Archive for July, 2014

BAHA’U’LLAH: THE POINT OF UNITY FOR JEWS, CHRISTIANS & MOSLEMS!

Wednesday, July 30th, 2014

MOSLEMS, CHRISTIANS AND JEWS MUST IMMEDIATELY CEASE ALL WARRING AND CONFLICT AND UNITE AROUND BAHA’U’LLAH UNDER HIS COVENANT!

THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO AVOID THERMONUCLEAR WAR!

BAHA’U’LLAH IS THE PROMISED ONE OF ALL PEOPLE, THEIR RELIGIONS AND TRADITIONS, AND THESE THREE ABRAHAMIC FAITHS IN PARTICULAR!

The entire Baha’i Faith and the controversy which has surrounded it since it’s beginnings in 1844-1863 revolve around the genealogy of Baha’u’llah being in a direct line from the Biblical King David. This has been suppressed in Persia (Iran) since then and has resulted in many assassinations worldwide, several of prominent individuals, by those who wish to keep this information from being widely investigated and broadcast. The “hands” in 1957 knew this and violated the Baha’i Covenant and without any authority whatsoever claimed “bada” and usurped the Cause of God in order to keep the world from knowing that Baha’u’llah was from this lineage, that He continued it through ‘Abdu’l-Baha and that it continued on from ‘Abdu’l-Baha through adoption.

Baha’u’llah’s lineage is from His father that of the Jewish Throne Line of King David and from His mother that of the Persian Sassanian Dynasty which ended with Yazdegird III.
The intertwining of this Throne Line of King David and the Throne Line of Zoroastrian Persia is referenced in one instance in Markham’s “A General Sketch of the History of Persia” published in 1874. The Genealogy is found on page 97 with the written account of the merging of these two royal houses found specifically on page 94. Here is the link to that account:

http://google.com/books?id=XWIVAAAAQAAJ

For a more complete genealogical depiction go to this link:

http://www.bupc.org/genealogy/genealogy-of-christ.html

Bostenay or as we transliterate the name; Bostanai was the “Prince of the Captivity” of the Jews at that time or as Ginsberg in his “Legends of the Jews” refers to the Davidic Kings during the time of their Babylonian/Persian captivity, the “Exilarchate”, the “Exilarchs” or the “Monarchs in exile”.

The Persians may know Bostanai in their history as “Baw” and his family as the “Bawandids” and there are written accounts of this very central point of Persian and Jewish history from both perspectives which dovetail perfectly. These histories were only “spoken of”, to quote a close Persian friend who is a Siyyid, “in very low tones and quiet whispers at certain cafe’s and private gymnasiums” as the Iranian government would cause one to disappear if they were found to be openly speaking of this part of Persian history. This oppression may be ongoing in present day Iran.

We, the Baha’is Under the Provisions of the Covenant, are going to break Baha’u’llah out of the Most Great Prison, the prison of oppression, marginalization and obscurity and bring about the Great Projection of His True Identity and the Identity of His True UHJ to all the people of the world. The goal of that Projection and the fruits of it are the establishment of universal human and civil rights, social and economic justice, the establishment of a bridled capitalism of the divine economy, and the lesser and greater peace founded upon the Most Great Justice.

It must also be noted that Baha’u’llah advised the Moslem leaders to send a representative to speak with His half brother Mirza Yahya so that they would have his confirmation of their genealogical roots. Mirza Yahya knew his family history as well as Baha’u’llah though Mirza Yahya also knew that it was not his own line of descent which continued the throne, but that it was in fact Baha’u’llah’s line which was chosen for this. This request by Baha’u’llah is recorded in His Epistle to the Son of the Wolf:

“In this day, this Wronged One requesteth thee and the other divines who
have drunk of the cup of the knowledge of God, and are illumined by the
shining words of the Day-Star of Justice, to appoint some person,
without informing any one, and despatch him to these regions, and
enable him to remain a while in the island of Cyprus, and associate
with Mirza Yahya, perchance he may become aware of the fundamentals of
this Faith and of the source of the Divine laws and commandments.
(Baha’u’llah: Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, Pages: 120-121)

There are also key references in the Baha’i writings which confirm this Davidic Lineage and Baha’u’llah’s ancestry being firmly rooted therein.

In the year 817 A.D. the Reigning Davidic Monarch was actually converted to Islam by the Imam who was his contemporary when they met in the city of Mashad.

At one time when asked by what authority do the Imams rule the Imam stated “We rule by the authority of the House of David.”

This is the point of unity around which Moslem, Jew and Christian must unite! It is now time for this to come forth and bring the three most warring branches of the religion of God together in Universal Peace through Universal Justice!

In service to the Covenant,

In the Name of the King,

KPS59,

Knight of Baha’u’llah

 

“Thus saith the Lord to his anointed [Heb. Messiah], to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall be not shut;” (Is. 45:1 KJV)

As is shown here, in the Bible, Cyrus the Great, called Bahman ibn Isfandiyar in Persia is called Messiah or Christ, the “Anointed One” in the Bible. Why?

To understand this we must first understand the meaning of the word “anointed” or Christ.

The word Messiah is the Hebrew word for the Greek word Christ, which in English means anointed one, but anointed one of what? The full title is Messiah ben David, which means the anointed male sperm descendant of King David and was the term used only for the kings of the Jews of Israel who were anointed by the High Priest with oil in a ceremony to rule over the people of Israel. Thus David was anointed by Samuel and Solomon by the High Priest as well. The prophecies state that there will be “Two Messiahs” or “Two Christs” or “Two Anointed ones” that stand by the Lord of the whole earth (see Zech. Chap. 4 for more on this). These would be two different descendants of King David who would be anointed directly by God with the Holy Spirit and not with physical oil by a man in a ceremony. Yet the Bible declares Cyrus the Great to be God’s anointed, the Messiah or Christ though he is clearly not descended from King David. Why?

The answer is that from Cyrus the Great of Persia the second coming of Christ will appear through the female line, as the male line of David was to marry into the female line of Zoroaster and of Cyrus. Zoroaster in English literally means “seed of the woman”. Thus Cyrus is called “anointed” showing that through his lineage will come the “seed of the woman” or ovum through which the “loins of kings” will be loosed through marriage. From this union will come the return of Christ, whom both Christians and Muslims await, and who is the same personage as the Messiah seated upon the throne of David that the Jews are also awaiting. The very appearance of this personage will unite the people of the world as He is to be recognized as the Promised One of all. This was to be preserved and protected by Cyrus and his successors until the appointed hour. Beginning at 9/11/2001 that Prophetic Hour has been unfolding upon the world stage.

Thus Cyrus the Great was the One that God had appointed to both protect and continue this lineage from David (Christ), which is to last for ever (see Psalms 89).

Cyrus the Great did this in several ways. First, by returning Jesus’s ancestors who did not sit upon the throne of King David (God’s throne)—such as Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel (see Luke chapter 3)—back to the safety of Jerusalem; and 2) by bringing the throne of David into the safe haven of Persia where it was to be preserved for about 2300 years (Daniel chapter 8). Thus the Bible, in the Book of Daniel, ends with the throne of David being brought into Persia (see chapter 10 verses 1, 20; and ch. 11 verse 2, etc…). Then Daniel in Chapter 12 gives several prophetic dates such as 1260, 1290 and 1335 years to occur after the appearance of Mohammed, for the throne of David to re-emerge out of Persia and come to the West. This is prophesied to occur with a great social upheaval, thousands of believers martyred, the collapse of the Muslim dynasties and the resurgence of Western Powers over that of the East. As the dates of 1260, 1290 and 1335 on the Muslim calendar have already come and gone, behold how since that time of 1844 AD on the Christian solar calendar, these prophecies have all come to pass.

Thus Cyrus of Persia, a Zoroastrian, is called Messiah who will “loose the lions of kings [reproductive systems]” and “open before him the two leaved gates [“Bab” is gate in Persian and Arabic]. This is fulfilled in the TWIN HOLY LINEAGES of both Mohammed and King David preserved and protected in Persia. The daughters of Cyrus, of the last Sassanian Monarch Yazdigird III, Dara and Shar-Banu were married one to the exilarch, the exiled Davidic King, Bostanai, called Baw, Gawbara, or Badustan in Persian, and the other to Imam Husayn respectively. This marriage and double wedding ceremony was arranged by the Imam Ali and is preserved in the Legend of the 1001 Nights where Imam Husayn is symbolized by Shah Zaman (the Lord of the Age) who marries one sister and Bostanai is symbolized by his older brother, Shahriyar, (Shahriyar is a family name of Bostanai) who marries the other sister. Like Isaac and Ishmael were brothers, Bostanai and Imam Husayn, are not only brothers in marriage, but brothers from David and Muhammad, from Isaac and Ishmael. This is the story of the family of God. Thus the loins of Kings, both of David (Baw/Badustan Bostanai) and of Muhammad (Imam Husayn) were loosed by the lineage of Cyrus through these two women, the sisters and princesses of the Zoroastrian lineage. As already explained, Zoroaster, in English, literally means “seed of the woman.” ‘Zoro’ or ‘Zero’ is seed and ‘aster’ is the woman. The Bible gives Cyrus as “Messiah” “Christ” or “anointed one” because the Christ on his second coming that all the world waits for will be descended from him through the female line and from David upon the male line, for the Christ is the anointed son of David, and Jesus was not seated upon David’s throne, as this throne was moved into Persia.

Christians who were knowledgeable understood that the Magi from Persia were Zoroastrian Priests. Those Christian adepts were knowledgeable that King Solomon, when he had been exiled from his throne, met with Zoroaster in Shiz in Azerbaijan in the area of Solomaniyyiah and Solomon’s Throne. They understood that Zoroaster himself had visited King Solomon in Jerusalem and that all the kings of Persia mentioned in the Bible are Zoroastrians being of the same religion, same faith and same persuasion as the Jews and later the true Christians.

The symbol for the philosophers stone is the star of David and ancient European texts relate that this was to be found near Mount Damavand in Persia in the area of Mazindaran and Tabaristan, on the outskirts of the ancient city of Ray, near Teheran.

The writings on the Holy Grail explain that the Latin and French words where more fully “sangrail” or “sang-rail” and literally translates into English as blood-royal or the royal blood line of the true kingship blessed and chosen by God. “Sang” means blood; and “rail” means king. Thus in the Legends of Arthur, some knights visited into the east of Persia (Iran and Iraq) to the grail castle, and met the living descendant of King David ruling upon David’s throne at that time. This is recorded in the preserved books, which speak of these things.

“THE Most Great Law is come, and the Ancient Beauty ruleth upon the throne of David. Thus hath My Pen spoken that which the histories of bygone ages have related.”

The Proclamation of Baha’u’llah, pg. 89, The fulfillment of Psalm 89.

At the time of the fall of the Persian Empire all the lands were conquered by the Muslim hordes of Abu Bakr, Omar and Othman, accept for the strong hold of the mountains of the north in Mazindaran. In 613 AD when Chosroes captured Jerusalem, he did this with the help of Bostanai who was a general in his army and whom history variously calls Baw, Gil-Gawbara or Baduspan depending upon the sources.

Bostanai was promised to be able to rebuild Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem if he helped capture the City, but Chosroes changed his mind and captured the true cross for his Christian wife bringing this back to Persia. As a recompense Chosroes Parviz gave Bostanai the fiefdoms of the lands of his ancestors such as Azerbaijan and the north, where Solomon had wandered, Isfahan where Shushandukt was buried, Hamadan the place of Esther, and Istakar the place of Daniel and Cyrus, as well as the lands of Mazindaran in the precincts of the city of Rayy where Tobit and those dwelled, near where modern day Teheran is located. Thus Bostanai governed and collected the taxes over all the principalities as Shah (which included the territory of the Khazars and Russia as well along the shores of the Caspian sea) and then paid his tithes to Chosroes the Shahenshah, over all the empire. Ibn Isfandiyar tells us that it was then at that time that the northern mountain lands of Farthagwashgar were renamed Tabaristan from the word “Bustan” — beautiful scented garden — which is the name of the Davidic King Bostanai. Thus it was from this time forward that the north was called Tabaristan and the Dabuyids or Davidides of Baw (Bostanai) are reckoned as its first ancestral kings, from the days when the empire fell to the hands of the invading hordes of Omar and those who were against the Alids and family of Ali, Hasan and Husayn.

These two lineages — one female and the other male — (of Zoroaster and of David) are preserved from ancient times until the present. In the Bible we read of the great King Ahasuerus who married Queen Esther whom Firdawsi in the Shahnameh relates to the mother of Darius the Great, his father the great King of Persia and his mother the Queen from the family of David. Thus on the Behistun Monument, carved in Stone, located on the ancient roadway from Baghdad to Teheran, Darius proclaims that from these two great families (David and Hakamanush of Zoroaster and Cyrus) God has always vouchsafed kingship, and that it is from these “two families” that he himself is descended, David on the female side and that of Cyrus of the Persian on the male side. Thus these ancestors of ancient Persia could recount their lineages from either the male line or the female line, or sometimes from both, switching back and forth between certain family ancestors, depending upon how they wanted, for not only did Esther of the daughter’s of the house of David marry into the Persian royal family, but Shushandukt, the daughter of one of the Exilarchs married into the royal family of Sassan (a descendant of Cyrus) and her son was Bahman the Great.

In the Tarikh-i-Ruyan, you can therefore read where these pure natured ancestors thus recount their lineage from the time of Adam until the present day. From Adam to Pharez the son of Judah the son of Jacob son of Isaac, son of Abraham they give their genealogy in the male line. Then of Manuschir down through Cyrus the Great and the Sassaniyan kings they give their lineage of the female line. Then from Baw, Gawbara, or Gil, they give their lineage again through the male line. Thus these ancestors always showed that they were Jews, from Judah, in the male line. Jew means descended from Judah. And these Kings of the Mountains always reckoned their descent from Judah.

Pharez, the son of Judah was sometimes confused by scholars as referring to Fars, or the province of Fars in Persia. Thus in the poems and prophecies of Shalamagani, who stated that there was a future prophet who would not come from the house of Hashim but from the house of Kisra (Chosroes the Great, Anurshuvan (Adil) the Just), Mirza Abu Fazl clarified that by Pharez was meant the son of Judah and not the province of Fars.

Knowing the lineage of the Badustaniyan-Bawandids, Shalamagani clearly stated that this one would come from Pharez, that is Pharez the son of Judah, for from this line of Judah and Pharez comes King David whose descendant Bostanai from this House was both descended from Cyrus and Kisra in the female line as well as marrying the daughter of Yazdigird III making his son Shahriyar both the male heir of David’s throne on the male line (the throne of God), and the heir to the throne of Persia through both his mother, Dara, and his father Bostanai, as Yazdigird III had willed the throne of all Persia to Bostanai, before the fall of the empire at the hands of the bloodthirsty ones who killed Ali, Hasan and the beloved Imam Husayn on the plain of Karbila.

For making this prophecy, Shalamagani was put to death. Likewise since that time, many historians, philosophers and poets, such as al-Biruni, Firdawsi, Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and the like were all electrified and inspired when they had discovered the secret of the throne of David existing within the precincts of Persia, in the land of Tabaristan or Mazandaran. In consequence of obsessive jealousy, envy and hatred, these ones were forced to flee for their lives and take refuge at times with the dynasties of the Ispahbadiyyia of Mazandaran who were the heirs to David’s throne of the line of Baw and Baduspan. Firdawsi was to have his Shahnameh dedicated to Shahriyar Sharwin named in the Tarik-i-Tabraistan by Ibn Isfandiyar as he realized that he was the heir to the dual throne of David and of Persia alike. Firdawsi declares that the book should be dedicated to him as it pertains to his lineage and his family, as he is the heir of Yazdgird III of the lineage of Kisra and Cyrus the great. Thus many have been persecuted or killed if they published or taught of the inheritance of the throne of Persia being passed down from Baw or Baduspan in the direct male line from the time of Yazdigird to the present — let alone if they dared to mention the throne of David as the inheritance of the same person for in the Koran, Muhammad names David and his sons as God’s successors (khalif)—vice-regent—on earth, and of this term khalif in the Koran, he names no other (Koran 38:26; 17:55; 2:30, 251, etc…).

Thus these Badustaniyan chiefs had full rights of inheritance to govern both Persia and the East as well as claim successorship to the throne of God, David’s throne, the throne of the LORD (1 Chron. 29:23) that was preserved within their family since time immemorial and ancient of days—from the time of Adam, Abraham and David to the present era. In the Koran, Muhammad explained that His dispensation was to be a “middle nation” or a “middle kingdom” (Koran 2:143) which would rule after the time of Adam, David and Jesus, and before the time of the Kingdom at the close of the Adamic cycle of 6 days, or 6000 years, each day being 1000 years—4000 BC to 2001 AD—(Koran 7:54; 10:4; 32:5,6; 22:47).

All the various dynasties of the East from the Abbassid down to the Safavid had made their claims to Persia (Iran) by marrying into the female line of these Badustaniyan chiefs. Al-Mamun’s mother was of the clan of Dabuyid (Davidides) of the family of those of Baw/Gawbara (Bostanai) though not through the house of Shahriyar-Baduspan that inherited the throne, but through that of one of his brothers who did not inherit the throne. The Safvids likewise married into the house of Baduspan-Bawand through a daughter, and by this union of Ismael comes the great Abbas. All of these ones in the east that claimed rule, and took it by force, would thus claim the throne by right of marriage to a daughter of these great Ispahbuds. The throne of David however is a male line inheritance only. It passes on from father to son. No Queen ever sat upon the throne of David. Meanwhile, these Ispahbuds of Baduspan and Bawand would allow these others to rule empire by the will of God all along passing on both the throne of Persia and the throne of David as a father to son inheritance within their family.

All of these ones from the time that Bostanai met Ali, Hasan and Husayn at his double wedding to his wife Dara — and Husayn’s to her sister Shar-banu — the exilarchs of Bawand had been the followers and loyal supporters of the Imams and their Holy family. In 817 AD the Exilarch Isaac Iskoi ben Moses also called Karin in Persian declared his belief in the 8th Imam Ali ar-Rida publicly after having been fully converted and moved his family and 800 Jews who did likewise to their permanent home in Tabaristan. This victory was so great, as the conversion of the Davidic King had taken place by the 8th Imam himself in a conference arranged by al-Mamun, all three being related to the Sassanian and Persian Dynasties of Zoroaster and Cyrus through their respective mothers or great grandmothers that the event was inscribed in stone on the Kabba itself! This inscription remains there to this very day for all to see and read.

Karin or Isaac was known throughout Persia and the East as Abu-Muluk, the father of Kings, as the heir to David’s throne and head of all world Jewry was now a declared believer in Muhammad and Jesus and through the joint efforts of the Caliph Mamun and the Imam Rida. Entitled the great Ispahbud over the provinces of Kurasan and the like, Karin (Isaac) had joy turned into sorrow when the unity collapsed at the martyrdom of Imam Rida who had previously been named the successor to Mamun. Thus the East was plunged into a great day of turmoil and contention and books were again burned, and the Imam’s family, the Alids, and the Exilarchs all fled to Tabaristan or Mazindaran for protection once again.

O Mohammed! Such are but a few of the great events that have taken place in the wondrous country where God’s throne has been preserved aforetime! The country where the Twin Holy Lineages of the Prophet Muhammad and of King David have been preserved for over 1000 years. To recount all the great events would fill not just a book, but volume after volume after volume of history and illumination to the pages of known history today. Yet in this short treatise we should at least mention one other great and important event that unites the hearts of all the lovers of the true God throughout all the world no matter what land or clime to which God has driven them and in which today they may be found.

In his old age it was the wish of Bostanai to once again meet with his brother (in marriage) Husayn before he passed on into the next world. Likewise Dara wished to see her sister, Shar-banu, for they had not been reunited since the day of their wedding, for it was after that great day that horrible tragedy struck with the murder and holy martyrdom of Imam Ali, by the perfidious Muawia described in the Book of Revelation as the angel of the bottomless pit Abbaddon, for both Muawia and Abbadon in English means “the destroyer.” So it was that Bostanai (called Baw or Gawbara in the Persian chronicles) was about 80 years of age. In the Jewish Yeshivas and schools in the Area of Pure Lineage (where Baghdad is now located in Iraq) his sons by his Jewish wife who had passed on acted as the presidents of the schools of Pumbedita and Sura and maintained their ancestral residence in the town of Nehardea near the temple of Shaf ve Yativ. These sons are reckoned in the Jewish histories as “helper” and not exilarch, for their father only had them be his helpers while he was away in Tabaristan raising his other children with his wife Dara. To these sons by his Jewish wife he never gave the throne. The family prepared for the long journey back to Iraq Arabi where they would meet Husayn and his family for their family reunion. When asked by what authority the Imams ruled Husayn always replied: “We Imams rule by the authority of the throne of David, and if we lack anything the Holy Spirit sends it to us.”

The arrangements had all been made. Husayn had tentatively accepted the invitation by certain ones to come to Iraq and possibly make that area his permanent residence, and Bostanai had arranged with his other sons for a place to stay in Iraq as well. Through Dara and Shar-banu the two families were to meet at a third undisclosed location for their reunion as the threat of the Umayyad terror was still all throughout the land. Bostanai, under the guidance and protection of the Imams, had originally fled into Mazandaran for safety since the death of Ali. And the Umayyad successors had been warned by their founders never to again harm the Imams or any of their house. However the Umayyad leader disobeyed the instructions of his own father in this matter. When word of this reunion came to the ears of the Umayyed Caliph he felt he could wipe out both the house of David and that of the Imams in one swoop. On his way to see Bostanai for their reunion, Husayn and his party was fiercely attacked. Diverting the enemy toward the plain of Karbila, Husayn, Shahr-banu and their whole family and company was martyred. Like Muhammad, Ali, Hasan and even Ishmael and his mother Hagar before them, they all died and willingly gave their lives, so that the line of David should continue for ever unharmed and unmolested. This is the great sacrifice of Islam, to submit willingly and lovingly to the Will of God and to holy martyrdom, as did Jesus, who said pick up your cross and follow me, for the Cause of God to continue in guarding and protecting the throne and lineage of David which is to last for ever.

When Bostanai heard the news of the slaughter on the plain of Karbila, history recounts, the terrible news, so shocking, so horrible, hit him like a “brick in the head.” Thus unable to attain his dying wish to be reunited with Husayn in this life, he instantly winged his way into the next. This double tragedy of the death of both the exilarch Bostanai and the great Imam Husayn set off a terrible shock wave throughout the entire globe. Sadiq lay sick and dying in bed, and the evil sons of Bostanai, who had actually conspired with the Umayyads and betrayed the route, timetable and itinerary Husayn had chosen to take, captured Dara and her three sons who had survived their father’s death — one walking, one crawling and one still suckling — and had them thrown in prison to have them either put to death or sold as slaves.

These evils sons, his former “helpers” thus sought to usurp the throne of David from their younger brothers for themselves and sell out the throne of Persia of the East, they felt they could steel to the perfidious and murder some Umayyads themselves! Up until that time the Umayyads had been unable to capture Tabaristan and Northern Persia where many refugees had been consistently fleeing to for safety in the mountain refuges of that northern most land.

The righteous leaders of the Jewish schools were horrified at the perfidy and usurpation of the two brothers. They ruled that the sons of Bostanai by Dara were the appointed heirs to the throne of David, and that by the law of primogeniture and by the explicit appointment by their father Bostanai, their order was by age, first Shahriyar, than Mardanshah and than Gurganshah—Bostanai having declared Shahriyar his heir to the throne even as David several times proclaimed his appointment of Solomon. Thus these loyal leaders of the Jewish schools were either deposed and/or killed by the wicked brothers and the usurping parties who had the backing of the Umayyads. But God intervened! Before they could either kill or enslave Dara and her three sons permanently, her Uncle, the Marzabana, military general of Tabaristan, threatened war on the Jewish brothers with certain defeat if his niece and her sons were not returned to Tabaristan unharmed, which they then were by direct military escort. According to the wishes of Bostanai, the territory of Mazandaran or Tabaristan was divided up into three parcels amongst the three bothers, who each formed dynasties that ruled that area for more than a thousand years. Each son had a capital on a different mountain in his region, one on the East, one in the central area, and one in the West. At Shahriyar Kuh, and in the area of Amul and later Ruyan, Shahriyar hailed as the great Baduspan made his capital seat. In the country of Nur and Kujur in the area of Takur, the family maintained the ancestral estate and farm where Bostanai himself had lived with Dara and where her three sons had been born. Thus it was written that in the legendary city of Taq all the wealth and wisdom of the ancient Persian dynasties had been preserved, for in Taq or Takur, the lineage of Cyrus, Kisra and David was all preserved in that family in northern Iran protected, safe, and secure as the Imams made certain by their sacrifice. And so it would remain until the appointed hour!

Mohammed! Many have been killed and have willingly given their lives not to betray this ancient and wondrous secret, and the truth about the peoples and history of Persia. Thus it has been written even in the Holy Bible:

“Thus saith the Lord to his anointed [Heb. Messiah], to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall be not shut;” (Is. 45:1 KJV)

That from these two holy lineages, from these Twin Holy Trees, that of Ishmael and Isaac, that of Muhammad and that of David, would God Almighty conjoin with the seed of Cyrus, and in the end times “open before him the two leaved gates” in the Twin Holy Personages of the Qaim and the Qayyum.

Now all peoples and scholars on this all important and weighty topic cannot fail to recognize that by the appearance of Qaim, the “One who will Arise” is meant the Appearance of the promised Imam from the lineage of Husayn and Shahr-banu. Likewise by Qayyum is meant “the everlasting” and is sometimes translated into English as the “self-subsisting one” referring to the everlasting Covenant that God promised to King David and to his offspring and to his lineage that his line will last for ever and his throne for all generations. (see 1 Sam. 7:13 and Psalms 89). Thus from these Twin Holy Genealogies are to come TWO PROMISED ONES from Persia, simultaneously, the Qaim of the House of Muhammad and Cyrus; and the Qayyum of the House of David and Cyrus; both cousins and brothers through the twin double wedding of the daughters of Yazdigird III.

Anyone so inclined to read the book of Nabil’s Narrative, would see mightily and glaring upon those pages, the fact that both Shaykh Ahmad and Siyyid Kazim anticipated the twin appearances of the Qaim in the person of the 12th Imam returned from the lineage of the Imams; and the Qayyum in the person of the second coming of Christ to return from the lineage of David from the house of Badustan-Bawand. Thus Shaykh Ahmad while in Teheran inquired into the family of Mirza Buzurg the Vizier about his beloved son Husayn. Likewise did Siyyid Kazim guard this secret like a treasure concealed within a shell. And Mullah Husayn was dispatched by the Bab to deliver a message to the lineal heir who had inherited both the throne of David and the throne of Persia from his father before him.

From that time, Siyyid Ali Muhammad has been known as the Bab and Mirza Husayn -Ali as Baha’u’llah: for the Bab was the “gate” to Baha’u’llah, and Baha’u’llah explained that he was the return and resurrection of that same gate. Therefore from the lineage of Cyrus the Great comes the “two gates” that shall never be shut, for through the “One who has Arisen,” has come the “One who is Everlasting” (Qa’im and Qayyum), for the throne of David shall last for ever.

The people of Persia who claimed to be followers of the Bab were just as bad to Baha’u’llah in His day, as the people of the East who claimed to be followers of Muhammad were to Ali and Husayn. Be Fair! Who would judge the purity and sanctity of Muhammad and His Imams by the perfidious and awful behavior of Mu’awia and the like? Even the Sunni denounce Mu’awia and his successors, by dismissing them from the roster of the first four “righteous Caliphs” which includes Ali. Therefore no man with good conscience or upright spirit would ever denounce and decry either Baha’u’llah or the Bab by the veritable mountain of mischief kindled by the violators of the Covenant of the Bab that upset and imbalanced the nation of Persia during those dark days, illumined by the light of those twin suns from which the bats of hatred and jealousy sought to either flee or extinguish. No! God forbid! And to this day, no man knows the true history of the Baha’i Faith as the anti-Davidic King, Nakazeen, Covenant-breakers, have violated every single last provision of the Baha’i Covenant, the sacred Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Baha (see page 15, they have no executive branch), as they have separated themselves from the line and throne of David which God saw fit to preserve all down throughout the ages!

ON PAGE 15 of the Will it states that the legislative must reinforce the executive. Thus the line of David continues for ever in the Presidency and Executive branch of the Baha’i Faith of Baha’u’llah’s true Universal House of Justice. As these ones in Haifa have no Executive, they are in violation of page 15 of the charter of the Covenant. They are the Covenant-breakers.

“This House of Justice enacteth the laws and the government enforceth them. The legislative body must reinforce the executive, the executive must aid and assist the legislative body so that through the close union and harmony of these two forces, the foundation of fairness and justice may become firm and strong, that all the regions of the world may become even as Paradise itself.”
(Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Baha, p. 15)

They have no Executive Branch. They are the Covenant-breakers. It has always been these Covenant-breakers (Nagazeen), especially that faction in Iran, who have tried to disrupt the government. They do this in opposition to the explicit instructions of Baha’u’llah and ‘Abdu’l-Baha and have separated themselves from the Davidic Kingship of the great grandson of ‘Abdu’l-Baha who is alive in the world today.

When they, or anyone who claims to be “Baha’i” separates themselves from the Executive Branch (living Davidic King), they are in violation of the Covenant (see W&T, pp. 14, 15 and 11).

The most important work today is the establishment of the Divine Economy upheld by a spiritual world government, which shall be a universal democracy and republic of the nations of the worlds. This will unify all of mankind in the diversity of their respective cultures and allow all free thinking people to worship God in their own fashion according to what has been revealed in the Book. For both true science and true religion must correspond.

Baha’u’llah has explained:

“The fifteenth Glad-Tidings:

Although a republican form of government profiteth all the peoples of the world, yet the majesty of kingship is one of the signs of God. We do not wish that the countries of the world should remain deprived thereof. If the sagacious combine the two forms into one, great will be their reward in the presence of God.”
(Baha’u’llah, Tablets of Baha’u’llah, p.28)

Had the so-called “Babis” not violated the Covenant of the Bab, broken up into many dastardly sects, nor been mislead by the perfidious Mirza Yahya, the democracy that Baha’u’llah has foretold will happen would have been successful at the time of Bani Sadr. Had there been no violation of the Covenant of the Bab and Baha’u’llah by those who outwardly professed to be loyal followers but were inwardly corrupt and who committed disreputable acts in their name, reactionary religious fundamentalism, like some of the extreme clerics, would never have come to power. Now the climate is moderating toward democracy once again and this is in the best interests of all the people. Had the Covenant of the Bab not been broken, Iran would be a rejuvenated country to this day and the glory of its former days (like those days of Cyrus and Kisra) would be resplendent and re-established. The violation by the Babis of the Covenant of the Bab, and then the violation by the so-called “Baha’i’s” by the “Hands”, gave rise to the unrest and religious reactionalism not only in Iran but all over the world. The Violators of the Covenant of the Bab and Baha’u’llah are thus to blame for the rise and ascendancy of tyrants and dictators all throughout the world.

So fanatical have been the excesses of the clergy class, in every day and age, it is enough for pure hearted people of both the East and the West to prefer the apparent outward calm of not investigating the truth of these matters – saying ignorance is bliss. But this is not so! Ignorance is a subtle torment! And man was created to know and to love God.

Really since the disappearance of the 12th Imam Mahdhi in 260 AH, the people of the Shi’i of the family of the prophet have suffered hardship after hardship all down throughout the ages. Yet today, in the West people are plagued with fears of groups such as al-Qaida and ISIS/ISIL, which has been grouped amongst those of the Sunni extremist, whereas in the East people fear the Nuclear threat of the “War on Terror” lead by Bush, whose legacy continues to threaten to this day. Really the only way to safety security and salvation for all people of every race creed and color is the government that God has given for peace through justice on earth. We can no longer see ourselves as just Americans or Iranians or Iraqis or Israelis or Russians, etc… but as one people of one human family. Citizens of one world – world citizens, who love God first and foremost above all else having unity in diversity of our cultures, perspectives and diverse backgrounds, which come together as one even as separate rivers all unite in one great sea.

This unity is to be achieved through the medicine for this sick world that God gave: the throne of David as the Executive Branch of the world judicial and world legislative body. Extremist groups, militant religious fanatics of any denomination, sect, or persuasion are to be avoided completely. As the prophecies of the Tanak, Gospels and Koran, all point to the same appearance of the same Kingdom from the same God, preserved through the line of David, all will accept this Kingdom as the government for the people of the world. Clergy classes will be eliminated as thinking people will find that they need no intermediary between themselves and the Book, that is, all people are to be elevated through education to the position of educators and religious doctors. All will see the truth of God through their own eyes and not through the eyes of their neighbor. All will read. All will think for themselves. All will worship in gladness. All will be free. All will vote. All will elect their representatives. All will prosper. All will be happy. All will be well satisfied.

At the time of the Bab and Baha’u’llah, Muhammad Shah became extremely interested in the Shaykhi Teaching and in the Revelation of the Bab. When he died Nasr Din Shah became the ruler supreme. He had met the Bab in the trial in Azerbaijan, but was just a youth under the spell of clergy. Later he began to have interest in the Cause of God, even as some amongst the Jewish Leaders had taken interest in the Cause of Jesus immediately following his martyrdom. A man who was one of the servants of a Babi Master and was mentally unstable shot the Shah with a parlor gun. This fired a little pellet like a pea. When the Shah felt a sting on his cheek he touched it and saw a drop of blood on his finger. He fainted and fell off his horse. His guards thought he had been killed and jumped on the assailant and slew him. This was tragic, for had they arrested him alive they could have interrogated him and found out he was deranged and acted on his own. Nevertheless Baha’u’llah, when he heard the report, immediately set out for the capital to turn Himself in to the authorities to help straighten out the matter. For this he was exiled first to Iraq and then later to the Holy Land in Akka and Mt. Carmel. This exile fulfilled Bible prophecy and now the Cause of God has spread around the world. Yet the people of Persia do not understand the root and the Cause of the Baha’i Faith.

One of the main reasons for the banishment of Baha’u’llah was that the Qadjar dynasty was of a Turkoman stock and not of the hereditary heirs of Persian nobility and was fearful that Baha’u’llah or ‘Abdu’l-Baha would publish their genealogy and declare the truth that they were the heirs to the throne of Persia as well as the throne of David. This was a non-existent threat put forth and instigated by the clergy and ministers of the Shah to foster his paranoia and thereby his support and reliance upon them. These ministers kept the Qadjars in a state of constant insecurity by magnifying their origin as different than that hereditary long-standing tradition of Baha’u’llah. This similar negative condition in the current rulership in Iran today needs to be ameliorated. The people and clerics and politicians of Iran all must be educated to see that the throne of David, as well as the throne of Persia continues to this very day through the continuation of the genealogy of Baha’u’llah in the living person of the great grandson of ‘Abdu’l-Baha. They must be educated to see that this Revelation is only in the best interests of all the people. That this message of the Kingdom (Davidic) is the fulfillment of all their hopes and dreams and promises made to them by God throughout their long and prosperous history. When they all see this, all the world will come and honor the people of Persia, for it was within their glorious land, within their glorious history, that this throne and this lineage promised to Christians, Jews and Muslims alike was preserved and protected down through the ages. Iran will prosper because of this. And those who are in power now will be in power in both earth and in heaven on this day when all the people are educated to the truth of this message: that from the Northern Mountains surrounding Teheran, and in that Blessed City, the One who was born heir and king to both David’s throne and the throne of Persia came to unite all the people of the world and His name is Baha’u’llah!

Those few minority who are against the truth of the genealogy of Baha’u’llah being published in Iran, do this in order to retain their strangle hold on the political power, both inside the so-called “Baha’i” community in Iran and outside of it, at the present time, to the detriment of all. Baha’u’llah, for His part, tried to quell the fears of the Shah in many of His letters and epistles to him. In the Book of the Covenant, Baha’u’llah has explained that: “The governments of the earth have been vouchsafed to the kings and rulers of the world. But the Hearts of men God hath decreed unto Himself.” Thus Baha’u’llah had no ambition to rule either the Persian Empire or the nation of Iran. Neither ‘Abdu’l-Baha, Shoghi Effendi nor any of the current Presidents of the Baha’i faith have this worldly desire either. Today the great grandson of ‘Abdu’l-Baha has forsaken all worldly things and has arisen only for one single purpose, to promote the Cause of God, to guard His Law and to promulgate this message of the Kingdom of Universal peace to benefit all people and the common weal. His goal, and the goal of the true Baha’i Faith is to win over the hearts of men, including the hearts of the kings and the hearts of the rulers, to God. The Baha’i sacred writings promote self-determinism, democracy, bridled capitalism, the Divine Economy, and the elimination of absolute monarchy, prejudice of all kinds as well as tyranny and injustice. When the hearts of the kings and rulers have been won over to the God of our Fathers, then these rulers will be empowered to rule with justice, and all people shall be free. No king or queen in this day could rule with justice, accept that he or she promotes the democracy of the people to govern themselves, through the consultative assembly of a congress like that of the United States or a Parliament like that in the United Kingdom. The British system being preferable for within it the majesty of Kingship is preserved as one of the signs of God, yet the people govern themselves.

“O people of God! Give ear unto that which, if heeded, will ensure the freedom, well-being, tranquility, exaltation and advancement of all men. Certain laws and principles are necessary and indispensable for Persia. However, it is fitting that these measures should be adopted in conformity with the considered views of His Majesty – may God aid him through His grace – and of the learned divines and of the high-ranking rulers. Subject to their approval a place should be fixed where they would meet. There they should hold fast to the cord of consultation and adopt and enforce that which is conducive to the security, prosperity, wealth and tranquility of the people. For were any measure other than this to be adopted, it could not but result in chaos and commotion.
According to the fundamental laws which We have formerly revealed in the Kitab-i-Aqdas and other Tablets, all affairs are committed to the care of just kings and presidents and of the Trustees of the House of Justice [Parliament]. Having pondered on that which We have enunciated, every man of equity and discernment will readily perceive, with his inner and outer eyes, the splendours of the day-star of justice which radiate therefrom.
The system of government which the British people have adopted in London appeareth to be good, for it is adorned with the light of both kingship and of the consultation [democracy] of the people.
In formulating the principles and laws a part hath been devoted to penalties which form an effective instrument for the security and protection of men. However, dread of the penalties maketh people desist only outwardly from committing vile and contemptible deeds, while that which guardeth and restraineth man both outwardly and inwardly hath been and still is the fear of God. It is man’s true protector and his spiritual guardian. It behoveth him to cleave tenaciously unto that which will lead to the appearance of this supreme bounty. Well is it with him who giveth ear unto whatsoever My Pen of Glory hath proclaimed and observeth that whereunto he is bidden by the Ordainer, the Ancient of Days.”
(Baha’u’llah, Tablets of Baha’u’llah, pp. 92-93)

Thus Baha’u’llah explains that no man shall wish the mantle of kingship accept for the single purpose of promoting the Cause of God:

“One of the signs of the maturity of the world is that no one will accept to bear the weight of kingship. Kingship will remain with none willing to bear alone its weight. That day will be the day whereon wisdom will be manifested among mankind. Only in order to proclaim the Cause of God and spread abroad His Faith will anyone be willing to bear this grievous weight. Well is it with him who, for love of God and His Cause, and for the sake of God and for the purpose of proclaiming His Faith, will expose himself unto this great danger, and will accept this toil and trouble.”
(Baha’u’llah, cf. Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come, p. 71)

And in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, Baha’u’llah foretells the day that the government of Persia will be established with justice and peace:

“Let nothing grieve thee, O Land of Ta, [Teheran, Iran] for God hath chosen thee to be the source of the joy of all mankind. He shall, if it be His Will, bless thy throne with one who will rule with justice, who will gather together the flock of God which the wolves have scattered. Such a ruler will, with joy and gladness, turn his face towards, and extend his favours unto, the people of Baha. He indeed is accounted in the sight of God as a jewel among men. Upon him rest forever the glory of God and the glory of all that dwell in the kingdom of His revelation.”
(Baha’u’llah: The Kitab-i-Aqdas, Page: 53)

In this way, has Persia been chosen to be “the source of the joy of all mankind.” From this country has been preserved the Twin Holy Trees of Muhammad and David’s lineage, united as one single family through marriage, fellowship, religion and kinship. From this arises the continued inheritance of the throne of King David and throne of Persia passed down father to son throughout the generations as an inheritance for the all the people of the world, a sign from God to recognize his kingdom established upon the earth as it is in heaven. In 1912, ‘Abdu’l-Baha, the son of Baha’u’llah traveled to the United States of America. Here the throne of David is now established today, therefore uniting the spiritual and material destinies of these two great nations and their great traditions into one single unity of East and West combined.

From the love of God and the knowledge of God of these two countries, and the purpose of God to win this war against terrorism by establishing His true religion to unite the hearts and minds of mankind into one single faith in His Blessed Beauty, has now come this day today, when all the people of the world are fed up with the mishandling of affairs both international and domestic by incompetent and misguided leaders, fanatical and irrational clergy, and the like.

Where has God written, prophesied, or declared that any of these so-called leaders are his viceroy or representative on earth? Nowhere! But in the Books of Old “God has exalted some of the prophets above the others, to David He gave the Psalms.” (Koran 17:55)

“I will sing of thy steadfast love, O Lord, for ever;
with my mouth I will proclaim thy faithfulness to all generations.

For thy steadfast love was established for ever, thy faithfulness is firm as the heavens.

Thou hast said, “I have made a Covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant;

‘I will establish your descendants for ever and build your throne for all generations.’” Selah (Psalms 89: 1-4, KJV)

“O David! Lo! We have set thee as a viceroy (khalif) in the earth; therefore judge aright between mankind, and follow not desire that it beguile thee from the way of Allah. Lo! Those who wander from the way of Allah have an awful doom, forasmuch as they forgot the Day of Reckoning.” (Koran 17:55, Surah of Sad, Picktall’s Translation)

MOSLEMS, CHRISTIANS AND JEWS MUST CEASE ALL WARRING AND CONFLICT IMMEDIATELY AND UNITE AROUND BAHA’U’LLAH UNDER HIS COVENANT!

THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO AVOID THERMONUCLEAR WAR!

BAHA’U’LLAH IS THE PROMISED ONE OF ALL PEOPLE, THEIR RELIGIONS AND TRADITIONS, AND THESE THREE ABRAHAMIC FAITHS IN PARTICULAR!

http://www.uhj.net

http://www.bupc.org

http://www.bahaifireside.org

Baha’i Sabbath: Kalimat 13, 171 B.E. (7/25/2014)

Friday, July 25th, 2014

Say: Naught is seen in My temple but the Temple of God, and in My beauty but His Beauty, and in My being but His Being, and in My self but His Self, and in My movement but His Movement, and in My acquiescence but His Acquiescence, and in My pen but His Pen, the Mighty, the All-Praised. There hath not been in My soul but the Truth, and in Myself naught could be seen but God.

Beware lest ye speak of duality in regard to My Self, for all the atoms of the earth proclaim that there is none other God but Him, the One, the Single, the Mighty, the Loving. From the beginning that hath no beginning I have proclaimed, from the realm of eternity, that I am God, none other God is there save Me, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting; and unto the end that hath no end I shall proclaim, amidst the kingdom of names, that I am God, none other God is there beside Me, the All-Glorious, the Best-Beloved. Say: Lordship is My Name, whereof I have created manifestations in the world of being, while We Ourself remain sanctified above them, would ye but ponder this truth. And Godhead is My Name, where of We have created exponents whose power shall encompass the people of the earth and make them true worshippers of God, could ye but recognize it. Thus should ye regard all Our Names, if ye be endued with insight.

O Fourth Letter of this Temple, betokening the attribute of Grace! We have made thee the manifestation of grace betwixt earth and heaven. From thee have We generated all grace in the contingent world, and unto thee shall We cause it to return. And from thee shall We manifest it again, through a word of Our command. Potent am I to accomplish whatsoever I desire through My word “Be”, and it is! Every grace that appeareth in the world of being hath originated from thee, and unto thee shall it return. This, verily, is what hath been ordained in a Tablet which We have preserved behind the veil of glory and concealed from mortal eyes. Well is it with them that deprive themselves not of this manifest and unfailing grace.

Say: In this day, the fertilizing winds of the grace of God have passed over all things. Every creature hath been endowed with all the potentialities it can carry. And yet the peoples of the world have denied this grace! Every tree hath been endowed with the choicest fruits, every ocean enriched with the most luminous gems. Man, himself, hath been invested with the gifts of understanding and knowledge. The whole creation hath been made the recipient of the revelation of the All-Merciful, and the earth the repository of things inscrutable to all except God, the Truth, the Knower of things unseen. 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! Thus have We created the whole earth anew in this day, yet most of the people have failed to perceive it. Say: The grace of God can never be adequately understood; how much less can His own Self, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting, be comprehended!

O Temple of the Cause! Grieve not if Thou findest none ready to receive Thy gifts. Thou wast created for My sake; occupy Thyself therefore with My praise amidst My servants. This is that which hath been ordained for Thee in the Preserved Tablet. Having found upon the earth many a soiled hand, We sanctified the hem of Thy garment from the profanity of their touch and placed it beyond the reach of the ungodly. Be patient in the Cause of Thy Lord, for erelong shall He raise up souls endowed with sanctified hearts and illumined eyes who shall flee from every quarter unto Thine all-encompassing and boundless grace.

O Temple of God! No sooner had the hosts of Divine Revelation been sent down by the Lord of all names and attributes bearing the banners of His signs, than the exponents of doubt and fancy were put to flight. They disbelieved in the clear tokens of God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting, and rose up against Him in enmity and opposition. Amongst them were those who claimed: “These are not clear verses from God, nor do they proceed from an innate and untaught nature.” Thus do the unbelievers seek to remedy the sickness of their hearts, utterly heedless that they thus render themselves accursed of all who dwell in heaven and on earth.

Say: The Holy Spirit Itself hath been generated through the agency of a single letter revealed by this Most Great Spirit, if ye be of them that comprehend. And that innate and untaught nature in its essence is called into being by the verses of God, the Help in Peril, the All-Glorious, the Best-Beloved. Say: This nature prideth itself in its relation to Our transcendent Truth, whilst We, for Our part, glory neither in it nor in aught else, for all beside Myself hath been created through the potency of My word, could ye but understand.

Say: We have revealed Our verses in nine different modes. Each one of them bespeaketh the sovereignty of God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. A single one of them sufficeth for a proof unto all who are in the heavens and on the earth; yet the people, for the most part, persist in their heedlessness. Should it be Our wish, We would reveal them in countless other modes.

Say: O people! Fear ye God, and allow not your tongues to utter, in their deceitfulness, that which displeaseth Him. Stand abashed before the One Who, as ye well know, hath created you out of a drop of water (Qur’án 21:30; 24:45; 25:54). Say: We have created all that are in heaven and on earth in the nature made by God. Whosoever turneth unto this blessed Countenance shall manifest the potentialities of that inborn nature, and whosoever remaineth veiled therefrom shall be deprived of this invisible and all-encompassing grace. Verily, there is naught from which Our favour hath been withheld, inasmuch as We have dealt equitably in the fashioning of each and all, and by a word of Our mouth presented unto them the trust of Our love. They that have accepted it are indeed safe and secure, and are numbered among those who are immune from the terrors of this Day. Those, however, who have rejected it have, in truth, disbelieved in God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. Thus do We distinguish between the people and pronounce judgement upon them. We, of a certainty, have the power to discern.

Say: The Word of God can never be confounded with the words of His creatures. It is, in truth, the King of words, even as He is Himself the sovereign Lord of all, and His Cause transcendeth all that was and all that shall be. Enter, O people, the City of Certitude wherein the throne of your Lord, the All-Merciful, hath been established. Thus biddeth you the Pen of the All-Glorious, as a token of His unfailing grace. Haply ye may not make His Revelation a cause of dissension amongst you.

Baha’u’llah, Súriy-i-Haykal (Surih of the Temple), paragraphs 44-53

Baha’i Sabbath: Kalimat 6, 171 B.E. (7/18/2014)

Friday, July 18th, 2014

It is evident unto thee that the Birds of Heaven and Doves of Eternity speak a twofold language. One language, the outward language, is devoid of allusions, is unconcealed and unveiled; that it may be a guiding lamp and a beaconing light whereby wayfarers may attain the heights of holiness, and seekers may advance into the realm of eternal reunion. Such are the unveiled traditions and the evident verses already mentioned. The other language is veiled and concealed, so that whatever lieth hidden in the heart of the malevolent may be made manifest and their innermost being be disclosed. Thus hath Ṣádiq, son of Muḥammad, spoken: “God verily will test them and sift them.” This is the divine standard, this is the Touchstone of God, wherewith He proveth His servants. None apprehendeth the meaning of these utterances except them whose hearts are assured, whose souls have found favour with God, and whose minds are detached from all else but Him. In such utterances, the literal meaning, as generally understood by the people, is not what hath been intended. Thus it is recorded: “Every knowledge hath seventy meanings, of which one only is known amongst the people. And when the Qá’im shall arise, He shall reveal unto men all that which remaineth.” He also saith: “We speak one word, and by it we intend one and seventy meanings; each one of these meanings we can explain.”

Baha’u’llah, Kitab-I-Iqan, para. 285

Baha’i Month: Kalimat/Words 1, 171 B.E. (7/13/2014)

Sunday, July 13th, 2014

O thou spiritual leaf who art verdant and well-watered by the outpouring from the Kingdom of God!

Verily, I beseech His Presence, the Mighty and the majestic One, to enlighten the mind through the lights gleaming from the summit of the Kingdom, and by which thy tongue shall become eloquent with the remembrance of the Ever-living One to make thee a lamp shininng with the lights of knowledge in those far-distant horizons and vast countries.

Verily, I say unto thee, the Covenant of God and His Alliance is a Lamp diffusing lights from the Supreme Concourse unto the horizons of the earth and heaven. Whosoever hath this Divine Lamp before his face, his forehead shall glisten with manifest light and his speech shall take effect in all minds and spirits, and God shall assist him by the power which penetrateth the essences of things.

Abdu’l-Baha’, Tablets, pg. 672

Baha’i Sabbath: Rahmat 18, 171 B.E. (7/11/2014)

Friday, July 11th, 2014

O seeker of Truth!

If thou desirest that God may open thy eye, thou must supplicate unto God, pray to and commune with Him at midnight, saying:

“O Lord, I have turned my face unto thy Kingdom of Oneness and am drowned in the sea of Thy mercy! O Lord, enlighten my sight by beholding Thy lights in this dark night, and make me happy by the wine of Thy love in this wonderful age! O Lord, make me hear Thy call, and open before my face the doors of Thy heaven, so that I may see the light of Thy glory and become attracted to Thy beauty!

“Verily, thou art the Giver, the Generous, the Merciful, the Forgiving!”

At that time such signs will appear which will guide thee to the Kingdom of Thy Lord, the Merciful.

Abdu’l-Baha’, Tablets, pp. 676-677

Holy Day: The Martyrdom Of The Bab 7/9/1850 Rahmat 16, 171 B.E.

Wednesday, July 9th, 2014

This Tablet is read at the Shrines of Bahá’u’lláh and the Báb. It is also frequently used in commemorating Their anniversaries.

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 Daystars 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, caused 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.

Baha’u’llah, Prayers And Meditations, #CLXXX

 

The Martyrdom Of The Bab

The waves of dire tribulation that violently battered at the Faith, and eventually engulfed, in rapid succession, the ablest, the dearest and most trusted disciples of the Báb, plunged Him, as already observed, into unutterable sorrow. For no less than six months the Prisoner of Chihríq, His chronicler has recorded, was unable to either write or dictate. Crushed with grief by the evil tidings that came so fast upon Him, of the endless trials that beset His ablest lieutenants, by the agonies suffered by the besieged and the shameless betrayal of the survivors, by the woeful afflictions endured by the captives and the abominable butchery of men, women and children, as well as the foul indignities heaped on their corpses, He, for nine days, His amanuensis has affirmed, refused to meet any of His friends, and was reluctant to touch the meat and drink that was offered Him. Tears rained continually from His eyes, and profuse expressions of anguish poured forth from His wounded heart, as He languished, for no less than five months, solitary and disconsolate, in His prison.

The pillars of His infant Faith had, for the most part, been hurled down at the first onset of the hurricane that had been loosed upon it. Quddús, immortalized by Him as Ismu’lláhi’l-Ákhir (the Last Name of God); on whom Bahá’u’lláh’s Tablet of Kullu’t-Tá’am later conferred the sublime appellation of Nuqṭiy-i-Ukhrá (the Last Point); whom He elevated, in another Tablet, to a rank second to none except that of the Herald of His Revelation; whom He identifies, in still another Tablet, with one of the “Messengers charged with imposture” mentioned in the Qur’án; whom the Persian Bayán extolled as that fellow-pilgrim round whom mirrors to the number of eight Vahíds revolve; on whose “detachment and the sincerity of whose devotion to God’s will God prideth Himself amidst the Concourse on high;” whom ‘Abdu’l-Bahá designated as the “Moon of Guidance;” and whose appearance the Revelation of St. John the Divine anticipated as one of the two “Witnesses” into whom, ere the “second woe is past,” the “spirit of life from God” must enter—such a man had, in the full bloom of his youth, suffered, in the Sabzih-Maydán of Barfurúsh, a death which even Jesus Christ, as attested by Bahá’u’lláh, had not faced in the hour of His greatest agony. Mullá Ḥusayn, the first Letter of the Living, surnamed the Bábu’l-Báb (the Gate of the Gate); designated as the “Primal Mirror;” on whom eulogies, prayers and visiting Tablets of a number equivalent to thrice the volume of the Qur’án had been lavished by the pen of the Báb; referred to in these eulogies as “beloved of My Heart;” the dust of whose grave, that same Pen had declared, was so potent as to cheer the sorrowful and heal the sick; whom “the creatures, raised in the beginning and in the end” of the Bábí Dispensation, envy, and will continue to envy till the “Day of Judgment;” whom the Kitáb-i-Íqán acclaimed as the one but for whom “God would not have been established upon the seat of His mercy, nor ascended the throne of eternal glory;” to whom Siyyid Kázim had paid such tribute that his disciples suspected that the recipient of such praise might well be the promised One Himself—such a one had likewise, in the prime of his manhood, died a martyr’s death at Tabarsí. Vahíd, pronounced in the Kitáb-i-Íqán to be the “unique and peerless figure of his age,” a man of immense erudition and the most preeminent figure to enlist under the banner of the new Faith, to whose “talents and saintliness,” to whose “high attainments in the realm of science and philosophy” the Báb had testified in His Dalá’il-i-Sab‘ih (Seven Proofs), had already, under similar circumstances, been swept into the maelstrom of another upheaval, and was soon to quaff in his turn the cup drained by the heroic martyrs of Mázindarán. Hujjat, another champion of conspicuous audacity, of unsubduable will, of remarkable originality and vehement zeal, was being, swiftly and inevitably, drawn into the fiery furnace whose flames had already enveloped Zanján and its environs. The Báb’s maternal uncle, the only father He had known since His childhood, His shield and support and the trusted guardian of both His mother and His wife, had, moreover, been sundered from Him by the axe of the executioner in Ṭihrán. No less than half of His chosen disciples, the Letters of the Living, had already preceded Him in the field of martyrdom. Táhirih, though still alive, was courageously pursuing a course that was to lead her inevitably to her doom.

A fast ebbing life, so crowded with the accumulated anxieties, disappointments, treacheries and sorrows of a tragic ministry, now moved swiftly towards its climax. The most turbulent period of the Heroic Age of the new Dispensation was rapidly attaining its culmination. The cup of bitter woes which the Herald of that Dispensation had tasted was now full to overflowing. Indeed, He Himself had already foreshadowed His own approaching death. In the Kitáb-i-Panj-Sha’n, one of His last works, He had alluded to the fact that the sixth Naw-Rúz after the declaration of His mission would be the last He was destined to celebrate on earth. In His interpretation of the letter Há, He had voiced His craving for martyrdom, while in the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá He had actually prophesied the inevitability of such a consummation of His glorious career. Forty days before His final departure from Chihríq He had even collected all the documents in His possession, and placed them, together with His pen-case, His seals and His rings, in the hands of Mullá Báqir, a Letter of the Living, whom He instructed to entrust them to Mullá ‘Abdu’l-Karím-i-Qazvíní, surnamed Mírzá Aḥmad, who was to deliver them to Bahá’u’lláh in Ṭihrán.

While the convulsions of Mázindarán and Nayríz were pursuing their bloody course the Grand Vizir of Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh, anxiously pondering the significance of these dire happenings, and apprehensive of their repercussions on his countrymen, his government and his sovereign, was feverishly revolving in his mind that fateful decision which was not only destined to leave its indelible imprint on the fortunes of his country, but was to be fraught with such incalculable consequences for the destinies of the whole of mankind. The repressive measures taken against the followers of the Báb, he was by now fully convinced, had but served to inflame their zeal, steel their resolution and confirm their loyalty to their persecuted Faith. The Báb’s isolation and captivity had produced the opposite effect to that which the Amír-Nizám had confidently anticipated. Gravely perturbed, he bitterly condemned the disastrous leniency of his predecessor, Ḥájí Mírzá Aqásí, which had brought matters to such a pass. A more drastic and still more exemplary punishment, he felt, must now be administered to what he regarded as an abomination of heresy which was polluting the civil and ecclesiastical institutions of the realm. Nothing short, he believed, of the extinction of the life of Him Who was the fountain-head of so odious a doctrine and the driving force behind so dynamic a movement could stem the tide that had wrought such havoc throughout the land.

The siege of Zanján was still in progress when he, dispensing with an explicit order from his sovereign, and acting independently of his counsellors and fellow-ministers, dispatched his order to Prince Ḥamzih Mírzá, the Hishmatu’d-Dawlih, the governor of Ádhirbayján, instructing him to execute the Báb. Fearing lest the infliction of such condign punishment in the capital of the realm would set in motion forces he might be powerless to control, he ordered that his Captive be taken to Tabríz, and there be done to death. Confronted with a flat refusal by the indignant Prince to perform what he regarded as a flagitious crime, the Amír-Nizám commissioned his own brother, Mírzá Ḥasan Khán, to execute his orders. The usual formalities designed to secure the necessary authorization from the leading mujtahids of Tabríz were hastily and easily completed. Neither Mullá Muḥammad-i-Mamaqání, however, who had penned the Báb’s death-warrant on the very day of His examination in Tabríz, nor Ḥájí Mírzá Báqir, nor Mullá Murtadá-Qulí, to whose houses their Victim was ignominiously led by the farrásh-báshí, by order of the Grand Vizir, condescended to meet face to face their dreaded Opponent.

Immediately before and soon after this humiliating treatment meted out to the Báb two highly significant incidents occurred, incidents that cast an illuminating light on the mysterious circumstances surrounding the opening phase of His martyrdom. The farrásh-báshí had abruptly interrupted the last conversation which the Báb was confidentially having in one of the rooms of the barracks with His amanuensis Siyyid Ḥusayn, and was drawing the latter aside, and severely rebuking him, when he was thus addressed by his Prisoner: “Not until I have said to him all those things that I wish to say can any earthly power silence Me. Though all the world be armed against Me, yet shall it be powerless to deter Me from fulfilling, to the last word, My intention.” To the Christian Sám Khán—the colonel of the Armenian regiment ordered to carry out the execution—who, seized with fear lest his act should provoke the wrath of God, had begged to be released from the duty imposed upon him, the Báb gave the following assurance: “Follow your instructions, and if your intention be sincere, the Almighty is surely able to relieve you of your perplexity.”

Sám Khán accordingly set out to discharge his duty. A spike was driven into a pillar which separated two rooms of the barracks facing the square. Two ropes were fastened to it from which the Báb and one of his disciples, the youthful and devout Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí-i-Zunúzí, surnamed Anís, who had previously flung himself at the feet of his Master and implored that under no circumstances he be sent away from Him, were separately suspended. The firing squad ranged itself in three files, each of two hundred and fifty men. Each file in turn opened fire until the whole detachment had discharged its bullets. So dense was the smoke from the seven hundred and fifty rifles that the sky was darkened. As soon as the smoke had cleared away the astounded multitude of about ten thousand souls, who had crowded onto the roof of the barracks, as well as the tops of the adjoining houses, beheld a scene which their eyes could scarcely believe.

The Báb had vanished from their sight! Only his companion remained, alive and unscathed, standing beside the wall on which they had been suspended. The ropes by which they had been hung alone were severed. “The Siyyid-i-Báb has gone from our sight!” cried out the bewildered spectators. A frenzied search immediately ensued. He was found, unhurt and unruffled, in the very room He had occupied the night before, engaged in completing His interrupted conversation with His amanuensis. “I have finished My conversation with Siyyid Ḥusayn” were the words with which the Prisoner, so providentially preserved, greeted the appearance of the farrásh-báshí, “Now you may proceed to fulfill your intention.” Recalling the bold assertion his Prisoner had previously made, and shaken by so stunning a revelation, the farrásh-báshí quitted instantly the scene, and resigned his post.

Sám Khán, likewise, remembering, with feelings of awe and wonder, the reassuring words addressed to him by the Báb, ordered his men to leave the barracks immediately, and swore, as he left the courtyard, never again, even at the cost of his life, to repeat that act. Áqá Ján-i-Khamsíh, colonel of the body-guard, volunteered to replace him. On the same wall and in the same manner the Báb and His companion were again suspended, while the new regiment formed in line and opened fire upon them. This time, however, their breasts were riddled with bullets, and their bodies completely dissected, with the exception of their faces which were but little marred. “O wayward generation!” were the last words of the Báb to the gazing multitude, as the regiment prepared to fire its volley, “Had you believed in Me every one of you would have followed the example of this youth, who stood in rank above most of you, and would have willingly sacrificed himself in My path. The day will come when you will have recognized Me; that day I shall have ceased to be with you.”

Nor was this all. The very moment the shots were fired a gale of exceptional violence arose and swept over the city. From noon till night a whirlwind of dust obscured the light of the sun, and blinded the eyes of the people. In Shíráz an “earthquake,” foreshadowed in no less weighty a Book than the Revelation of St. John, occurred in 1268 A.H. which threw the whole city into turmoil and wrought havoc amongst its people, a havoc that was greatly aggravated by the outbreak of cholera, by famine and other afflictions. In that same year no less than two hundred and fifty of the firing squad, that had replaced Sám Khán’s regiment, met their death, together with their officers, in a terrible earthquake, while the remaining five hundred suffered, three years later, as a punishment for their mutiny, the same fate as that which their hands had inflicted upon the Báb. To insure that none of them had survived, they were riddled with a second volley, after which their bodies, pierced with spears and lances, were exposed to the gaze of the people of Tabríz. The prime instigator of the Báb’s death, the implacable Amír-Nizám, together with his brother, his chief accomplice, met their death within two years of that savage act.

On the evening of the very day of the Báb’s execution, which fell on the ninth of July 1850 (28th of Sha’bán 1266 A.H.), during the thirty-first year of His age and the seventh of His ministry, the mangled bodies were transferred from the courtyard of the barracks to the edge of the moat outside the gate of the city. Four companies, each consisting of ten sentinels, were ordered to keep watch in turn over them. On the following morning the Russian Consul in Tabríz visited the spot, and ordered the artist who had accompanied him to make a drawing of the remains as they lay beside the moat. In the middle of the following night a follower of the Báb, Ḥájí Sulaymán Khán, succeeded, through the instrumentality of a certain Ḥájí Alláh-Yár, in removing the bodies to the silk factory owned by one of the believers of Milán, and laid them, the next day, in a specially made wooden casket, which he later transferred to a place of safety. Meanwhile the mullás were boastfully proclaiming from the pulpits that, whereas the holy body of the Immaculate Imám would be preserved from beasts of prey and from all creeping things, this man’s body had been devoured by wild animals. No sooner had the news of the transfer of the remains of the Báb and of His fellow-sufferer been communicated to Bahá’u’lláh than He ordered that same Sulaymán Khán to bring them to Ṭihrán, where they were taken to the Imám-Zádih-Ḥasan, from whence they were removed to different places, until the time when, in pursuance of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s instructions, they were transferred to the Holy Land, and were permanently and ceremoniously laid to rest by Him in a specially erected mausoleum on the slopes of Mt. Carmel.

Thus ended a life which posterity will recognize as standing at the confluence of two universal prophetic cycles, the Adamic Cycle stretching back as far as the first dawnings of the world’s recorded religious history and the Bahá’í Cycle destined to propel itself across the unborn reaches of time for a period of no less than five thousand centuries. The apotheosis in which such a life attained its consummation marks, as already observed, the culmination of the most heroic phase of the Heroic Age of the Bahá’í Dispensation. It can, moreover, be regarded in no other light except as the most dramatic, the most tragic event transpiring within the entire range of the first Bahá’í century. Indeed it can be rightly acclaimed as unparalleled in the annals of the lives of all the Founders of the world’s existing religious systems.

So momentous an event could hardly fail to arouse widespread and keen interest even beyond the confines of the land in which it had occurred. “C’est un des plus magnifiques exemples de courage qu’il ait été donné à l’humanité de contempler,” is the testimony recorded by a Christian scholar and government official, who had lived in Persia and had familiarized himself with the life and teachings of the Báb, “et c’est aussi une admirable preuve de l’amour que notre hèros portait à ses concitoyens. Il s’est sacrifié pour l’humanité: pour elle il a donné son corps et son âme, pour elle il a subi les privations, les affronts, les injures, la torture et le martyre. Il a scellé de son sang le pacte de la fraternité universelle, et comme Jesùs il a payé de sa vie l’annonce du regné de la concorde, de l’équité et de l’amour du prochain.” “Un fait étrange, unique dans les annales de l’humanité,” is a further testimony from the pen of that same scholar commenting on the circumstances attending the Báb’s martyrdom. “A veritable miracle,” is the pronouncement made by a noted French Orientalist. “A true God-man,” is the verdict of a famous British traveler and writer. “The finest product of his country,” is the tribute paid Him by a noted French publicist. “That Jesus of the age … a prophet, and more than a prophet,” is the judgment passed by a distinguished English divine. “The most important religious movement since the foundation of Christianity,” is the possibility that was envisaged for the Faith the Báb had established by that far-famed Oxford scholar, the late Master of Balliol.

“Many persons from all parts of the world,” is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s written assertion, “set out for Persia and began to investigate wholeheartedly the matter.” The Czar of Russia, a contemporary chronicler has written, had even, shortly before the Báb’s martyrdom, instructed the Russian Consul in Tabríz to fully inquire into, and report the circumstances of so startling a Movement, a commission that could not be carried out in view of the Báb’s execution. In countries as remote as those of Western Europe an interest no less profound was kindled, and spread with great rapidity to literary, artistic, diplomatic and intellectual circles. “All Europe,” attests the above-mentioned French publicist, “was stirred to pity and indignation… Among the littèrateurs of my generation, in the Paris of 1890, the martyrdom of the Báb was still as fresh a topic as had been the first news of His death. We wrote poems about Him. Sarah Bernhardt entreated Catulle Mendès for a play on the theme of this historic tragedy.” A Russian poetess, member of the Philosophic, Oriental and Bibliological Societies of St. Petersburg, published in 1903 a drama entitled “The Báb,” which a year later was played in one of the principal theatres of that city, was subsequently given publicity in London, was translated into French in Paris, and into German by the poet Fiedler, was presented again, soon after the Russian Revolution, in the Folk Theatre in Leningrad, and succeeded in arousing the genuine sympathy and interest of the renowned Tolstoy, whose eulogy of the poem was later published in the Russian press.

It would indeed be no exaggeration to say that nowhere in the whole compass of the world’s religious literature, except in the Gospels, do we find any record relating to the death of any of the religion-founders of the past comparable to the martyrdom suffered by the Prophet of Shíráz. So strange, so inexplicable a phenomenon, attested by eye-witnesses, corroborated by men of recognized standing, and acknowledged by government as well as unofficial historians among the people who had sworn undying hostility to the Bábí Faith, may be truly regarded as the most marvelous manifestation of the unique potentialities with which a Dispensation promised by all the Dispensations of the past had been endowed. The passion of Jesus Christ, and indeed His whole public ministry, alone offer a parallel to the Mission and death of the Báb, a parallel which no student of comparative religion can fail to perceive or ignore. In the youthfulness and meekness of the Inaugurator of the Bábí Dispensation; in the extreme brevity and turbulence of His public ministry; in the dramatic swiftness with which that ministry moved towards its climax; in the apostolic order which He instituted, and the primacy which He conferred on one of its members; in the boldness of His challenge to the time-honored conventions, rites and laws which had been woven into the fabric of the religion He Himself had been born into; in the rôle which an officially recognized and firmly entrenched religious hierarchy played as chief instigator of the outrages which He was made to suffer; in the indignities heaped upon Him; in the suddenness of His arrest; in the interrogation to which He was subjected; in the derision poured, and the scourging inflicted, upon Him; in the public affront He sustained; and, finally, in His ignominious suspension before the gaze of a hostile multitude—in all these we cannot fail to discern a remarkable similarity to the distinguishing features of the career of Jesus Christ.

It should be remembered, however, that apart from the miracle associated with the Báb’s execution, He, unlike the Founder of the Christian religion, is not only to be regarded as the independent Author of a divinely revealed Dispensation, but must also be recognized as the Herald of a new Era and the Inaugurator of a great universal prophetic cycle. Nor should the important fact be overlooked that, whereas the chief adversaries of Jesus Christ, in His lifetime, were the Jewish rabbis and their associates, the forces arrayed against the Báb represented the combined civil and ecclesiastical powers of Persia, which, from the moment of His declaration to the hour of His death, persisted, unitedly and by every means at their disposal, in conspiring against the upholders and in vilifying the tenets of His Revelation.

The Báb, acclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh as the “Essence of Essences,” the “Sea of Seas,” the “Point round Whom the realities of the Prophets and Messengers revolve,” “from Whom God hath caused to proceed the knowledge of all that was and shall be,” Whose “rank excelleth that of all the Prophets,” and Whose “Revelation transcendeth the comprehension and understanding of all their chosen ones,” had delivered His Message and discharged His mission. He Who was, in the words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the “Morn of Truth” and “Harbinger of the Most Great Light,” Whose advent at once signalized the termination of the “Prophetic Cycle” and the inception of the “Cycle of Fulfillment,” had simultaneously through His Revelation banished the shades of night that had descended upon His country, and proclaimed the impending rise of that Incomparable Orb Whose radiance was to envelop the whole of mankind. He, as affirmed by Himself, “the Primal Point from which have been generated all created things,” “one of the sustaining pillars of the Primal Word of God,” the “Mystic Fane,” the “Great Announcement,” the “Flame of that supernal Light that glowed upon Sinai,” the “Remembrance of God” concerning Whom “a separate Covenant hath been established with each and every Prophet” had, through His advent, at once fulfilled the promise of all ages and ushered in the consummation of all Revelations. He the “Qá’im” (He Who ariseth) promised to the Shí’ahs, the “Mihdí” (One Who is guided) awaited by the Sunnís, the “Return of John the Baptist” expected by the Christians, the “Ushídar-Máh” referred to in the Zoroastrian scriptures, the “Return of Elijah” anticipated by the Jews, Whose Revelation was to show forth “the signs and tokens of all the Prophets”, Who was to “manifest the perfection of Moses, the radiance of Jesus and the patience of Job” had appeared, proclaimed His Cause, been mercilessly persecuted and died gloriously. The “Second Woe,” spoken of in the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine, had, at long last, appeared, and the first of the two “Messengers,” Whose appearance had been prophesied in the Qur’án, had been sent down. The first “Trumpet-Blast”, destined to smite the earth with extermination, announced in the latter Book, had finally been sounded. “The Inevitable,” “The Catastrophe,” “The Resurrection,” “The Earthquake of the Last Hour,” foretold by that same Book, had all come to pass. The “clear tokens” had been “sent down,” and the “Spirit” had “breathed,” and the “souls” had “waked up,” and the “heaven” had been “cleft,” and the “angels” had “ranged in order,” and the “stars” had been “blotted out,” and the “earth” had “cast forth her burden,” and “Paradise” had been “brought near,” and “hell” had been “made to blaze,” and the “Book” had been “set,” and the “Bridge” had been “laid out,” and the “Balance” had been “set up,” and the “mountains scattered in dust.” The “cleansing of the Sanctuary,” prophesied by Daniel and confirmed by Jesus Christ in His reference to “the abomination of desolation,” had been accomplished. The “day whose length shall be a thousand years,” foretold by the Apostle of God in His Book, had terminated. The “forty and two months,” during which the “Holy City,” as predicted by St. John the Divine, would be trodden under foot, had elapsed. The “time of the end” had been ushered in, and the first of the “two Witnesses” into Whom, “after three days and a half the Spirit of Life from God” would enter, had arisen and had “ascended up to heaven in a cloud.” The “remaining twenty and five letters to be made manifest,” according to Islamic tradition, out of the “twenty and seven letters” of which Knowledge has been declared to consist, had been revealed. The “Man Child,” mentioned in the Book of Revelation, destined to “rule all nations with a rod of iron,” had released, through His coming, the creative energies which, reinforced by the effusions of a swiftly succeeding and infinitely mightier Revelation, were to instill into the entire human race the capacity to achieve its organic unification, attain maturity and thereby reach the final stage in its age-long evolution. The clarion-call addressed to the “concourse of kings and of the sons of kings,” marking the inception of a process which, accelerated by Bahá’u’lláh’s subsequent warnings to the entire company of the monarchs of East and West, was to produce so widespread a revolution in the fortunes of royalty, had been raised in the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá. The “Order,” whose foundation the Promised One was to establish in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, and the features of which the Center of the Covenant was to delineate in His Testament, and whose administrative framework the entire body of His followers are now erecting, had been categorically announced in the Persian Bayán. The laws which were designed, on the one hand, to abolish at a stroke the privileges and ceremonials, the ordinances and institutions of a superannuated Dispensation, and to bridge, on the other, the gap between an obsolete system and the institutions of a world-encompassing Order destined to supersede it, had been clearly formulated and proclaimed. The Covenant which, despite the determined assaults launched against it, succeeded, unlike all previous Dispensations, in preserving the integrity of the Faith of its Author, and in paving the way for the advent of the One Who was to be its Center and Object, had been firmly and irrevocably established. The light which, throughout successive periods, was to propagate itself gradually from its cradle as far as Vancouver in the West and the China Sea in the East, and to diffuse its radiance as far as Iceland in the North and the Tasman Sea in the South, had broken. The forces of darkness, at first confined to the concerted hostility of the civil and ecclesiastical powers of Shí’ah Persia, gathering momentum, at a later stage, through the avowed and persistent opposition of the Caliph of Islám and the Sunní hierarchy in Turkey, and destined to culminate in the fierce antagonism of the sacerdotal orders associated with other and still more powerful religious systems, had launched their initial assault. The nucleus of the divinely ordained, world-embracing Community—a Community whose infant strength had already plucked asunder the fetters of Shí’ah orthodoxy, and which was, with every expansion in the range of its fellowship, to seek and obtain a wider and still more significant recognition of its claims to be the world religion of the future, had been formed and was slowly crystallizing. And, lastly, the seed, endowed by the Hand of Omnipotence with such vast potentialities, though rudely trampled under foot and seemingly perished from the face of the earth, had, through this very process, been vouchsafed the opportunity to germinate and remanifest itself, in the shape of a still more compelling Revelation—a Revelation destined to blossom forth, in a later period into the flourishing institutions of a world-wide administrative System, and to ripen, in the Golden Age as yet unborn, into mighty agencies functioning in consonance with the principles of a world-unifying, world-redeeming Order.

Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, Chapter IV: The Execution Of The Bab

Baha’i Sabbath: Rahmat 11, 171 B.E. (7/4/2014)

Friday, July 4th, 2014

No sane person can at this time deny the fact that war is the most dreadful calamity in the world of humanity, that war is the cause of eternal death, that war is conducive to the destruction of populous, progressive cities, that war is the world-consuming fire, and that war is the most ruinous catastrophe and the most deplorable adversity.

The cries and lamentations are raised from every part to the Supreme Apex. The moanings and shriekings have thrown a mighty reverberation through the column of the world. The civilized countries are being overthrown. Eyes are shedding tears, hearing the weeping of the fatherless children. The heart’s are burning and being consumed by piercing sobbing and uncontrollable wailing of helpless, wandering women. The spirits of hopeless mothers are torn by rayless grief and endless sorrows, and the nerve-racking sighs and the just complaints of the fathers ascend to the throne of the Almighty.

Ah me! The world of creation is totally deprived of its normal rests. The clash of arms and the sound of murderous guns and cannons are being heard like the roaring of thunder across the heavenly track, and the explosive materials have changed the battlefields into yawning graveyards, burying for eternity the dead corpses of thousands upon thousands of youths, the flowers of many countries, who have been evolving factors in the civilization of the future.

The results of this crime committed against humanity is still worse than whatever I may say, and can never be adequately described by pen or by tongue.

O ye governments of the world! Be ye pitiful toward mankind!

O ye nations of the earth, behold ye the battlefields of slaughter and carnage!

O ye sages of humanity! Investgate sympathetically the conditions of the oppressed!

O ye philosophers of the West! Study profoundly the causes that led to this gigantic, unparalelled struggle!

O ye wise leaders of the globe! Reflect deeply so that ye may find an antidote for the suppression of this chronic, devastating disease!

O ye individuals of humanity! Now is the appointed time! Now is the opportune time! Arise ye, show ye an effort, put ye forward an extraordinary force, and unfurl ye the flag of universal peace and dam the irrestible force of this raging torrent which is wreaking havoc and ruin everywhere!

Although this captive has been in the prison of despotism for forty years, yet he has never been so sad and stricken with regret as in these days. My spirit is aflame and burning. My heart is broken, mournful, heavy, and despondent. My eyes are weeping and my soul is on fire. Oh! I am so bowed doom and sorrowful!

O people, weep and cry, lament and bemoan your fate. Then hasten ye, hasten ye, perchance ye may become able to extinguish with the water of the newborn ideals of spiritual Democracy and celestial Freedom this many-flamed, world-consuming fire, and through your heaven-inspired resolution you may usher in the golden era of international solidarity and world confederation.

Abdu’l-Baha Abbas, October 11, 1914 Akka, Palestine