that were
before Us hath endured the things We have endured. Would that ye could
perceive it! They that rose up against Us have put Us to death, have shed
Our blood, have plundered Our property, and violated Our honor.
Though aware of most of Our afflictions, ye, nevertheless, have failed to
stay the hand of the aggressor. For is it not your clear duty to restrain the
tyranny of the oppressor, and to deal equitably with your subjects, that
your high sense of justice may be fully demonstrated to all mankind?"
- Who is the ruler, may it not be confidently asked, whether of the East
or of the West, who, at any time since the dawn of so transcendent a
Revelation, has been prompted to raise his voice either in its praise or
against those who persecuted it? Which people has, in the course of so
long a captivity, felt urged to arise and stem the tide of such tribulations?
Who is the sovereign, excepting a single woman, shining in solitary
glory, who has, in however small a measure, felt impelled to respond to
the poignant call of Bahá'u'lláh? Who amongst the great ones of the
earth was inclined to extend this infant Faith of God the benefit of his
recognition or support? Which one of the multitudes of creeds, sects,
races, parties and classes and of the highly diversified schools of human
thought, considered it necessary to direct its gaze towards the rising light
of the Faith, to contemplate its unfolding system, to ponder its hidden
processes, to appraise its weighty message, to acknowledge its regenerative
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power, to embrace its salutary truth, or to proclaim its eternal
verities? Who among the worldly wise and the so-called men of insight
and wisdom can justly claim, after the lapse of nearly a century, to have
disinterestedly approached its theme, to have considered impartially its
claims, to have taken sufficient pains to delve into its literature, to have
assiduously striven to separate facts from fiction, or to have accorded its
cause the treatment it merits? Where are the preeminent exponents,
whether of the arts or sciences, with the exception of a few isolated cases,
who have lifted a finger, or whispered a word of commendation, in
either the defense or the praise of a Faith that has conferred upon the
world so priceless a benefit, that has suffered so long and so grievously,
and which enshrines within its shell so enthralling a promise for a world
so woefully battered, so manifestly bankrupt?
- To the mounting tide of trials which laid low the Báb, to the
long-drawn-out calamities which rained on Bahá'u'lláh, to the warnings
sounded by both the Herald and the Author of the Bahá'í Revelation,
must be added the sufferings which, for no less than seventy years, were
endured by `Abdu'l-Bahá, as well as His pleas, and entreaties, uttered in
the evening of His life, in connection with the dangers that increasingly
threatened the whole of mankind. Born in the very year that witnessed
the inception of the Bábí Revelation; baptized with the initial fires of
persecution that raged around that nascent Cause; an eyewitness, when
a boy of eight, of the violent upheavals that rocked the Faith which His
Father had espoused; sharing with Him, the ignominy, the perils, and
rigors consequent upon the successive banishments from His native-land
to countries far beyond its confines; arrested and forced to support,
in a dark cell, the indignity of imprisonment soon after His arrival in
`Akká; the object of repeated investigations and the target of continual
assaults and insults under the despotic rule of Sultán `Abdu'l-Hamíd,
and later under the ruthless military dictatorship of the suspicious and
merciless Jamál Páshá--He, too, the Center and Pivot of Bahá'u'lláh's
peerless Covenant and the perfect Exemplar of His teachings, was made
to taste, at the hands of potentates, ecclesiastics, governments and
peoples, the cup of woe which the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh, as well as so
many of their followers, had drained.
- With the warnings which both His pen and voice have given in
countless Tablets and discourses, during an almost lifelong incarceration
and in the course of His extended travels in both the European and
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American continents, they who labor for the spread of His Father's
Faith in the Western world are sufficiently acquainted. How often and
how passionately did He appeal to those in authority and to the public at
large to examine dispassionately the precepts enunciated by His Father?
With what precision and emphasis He unfolded the system of the Faith
He was expounding, elucidated its fundamental verities, stressed its
distinguishing features, and proclaimed the redemptive character of its
principles? How insistently did He foreshadow the impending chaos,
the approaching upheavals, the universal conflagration which, in the
concluding years of His life, had only begun to reveal the measure of
its force and the significance of its impact on human society?
- A co-sharer in the woeful trials and momentary frustrations afflicting
the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh; reaping a harvest in His lifetime wholly
incommensurate to the sublime, the incessant and strenuous efforts He
had exerted; experiencing the initial perturbations of the world-shaking
catastrophe in store for an unbelieving humanity; bent with age, and
with eyes dimmed by the gathering storm which the reception accorded
by a faithless generation to His Father's Cause was raising, and with a
heart bleeding over the immediate destiny of God's wayward children--
He, at last, sank beneath a weight of troubles for which they
who had imposed them upon Him, and upon those gone before
Him, were soon to be summoned to a dire reckoning.
- "Hasten, O my God!" He cried, at a time when adversity had sore
beset Him, "the days of my ascension unto Thee, and of my coming
before Thee, and of my entry into Thy presence, that I may be delivered
from the darkness of the cruelty inflicted by them upon me, and may enter
the luminous atmosphere of Thy nearness, O my Lord, the All-Glorious,
and may rest under the shadow of Thy most great mercy." "Yá Bahá'u'l-Abhá
[O Thou the Glory of Glories]!" He wrote in a Tablet revealed
during the last week of His life, "I have renounced the world
and the people thereof, and am heartbroken and sorely afflicted because
of the unfaithful. In the cage of this world I flutter even as a
frightened bird, and yearn every day to take my flight unto Thy Kingdom.
Yá Bahá'u'l-Abhá! Make me to drink of the cup of sacrifice, and
set me free. Relieve me from these woes and trials, from these afflictions
and troubles."
- Dear friends! Alas, a thousand times alas, that a Revelation so
incomparably great, so infinitely precious, so mightily potent, so manifestly
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innocent, should have received, at the hands of a generation so
blind and so perverse, so infamous a treatment! "O My servants!"
Bahá'u'lláh Himself testifies, "The one true God is My witness! This
most great, this fathomless and surging ocean is near, astonishingly
near, unto you. Behold it is closer to you than your life vein! Swift as the
twinkling of an eye ye can, if ye but wish it, reach and partake of this
imperishable favor, this God-given grace, this incorruptible gift, this
most potent and unspeakably glorious bounty."
A World Receded from Him
- After a revolution of well nigh one hundred years what is it that the
eye encounters as one surveys the international scene and looks back
upon the early beginnings of Bahá'í history? A world convulsed by the
agonies of contending systems, races and nations, entangled in the mesh
of its accumulated falsities, receding farther and farther from Him Who
is the sole Author of its destinies, and sinking deeper and deeper into a
suicidal carnage which its neglect and persecution of Him Who is its
Redeemer have precipitated. A Faith, still proscribed, yet bursting
through its chrysalis, emerging from the obscurity of a century-old
repression, face to face with the awful evidences of God's wrathful
anger, and destined to arise above the ruins of a smitten civilization. A
world spiritually destitute, morally bankrupt, politically disrupted, socially
convulsed, economically paralyzed, writhing, bleeding and
breaking up beneath the avenging rod of God. A Faith Whose call
remained unanswered, Whose claims were rejected, Whose warnings
were brushed aside, Whose followers were mowed down, Whose aims
and purposes were maligned, Whose summons to the rulers of the earth
were ignored, Whose Herald drained the cup of martyrdom, over the
head of Whose Author swept a sea of unheard-of tribulations, and
Whose Exemplar sank beneath the weight of lifelong sorrows and dire
misfortunes. A world that has lost its bearings, in which the bright flame
of religion is fast dying out, in which the forces of a blatant nationalism
and racialism have usurped the rights and prerogatives of God Himself,
in which a flagrant secularism--the direct offspring of irreligion--has
raised its triumphant head and is protruding its ugly features, in which
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the "majesty of kingship" has been disgraced, and they who wore its
emblems have, for the most part, been hurled from their thrones, in
which the once all-powerful ecclesiastical hierarchies of Islám, and to a
lesser extent those of Christianity, have been discredited, and in which
the virus of prejudice and corruption is eating into the vitals of an
already gravely disordered society. A Faith Whose institutions--the
pattern and crowning glory of the age which is to come--have been
ignored and in some instances trampled upon and uprooted, Whose
unfolding system has been derided and partly suppressed and crippled,
Whose rising Order--the sole refuge of a civilization in the embrace of
doom--has been spurned and challenged, Whose Mother-Temple has
been seized and misappropriated, and Whose "House"--the "cynosure
of an adoring world"--has, through a gross miscarriage of justice, as
witnessed by the world's highest tribunal, been delivered into the hands
of, and violated by, its implacable enemies.
- We are indeed living in an age which, if we would correctly appraise
it, should be regarded as one which is witnessing a dual phenomenon.
The first signalizes the death pangs of an order, effete and godless, that
has stubbornly refused, despite the signs and portents of a century-old
Revelation, to attune its processes to the precepts and ideals which that
Heaven-sent Faith proffered it. The second proclaims the birth pangs of
an Order, divine and redemptive, that will inevitably supplant the
former, and within Whose administrative structure an embryonic
civilization, incomparable and world-embracing, is imperceptibly
maturing. The one is being rolled up, and is crashing in oppression,
bloodshed, and ruin. The other opens up vistas of a justice, a unity, a
peace, a culture, such as no age has ever seen. The former has spent its
force, demonstrated its falsity and barrenness, lost irretrievably its
opportunity, and is hurrying to its doom. The latter, virile and
unconquerable, is plucking asunder its chains, and is vindicating its title to
be the one refuge within which a sore-tried humanity, purged from its dross,
can attain its destiny.
- "Soon," Bahá'u'lláh Himself has prophesied, "will the present-day
order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead." And again: "By
Myself! The day is approaching when We will have rolled up the world
and all that is therein, and spread out a new Order in its stead." "The
day is approaching when God will have raised up a people who will call to
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remembrance Our days, who will tell the tale of Our trials, who will
demand the restitution of Our rights, from them who, without a tittle of
evidence, have treated Us with manifest injustice."
- Dear friends! For the trials which have afflicted the Faith of
Bahá'u'lláh a responsibility appalling and inescapable rests upon those into
whose hands the reins of civil and ecclesiastical authority were delivered.
The kings of the earth and the world's religious leaders alike
must primarily bear the brunt of such an awful responsibility. "Everyone
well knoweth," Bahá'u'lláh Himself testifies, "that all the kings have
turned aside from Him, and all the religions have opposed Him." "From
time immemorial," He declares, "they who have been outwardly invested
with authority have debarred men from setting their faces towards God.
They have disliked that men should gather together around the Most
Great Ocean, inasmuch as they have regarded, and still regard, such a
gathering as the cause of, and the motive for, the disruption of their
sovereignty." "The kings," He moreover has written, "have recognized
that it was not in their interest to acknowledge Me, as have likewise the
ministers and the divines, notwithstanding that My purpose hath been
most explicitly revealed in the Divine Books and Tablets, and the True
One hath loudly proclaimed that this Most Great Revelation hath
appeared for the betterment of the world and the exaltation of the
nations." "Gracious God!" writes the Báb in the Dalá'il-i-Sab`ih (Seven
Proofs) with reference to the "seven powerful sovereigns ruling the world"
in His day, "None of them hath been informed of His [the Báb's]
Manifestation, and if informed, none hath believed in Him. Who
knoweth, they may leave this world below full of desire, and without
having realized that the thing for which they were waiting had come to
pass. This is what happened to the monarchs that held fast unto the
Gospel. They awaited the coming of the Prophet of God [Muhammad],
and when He did appear, they failed to recognize Him. Behold how great
are the sums which these sovereigns expend without even the slightest
thought of appointing an official charged with the task of acquainting
them in their own realms with the Manifestation of God! They would
thereby have fulfilled the purpose for which they have been created.
All their desires have been and are still fixed upon leaving behind them
traces of their names." The Báb, moreover, in that same treatise, censuring
the failure of the Christian divines to acknowledge the truth of
Muhammad's mission, makes this illuminating statement: "The blame
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falleth upon their doctors, for if these had believed, they would have been
followed by the mass of their countrymen. Behold then, that which hath
come to pass! The learned men of Christendom are held to be learned by
virtue of their safeguarding the teaching of Christ, and yet consider how
they themselves have been the cause of men's failure to accept the Faith
and attain unto salvation!"
Recipients of the Message
- It should not be forgotten that it was the kings of the earth and the
world's religious leaders who, above all other categories of men, were
made the direct recipients of the Message proclaimed by both the Báb
and Bahá'u'lláh. It was they who were deliberately addressed in numerous
and historic Tablets, who were summoned to respond to the Call of
God, and to whom were directed, in clear and forcible language, the
appeals, the admonitions and warnings of His persecuted Messengers. It
was they who, when the Faith was born, and later when its mission was
proclaimed, were still, for the most part, wielding unquestioned and
absolute civil and ecclesiastical authority over their subjects and followers.
It was they who, whether glorying in the pomp and pageantry of a
kingship as yet scarcely restricted by constitutional limitations, or
entrenched within the strongholds of a seemingly inviolable ecclesiastical
power, assumed ultimate responsibility for any wrongs inflicted by those
whose immediate destinies they controlled. It would be no exaggeration
to say that in most of the countries of the European and Asiatic
continents absolutism, on the one hand, and complete subservience to
ecclesiastical hierarchies, on the other, were still the outstanding features
of the political and religious life of the masses. These, dominated
and shackled, were robbed of the necessary freedom that would enable
them to either appraise the claims and merits of the Message proffered to
them, or to embrace unreservedly its truth.
- Small wonder, then, that the Author of the Bahá'í Faith, and to a
lesser degree its Herald, should have directed at the world's supreme
rulers and religious leaders the full force of Their Messages, and made
them the recipients of some of Their most sublime Tablets, and invited
them, in a language at once clear and insistent, to heed Their call.
Small wonder that They should have taken the pains to unroll before
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their eyes the truths of Their respective Revelations, and should have
expatiated on Their woes and sufferings. Small wonder that They
should have stressed the preciousness of the opportunities which it was
in the power of these rulers and leaders to seize, and should have warned
them in ominous tones of the grave responsibilities which the rejection
of God's Message would entail, and should have predicted, when
rebuffed and refused, the dire consequences which such a rejection
involved. Small wonder that He Who is the King of kings and Vicegerent
of God Himself should, when abandoned, contemned and persecuted,
have uttered this epigrammatic and momentous prophecy:
"From two ranks amongst men power hath been seized: kings and
ecclesiastics."
- As to the kings and emperors who not only symbolized in their
persons the majesty of earthly dominion but who, for the most part,
actually held unchallengeable sway over the multitudes of their subjects,
their relation to the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh constitutes one of the
most illuminating episodes in the history of the Heroic and Formative
Ages of that Faith. The Divine summons which embraced within its
scope so large a number of the crowned heads of both Europe and Asia;
the theme and language of the Messages that brought them into direct
contact with the Source of God's Revelation; the nature of their reaction
to so stupendous an impact; and the consequences which ensued and
can still be witnessed today are the salient features of a subject upon
which I can but inadequately touch, and which will be fully and
befittingly treated by future Bahá'í historians.
- The Emperor of the French, the most powerful ruler of his day on the
European continent, Napoleon III; Pope Pius IX, the supreme head of
the highest church in Christendom, and wielder of the scepter of both
temporal and spiritual authority; the omnipotent Czar of the vast Russian
Empire, Alexander II; the renowned Queen Victoria, whose
sovereignty extended over the greatest political combination the world
has witnessed; William I, the conqueror of Napoleon III, King of
Prussia and the newly acclaimed monarch of a unified Germany;
Francis Joseph, the autocratic king-emperor of the Austro-Hungarian
monarchy, the heir of the far-famed Holy Roman Empire; the tyrannical
`Abdu'l-`Azíz, the embodiment of the concentrated power vested in
the Sultanate and the Caliphate; the notorious Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, the
despotic ruler of Persia and the mightiest potentate of Shí'ih Islám--in a
+P21
word, most of the preeminent embodiments of power and of sovereignty
in His day became, one by one, the object of Bahá'u'lláh's special
attention, and were made to sustain, in varying degrees, the weight of
the force communicated by His appeals and warnings.
- It should be borne in mind, however, that Bahá'u'lláh has not restricted
the delivery of His Message to a few individual sovereigns, however
potent the scepters they severally wielded, and however vast the
dominions which they ruled. All the kings of the earth have been
collectively addressed by His Pen, appealed to, and warned, at a time
when the star of His Revelation was mounting its zenith, and whilst He
lay a prisoner in the hands, and in the vicinity of the court, of His royal
enemy. In a memorable Tablet, designated as the Súriy-i-Mulúk (Súrih
of Kings) in which the Sultán himself and his ministers, and the kings of
Christendom, and the French and Persian Ambassadors accredited to
the Sublime Porte, and the Muslim ecclesiastical leaders in Constantinople,
and its wise men and its inhabitants, and the people of Persia,
and the philosophers of the world have been specifically addressed and
admonished, He thus directs His words to the entire company of the
monarchs of East and West:
Tablets to the Kings
- "O kings of the earth! Give ear unto the Voice of God, calling from this
sublime, this fruit-laden Tree, that hath sprung out of the Crimson Hill,
upon the holy Plain, intoning the words: `There is none other God but
He, the Mighty, the All-Powerful, the All-Wise.'... Fear God, O concourse
of kings, and suffer not yourselves to be deprived of this most
sublime grace. Fling away, then, the things ye possess, and take fast hold
on the Handle of God, the Exalted, the Great. Set your hearts towards
the Face of God, and abandon that which your desires have bidden you to
follow, and be not of those who perish. Relate unto them, O servant, the
story of `Alí [the Báb], when He came unto them with truth, bearing His
glorious and weighty Book, and holding in His hands a testimony and
proof from God, and holy and blessed tokens from Him. Ye, however, O
kings, have failed to heed the Remembrance of God in His days and to be
guided by the lights which arose and shone forth above the horizon of a
resplendent Heaven. Ye examined not His Cause when so to do would
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have been better for you than all that the sun shineth upon, could ye but
perceive it. Ye remained careless until the divines of Persia--those cruel
ones--pronounced judgment against Him, and unjustly slew Him. His
spirit ascended unto God, and the eyes of the inmates of Paradise and the
angels that are nigh unto Him wept sore by reason of this cruelty. Beware
that ye be not careless henceforth as ye have been careless aforetime.
Return, then, unto God, your Maker, and be not of the heedless.... My
face hath come forth from the veils, and shed its radiance upon all that is
in heaven and on earth; and yet, ye turned not towards Him, notwithstanding
that ye were created for Him, O concourse of kings! Follow,
therefore, that which I speak unto you, and hearken unto it with your
hearts, and be not of such as have turned aside. For your glory consisteth
not in your sovereignty, but rather in your nearness unto God and your
observance of His command as sent down in His holy and preserved
Tablets. Should any one of you rule over the whole earth, and over all
that lieth within it and upon it, its seas, its lands, its mountains, and its
plains, and yet be not remembered by God, all these would profit him
not, could ye but know it.... Arise, then, and make steadfast your feet,
and make ye amends for that which hath escaped you, and set then
yourselves towards His holy Court, on the shore of His mighty Ocean, so
that the pearls of knowledge and wisdom, which God hath stored up
within the shell of His radiant heart, may be revealed unto you....
Beware lest ye hinder the breeze of God from blowing over your hearts, the
breeze through which the hearts of such as have turned unto Him can be
quickened...."
- "Lay not aside the fear of God, O kings of the earth," He, in that same
Tablet has revealed, "and beware that ye transgress not the bounds
which the Almighty hath fixed. Observe the injunctions laid upon you in
His Book, and take good heed not to overstep their limits. Be vigilant,
that ye may not do injustice to anyone, be it to the extent of a grain of
mustard seed. Tread ye the path of justice, for this, verily, is the straight
path. Compose your differences, and reduce your armaments, that the
burden of your expenditures may be lightened, and that your minds and
hearts may be tranquilized. Heal the dissensions that divide you, and ye
will no longer be in need of any armaments except what the protection of
your cities and territories demandeth. Fear ye God, and take heed not to
outstrip the bounds of moderation, and be numbered among the extravagant.
We have learned that you are increasing your outlay every
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year, and are laying the burden thereof on your subjects. This, verily, is
more than they can bear, and is a grievous injustice. Decide justly
between men, and be ye the emblems of justice amongst them. This, if ye
judge fairly, is the thing that behooveth you, and beseemeth your station.
- "Beware not to deal unjustly with anyone that appealeth to you, and
entereth beneath your shadow. Walk ye in the fear of God, and be ye of
them that lead a godly life. Rest not on your power, your armies, and
treasures. Put your whole trust and confidence in God, Who hath created
you, and seek ye His help in all your affairs. Succor cometh from Him
alone. He succoreth whom He willeth with the hosts of the heavens and of
the earth.
- "Know ye that the poor are the trust of God in your midst. Watch that
ye betray not His trust, that ye deal not unjustly with them and that ye
walk not in the ways of the treacherous. Ye will most certainly be called
upon to answer for His trust on the day when the Balance of Justice shall
be set, the day when unto everyone shall be rendered his due, when the
doings of all men, be they rich or poor, shall be weighed.
- "If ye pay no heed unto the counsels which, in peerless and unequivocal
language, We have revealed in this Tablet, Divine chastisement shall
assail you from every direction, and the sentence of His justice shall be
pronounced against you. On that day ye shall have no power to resist
Him, and shall recognize your own impotence. Have mercy on yourselves
and on those beneath you, and judge ye between them according to the
precepts prescribed by God in His most holy and exalted Tablet, a Tablet
wherein He hath assigned to each and every thing its settled measure, in
which He hath given, with distinctness, an explanation of all things, and
which is in itself a monition unto them that believe in Him.
- "Examine Our Cause, inquire into the things that have befallen Us,
and decide justly between Us and Our enemies, and be ye of them that
act equitably towards their neighbors. If ye stay not the hand of the
oppressor, if ye fail to safeguard the rights of the downtrodden, what right
have ye then to vaunt yourselves among men? What is it of which ye can
rightly boast? Is it on your food and your drink that ye pride yourselves,
on the riches ye lay up in your treasuries, on the diversity and the cost of
the ornaments with which ye deck yourselves? If true glory were to consist
in the possession of such perishable things, then the earth on which ye
walk must needs vaunt itself over you, because it supplieth you, and
bestoweth upon you, these very things, by the decree of the Almighty. In
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its bowels are contained, according to what God hath ordained, all that
ye possess. From it, as a sign of His mercy, ye derive your riches. Behold
then your state, the thing in which ye glory! Would that ye could perceive
it! Nay! By Him Who holdeth in His grasp the kingdom of the entire
creation! Nowhere doth your true and abiding glory reside except in your
firm adherence unto the precepts of God, your wholehearted observance of
His laws, your resolution to see that they do not remain unenforced, and
to pursue steadfastly the right course...."
- And again in that same Tablet: "Twenty years have passed, O kings,
during which We have, each day, tasted the agony of a fresh tribulation.
No one of them that were before Us hath endured the things We have
endured. Would that ye could perceive it! They that rose up against Us,
have put Us to death, have shed Our blood, have plundered Our property,
and violated Our honor. Though aware of most of Our afflictions,
ye, nevertheless, have failed to stay the hand of the aggressor. For is it
not your clear duty to restrain the tyranny of the oppressor, and to
deal equitably with your subjects, that your high sense of justice may
be fully demonstrated to all mankind?
- "God hath committed into your hands the reins of the government of
the people, that ye may rule with justice over them, safeguard the rights of
the downtrodden, and punish the wrongdoers. If ye neglect the duty
prescribed unto you by God in His Book, your names shall be numbered
with those of the unjust in His sight. Grievous, indeed, will be your error.
Cleave ye to that which your imaginations have devised, and cast behind
your backs the commandments of God, the Most Exalted, the Inaccessible,
the All-Compelling, the Almighty? Cast away the things ye possess,
and cling to that which God hath bidden you observe. Seek ye His grace,
for he that seeketh it treadeth His straight Path.
- "Consider the state in which We are, and behold ye the ills and
troubles that have tried Us. Neglect Us not, though it be for a moment,
and judge ye between Us and Our enemies with equity. This will, surely,
be a manifest advantage unto you. Thus do We relate to you Our tale,
and recount the things that have befallen Us, that ye might take off Our
ills and ease Our burden. Let him who will, relieve Us from Our trouble;
and as to him that willeth not, my Lord is assuredly the best of Helpers.
- "Warn and acquaint the people, O Servant, with the things We have
sent down unto Thee, and let the fear of no one dismay Thee, and be
Thou not of them that waver. The day is approaching when God will have
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exalted His Cause and magnified His testimony in the eyes of all who are
in the heavens and all who are on the earth. Place, in all circumstances,
Thy whole trust in Thy Lord, and fix Thy gaze upon Him, and turn away
from all them that repudiate His truth. Let God, Thy Lord, be Thy
sufficing Succorer and Helper. We have pledged Ourself to secure Thy
triumph upon earth and to exalt Our Cause above all men, though no
king be found who would turn his face towards Thee...."
- In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas (The Most Holy Book), that priceless treasury
enshrining for all time the brightest emanations of the mind of
Bahá'u'lláh, the Charter of His World Order, the chief repository of His
laws, the Harbinger of His Covenant, the Pivotal Work containing some
of His noblest exhortations, weightiest pronouncements, and portentous
prophecies, and revealed during the full tide of His tribulations, at a
time when the rulers of the earth had definitely forsaken Him--in such
a Book we read the following:
- "O kings of the earth! He Who is the sovereign Lord of all is come. The
Kingdom is God's, the omnipotent Protector, the Self-Subsisting. Worship
none but God, and, with radiant hearts, lift up your faces unto your
Lord, the Lord of all names. This is a Revelation to which whatever ye
possess can never be compared, could ye but know it. We see you rejoicing
in that which ye have amassed for others, and shutting out yourselves
from the worlds which naught except My Guarded Tablet can reckon.
The treasures ye have laid up have drawn you far away from your
ultimate objective. This ill beseemeth you, could ye but understand it.
Wash your hearts from all earthly defilements, and hasten to enter the
Kingdom of your Lord, the Creator of earth and heaven, Who caused the
world to tremble, and all its peoples to wail, except them that have
renounced all things and clung to that which the Hidden Tablet hath
ordained...."
The Most Great Law Revealed
- And further: "O kings of the earth! The Most Great Law hath been
revealed in this Spot, this Scene of transcendent splendor. Every hidden
thing hath been brought to light, by virtue of the Will of the Supreme
Ordainer, He Who hath ushered in the Last Hour, through Whom the
Moon hath been cleft, and every irrevocable decree expounded.
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- "Ye are but vassals, O kings of the earth! He Who is the King of Kings
hath appeared, arrayed in His most wondrous glory, and is summoning
you unto Himself, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. Take heed lest
pride deter you from recognizing the Source of Revelation; lest the things
of this world shut you out as by a veil from Him Who is the Creator of
heaven. Arise, and serve Him Who is the Desire of all nations, Who hath
created you through a word from Him, and ordained you to be, for all
time, the emblems of His sovereignty.
- "By the righteousness of God! It is not Our wish to lay hands on your
kingdoms. Our mission is to seize and possess the hearts of men. Upon
them the eyes of Bahá are fastened. To this testifieth the Kingdom of
Names, could ye but comprehend it. Whoso followeth his Lord, will
renounce the world and all that is therein; how much greater, then, must
be the detachment of Him Who holdeth so august a station! Forsake your
palaces, and haste ye to gain admittance into His Kingdom. This,
indeed, will profit you both in this world and in the next. To this testifieth
the Lord of the realm on high, did ye but know it.
- "How great is the blessedness that awaiteth the king who will arise to
aid My Cause in My Kingdom, who will detach himself from all else but
Me! Such a king is numbered with the companions of the Crimson Ark,
the Ark which God hath prepared for the people of Bahá. All must glorify
his name, must reverence his station, and aid him to unlock the cities
with the keys of My Name, the omnipotent Protector of all that inhabit
the visible and invisible kingdoms. Such a king is the very eye of mankind,
the luminous ornament on the brow of creation, the fountainhead
of blessings unto the whole world. Offer up, O people of Bahá, your
substance, nay your very lives, for his assistance."
- And further, this evident arraignment in that same Book: "We have
asked nothing from you. For the sake of God We, verily, exhort you, and
will be patient as We have been patient in that which hath befallen Us at
your hands, O concourse of kings!"
- Moreover, in His Tablet to Queen Victoria Bahá'u'lláh thus addresses
all the kings of the earth, summoning them to cleave to the Lesser
Peace, as distinct from that Most Great Peace which those who are fully
conscious of the power of His Revelation and avowedly profess the tenets
of His Faith can alone proclaim and must eventually establish:
- "O kings of the earth! We see you increasing every year your
expenditures, and laying the burden thereof on your subjects. This, verily, is
+P27
wholly and grossly unjust. Fear the sighs and tears of this Wronged One,
and lay not excessive burdens on your peoples. Do not rob them to rear
palaces for yourselves; nay rather choose for them that which ye choose for
yourselves. Thus We unfold to your eyes that which profiteth you, if ye
but perceive. Your people are your treasures. Beware lest your rule violate
the commandments of God, and ye deliver your wards to the hands of the
robber. By them ye rule, by their means ye subsist, by their aid ye
conquer. Yet, how disdainfully ye look upon them! How strange, how
very strange!
- "Now that ye have refused the Most Great Peace, hold ye fast unto
this, the Lesser Peace, that haply ye may in some degree better your own
condition and that of your dependents.
- "O rulers of the earth! Be reconciled among yourselves, that ye may
need no more armaments save in a measure to safeguard your territories
and dominions. Beware lest ye disregard the counsel of the All-Knowing,
the Faithful.
- "Be united, O kings of the earth, for thereby will the tempest of discord
be stilled amongst you, and your peoples find rest, if ye be of them that
comprehend. Should anyone among you take up arms against another,
rise ye all against him, for this is naught but manifest justice."
- To the Christian kings Bahá'u'lláh, moreover, particularly directs His
words of censure, and, in a language that cannot be mistaken, He
discloses the true character of His Revelation:
- "O kings of Christendom! Heard ye not the saying of Jesus, the Spirit of
God, `I go away, and come again unto you'? Wherefore, then, did ye fail,
when He did come again unto you in the clouds of heaven, to draw nigh
unto Him, that ye might behold His face, and be of them that attained
His Presence? In another passage He saith: `When He, the Spirit of
Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth.' And yet, behold how,
when He did bring the truth, ye refused to turn your faces towards Him,
and persisted in disporting yourselves with your pastimes and fancies. Ye
welcomed Him not, neither did ye seek His Presence, that ye might hear
the verses of God from His own mouth, and partake of the manifold
wisdom of the Almighty, the All-Glorious, the All-Wise. Ye have, by
reason of your failure, hindered the breath of God from being wafted over
you, and have withheld from your souls the sweetness of its fragrance. Ye
continue roving with delight in the valley of your corrupt desires. Ye and
all ye possess shall pass away. Ye shall, most certainly, return to God,
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and shall be called to account for your doings in the presence of Him Who
shall gather together the entire creation...."
- The Báb, moreover, in the Qayyúm-i-Asmá', His celebrated commentary
on the Súrih of Joseph, revealed in the first year of His Mission,
and characterized by Bahá'u'lláh as "the first, the greatest, and mightiest
of all books" in the Bábí Dispensation, has issued this stirring call to
the kings and princes of the earth:
- "O concourse of kings and of the sons of kings! Lay aside, one and all,
your dominion which belongeth unto God.... Vain indeed is your
dominion, for God hath set aside earthly possessions for such as have
denied Him.... O concourse of kings! Deliver with truth and in all haste
the verses sent down by Us to the peoples of Turkey and of India, and
beyond them, with power and with truth, to lands in both the East and
the West.... By God! If ye do well, to your own behoof will ye do well;
and if ye deny God and His signs, We, in very truth, having God, can
well dispense with all creatures and all earthly dominion."
- And again: "Fear ye God, O concourse of kings, lest ye remain afar
from Him Who is His Remembrance [the Báb], after the Truth hath come
unto you with a Book and signs from God, as spoken through the
wondrous tongue of Him Who is His Remembrance. Seek ye grace from
God, for God hath ordained for you, after ye have believed in Him, a
Garden the vastness of which is as the vastness of the whole of Paradise."
- So much for the epoch-making counsels and warnings collectively
addressed by the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh to the sovereigns of the earth, and
more particularly directed to the kings of Christendom. I would be
failing to do justice to my theme were I to ignore, or even to dismiss
briefly, those audacious, fate-laden apostrophes to individual monarchs
who, whether as kings or emperors, have either viewed with cold
indifference the tribulations, or rejected with contempt the warnings, of
the twin Founders of our Faith. I can neither quote as fully as I should
from the two thousand and more verses that have streamed from the pen
of Bahá'u'lláh and, to a lesser extent, from that of the Báb, addressed to
individual monarchs in Europe and Asia, nor is it my purpose to
expatiate upon the circumstances that have provoked, or the consequences
that have flowed from, those astounding utterances. The historian
of the future, viewing more widely and in fuller perspective the
momentous happenings of the Apostolic and Formative Ages of the
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Faith of Bahá'u'lláh, will no doubt be able to evaluate accurately and to
describe in a circumstantial manner the causes, the implications and
the effects of these Divine Messages which, in their scope and effectiveness,
have certainly no parallel in the religious annals of mankind.
- To the French Emperor, Napoleon III, Bahá'u'lláh addressed these
words: "O King of Paris! Tell the priest to ring the bells no longer. By
God, the True One! The Most Mighty Bell hath appeared in the form of
Him Who is the Most Great Name, and the fingers of the will of thy Lord,
the Most Exalted, the Most High, toll it out in the heaven of Immortality,
in His Name, the All-Glorious. Thus have the mighty verses of thy
Lord been again sent down unto thee, that thou mayest arise to remember
God, the Creator of earth and heaven, in these days when all the
tribes of the earth have mourned, and the foundations of the cities have
trembled, and the dust of irreligion hath enwrapped all men, except such
as thy Lord, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise, was pleased to spare....
Give ear, O King, unto the Voice that calleth from the Fire which
burneth in this Verdant Tree, upon this Sinai which hath been raised
above the hallowed and snow-white Spot, beyond the Everlasting City:
`Verily, there is none other God but Me, the Ever-Forgiving, the Most
Merciful!' We, in truth, have sent Him Whom We aided with the Holy
Spirit [Jesus], that He may announce unto you this Light that hath shone
forth from the horizon of the will of your Lord, the Most Exalted, the
All-Glorious, and Whose signs have been revealed in the West, that ye may
set your faces towards Him [Bahá'u'lláh], on this Day which God hath
exalted above all other days, and whereon the All-Merciful hath shed the
splendor of His effulgent glory upon all who are in heaven and all who are
on earth. Arise thou to serve God and help His Cause. He, verily, will
assist thee with the hosts of the seen and unseen, and will set thee king
over all that whereon the sun riseth. Thy Lord, in truth, is the All-Powerful,
the Almighty.... Attire thy temple with the ornament of My
Name, and thy tongue with remembrance of Me, and thine heart with
love for Me, the Almighty, the Most High. We have desired for thee
naught except that which is better for thee than what thou dost possess
and all the treasures of the earth. Thy Lord, verily, is knowing, informed
of all....
- "O King! We heard the words thou didst utter in answer to the Czar of
Russia, concerning the decision made regarding the war [Crimean War].
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Thy Lord, verily, knoweth, is informed of all. Thou didst say: `I lay asleep
upon my couch, when the cry of the oppressed, who were drowned in the
Black Sea, wakened me.' This is what we heard thee say, and, verily, thy
Lord is witness unto what I say. We testify that that which wakened thee
was not their cry, but the promptings of thine own passions, for We tested
thee, and found thee wanting. Comprehend the meaning of My words,
and be thou of the discerning.... Hadst thou been sincere in thy words,
thou wouldst have not cast behind thy back the Book of God, when it was
sent unto thee by Him Who is the Almighty, the All-Wise. We have
proved thee through it, and found thee other than that which thou didst
profess. Arise, and make amends for that which escaped thee. Erelong the
world and all that thou possessest will perish, and the kingdom will
remain unto God, thy Lord and the Lord of thy fathers of old. It
behooveth thee not to conduct thine affairs according to the dictates of thy
desires. Fear the sighs of this Wronged One, and shield Him from the
darts of such as act unjustly. For what thou hast done, thy kingdom shall
be thrown into confusion, and thine empire shall pass from thine hands,
as a punishment for that which thou hast wrought. Then wilt thou know
how thou hast plainly erred. Commotions shall seize all the people in that
land, unless thou arisest to help this Cause, and followest Him Who is
the Spirit of God [Jesus] in this, the straight Path. Hath thy pomp made
thee proud? By My Life! It shall not endure; nay, it shall soon pass away,
unless thou holdest fast by this firm Cord. We see abasement hastening
after thee, while thou art of the heedless.... Abandon thy palaces to the
people of the graves, and thine empire to whosoever desireth it, and turn,
then, unto the Kingdom. This, verily, is what God hath chosen for thee,
wert thou of them that turn unto Him.... Shouldst thou desire to bear
the weight of thy dominion, bear it then to aid the Cause of thy Lord.
Glorified be this station which whoever attaineth thereunto hath attained
unto all good that proceedeth from Him Who is the All-Knowing,
the All-Wise.... Exultest thou over the treasures thou dost possess,
knowing they shall perish? Rejoicest thou in that thou rulest a span of
earth, when the whole world, in the estimation of the people of Bahá, is
worth as much as the black in the eye of a dead ant? Abandon it unto
such as have set their affections upon it, and turn thou unto Him Who is
the Desire of the world. Whither are gone the proud and their palaces?
Gaze thou into their tombs, that thou mayest profit by this example,
inasmuch as We made it a lesson unto every beholder. Were the breezes of
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Revelation to seize thee, thou wouldst flee the world, and turn unto the
Kingdom, and wouldst expend all thou possessest, that thou mayest draw
nigh unto this sublime Vision."
Revealed to the Pope
- To Pope Pius IX, Bahá'u'lláh revealed the following: "O Pope! Rend
the veils asunder. He Who is the Lord of Lords is come overshadowed with
clouds, and the decree hath been fulfilled by God, the Almighty, the
Unrestrained.... He, verily, hath again come down from Heaven even
as He came down from it the first time. Beware that thou dispute not with
Him even as the Pharisees disputed with Him [Jesus] without a clear
token or proof. On His right hand flow the living waters of grace, and on
His left the choice Wine of justice, whilst before Him march the angels of
Paradise, bearing the banners of His signs. Beware lest any name debar
thee from God, the Creator of earth and heaven. Leave thou the world
behind thee, and turn towards thy Lord, through Whom the whole earth
hath been illumined.... Dwellest thou in palaces whilst He Who is the
King of Revelation liveth in the most desolate of abodes? Leave them unto
such as desire them, and set thy face with joy and delight towards the
Kingdom.... Arise in the name of thy Lord, the God of Mercy, amidst
the peoples of the earth, and seize thou the Cup of Life with the hands of
confidence, and first drink thou therefrom, and proffer it then to such as
turn towards it amongst the peoples of all faiths....
- "Call thou to remembrance Him Who was the Spirit [Jesus], Who,
when He came, the most learned of His age pronounced judgment
against Him in His own country, whilst he who was only a fisherman
believed in Him. Take heed, then, ye men of understanding heart! Thou,
in truth, art one of the suns of the heaven of His names. Guard thyself,
lest darkness spread its veils over thee, and fold thee away from His light....
Consider those who opposed the Son [Jesus], when He came unto them
with sovereignty and power. How many the Pharisees who were waiting
to behold Him, and were lamenting over their separation from Him! And
yet, when the fragrance of His coming was wafted over them, and His
beauty was unveiled, they turned aside from Him and disputed with
Him.... None save a very few, who were destitute of any power amongst
men, turned towards His face. And yet today every man endowed with
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power and invested with sovereignty prideth himself on His Name! In like
manner, consider how numerous, in these days, are the monks who, in
My Name, have secluded themselves in their churches, and who, when
the appointed time was fulfilled, and We unveiled Our beauty, knew Us
not, though they call upon Me at eventide and at dawn....
- "The Word which the Son concealed is made manifest. It hath been
sent down in the form of the human temple in this day. Blessed be the
Lord Who is the Father! He, verily, is come unto the nations in His most
great majesty. Turn your faces towards Him, O concourse of the righteous!
...This is the day whereon the Rock [Peter] crieth out and
shouteth, and celebrateth the praise of its Lord, the All-Possessing, the
Most High, saying: `Lo! The Father is come, and that which ye were
promised in the Kingdom is fulfilled!...' My body longeth for the cross,
and Mine head waiteth the thrust of the spear, in the path of the
All-Merciful, that the world may be purged from its transgressions....
- "O Supreme Pontiff! Incline thine ear unto that which the Fashioner
of moldering bones counseleth thee, as voiced by Him Who is His Most
Great Name. Sell all the embellished ornaments thou dost possess, and
expend them in the path of God, Who causeth the night to return upon
the day, and the day to return upon the night. Abandon thy kingdom
unto the kings, and emerge from thy habitation, with thy face set towards
the Kingdom, and, detached from the world, then speak forth the praises
of thy Lord betwixt earth and heaven. Thus hath bidden thee He Who is
the Possessor of Names, on the part of thy Lord, the Almighty, the
All-Knowing. Exhort thou the kings and say: `Deal equitably with men.
Beware lest ye transgress the bounds fixed in the Book.' This indeed
becometh thee. Beware lest thou appropriate unto thyself the things of the
world and the riches thereof. Leave them unto such as desire them, and
cleave unto that which hath been enjoined upon thee by Him Who is the
Lord of creation. Should anyone offer thee all the treasures of the earth,
refuse to even glance upon them. Be as thy Lord hath been. Thus hath the
Tongue of Revelation spoken that which God hath made the ornament of
the book of creation.... Should the inebriation of the wine of My verses
seize thee, and thou determinest to present thyself before the throne of thy
Lord, the Creator of earth and heaven, make My love thy vesture, and
thy shield remembrance of Me, and thy provision reliance upon God, the
Revealer of all power.... Verily, the day of ingathering is come, and all
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things have been separated from each other. He hath stored away that
which He chose in the vessels of justice, and cast into fire that which
befitteth it. Thus hath it been decreed by your Lord, the Mighty, the
Loving, in this promised Day. He, verily, ordaineth what He pleaseth.
There is none other God save He, the Almighty, the All-Compelling."
- In the Tablet addressed to the Czar of Russia, Alexander II, we read:
"O Czar of Russia! Incline thine ear unto the voice of God, the King, the
Holy, and turn thou unto Paradise, the Spot wherein abideth He Who,
among the Concourse on high, beareth the most excellent titles, and
Who, in the kingdom of creation, is called by the name of God, the
Effulgent, the All-Glorious. Beware lest thy desire deter thee from turning
towards the face of thy Lord, the Compassionate, the Most Merciful.
We, verily, have heard the thing for which thou didst supplicate thy Lord,
whilst secretly communing with Him. Wherefore, the breeze of My
loving-kindness wafted forth, and the sea of My mercy surged, and We
answered thee in truth. Thy Lord, verily, is the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
Whilst I lay chained and fettered in the prison, one of thy ministers
extended Me his aid. Wherefore hath God ordained for thee a station
which the knowledge of none can comprehend except His knowledge.
Beware lest thou barter away this sublime station.... Beware lest thy
sovereignty withhold thee from Him Who is the Supreme Sovereign. He,
verily, is come with His Kingdom, and all the atoms cry aloud: `Lo! The
Lord is come in His great majesty!' He Who is the Father is come, and the
Son [Jesus], in the holy vale, crieth out: `Here am I, here am I, O Lord,
My God!', whilst Sinai circleth round the House, and the Burning Bush
calleth aloud: `The All-Bounteous is come mounted upon the clouds!
Blessed is he that draweth nigh unto Him, and woe betide them that are
far away.'
- "Arise thou amongst men in the name of this all-compelling Cause,
and summon, then, the nations unto God, the Exalted, the Great. Be
thou not of them who called upon God by one of His names, but who,
when He Who is the Object of all names appeared, denied Him and
turned aside from Him, and, in the end, pronounced sentence against
Him with manifest injustice. Consider and call thou to mind the days
whereon the Spirit of God [Jesus] appeared, and Herod gave judgment
against Him. God, however, aided Him with the hosts of the unseen, and
protected Him with truth, and sent Him down unto another land,
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according to His promise. He, verily, ordaineth what He pleaseth. Thy
Lord truly preserveth whom He willeth, be he in the midst of the seas, or
in the maw of the serpent, or beneath the sword of the oppressor....
- "Again I say: Hearken unto My voice that calleth from My prison, that
it may acquaint thee with the things that have befallen My Beauty, at
the hands of them that are the manifestations of My glory, and that thou
mayest perceive how great hath been My patience, notwithstanding My
might, and how immense My forebearance, notwithstanding My power.
By My life! Couldst thou but know the things sent down by My Pen, and
discover the treasures of My Cause, and the pearls of My mysteries which
lie hid in the seas of My names and in the goblets of My words, thou
wouldst, in thy love for My name, and in thy longing for My glorious and
sublime Kingdom, lay down thy life in My path. Know thou that though
My body be beneath the swords of My foes, and My limbs be beset with
incalculable afflictions, yet My spirit is filled with a gladness with which
all the joys of the earth can never compare.
- "Set thine heart towards Him Who is the Point of adoration for the
world, and say: O peoples of the earth! Have ye denied the One in Whose
path He Who came with the truth, bearing the announcement of your
Lord, the Exalted, the Great, suffered martyrdom? Say: This is an
Announcement whereat the hearts of the Prophets and Messengers have
rejoiced. This is the One Whom the heart of the world remembereth, and
is promised in the Books of God, the Mighty, the All-Wise. The hands of
the Messengers were, in their desire to meet Me, upraised towards God,
the Mighty, the Glorified.... Some lamented in their separation from
Me, others endured hardships in My path, and still others laid down their
lives for the sake of My Beauty, could ye but know it. Say: I, verily, have
not sought to extol Mine Own Self, but rather God Himself, were ye to
judge fairly. Naught can be seen in Me except God and His Cause, could
ye but perceive it. I am the One Whom the tongue of Isaiah hath extolled,
the One with Whose name both the Torah and the Evangel were adorned.
...Blessed be the king whose sovereignty hath withheld him not from his
Sovereign, and who hath turned unto God with his heart. He, verily, is
accounted of those that have attained unto that which God, the Mighty,
the All-Wise, hath willed. Erelong will such a one find himself numbered
with the monarchs of the realms of the Kingdom. Thy Lord is, in truth,
potent over all things. He giveth what He willeth to whomsoever He
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willeth, and withholdeth what He pleaseth from whomsoever He willeth.
He, verily, is the All-Powerful, the Almighty."
- To Queen Victoria Bahá'u'lláh has written: "O Queen in London!
Incline thine ear unto the voice of thy Lord, the Lord of all mankind,
calling from the Divine Lote-Tree: Verily, no God is there but Me, the
Almighty, the All-Wise! Cast away all that is on earth, and attire the
head of thy kingdom with the crown of the remembrance of thy Lord, the
All-Glorious. He, in truth, hath come unto the world in His most great
glory, and all that hath been mentioned in the Gospel hath been fulfilled.
The land of Syria hath been honored by the footsteps of its Lord, the Lord
of all men, and north and south are both inebriated with the wine of His
presence. Blessed is the man that inhaled the fragrance of the Most
Merciful, and turned unto the Dawning-Place of His Beauty, in this
resplendent Dawn. The Mosque of Aqsá vibrateth through the breezes of
its Lord, the All-Glorious, whilst Bathá [Mecca] trembleth at the voice of
God, the Exalted, the Most High. Whereupon every single stone of them
celebrateth the praise of the Lord, through this Great Name.
- "Lay aside thy desire, and set then thine heart towards thy Lord, the
Ancient of Days. We make mention of thee for the sake of God, and desire
that thy name may be exalted through thy remembrance of God, the
Creator of earth and heaven. He, verily, is witness unto that which I say.
We have been informed that thou hast forbidden the trading in slaves,
both men and women. This, verily, is what God hath enjoined in this
wondrous Revelation. God hath, truly, destined a reward for thee,
because of this. He, verily, will pay the doer of good his due recompense,
wert thou to follow what hath been sent unto thee by Him Who is the
All-Knowing, the All-Informed. As to him who turneth aside, and
swelleth with pride, after that the clear tokens have come unto him, from
the Revealer of signs, his work shall God bring to naught. He, in truth,
hath power over all things. Man's actions are acceptable after his having
recognized [the Manifestation]. He that turneth aside from the True One
is indeed the most veiled amongst His creatures. Thus hath it been
decreed by Him Who is the Almighty, the Most Powerful.
- "We have also heard that thou hast entrusted the reins of counsel into
the hands of the representatives of the people. Thou, indeed, hast done
well, for thereby the foundations of the edifice of thine affairs will be
strengthened, and the hearts of all that are beneath thy shadow, whether
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high or low, will be tranquilized. It behooveth them, however, to be
trustworthy among His servants, and to regard themselves as the representatives
of all that dwell on earth. This is what counseleth them, in
this Tablet, He Who is the Ruler, the All-Wise.... Blessed is he that
entereth the assembly for the sake of God, and judgeth between men with
pure justice. He, indeed, is of the blissful....
- "Turn thou unto God and say: O my Sovereign Lord! I am but a vassal
of Thine, and Thou art, in truth, the King of kings. I have lifted my
suppliant hands unto the heaven of Thy grace and Thy bounties. Send
down, then, upon me from the clouds of Thy generosity that which will
rid me of all save Thee, and draw me nigh unto Thyself. I beseech Thee, O
my Lord, by Thy name, which Thou hast made the king of names and the
manifestation of Thyself to all who are in heaven and on earth, to rend
asunder the veils that have intervened between me and my recognition of
the Dawning-Place of Thy signs and the Dayspring of Thy Revelation.
Thou art, verily, the Almighty, the All-Powerful, the All-Bounteous.
Deprive me not, O my Lord, of the fragrances of the Robe of Thy mercy in
Thy days, and write down for me that which Thou hast written down for
Thy handmaidens who have believed in Thee and in Thy signs, and have
recognized Thee, and set their hearts towards the horizon of Thy Cause.
Thou art truly the Lord of the worlds and of those who show mercy the
Most Merciful. Assist me, then, O my God, to remember Thee amongst
Thy handmaidens, and to aid Thy Cause in Thy lands. Accept, then,
that which hath escaped me when the light of Thy countenance shone
forth. Thou, indeed, hast power over all things. Glory be to Thee, O Thou
in Whose hand is the kingdom of the heavens and of the earth."
- In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, His Most Holy Book, Bahá'u'lláh thus addresses
the German Emperor, William I: "Say: O King of Berlin! Give ear
unto the Voice calling from this manifest Temple: Verily, there is none
other God but Me, the Everlasting, the Peerless, the Ancient of Days.
Take heed lest pride debar thee from recognizing the Dayspring of Divine
Revelation, lest earthly desires shut thee out, as by a veil, from the Lord of
the Throne above and of the earth below. Thus counseleth thee the Pen of
the Most High. He, verily, is the Most Gracious, the All-Bountiful. Do
thou remember the one whose power transcended thy power [Napoleon
III], and whose station excelled thy station. Where is he? Whither are
gone the things he possessed? Take warning, and be not of them that are
fast asleep. He it was who cast the Tablet of God behind him, when We
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made known unto him what the hosts of tyranny had caused Us to suffer.
Wherefore, disgrace assailed him from all sides, and he went down to dust
in great loss. Think deeply, O King, concerning him, and concerning
them who, like unto thee, have conquered cities and ruled over men. The
All-Merciful brought them down from their palaces to their graves. Be
warned, be of them who reflect."
- And further, in that same Book, this remarkable prophecy: "O banks
of the Rhine! We have seen you covered with gore, inasmuch as the swords
of retribution were drawn against you; and you shall have another turn.
And We hear the lamentations of Berlin, though she be today in conspicuous
glory."
- Again in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas these words, directed to Emperor Francis
Joseph, are recorded: "O Emperor of Austria! He who is the Dayspring of
God's Light dwelt in the prison of `Akká, at the time when thou didst set
forth to visit the Aqsá Mosque [Jerusalem]. Thou passed Him by, and
inquired not about Him, by Whom every house is exalted, and every lofty
gate unlocked. We, verily, made it [Jerusalem] a place whereunto the
world should turn, that they might remember Me, and yet thou hast
rejected Him Who is the Object of this remembrance, when He appeared
with the Kingdom of God, thy Lord and the Lord of the worlds. We have
been with thee at all times, and found thee clinging unto the Branch and
heedless of the Root. Thy Lord, verily, is a witness unto what I say. We
grieved to see thee circle round Our Name, whilst unaware of Us, though
We were before thy face. Open thine eyes, that thou mayest behold this
glorious Vision, and recognize Him Whom thou invokest in the daytime
and in the night season, and gaze on the Light that shineth above this
luminous Horizon."
- In the Súriy-i-Mulúk Sultán `Abdu'l-`Azíz is addressed in the following
terms: "Hearken, O king, to the speech of Him that speaketh the
truth, Him that doth not ask thee to recompense Him with the things God
hath chosen to bestow upon thee, Him Who unerringly treadeth the
straight Path. He it is Who summoneth thee unto God, thy Lord, Who
showeth thee the right course, the way that leadeth to true felicity, that
haply thou mayest be of them with whom it shall be well.... He that
giveth up himself wholly to God, God shall, assuredly, be with him; and
he that placeth his complete trust in God, God shall, verily, protect him
from whatsoever may harm him, and shield him from the wickedness of
every evil plotter.
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- "Wert thou to incline thine ear unto My speech and observe My
counsel, God would exalt thee to so eminent a position that the designs of
no man on the whole earth could ever touch or hurt thee. Observe, O
king, with thine inmost heart and with thy whole being, the precepts of
God, and walk not in the paths of the oppressor. Seize thou, and hold
firmly within the grasp of thy might, the reins of the affairs of thy people,
and examine in person whatever pertaineth unto them. Let nothing
escape thee, for therein lieth the highest good.
- "Render thanks unto God for having chosen thee out of the whole
world, and made thee king over them that profess thy faith. It well
beseemeth thee to appreciate the wondrous favors with which God hath
favored thee, and to magnify continually His name. Thou canst best
praise Him if thou lovest His loved ones, and dost safeguard and protect
His servants from the mischief of the treacherous, that none may any
longer oppress them. Thou shouldst, moreover, arise to enforce the law of
God amongst them, that thou mayest be of those who are firmly established
in His law.
- "Shouldst thou cause rivers of justice to spread their waters amongst
thy subjects, God would surely aid thee with the hosts of the unseen and
of the seen, and would strengthen thee in thine affairs. No God is there
but Him. All creation and its empire are His. Unto Him return the works
of the faithful.
- "Place not thy reliance on thy treasures. Put thy whole confidence in
the grace of God, thy Lord. Let Him be thy trust in whatever thou doest,
and be of them that have submitted themselves to His Will. Let Him be
thy helper and enrich thyself with His treasures, for with Him are the
treasuries of the heavens and of the earth. He bestoweth them upon whom
He will, and from whom He will He withholdeth them. There is none
other God but Him, the All-Possessing, the All-Praised. All are but
paupers at the door of His mercy; all are helpless before the revelation of
His sovereignty, and beseech His favors.
- "Overstep not the bounds of moderation, and deal justly with them
that serve thee. Bestow upon them according to their needs, and not to the
extent that will enable them to lay up riches for themselves, to deck their
persons, to embellish their homes, to acquire the things that are of no
benefit unto them, and to be numbered with the extravagant. Deal with
them with undeviating justice, so that none among them may either
suffer want, or be pampered with luxuries. This is but manifest justice.
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Allow not the abject to rule over and dominate them who are noble and
worthy of honor, and suffer not the high-minded to be at the mercy of the
contemptible and worthless, for this is what We observed upon Our
arrival in the City [Constantinople], and to it We bear witness....
- "Set before thine eyes God's unerring Balance and, as one standing in
His Presence, weigh in that balance thine actions every day, every
moment of thy life. Bring thyself to account ere thou art summoned to a
reckoning, on the Day when no man shall have strength to stand for fear
of God, the Day when the hearts of the heedless ones shall be made to
tremble....
- "Thou art God's shadow on earth. Strive, therefore, to act in such a
manner as befitteth so eminent, so august a station. If thou dost depart
from following the things We have caused to descend upon thee and
taught thee, thou wilt, assuredly, be derogating from that great and
priceless honor. Return, then, and cleave wholly unto God, and cleanse
thine heart from the world and all its vanities, and suffer not the love of
any stranger to enter and dwell therein. Not until thou dost purify thine
heart from every trace of such love can the brightness of the light of God
shed its radiance upon it, for to none hath God given more than one
heart. This, verily, hath been decreed and written down in His ancient
Book. And as the human heart, as fashioned by God, is one and
undivided, it behooveth thee to take heed that its affections be, also, one
and undivided. Cleave thou, therefore, with the whole affection of thine
heart, unto His love, and withdraw it from the love of anyone besides
Him, that He may aid thee to immerse thyself in the ocean of His unity,
and enable thee to become a true upholder of His oneness....
Let the Oppressor Desist
- "Let thine ear be attentive, O King, to the words We have addressed
thee. Let the oppressor desist from his tyranny, and cut off the perpetrators
of injustice from among them that profess thy faith. By the
righteousness of God! The tribulations We have sustained are such that
any pen that recounteth them cannot but be overwhelmed with anguish.
No one of them that truly believe and uphold the unity of God can bear
the burden of their recital. So great have been Our sufferings that even
the eyes of our enemies have wept over Us, and beyond those of every
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discerning person. And to all these trials have We been subjected, in spite
of Our action in approaching thee, and in bidding the people to enter
beneath thy shadow, that thou mightest be a stronghold unto them that
believe in and uphold the unity of God.
- "Have I, O King, ever disobeyed thee? Have I, at any time, transgressed
any of thy laws? Can any of thy ministers that represent thee in
`Iráq produce any proof that can establish My disloyalty to thee? No, by
Him Who is the Lord of all worlds! Not for one short moment did We rebel
against thee, or against any of thy ministers. Never, God willing, shall
We revolt against thee, though We be exposed to trials more severe than
any We suffered in the past. In the daytime and in the night season, at
even and at morn, We pray to God on thy behalf, that He may graciously
aid thee to be obedient unto Him and to observe His commandments,
that He may shield thee from the hosts of the evil ones. Do, therefore, as it
pleaseth thee, and treat Us as befitteth thy station and beseemeth thy
sovereignty. Be not forgetful of the law of God in whatever thou desirest to
achieve, now or in the days to come. Say: Praise be to God, the Lord of all
worlds!"
- Moreover, in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, is this vehement apostrophe to
Constantinople: "O Spot that art situate on the shores of the two seas! The
throne of tyranny hath, verily, been stablished upon thee, and the flame
of hatred hath been kindled within thy bosom, in such wise that the
Concourse on high and they who circle around the Exalted Throne have
wailed and lamented. We behold in thee the foolish ruling over the wise,
and darkness vaunting itself against the light. Thou art indeed filled with
manifest pride. Hath thine outward splendor made thee vainglorious? By
Him Who is the Lord of mankind! It shall soon perish, and thy daughters
and thy widows and all the kindreds that dwell within thee shall lament.
Thus informeth thee the All-Knowing, the All-Wise."
- As to Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, the Lawh-i-Sultán, despatched to him from
`Akká and constituting Bahá'u'lláh's lengthiest Epistle to any single
sovereign, proclaims: "O King! I was but a man like others, asleep upon
My couch, when lo, the breezes of the All-Glorious were wafted over Me,
and taught Me the knowledge of all that hath been. This thing is not from
Me, but from One Who is Almighty and All-Knowing. And He bade Me
lift up My voice between earth and heaven, and for this there befell Me
what hath caused the tears of every man of understanding to flow. The
learning current amongst men I studied not; their schools I entered not.
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Ask of the city wherein I dwelt, that thou mayest be well assured that I am
not of them who speak falsely. This is but a leaf which the winds of the will
of thy Lord, the Almighty, the All-Praised, have stirred. Can it be still
when the tempestuous winds are blowing? Nay, by Him Who is the Lord
of all Names and Attributes! They move it as they list. The evanescent is
as nothing before Him Who is the Ever-Abiding. His all-compelling
summons hath reached Me, and caused Me to speak His praise amidst all
people. I was indeed as one dead when His behest was uttered. The hand
of the will of thy Lord, the Compassionate, the Merciful, transformed
Me. Can anyone speak forth of his own accord that for which all men,
both high and low, will protest against him? Nay, by Him Who taught
the Pen the eternal mysteries, save him whom the grace of the Almighty,
the All-Powerful, hath strengthened. The Pen of the Most High addresseth
Me saying: Fear not. Relate unto His Majesty the Sháh that which
befell thee. His heart, verily, is between the fingers of thy Lord, the God of
Mercy, that haply the sun of justice and bounty may shine forth above
the horizon of his heart. Thus hath the decree been irrevocably fixed by
Him Who is the All-Wise.
- "Look upon this Youth, O King, with the eyes of justice; judge thou,
then, with truth concerning what hath befallen Him. Of a verity, God
hath made thee His shadow amongst men, and the sign of His power unto
all that dwell on earth. Judge thou between Us and them that have
wronged Us without proof and without an enlightening Book. They that
surround thee love thee for their own sakes, whereas this Youth loveth thee
for thine own sake, and hath had no desire except to draw thee nigh unto
the seat of grace, and to turn thee toward the right hand of justice. Thy
Lord beareth witness unto that which I declare.
- "O King! Wert thou to incline thine ear unto the shrill of the Pen of
Glory and the cooing of the Dove of Eternity which, on the branches of the
Lote-Tree beyond which there is no passing, uttereth praises to God, the
Maker of all names and Creator of earth and heaven, thou wouldst
attain unto a station from which thou wouldst behold in the world of
being naught save the effulgence of the Adored One, and wouldst regard
thy sovereignty as the most contemptible of thy possessions, abandoning
it to whosoever might desire it, and setting thy face toward the Horizon
aglow with the light of His countenance. Neither wouldst thou ever be
willing to bear the burden of dominion save for the purpose of helping thy
Lord, the Exalted, the Most High. Then would the Concourse on high
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bless thee. O how excellent is this most sublime station, couldst thou
ascend thereunto through the power of a sovereignty recognized as derived
from the Name of God!...
- "O King of the age! The eyes of these refugees are turned towards and
fixed upon the mercy of the Most Merciful. No doubt is there whatever
that these tribulations will be followed by the outpourings of a supreme
mercy, and these dire adversities be succeeded by an overflowing prosperity.
We fain would hope, however, that His Majesty the Sháh will himself
examine these matters, and bring hope to the hearts. That which We have
submitted to thy Majesty is indeed for thine highest good. And God,
verily, is a sufficient witness unto Me....
- "O would that thou wouldst permit Me, O Sháh, to send unto thee
that which would cheer the eyes, and tranquilize the souls, and persuade
every fair-minded person that with Him is the knowledge of the Book....
But for the repudiation of the foolish and the connivance of the divines, I
would have uttered a discourse that would have thrilled and carried away
the hearts unto a realm from the murmur of whose winds can be heard:
`No God is there but He!'...
- "I have seen, O Sháh, in the path of God what eye hath not seen nor
ear heard.... How numerous the tribulations which have rained, and
will soon rain, upon Me! I advance with My face set towards Him Who is
the Almighty, the All-Bounteous, whilst behind Me glideth the serpent.
Mine eyes have rained down tears until My bed is drenched. I sorrow not
for Myself, however. By God! Mine head yearneth for the spear out of love
for its Lord. I never passed a tree, but Mine heart addressed it saying: `O
would that thou wert cut down in My name, and My body crucified upon
thee, in the path of My Lord!'... By God! Though weariness lay Me low,
and hunger consume Me, and the bare rock be My bed, and My fellows
the beasts of the field, I will not complain, but will endure patiently as
those endued with constancy and firmness have endured patiently,
through the power of God, the Eternal King and Creator of the nations,
and will render thanks unto God under all conditions. We pray that, out
of His bounty--exalted be He--He may release, through this imprisonment,
the necks of men from chains and fetters, and cause them to turn,
with sincere faces, towards His Face, Who is the Mighty, the Bounteous.
Ready is He to answer whosover calleth upon Him, and nigh is He unto
such as commune with Him."
- In the Qayyúm-i-Asmá' the Báb, for His part, thus addresses
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Muhammad Sháh: "O King of Islám! Aid thou, with the truth, after
having aided the Book, Him Who is Our Most Great Remembrance, for
God hath, in very truth, destined for thee, and for such as circle round
thee, on the Day of Judgment, a responsible position in His Path. I swear
by God, O Sháh! If thou showest enmity unto Him Who is His Remembrance,
God will, on the Day of Resurrection, condemn thee, before the
kings, unto hellfire, and thou shalt not, in very truth, find on that Day
any helper except God, the Exalted. Purge thou, O Sháh, the Sacred
Land [Tihrán] from such as have repudiated the Book, ere the day
whereon the Remembrance of God cometh, terribly and of a sudden, with
His potent Cause, by the leave of God, the Most High. God, verily, hath
prescribed to thee to submit unto Him Who is His Remembrance, and
unto His Cause, and to subdue, with the truth and by His leave, the
countries, for in this world thou hast been mercifully invested with
sovereignty, and will, in the next, dwell, nigh unto the Seat of Holiness,
with the inmates of the Paradise of His good pleasure. Let not thy
sovereignty deceive thee, O Sháh, for `every soul shall taste of death,' and
this, in very truth, hath been written down as a decree of God."
- In His Tablet to Muhammad Sháh the Báb, moreover, has revealed:
"I am the Primal Point from which have been generated all created
things. I am the Countenance of God Whose splendor can never be
obscured, the Light of God Whose radiance can never fade.... All the
keys of heaven God hath chosen to place on My right hand, and all the
keys of hell on My left.... I am one of the sustaining pillars of the Primal
Word of God. Whosoever hath recognized Me, hath known all that is true
and right, and hath attained all that is good and seemly.... The
substance wherewith God hath created Me is not the clay out of which
others have been formed. He hath conferred upon Me that which the
worldly-wise can never comprehend, nor the faithful discover....
- "By My life! But for the obligation to acknowledge the Cause of Him
Who is the Testimony of God ... I would not have announced this unto
thee.... In that same year [year 60] I despatched a messenger and a book
unto thee, that thou mightest act towards the Cause of Him Who is the
Testimony of God as befitteth the station of thy sovereignty....
- "I swear by the truth of God! Were he who hath been willing to treat
Me in such a manner to know who it is whom he hath so treated, he,
verily, would never in his life be happy. Nay--I, verily, acquaint thee
with the truth of the matter--it is as if he hath imprisoned all the
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Prophets, and all the men of truth, and all the chosen ones.... Woe
betide him from whose hands floweth evil, and blessed the man from
whose hands floweth good....
- "I swear by God! I seek no earthly goods from thee, be it as much as a
mustard seed.... I swear by the truth of God! Wert thou to know that
which I know, thou wouldst forego the sovereignty of this world and of the
next, that thou mightest attain My good pleasure, through thine obedience
unto the True One.... Wert thou to refuse, the Lord of the world
would raise up one who will exalt His Cause, and the Command of God
will, verily, be carried into effect."
God's Vicar on Earth
- Dear friends! How vast a panorama these gemlike, these soul-searching
divinely uttered pronouncements outspread before our eyes!
What memories they evoke! How sublime the principles they inculcate!
What hopes they engender! What apprehensions they excite! And yet
how fragmentary must these above-quoted words, suited as they are to
the immediate purpose of my theme, appear when compared with the
torrential majesty which only the reading of the full text can disclose! He
Who was God's Vicar on earth, addressing, at the most critical moment
when His Revelation was attaining its zenith, those who concentrated in
their persons the splendor, the sovereignty, and the strength of earthly
dominion, could certainly not subtract one jot or tittle from the weight
and force which the presentation of so historic a Message demanded.
Neither the perils which were fast closing in upon Him, nor the
formidable power with which the doctrine of absolute sovereignty invested,
at that time, the emperors of the West and the potentates of the
East, could restrain the Exile and Prisoner of Adrianople from communicating
the full blast of His Message to His twin imperial persecutors
as well as to the rest of their fellow-sovereigns.
- The magnitude and diversity of the theme, the cogency of the
argument, the sublimity and audacity of the language, arrest our attention
and astound our minds. Emperors, kings and princes, chancellors
and ministers, the Pope himself, priests, monks and philosophers, the
exponents of learning, parliamentarians and deputies, the rich ones of
the earth, the followers of all religions, and the people of Bahá--all are
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brought within the purview of the Author of these Messages, and
receive, each according to their merits, the counsels and admonitions
they deserve. No less amazing is the diversity of the subjects touched
upon in these Tablets. The transcendent majesty and unity of an
unknowable and unapproachable God is extolled, and the oneness of
His Messengers proclaimed and emphasized. The uniqueness, the
universality and potentialities of the Bahá'í Faith are stressed, and the
purpose and character of the Bábí Revelation unfolded. The
significance of Bahá'u'lláh's sufferings and banishments is disclosed,
and the tribulations rained down upon His Herald and upon His
Namesake recognized and lamented. His own yearning for the crown of
martyrdom, which they both so mysteriously won, is voiced, and the
ineffable glories and wonders in store for His own Dispensation
foreshadowed. Episodes, at once moving and marvelous, at various
stages of His ministry, are recounted, and the transitoriness of worldly
pomp, fame, riches, and sovereignty, repeatedly and categorically asserted.
Appeals for the application of the highest principles in human
and international relations are forcibly and insistently made, and the
abandonment of discreditable practices and conventions, detrimental to
the happiness, the growth, the prosperity and the unity of the human
race, enjoined. Kings are censured, ecclesiastical dignitaries arraigned,
ministers and plenipotentiaries condemned, and the identification of
His advent with the coming of the Father Himself unequivocally admitted
and repeatedly announced. The violent downfall of a few of these
kings and emperors is prophesied, two of them are definitely challenged,
most are warned, all are appealed to and exhorted.
- In the Lawh-i-Sultán (Tablet to the Sháh of Persia) Bahá'u'lláh
declares: "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."
- And moreover, in the Lawh-i-Ra'ís, Bahá'u'lláh, recalling His
conver