1. The world's great Light, once resplendent upon all mankind,
hath set, to shine everlastingly from the Abhá Horizon, His
Kingdom of fadeless glory, shedding splendour upon His loved
ones from on high and breathing into their hearts and souls
the breath of eternal life.
(`Abdu'l-Bahá:
Selections ... `Abdu'l-Bahá, page 17)
2. Be not
dismayed, O peoples of the world, when the day-star of My
beauty is set, and the heaven of My tabernacle is concealed
from your eyes. Arise to further My Cause, and to exalt My
Word amongst men. We are with you at all times, and shall
strengthen you through the power of truth. We are truly
almighty. Whoso hath recognized Me will arise and serve Me
with such determination that the powers of earth and heaven
shall be unable to defeat his purpose.
(Bahá'u'lláh:
Gleanings, p.137)
3. The Ancient
Beauty hath consented to be bound with chains that mankind may
be released from its bondage, and hath accepted to be made a
prisoner within this most mighty Stronghold that the whole
world may attain unto true liberty. He hath drained to its
dregs the cup of sorrow, that all the peoples of the earth may
attain unto abiding joy, and be filled with gladness. This is
of the mercy of your Lord, the Compassionate, the Most
Merciful. We have accepted to be abased, O believers in the
Unity of God, that ye may be exalted, and have suffered
manifold afflictions, that ye might prosper and flourish. He
Who hath come to build anew the whole world, behold, how they
that have joined partners with God have forced Him to dwell
within the most desolate of cities!
(Bahá'u'lláh:
Gleanings, pages 99-100)
4. My God, my
Master, my Highest Hope, and the Goal of my desire! Thou seest
and hearest the sighing of this wronged One, from this
darksome well which the vain imaginations of Thine adversaries
have built, and from this blind pit which the idle fancies of
the wicked among Thy creatures have digged. By Thy Beauty, O
Thou Whose glory is uncovered to the face of men! I am not
impatient in the troubles that touch me in my love for Thee,
neither in the adversities which I suffer in Thy path. Nay, I
have, by Thy power, chosen them for mine own self, and I glory
in them amongst such of Thy creatures as enjoy near access to
Thee, and those of Thy servants that are wholly devoted to Thy
Self.
(Bahá'u'lláh:
Prayers and Meditations, pages 278-279)
5. As My
tribulations multiplied, so did My love for God and for His
Cause increase, in such wise that all that befell Me from the
hosts of the wayward was powerless to deter Me from My
purpose. Should they hide Me away in the depths of the earth,
yet would they find Me riding aloft on the clouds, and calling
out unto God, the Lord of strength and of might.
I have offered
Myself up in the way of God, and I yearn after tribulations in
My love for Him, and for the sake of His good-pleasure. Unto
this bear witness the woes which now afflict Me, the like of
which no other man hath suffered. Every single hair of Mine
head calleth out that which the Burning Bush uttered on Sinai,
and each vein of My body invoketh God and saith: `O would I
had been severed in Thy path, so that the world might be
quickened, and all its peoples be united!' Thus hath it been
decreed by Him Who is the All-Knowing, the All-Informed.
(Bahá'u'lláh:
Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, pages 52-53)
6. Although the
Realm of Glory hath none of the vanities of the world, yet
within the treasury of trust and resignation We have
bequeathed to Our heirs an excellent and priceless heritage.
Earthly treasures We have not bequeathed, nor have We added
such cares as they entail. By God! In earthly riches fear is
hidden and peril is concealed. Consider ye and call to mind
that which the All-Merciful hath revealed in the Qur'an: `Woe
betide every slanderer and defamer, him that layeth up riches
and counteth them.' Fleeting are the riches of the world; all
that perisheth and changeth is not, and hath never been,
worthy of attention, except to a recognized measure.
The Will of the
divine Testator is this: It is incumbent upon the Aghsan, the
Afnan and My Kindred to turn, one and all, their faces towards
the Most Mighty Branch. Consider that which We have revealed
in Our Most Holy Book: `When the ocean of My presence hath
ebbed and the Book of My Revelation is ended, turn your faces
toward Him Whom God hath purposed, Who hath branched from this
Ancient Root.' The object of this sacred verse is none other
except the Most Mighty Branch [Abdu'l-Bahá]. Thus have We
graciously revealed unto you our potent Will, and I am verily
the Gracious, the All-Powerful. Verily God hath ordained the
station of the Greater Branch [Muhammad Ali] to be beneath
that of the Most Great Branch [Abdu'l-Bahá]. He is in truth
the Ordainer, the All-Wise. We have chosen `the Greater' after
`the Most Great', as decreed by Him Who is the All-Knowing,
the All-Informed.
(Bahá'u'lláh:
Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh, pages 219-222)
7. We remember
every one of you, men and women, and from this Spot - the
Scene of incomparable glory - regard you all as one soul and
send you the joyous tidings of divine blessings which have
preceded all created things, and of My remembrance that
pervadeth everyone, whether young or old. The glory of God
rest upon you, O people of Bahá. Rejoice with exceeding
gladness through My remembrance, for He is indeed with you at
all times.
(Bahá'u'lláh:
Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh, page 264)
8. Well nigh half
a century had passed since the inception of the Faith. Cradled
in adversity, deprived in its infancy of its Herald and
Leader, it had been raised from the dust, in which a hostile
despot had thrown it, by its second and greatest Luminary Who,
despite successive banishments, had, in less than half a
century, succeeded in rehabilitating its fortunes, in
proclaiming its Message, in enacting its laws and ordinances,
in formulating its principles and in ordaining its
institutions, and it had just begun to enjoy the sunshine of a
prosperity never previously experienced, when suddenly it was
robbed of its Author by the Hand of Destiny, its followers
were plunged into sorrow and consternation, its repudiators
found their declining hopes revive, and its adversaries,
political as well as ecclesiastical, began to take heart
again.
Already nine
months before His ascension Baha'u'llah, as attested by
Abdu'l-Baha, had voiced His desire to depart from this world.
From that time onward it became increasingly evident, from the
tone of His remarks to those who attained His presence, that
the close of His earthly life was approaching, though He
refrained from mentioning it openly to any one. On the night
preceding the eleventh of Shavval 1309 A.H. (May 8, 1892) He
contracted a slight fever which, though it mounted the
following day, soon after subsided. He continued to grant
interviews to certain of the friends and pilgrims, but it soon
became evident that He was not well. His fever returned in a
more acute form than before, His general condition grew
steadily worse, complications ensued which at last culminated
in His ascension, at the hour of dawn, on the 2nd of
Dhi'l-Qa'dih 1309 A.H. (May 29, 1892), eight hours after
sunset, in the 75th year of His age. His spirit, at long last
released from the toils of a life crowded with tribulations,
had winged its flight to His "other dominions,"
dominions "whereon the eyes of the people of names have
never fallen," and to which the "Luminous
Maid," "clad in white," had bidden Him hasten,
as described by Himself in the Lawh-i-Ru'ya (Tablet of the
Vision), revealed nineteen years previously, on the
anniversary of the birth of His Forerunner.
Six days before
He passed away He summoned to His presence, as He lay in bed
leaning against one of His sons, the entire company of
believers, including several pilgrims, who had assembled in
the Mansion, for what proved to be their last audience with
Him. "I am well pleased with you all," He gently and
affectionately addressed the weeping crowd that gathered about
Him. "Ye have rendered many services, and been very
assiduous in your labors. Ye have come here every morning and
every evening. May God assist you to remain united. May He aid
you to exalt the Cause of the Lord of being." To the
women, including members of His own family, gathered at His
bedside, He addressed similar words of encouragement,
definitely assuring them that in a document entrusted by Him
to the Most Great Branch He had commended them all to His
care.
The news of His
ascension was instantly communicated to Sultan Abdu'l-Hamid in
a telegram which began with the words "the Sun of Baha
has set" and in which the monarch was advised of the
intention of interring the sacred remains within the precincts
of the Mansion, an arrangement to which he readily assented.
Baha'u'llah was accordingly laid to rest in the northernmost
room of the house which served as a dwelling-place for His
son-in-law, the most northerly of the three houses lying to
the west of, and adjacent to, the Mansion. His interment took
place shortly after sunset, on the very day of His
ascension.
The inconsolable
Nabil, who had had the privilege of a private audience with
Baha'u'llah during the days of His illness; whom Abdu'l-Baha
had chosen to select those passages which constitute the text
of the Tablet of Visitation now recited in the Most Holy Tomb;
and who, in his uncontrollable grief, drowned himself in the
sea shortly after the passing of his Beloved, thus describes
the agony of those days: "Methinks, the spiritual
commotion set up in the world of dust had caused all the
worlds of God to tremble.... My inner and outer tongue are
powerless to portray the condition we were in.... In the midst
of the prevailing confusion a multitude of the inhabitants of
Akka and of the neighboring villages, that had thronged the
fields surrounding the Mansion, could be seen weeping, beating
upon their heads, and crying aloud their grief."
For a full week a
vast number of mourners, rich and poor alike, tarried to
grieve with the bereaved family, partaking day and night of
the food that was lavishly dispensed by its members. Notables,
among whom were numbered Shi'ahs, Sunnis, Christians, Jews and
Druzes, as well as poets, ulamas and government officials, all
joined in lamenting the loss, and in magnifying the virtues
and greatness of Baha'u'llah, many of them paying to Him their
written tributes, in verse and in prose, in both Arabic and
Turkish. From cities as far afield as Damascus, Aleppo, Beirut
and Cairo similar tributes were received. These glowing
testimonials were, without exception, submitted to Abdu'l-Baha,
Who now represented the Cause of the departed Leader, and
Whose praises were often mingled in these eulogies with the
homage paid to His Father.
And yet these
effusive manifestations of sorrow and expressions of praise
and of admiration, which the ascension of Baha'u'llah had
spontaneously evoked among the unbelievers in the Holy Land
and the adjoining countries, were but a drop when compared
with the ocean of grief and the innumerable evidences of
unbounded devotion which, at the hour of the setting of the
Sun of Truth, poured forth from the hearts of the countless
thousands who had espoused His Cause, and were determined to
carry aloft its banner in Persia, India, Russia, Iraq, Turkey,
Palestine, Egypt and Syria.
With the
ascension of Baha'u'llah draws to a close a period which, in
many ways, is unparalleled in the world's religious history.
The first century of the Baha'i Era had by now run half its
course. An epoch, unsurpassed in its sublimity, its fecundity
and duration by any previous Dispensation, and characterized,
except for a short interval of three years, by half a century
of continuous and progressive Revelation, had terminated. The
Message proclaimed by the Bab had yielded its golden fruit.
The most momentous, though not the most spectacular phase of
the Heroic Age had ended. The Sun of Truth, the world's
greatest Luminary, had risen in the Siyah-Chal of Tihran, had
broken through the clouds which enveloped it in Baghdad, had
suffered a momentary eclipse whilst mounting to its zenith in
Adrianople and had set finally in Akka, never to reappear ere
the lapse of a full millenium. God's newborn Faith, the
cynosure of all past Dispensations, had been fully and
unreservedly proclaimed. The prophecies announcing its advent
had been remarkably fulfilled. Its fundamental laws and
cardinal principles, the warp and woof of the fabric of its
future World Order, had been clearly enunciated. Its organic
relation to, and its attitude towards, the religious systems
which preceded it had been unmistakably defined. The primary
institutions, within which an embryonic World Order was
destined to mature, had been unassailably established. The
Covenant designed to safeguard the unity and integrity of its
world-embracing system had been irrevocably bequeathed to
posterity. The promise of the unification of the whole human
race, of the inauguration of the Most Great Peace, of the
unfoldment of a world civilization, had been incontestably
given. The dire warnings, foreshadowing catastrophes destined
to befall kings, ecclesiastics, governments and peoples, as a
prelude to so glorious a consummation, had been repeatedly
uttered. The significant summons to the Chief Magistrates of
the New World, forerunner of the Mission with which the North
American continent was to be later invested, had been issued.
The initial contact with a nation, a descendant of whose royal
house was to espouse its Cause ere the expiry of the first
Baha'i century, had been established. The original impulse
which, in the course of successive decades, has conferred, and
will continue to confer, in the years to come, inestimable
benefits of both spiritual and institutional significance upon
God's holy mountain, overlooking the Most Great Prison, had
been imparted. And finally, the first banners of a spiritual
conquest which, ere the termination of that century, was to
embrace no less than sixty countries in both the Eastern and
Western hemispheres had been triumphantly planted.
In the vastness
and diversity of its Holy Writ; in the number of its martyrs;
in the valor of its champions; in the example set by its
followers; in the condign punishment suffered by its
adversaries; in the pervasiveness of its influence; in the
incomparable heroism of its Herald; in the dazzling greatness
of its Author; in the mysterious operation of its irresistible
spirit; the Faith of Baha'u'llah, now standing at the
threshold of the sixth decade of its existence, had amply
demonstrated its capacity to forge ahead, indivisible and
incorruptible, along the course traced for it by its Founder,
and to display, before the gaze of successive generations, the
signs and tokens of that celestial potency with which He
Himself had so richly endowed it.
(Shoghi Effendi:
God Passes By, pages 221-224)
9. Tablet of
Visitation
The praise which
hath dawned from Thy most august Self, and the glory which
hath shone forth from Thy most effulgent Beauty, rest upon
Thee, O Thou Who art the Manifestation of Grandeur, and the
King of Eternity, and the Lord of all who are in heaven and on
earth! I testify that through Thee the sovereignty of God and
His dominion, and the majesty of God and His grandeur, were
revealed, and the Day-Stars of ancient splendor have shed
their radiance in the heaven of Thine irrevocable decree, and
the Beauty of the Unseen hath shone forth above the horizon of
creation. I testify, moreover, that with but a movement of Thy
Pen Thine injunction "Be Thou" hath been enforced,
and God's hidden Secret hath been divulged, and all created
things have been called into being, and all the Revelations
have been sent down.
I bear witness,
moreover, that through Thy beauty the beauty of the Adored One
hath been unveiled, and through Thy face the face of the
Desired One hath shone forth, and that through a word from
Thee Thou hast decided between all created things, causing
them who are devoted to Thee to ascend unto the summit of
glory, and the infidels to fall into the lowest abyss.
I bear witness
that he who hath known Thee hath known God, and he who hath
attained unto Thy presence hath attained unto the presence of
God. Great, therefore, is the blessedness of him who hath
believed in Thee, and in Thy signs, and hath humbled himself
before Thy sovereignty, and hath been honored with meeting
Thee, and hath attained the good pleasure of Thy will, and
circled around Thee, and stood before Thy throne. Woe betide
him that hath transgressed against Thee, and hath denied Thee,
and repudiated Thy signs, and gainsaid Thy sovereignty, and
risen up against Thee, and waxed proud before Thy face, and
hath disputed Thy testimonies, and fled from Thy rule and Thy
dominion, and been numbered with the infidels whose names have
been inscribed by the fingers of Thy behest upon Thy holy
Tablets.
Waft, then, unto
me, O my God and my Beloved, from the right hand of Thy mercy
and Thy loving-kindness, the holy breaths of Thy favors, that
they may draw me away from myself and from the world unto the
courts of Thy nearness and Thy presence. Potent art Thou to do
what pleaseth Thee. Thou, truly, hast been supreme over all
things.
The remembrance
of God and His praise, and the glory of God and His splendor,
rest upon Thee, O Thou Who art His Beauty! I bear witness that
the eye of creation hath never gazed upon one wronged like
Thee. Thou wast immersed all the days of Thy life beneath an
ocean of tribulations. At one time Thou wast in chains and
fetters; at another Thou wast threatened by the sword of Thine
enemies. Yet, despite all this, Thou didst enjoin upon all men
to observe what had been prescribed unto Thee by Him Who is
the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
May my spirit be
a sacrifice to the wrongs Thou didst suffer, and my soul be a
ransom for the adversities Thou didst sustain. I beseech God,
by Thee and by them whose faces have been illumined with the
splendors of the light of Thy countenance, and who, for love
of Thee, have observed all whereunto they were bidden, to
remove the veils that have come in between Thee and Thy
creatures, and to supply me with the good of this world and
the world to come. Thou art, in truth, the Almighty, the Most
Exalted, the All-Glorious, the Ever-Forgiving, the Most
Compassionate.
Bless Thou, O
Lord my God, the Divine Lote-Tree and its leaves, and its
boughs, and its branches, and its stems, and its offshoots, as
long as Thy most excellent titles will endure and Thy most
august attributes will last. Protect it, then, from the
mischief of the aggressor and the hosts of tyranny. Thou art,
in truth, the Almighty, the Most Powerful. Bless Thou, also, O
Lord my God, Thy servants and Thy handmaidens who have
attained unto Thee. Thou, truly, art the All-Bountiful, Whose
grace is infinite. No God is there save Thee, the
Ever-Forgiving, the Most Generous.
(Bahá'u'lláh:
Prayers and Meditations, pages 310-313)
