Bahá’í World/Volume 31/New Translations of Bahá’u’lláh's Writings

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[Page 99]

New Translations of Bahá’u’lláh’s Writings

Bahá’u’lláh’s writings elucidate virtually every aspect of existence, including subjects as varied as science, philosophy, laws for nouncements about the future of humanity. These divinely inspired writings create the foundation of the Bahá’í Faith, but their intended application is universal. Bahá’u’lláh wrote not to a select group of followers, but to the whole of humanity. The texts are the charter for a new world, and no being is outside the rejuvenating influence of Bahá’u’lláh’s revelation, which He describes in these terms:

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.... 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.'

Bahá’u’lláh, Summons of the Lord of Hosts (Haifa: World Centre Publications, 2002), p. 25. [Page 100]In 2002, World Centre Publications issued two new volumes of English translations of Bahá’u’lláh’s writings, The Summons of the Lord of Hosts and Gems of Divine Mysteries. These new publications not only represent a significant contribution to the understanding and history of the Bahá’í Faith, but also demonstrate the breadth of Bahá’u’lláh’s ministry, as they address issues of human leadership, the nature of God’s appearance on earth, the meaning of past religious symbols, and the ceaseless journey of the soul towards its Lord.

The Summons of the Lord of Hosts

The Summons of the Lord of Hosts is a 272-page compilation that collects English translations of six major works written by Bahá’u’lláh in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

The book contains the Súriy-i-Haykal (Súrih of the Temple), Súriy-i-Ra’ís (Súrih of the Chief), Lawh-i-Ra’ís (Tablet of the Chief), Lawḥ-i-Fu’ád (Tablet to Fu’ád Páshá), Lawh-i-Sultán (Tablet to the Sultan), and Súriy-i-Mulúk (Súrih to the Kings). Parts of each of these Tablets had been previously translated by Shoghi Effendi and published in other forms, but this is the first time each has appeared in its complete form.

Collectively, the works clearly enunciate Bahá’u’lláh’s claim to prophethood and offer a prescription for peaceful and just leadership in the modern world.

The primary work in the volume, the Súriy-i-Haykal, was described by Shoghi Effendi as one of Bahá’u’lláh’s “most challenging works” and sets the tone for the volume by establishing the divine source of Bahá’u’lláh’s mission.

“Never since the beginning of the world,” declares Bahá’u’lláh, “hath the message been so openly proclaimed.” That proclamation of His message and its divine source comes in passages such as the following, where Bahá’u’lláh describes receiving the intimations of His mission and station:

2 The Lawh-i-Sultán is addressed to Náşiri’d-Din Shah, the Shah of Persia, and the Lawh-i-Ra’is and Súriy-i-Ra’ís are addressed to ‘Alí Páshá, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. [Page 101]

NEW TRANSLATIONS

While engulfed in tribulations I heard a most wondrous, a most sweet voice, calling above My head. Turning My face, I beheld a Maiden-the embodiment of the remembrance of the name of My Lord-suspended in the air before Me.... Pointing with her finger unto My head, she addressed all who are in heaven and all who are on earth, saying: By God! This is the Best-Beloved of the worlds.³

Throughout the Súriy-i-Haykal, Bahá’u’lláh explores the inseparable relationship between the Manifestation and God, in passages such as this:

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."

The text of the Súriy-i-Haykal also includes letters addressed to some of the most powerful individual monarchs of the time: Napoleon III, Czar Alexander II, Queen Victoria, Náșiri’d-Din Sháh, and Pope Pius IX. In each, Bahá’u’lláh describes His station as a Manifestation of God and challenges the rulers to acknowledge that station.

Bahá’u’lláh’s address to Náşiri’d-Din Sháh is the longest of these letters. Known as the Lawh-i-Sultán, it is directed to the Shah of Persia, an enemy of the Bahá’ís who ordered the martyrdom of the Báb and the imprisonment of Bahá’u’lláh in the Síyáh-Chál, among other abuses to the community. In the address to one whom Bahá’u’lláh called the "Prince of Oppressors," He outlines the abuses that He has suffered at the Shah's command and challenges the sovereign to

3 Bahá’u’lláh, Summons, pp. 5-6. Ibid., pp. 23-24. [Page 102]accept His revelation. He also offers to meet with the Muslim clergy, and to provide whatever definitive proofs of the new revelation they would require to test Bahá’u’lláh’s claim.

After the completion of the Súriy-i-Haykal, Bahá’u’lláh instructed that the work be written in the form of a pentacle, symbolic of the human temple. He added a concluding paragraph that Shoghi Effendi described as “words which reveal the importance He attached to those Messages, and indicate their direct association with the prophecy of the Old Testament”:⁵

Thus have We built the Temple with the hands of power and might, could ye but know it. This is the Temple promised unto you in the Book. Draw ye nigh unto it. This is that which profiteth you, could ye but comprehend it. Be fair, O peoples of the earth! Which is preferable, this, or a temple which is built of clay? Set your faces towards it. Thus have ye been commanded by God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting.⁶

Another major work included in The Summons of the Lord of Hosts is the Súriy-i-Mulúk, described by Shoghi Effendi as “the most momentous Tablet revealed by Bahá’u’lláh in which He, for the first time, directs His words collectively to the entire company of the monarchs of East and West.”⁷ In it, Bahá’u’lláh outlines requirements for rulers, including reduction of armaments, the resolution of international conflicts, and reduction of expenditures that place unnecessary strain on their subjects.

“Lay not aside the fear of God, O kings of the earth, and beware that ye transgress not the bounds which the Almighty hath fixed. ... Be vigilant, that ye may not do injustice to anyone, be it to the extent of a grain of mustard seed. Tread ye the path of justice, for this, verily, is the straight path,” Bahá’u’lláh asserts in a statement outlining the requirements of just leadership.⁸

⁵ Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day Is Come (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1996), p. 47. ⁶ Bahá’u’lláh, Summons, p. 137. ⁷ Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1995), p. 171. ⁸ Bahá’u’lláh, Summons, p. 188. [Page 103]The Súriy-i-Ra’ís, which addresses the Ottoman Prime Minister ‘Alí Páshá, exposes the ways in which the Minister misused his power and betrayed the trust of the people. The Lawḥ-i-Ra’ís contains passages addressed to the same Minister and includes a vehement portrayal of the depth of his depravity, saying, “[T]he fury of God’s wrath hath so encompassed you that ye shall never take heed.”⁹

The Lawḥ-i-Fu’ád, which refers to the Ottoman Minister Fu’ád Páshá, “describes the spiritual consequences of the abuse of power, and foretells the imminent downfall of his colleague, ‘Alí Páshá, and the overthrow of the Sultan himself—prophecies that were widely circulated and whose dramatic fulfillment added greatly to the prestige of their Author.”¹⁰

Gems of Divine Mysteries

Gems of Divine Mysteries (a translation of the Arabic title Javáhiru’l-Asrár) was written in Arabic during Bahá’u’lláh’s banishment to Iraq, where He was exiled from 1853 until 1863. Though a relatively small volume, it is an important early epistle that explores the human quest for spiritual enlightenment and the symbols used throughout the history of religious revelation.

Gems is in the form of a letter written in reply to questions asked of Bahá’u’lláh about the Promised One of Islam. Bahá’u’lláh used the questions as an opportunity to elaborate a number of related subjects.

The book relates closely to another of the major works of Bahá’u’lláh, the Kitáb-i-Íqán, which gives an exploration of the progression of divine revelation and the tribulations sustained by the Manifestations of God. Specifically, it addresses the cause of the rejection of the Prophets of the past, the danger of a literal reading of scripture, the meaning of the signs and portents in the Bible concerning the advent of the new Manifestation, and the continuity of divine revelation.

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⁹ Ibid., p. 164. ¹⁰ Universal House of Justice, introduction to The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, p. vi. [Page 104]Bahá’u’lláh explains many of the symbolic terms used in past revelations, such as “resurrection” and “Day of Judgment,” symbolic terms that have been misunderstood and have created a barrier between mankind and God’s divinely appointed Messengers. In His description of the true meaning of resurrection, Bahá’u’lláh says,

[H]e who had believed in God and in the Manifestation of His beauty was raised from the grave of heedlessness, gathered together in the sacred ground of the heart, quickened to the life of faith and certitude, and admitted into the paradise of the divine presence. What paradise can be loftier than this, what ingathering mightier, and what resurrection greater? Indeed, should a soul be acquainted with these mysteries, he would grasp that which none other hath fathomed.¹¹

Gems further describes the quest for unity with God. In this, it bears similarity to The Seven Valleys, a primarily mystical work of Bahá’u’lláh that describes seven stages, described as a series of valleys, through which a seeker’s soul progresses as it grows closer to God.

Gems explains these seven stages using an extended metaphor of a progression of cities called “the Garden of Search,” “the City of Love and Rapture,” “the City of Divine Unity,” “the Garden of Wonderment,” “the City of Absolute Nothingness,” “the City of Immortality,” and “the City that hath no name or description.”

In this final city, where the seeker achieves the apex of reunion,

flow the oceans of eternity, whilst this city itself revolveth round the seat of eternity. Therein the sun of the Unseen shineth resplendent above the horizon of the Unseen, a sun that hath its own heavens and its own moons, which partake of its light and which rise from and set upon the ocean of the Unseen. Nor can I ever hope to impart even a dewdrop of that which hath been decreed therein, as none is acquainted with its mysteries save God, its Creator and Fashioner, and His Manifestations.¹²

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¹¹ Bahá’u’lláh, Gems of Divine Mysteries (Haifa: World Centre Publications, 2002), p. 42.

¹² Ibid., p. 77. [Page 105]

Rendering the Translations

These newly issued volumes are the first full translations published since the release of ‎the the the‎ first authorized English translation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Bahá’u’lláh’s book of laws, in 1992. The preparation of translations from the original Persian or Arabic was undertaken by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice. The English renderings are a result of combined efforts of a number of translators, all of whom strive to follow the pattern established by Shoghi Effendi.

In some cases, Bahá’u’lláh would Himself write the Tablets, but it was typical for Him to reveal verses aloud to an amanuensis. The dictation was sometimes recorded in what has been called “revelation writing”—a shorthand script written with extreme quickness owing to the speed with which the words were uttered. These original “revelation writing” drafts were later revised and approved by Bahá’u’lláh.

These “revelation drafts,” as well as the many other transcriptions of Bahá’u’lláh’s writings, are held in the International Bahá’í Archives in Haifa. The collection encompasses approximately 17,000 items, some of which are in Bahá’u’lláh’s own handwriting, while others are transcriptions made either by Bahá’u’lláh’s amanuenses or by other known scribes, under Bahá’u’lláh’s direction.

The thousands of epistles revealed by Bahá’u’lláh, when taken together, constitute a volume more than 70 times the size of the Qur’an and more than 15 times the size of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Though less than 10 percent of Bahá’u’lláh’s writings have been translated, those completed represent works of major significance.

The work of the Research Department to study and translate the remaining bulk of the writings of the Faith is ongoing, with new volumes planned for future release that will continue to contribute to understanding of the Faith both for those among its followers as well as the historians and scholars who study it.