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He is God, exalted is He, the Lord of wisdom and utterance.
PRAISE be unto God, incomparable in majesty, power and beauty, peerless in
glory, might and grandeur; too high is He for human imaginations to
comprehend Him or for any peer or equal to be ascribed unto Him. He hath
clearly set forth His straight Path in words and utterances of highest
eloquence. Verily He is the All-Possessing, the Most Exalted. When He
purposed to call the new creation into being, He sent forth the Manifest
and Luminous Point from the horizon of His Will; it passed through every
sign and manifested itself in every form until it reached the zenith, as
bidden by God, the Lord of all men.
This Point is the focal centre of the circle of Names and marketh the
culmination of the manifestations of Letters in the world of creation.
Through it have appeared indications of the impenetrable Mystery, the
adorned Symbol, He Who standeth revealed in the Most Great Name—a Name
which is recorded in the luminous Tablet and is inscribed in the holy, the
blessed, the snow-white Scroll. And when the Point was joined to the
second Letter(25) which appeareth in the beginning of the Mathání,(26) it
traversed the heavens of exposition and utterance. Then the eternal Light
of God shed its radiance, flared up in the midmost heart of the firmament
of testimony and produced two Luminaries. Glorified be the Merciful One,
unto Whom no allusion can be made, Whom no expression can define, nor any
assertion reveal, nor any evidence describe. He is in truth the Ordainer,
the All-Bountiful, both in the beginning and in the end. And He provided
for them protectors and defenders from among the hosts of power and might.
Verily, He is the Help in Peril, the Mighty, the Unconstrained.
The preamble of this Epistle is being revealed twice, even as was the
Mathání(27)
Praise be unto God Who hath manifested the Point, hath unfolded therefrom
the knowledge of all things, whether of the past or of the future—a Point
He hath chosen to be the Herald of His Name and the Harbinger of His Great
Revelation which hath caused the limbs of all mankind to quake and the
splendour of His light to shine forth above the horizon of the world.
Verily, this is the Point which God hath ordained to be an ocean of light
for the sincere among His servants and a flame of fire to the froward
amidst His creatures and the impious among His people—they who bartered
away the gift of God for unbelief, and the celestial food for hypocrisy,
and led their associates to a wretched abode. These are the people who
have manifested sedition throughout the world and have violated His
Covenant on the Day when the immortal Being mounted His throne and the
Crier raised His Voice from the haven of security and peace in the holy
Vale.
O followers of the Bayán! Fear ye the All-Merciful. This is the One Who
hath been glorified by Muḥammad, the Apostle of God, and before Him by the
Spirit(28) and yet before Him by the One Who discoursed with God.(29) This
is the Point of the Bayán calling aloud before the Throne, saying: ‘By the
righteousness of God, ye have been created to glorify this Most Great
Announcement, this Perfect Way which lay hid within the souls of the
Prophets, which was treasured in the hearts of the chosen ones of God and
was written down by the glorious Pen of your Lord, the Possessor of
Names.’
Say: Die in your wrath, O malicious ones! Verily He Whose knowledge
nothing escapeth hath appeared. He Who hath caused the countenance of
divine knowledge to be wreathed in smiles is come. Through Him the kingdom
of utterance is embellished, every receptive soul hath set his face
towards the Lord of Revelations, everyone resting on his knees hath stood
up, and every indolent one hath rushed forth to attain the Sinai of
assurance. This is the Day that God hath ordained to be a blessing unto
the righteous, a retribution for the wicked, a bounty for the faithful and
a fury of His wrath for the faithless and the froward. Verily He hath been
made manifest, invested by God with invincible sovereignty. He hath
revealed that wherewith naught on the earth or in the heavens can compare.
Fear ye the All-Merciful, O people of the Bayán, and commit not that which
the followers of the Qur’án have committed—they who in the daytime and in
the night season professed belief in the Faith of God, yet when the Lord
of all men did appear, turned aside from Him and pronounced so cruel a
sentence against Him that, on the Day of Return, the Mother Book sorely
bewailed His plight. Call ye to mind and ponder upon their deeds and
words, their stations and merits and the things they brought to pass when
He Who conversed on Sinai unloosed His tongue, when there was a blast on
the Trumpet, whereupon all that are in heaven and on earth swooned away
except such as are reckoned among the letters of affirmation.
O people of the Bayán! Abandon your idle fancies and vain imaginings, then
with the eye of fairness look at the Dayspring of His Revelation and
consider the things He hath manifested, the words He hath divinely
revealed and the sufferings that have befallen Him at the hands of His
enemies. He is the One Who hath willingly accepted every manner of
tribulation for the proclamation of His Cause and the exaltation of His
Word. At one time He suffered imprisonment in the land of Tá (Ṭihrán), at
another in the land of Mím (Mázindarán), then once again in the former
land, for the sake of the Cause of God, the Maker of the heavens. In His
love for the Cause of God, the Almighty, the All-Bountiful, He was
subjected there to chains and fetters.
O people of the Bayán! Have ye forgotten My exhortations, which My Pen
hath revealed and My tongue hath uttered? Have ye bartered away My
certitude in exchange for your idle fancies and My Way for your selfish
desires? Have ye cast away the precepts of God and His remembrance and
have ye forsaken His laws and ordinances? Fear ye God and abandon vain
imaginings to the begetters thereof and leave superstitions to the
devisers thereof and misgivings to the breeders thereof. Advance ye then
with radiant faces and stainless hearts towards the horizon above which