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MAY. 1944

THE-DAY OF G01),’Frontispiece—Bahá’u’lláh Bahá’u’lláh’STRIBUTE TO THE BAR

THE BAB’S FAREWELL ADDRESS TO THE LETTERS OF THE LIVING

UTTERANCES OF THE BAB

THE SECOND COMING 0F CHRIST—‘Abdfi’l-Bdhé

THE BAB’s CAPTIVITY IN ApiIIRBAYJAN—Shoghi Effendi HIs HEAVENLY EXAMPLE, Editorial—Horace Holley A PERSONAL IMPREssmN OF THE BAB—Dr. Cofinick THE DESTINY OF AMERICA_William Kenneth Chrisfian ’ ‘ ‘

WITH OUR READERS E

15:

E THE BAHA’I’ MAGAZINE .

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World Order was founded March 21, 1910 as Bahá’í News, the first organ of the American Bahá’ís. In March, 1911, its title was changed to ‘Stqr of the West. Beginning November, 1922 the magazine appeared under the name of The Bahai Magazine. The issue ‘of April, 1935

carried the present title of World Order, combining The Hafid’i Maga- ‘

zine and World Unity, which had been foulided- October, 1927. The

present number represents Volume XXXV of the conunuous Bahá’í publication.

WORLD ORDER is published monthly in Wilmette, 111., by the Publishing ‘ Committee of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States- and Canada‘ EDITORS: Garreta Busey, Alice Simmons Cox, ,Gertrude K. Kenning, Horace Holley, Bertha Hyde Kirkpatrick. ‘

Editorial Office ' ' . 69 Annowsronn ROAD, Wm ILL.

Publication Office 110 mem Am Wmnm-nz. In.

C. R. Wood, Business Menage!» . Primed in U.S.A.

. MAY, 1944, VOLUME X; NUMBER 2

SUBSCRIPTIONS: 81.50 per year, for Unitedetates; its territories and possessiqpe; foxt'Cannda, Cuba, Mexico, Central a_nd’ South America. Single copies, 15c. Foreign subscriptions, $1.75. Make checks and money orders pgynhle to World Order Magazine, 110 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois} Entered. as second class matter April 1, 1940. at the post office at Wflzpetfd, 111., under the Act of March '3, 1879. Contents copyrighted 1944 by ._ Bahá’í Publishing Committee. Title registered at U; S. Patent Office.

CHANGE OF ADDRESS snoum BE REPORTED ONE MONTH IN ADVANCE.

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THE DAY OF GOD \

, LORIFIED art Thou, O God of all names and Creator of the

heavens. I render Thee thanks that Thou hast made known unto Thy servants this Day whereon the river that is life indeed hath flowed forth from the finger of Thy bounty, and the springtime of Thy revelation and Thy presence hath appeared through Thy manifestation unto all who are in Thy heaven and all who are on Thy earth.

This is the Day, O my Lord, whose brightness Thou hast exalted above the brightness of the sun and the splendors thereof. I testify that the light it sheddeth proceedeth out of the glory of the light of Thy countenance, and is begotten by the radiance of the mom of Thy Revelation. This is the Day whereon the hopeless have been clothed with the raiment of confidence, and the sick attired with the robe of healing, and the poor drawn nigh unto the ocean of Thy

riches. . . .

I beg of Thee, O my God, by Thy power, and Thy might, and Thy sovereignty, which have embraced all who are in Thy heaven and on Thy earth, to make known unto Thy servants this luminous Way and this straight Path, that they may acknowledge Thy unity and Thy oneness, with a certainty which the vain imaginations of the doubters will not impair, nor the idle fancies of the wayward obscure. Illumihe, O my Lord, the eyes of Thy servants, and brighten their hearts with the splendors of the light of Thy knowledge, that they may apprehend the greatness of this most sublime station, and recognize this most luminous Horizon, that haply the clamor of men

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[Page 34]may fail to deter them from turning their gaze towards the efiulgent light of Thy unity, and to hinder them from setting their faces to ward the Horizon of detachment.

This is the Day, O my Lord, which Thou didst announce unto all mankind as the Day whereon Thou wouldst reveal Thy Self, and shed Thy radiance, and shine brightly over all Thy creatures. Thou hast, moreover, entered into a Covenant with them, in Thy Books, and Thy Scriptures, and Thy Scrolls, and Thy Tablets, concerning Him who is the Dayspring of Thy Revelation, and hast appointed the Bath to be the Herald of this Most Great and all—glorious manifestation, and this most resplendent and most sublime Appearance.

And when the world’s horizon was illumined, and He Who is the Most Great Name was manifested, all disbelieved in Him and in His signs, except such as have been carried away by the sweetness of Thy glorification and praise. There befell Him what must remain inscrutable to everyone except Thee, Whose knowledge transcendeth

all who are in Thy heaven and all who are on Thy earth. . . .

No sooner had He revealed Himself than the foundations of the kindreds of the earth shook and trembled, and the learned swooned away, and the wise were bewildered, except such as have, through the power of Thy might, drawn nigh unto Thee, and received the choice wine of Thy Revelation from the hand of Thy grace, and have quafied it in Thy name, and exclaimed: “Praise be unto Thee, O Thou the Desire of the Worlds! and glory be to Thee, O Thou Who art the Exultation of the hearts that pant after Thee!”

—Bahá’u’lláh

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[Page 35]WOBLD 0BBEB

The Bahá’í Magazine

VOLUME X

MAY, 1944

NUMBER 2

Bahá’

HOUCH young and tender of

age, and though the Cause He revealed was contrary to the desire of all the peoples of the earth, both high and low, rich and poor, exalted and abased, king and subject, yet He arose and steadfastly proclaimed it. All have known and heard this. He feared no one; He was reckless of consequences. Could such a thing be made manifest except through the power of a Divine Revelation, and the potency of God’s invincible Will? By the righteousness of God! Were anyone to entertain so great a Revelation in his heart, the thought of such a declaration would alone confound him! Were the hearts of all men to be crowded into his heart, he would still hesitate to venture upon so awful an enterprise. He could achieve it only by the permission of God, only if the channel of his heart were to be linked with the Source of Divine grace, and his soul be as‘ sured of the unfailing sustenance of the Almighty. To what, We wonder, do they ascribe so great a daring? Do they accuse Him of madness as they accused the Prophets of old? Or do they maintain that His motive was none other than leadership and

the acquisition of earthly riches? Gracious God! In His Book, which

He hath entitled “Qayyfimu’l-Asmá’ ” ——the first, the greatest, and might u’lláh’s Tribute to the B5113

iest of all books—He prophesised His own martyrdom. In it is this passag e: “O Thou Remnant of God! I hagve sacrificed myself wholly for Thee; I have accepted curses for Thy sake; and have yearned for naught but martyrdom in the path of Thy love. Sufiicient Witness unto me is God, the Exalted, the Protector, the Ancient of Days!” . . .

Could the Revealer of such utterance be regarded as walking in any other way than the way of God, and as having yearned for aught else except His good pleasure? In this very verse there lieth concealed a breath of detachment for which, if it were breathed upon the world, all beings would renounce their life, and sacrifice their soul.

And now consider how this Sadrih of the Riḍván of God hath, in the prime of youth, risen to proclaim the Cause of God. Behold, what steadfastness He, the Beauty of God, hath revealed! The whole world rose to hinder Him, yet it utterly failed! The more severe the persecution they inflicted on that Sadrih of Blessedness, the more His fervor increased, and the brighter burned the flame of His love. All this is evident, and none disputeth its truth. Finally, He surrendered His soul, and winged His flight unto the realms above.

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The Báb’s Farewell Address to the Letters of the Living

66 MY beloved friends! You

the the bearers of the name of God in this Day. You have been chosen as the repositories of His mystery. It behooves each one of you to manifest the attributes of God, and to exemplify by your deeds and words the signs of His righteousness, His power and glory. The very members of your body must bear witness to the loftiness of your purpose, the integrity of your life, the reality of your faith, and the exalted character of your devotion. For verily I say, this is the Day spoken of by God in His Book: ‘On that day will We set a seal upon their mouths; yet shall their hands speak unto Us, and their feet shall bear witness to that which they shall have done.’ Ponder the words of Jesus addressed to His disciples, as He sent them forth to propagate the Cause of God. In words such as these, He bade them arise and fulfil their mission: ‘Ye are even as the fire which in the darkness of the night has been kindled upon the mountain-top. Let your light shine before the eyes of men. Such must be the purity of your character and the degree of your

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renunciation, that the people of the earth may through you recognize and be drawn closer to the heavenly Father who is the Source of purity and grace. For none has seen the Father who is in heaven. You who are His spiritual children must by your deeds exemplify His virtues, and witness to His glory. You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? Such must be the degree of your detachment, that whatever city you enter to proclaim and teach the Cause of God, you should in no wise expect either meat or reward from its people. Nay, when you depart out of that city, you should shake the dust from off your feet. As you have entered it pure and undefiled, so must you depart from that city. For verily I say, the heavenly Father is ever with you and keeps watch over you. If you be faithful to Him, He will assuredly deliver into your hands all the treasures of the earth, and will exalt you above all the rulers and kings of the world.’ 0 My Letters! Verily I say, immensely exalted is this Day above the days of the Apostles of old. Nay, immeasur [Page 37]THE BAB’s FAREWELL ADDRESS 37

able is the difference! You are the witnesses of the Dawn of the promised Day of God. You are the partakers of the mystic chalice of His Revelation. Gird up the loins of endeavor, and be mindful of the words of God as revealed in His Book: ‘Lo, the Lord thy God is come, and with Him is the company of His angels arrayed before Him!’ Purge your hearts of worldly desires, and let angelic virtues be your adorning. Strive that by your deeds you may bear witness to the truth of these words of God, and beware lest, by ‘turning hack’, He may ‘change you Jfor another people’, who ‘shall not be your like’, and who shall take from you the Kingdom of God. The days when idle worship was deemed sufficient are ended. The time is come when naught but the purest motive, supported by deeds of stainless purity, can ascend to the throne of the Most High and be acceptable unto Him. ‘The good word riseth up unto Him, and the righteous deed will cause it to be exalted before Him.’ You are the lowly, of whom God has thus spoken in His Book: ‘And We desire to show favor to those who were brought low in the land, and to make them spiritual leaders among men, and to make them Our heirs.’ You have been

called to this station; you will attain to it only if you arise to trample beneath your feet every earthly desire, and endeavor to become those ‘honored servants of His who speak not till He hath spoken, and who do His bidding.’ You are the first Letters that have been generated from the Primal Point, the first Springs that have welled out from the Source of this Revelation. Beseech the Lord your God to grant that no earthly entanglements, no worldly affections, no ephemeral pursuits, may tarnish the purity, or emhitter the sweetness, of that grace which flows through you. I am preparing you for the advent of a mighty Day. Exert your utmost endeavor that, in the world to come, I, who am now instructing you, may, before the mercyseat of God, rejoice in your deeds and glory in your achievements. The secret of the Day that is to come is now concealed. It can neither be divulged nor estimated. The newly born babe of that Day excels the wisest and most venerable men of this time, and the lowliest and most unlearned of that period shall surpass in understanding the most erudite and accomplished divines of this age. Scatter throughout the length and breadth of this land, and, with steadfast feet and sanctified hearts, prepare the way for

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His coming. Heed not your weaknesses and frailty; fix your gaze upon the invincible power of the Lord, your God, the Almighty. Has He not, in past days, caused Abraham, in spite of His seeming helplessness, to triumph over the forces of Nim rod? Has He not enabled Moses, whose stafiC was His only com lished the ascendancy of Jesus, poor and lowly as He was in the eyes of men, over the combined forces of the Jewish people? Has He not subjected the barbarous and militant tribes of Arabia to the holy and transforming discipline of Muhammad, His Prophet? Arise in His name, put your trust wholly in Him,

and be assured of ultimate victory.”

panion, to vanquish Pharaoh and his hosts? Has He not estab

With such words the Báb quickened the faith of His disTo each

He assigned his own native province as the field of his

ciples and launched them upon their mission. labors. He directed them each and all to refrain from specific references to His own name and person. He instructed them to raise the call that the Gate to the Promised One has been opened, that His proof is irrefutable, and that His testimony is complete. He bade them declare that whoever believes in Him has believed in all the prophets of God, and that whoever denies Him With these instructions He dismissed them from His presence and committed them to the care of God. Of these Letters of the Living, whom He thus addressed, there remained with Him in Shíráz Mullá Husayn, the first of these Letters, and Quddfis, the last. number, set out, at the hour of dawn, from Shíráz, each

has denied all His saints and His chosen ones.

The rest, fourteen in

resolved to carry out, in its entirety, the task with which he had been entrusted. (From The Dawn-Breakers)

[Page 39]Utterances of the B511)

HIs CLAIM

AM the Mystic Fane which the

Hand of Omnipotence hath reared. I am the Lamp which the Finger of God hath lit within its niche and caused to shine with deathless splendor. I am the Flame of that supernal Light that glowed upon Sinai in the gladsome Spot, and lay concealed in the midst of the Burning Bush.

I am the Primal Point from which have been generated all created things. I am the Countenance of God Whose Splendor can never be obscured, the Light of God Whose radiance can never fade. . . . All the keys of heaven God hath chosen to place on my right hand, and all the keys of Hell on my left. . . . I am one

of the sustaining pillars of the Primal Word' of God. Whoso ever hath recognized Me, hath known all that is right and true, and hath attained all that is good and seemly.

TRIBUTE TO Bahá’u’lláh

Of all the tributes I have paid to Him Who is to come after Me the greatest is this, My written confession that no words of Mine can adequately describe Him, nor can any references to

Him in My Book, the Bayén, do justice to His Cause.

Out of utter nothingness, 0 great and omnipotent Master, Thou hast, through the celestial potency of Thy might, brought Me forth and raised Me up to proclaim this Revelation. I have made none other but Thee My trust; I have clung to no will but

Thy will. . . . O Thou Remnant of God! I have sacrificed Myself wholly for Thee; I have accepted curses for Thy sake, and have yearned for naught but martyrdom in the path of Thy love. Sufficient witness unto Me is God the Exalted, the Protector, the Ancient of Days.

HIS SUFFERINGS

How veiled are ye, 0 My creatures, (He, speaking with the voice of God, has revealed in the Bayén) . . . who, without any right, have consigned Him unto a mountain (Mékfi), not one of whose inhabitants is worthy of mention. . . . With Him, which is with Me, there is no one except him who is one of the Letters of the Living of My Book. In His presence, which is My presence, there is not at night even a lighted lamp! And yet, in places (of worship) which in varying

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degrees reach out unto Him, unnumbered lamps are shining! All that is on earth hath been created for Him, and all partake with delight of His benefits, and yet they are so veiled from Him as to refuse Him even a lamp! I swear by the truth of God! Were he who hath been willing to treat Me in such a manner to know Who it is Whom he hath so treated, he, verily, would never in his life be happy. Nay—I verily acquaint thee with the truth of the matter—it is as if he had imprisoned all the Prophets, and all the men of truth and all the chosen ones.

EXHORTATIONS

Fear ye God, O concourse of kings, lest ye remain far from Him Who is His Remembrance (the Báb), after the truth hath come unto you With a Book and signs from God, as spoken through the wondrous tongue of

Him Who is His Remembrance. Seek ye grace from God, for God hath ordained for you, after ye

have believed in Him, a Garden, the vastness of which is as the vastness of the whole of Paradise.

O concourse of kings and sons of kings! Lay aside, one and all, your dominion which belongeth unto God. . . . Vain indeed is your dominion, for God hath set aside earthly possessions for such as have denied Him. . . . O concourse of kings! Deliver with truth and in all haste the verses sent down by us to the peoples of Turkey and of India, and beyond them, with power and with truth to lands in both the East and the West. . . . By God! If ye do well, to your own behoof will ye do well; and if ye deny God and His signs, We, in very truth, having God, can well dispense with all creatures and all earthly dominion.

Well is it with him who fixeth his gaze upon the Order of Bahá’u’lláh and rendereth thanks unto his Lord! For He will assuredly be made manifest. God

hath indeed irrevocably ordained it in the Bayén.

Pray to be forgiven, O people, for having failed in your duty towards God, and for having trespassed against His Cause, and be not of the foolish. He it is who hath created you; He it is who hath nourished your souls through His Cause, and enabled you to recognize Him who is the Almighty.—BAHI\’U’LLAH.

[Page 41]The Second Coming of Christ

‘ABDU’L-BAHA

T IS said in the Holy Books

that Christ will come again, and that His coming depends upon the fulfilment of certain signs: when He comes it will be with these signs. For example, “The sun will be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven. . . . And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” Bahá’u’lláh has explained these verses in the Kitáb-i-fqan: there is no need of repetition; refer to it and you will understand these sayings.

But I have something further to say upon this subject. At His first coming also, Christ came from heaven, as it is explicitly stated in the Gospel. Christ Himself says: “And no man hath ascended up to heaven but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.”

It is clear to all that Christ came from heaven, although apparently He came from the

womb of Mary. At the first coming He came from heaven, though apparently from the womb; in the same way also, at His second coining, He will come from heaven, though apparently from the womb. The conditions that are indicated in the Gospel for the second coming of Christ are the same as those that were mentioned for the first coming, as we before said.

The Book of Isaiah announces that the Messiah will conquer the East and the West, and all nations will come under His shadow, that His Kingdom will be established, that He will come from an unknown place, that the sinners will be judged, and that justice will prevail to such an extent that the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid, the sucking child and the asp, shall all gather at one spring, and in one meadow, and one dwelling. The first coining was also under these conditions, though outwardly none of them came to pass. Therefore the Jews rejected Christ, and, God forbid! called the Messiah masikh (i. e., monster), considered Him to he the destroyer of the edifice of

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God, regarded Him as the breaker of the Sabbath and the Law, and sentenced Him to death. Nevertheless each one of these conditions had a signification that the Jews did not understand: therefore they were debarred from perceiving the truth of Christ.

The second coming of Christ will also be in like manner: the signs and conditions which have been spoken of all have meanings, and are not to be taken literally. Among other things it is said that the stars will fall upon the earth. The stars are endless and innumerable, and modern mathematicians have established and proved scientifically that the globe of the sun is estimated to be about one million and a half times greater than the earth, and each of the

fixed stars to he a thousand times larger than the sun. If these stars were to fall upon the surface of the earth, how could they find place there? It would be as though a thousand million of Himalaya mountains were to fall upon a grain of mustard seed. According to reason and science this thing is quite impossible. What is even more strange is that Christ said: “Perhaps I shall come when you are yet asleep, for the coming of the Son of man is like the coming of a thief.” Perhaps the thief will be in the house and the owner will not know it. .

It is clear and evident that these signs have symbolic significance, and that they are not literal. They are fully explained in the Kitáb-i-Íqán: refer to it.

In the spiritual world, the divine bestowals are in finite, for in that realm there is neither separation nor disintegration which characterize the world of material existence. Spiritual existence is absolute immortality, completeness and unchangeable being. Therefore we must thank God that He has created for us both material blessings and spiritual bestowals. He has given us material gifts and spiritual graces, outer sight to view the lights of the sun and inner vision by which we may perceive the glory of God. . . . We must strive with energies of heart, soul and mind to develop and manifest the perfections and virtues latent within the realities of the phenomenal world, for the human reality may be compared to a seed.

—‘ABDU’L-BAHA

[Page 43]The Báb’s Captivity in Aflirbéyjan

SHOGHI HE period of the Báb’s ban ishment to the mountains of Adhirbayjén, and lasting no less than three years, constitutes the saddest, the most dramatic, and in a sense the most pregnant phase of his six-year ministry. It comprises His nine months’ unbroken confinement in the fortress of Mah-Kfi, and His subsequent incarceration in the fortress of Qlihriq, which was interrupted only by a brief yet memorable visit to Tabríz. It was over-shadowed throughout by the implacable and mounting hostility of the two most powerful adversaries of the Faith, the Grand Vizir of Muhammad Shah, Haji Mirzá Áqásí, and the Amir-Nizém, the Grand Vizir of Nasirid’d-Din-Sjah. It corresponds to the most critical stage of the mission of Bahá’u’lláh, during His exile to Adrianople, when confronted with the despotic Sultan ‘Abdu’l-‘Aziz and his ministers, ‘Ali Pasha and Fu‘éd Pasha, and is paralleled by the darkest days of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s ministry in the Holy Land, under the oppressive rule of the tyrannical ‘Abdu’l-Hamid and the

equally tyrannical Jamal Pasha.

EFFENDI

Shíráz had been the memorable scene of the Báb’s historic Declaration; Iṣfahán had provided Him, however briefly, with a haven of relative peace and security; whilst A(flfirbayjén was destined to become the theatre of His agony and martyrdom. These concluding years of His earthly life will go down in history as the time when the new Dispensation attained its full stature, when the claim of its Founder was fully and publicly asserted, when its laws were formulated, when the Covenant of its Author was firmly established, when its independence was proclaimed, and when the heroism of its champions blazed forth in immortal glory. For it was during these intensely dramatic, fate-laden years that the full implications of the station of the Bab were disclosed to His disciples, and formally announced by Him in the capital of Adhirbayjén, in the presence of the Heir t0 the Throne; that the Persian Bayan, the repository of the laws ordained by the Báb was revealed; that the time and character of the Dispensation of “the

One Whom God will make mani43

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fest” were unmistakably determined; that the Conference of Badasht proclaimed the annulment of the old order; and that the great conflagrations of Mazindaran, of Nayriz and of Zanjan were kindled.

And yet, the foolish and short‘ sighted Haji Mirzá Aqasi fondly imagined that by confounding the plan of the Báb to meet the Sháh face to face in the capital, and by relegating Him to the farthest corner of the realm, he had stifled the Movement at its birth, and would soon conclusively triumph over its Founder. Little did he imagine that the very isolation he was forcing upon his Prisoner would enable Him to evolve the System designed to incarnate the soul of His Faith, and would aflord Him the opportunity of safeguarding it from disintegration and schism, and of proclaiming formally and unreservedly His mission. Little did he imagine that this very confinement would induce that Prisoner’s exasperated disciples and companions to cast off the shackles of an antiquated theology, and precipitate happenings that would call forth from them a prowess, a courage, a self-renunciation unexampled in their country’s history. Little did he imagine that by this very act he would be instrumental in ful

filling the authentic tradition ascribed to the Prophet of Islam regarding the inevitability of that which should come to pass in Aihirbayjan. Untaught by the example of the governor of Shíráz, who, with fear and trembling, had, at the first taste of God’s avenging wrath, fled ignominiously and relaxed his hold on his Captive, the Grand Vizir of Muhammad shah was, in his turn, through the orders he had issued, storing up for himself severe and evitable disappointment, and paving the way for his own ultimate downfall. His orders to Ali Khan, the warden Of the fortress of Méh—Kfi, were stringent and explicit. On His way to that fortress the Báb passed a number of days in Tabríz, days that were marked by such an intense excitement on the part of the populace that, except for a few persons, neither the public nor His followers were allowed to meet Him. As He was escorted through the streets of the city the shout of “Allah-u-Akbar” resounded on every side. So great, indeed, became the clamor that the town crier was ordered to warn the inhabitants that any one who ventured to seek the Báb’s presence would forfeit all his possessions and be imprisoned. Upon His arrival in

[Page 45]THE BAB’S CAPTIVITY 45

Mah-Kfi, surnamed by Him Jabél-i-Basit (the Open Mountain) no one was allowed to see Him for the first two weeks except His amanuensis, Siyyid Husayn, and his brother. So grievous was His plight while in that fortress that, in the Persian Bayén, He Himself has stated that at night-time He did not even have a lighted lamp, and that His solitary chamber, constructed of sun-baked bricks, lacked even a door, while, in His Tablet to Muhammad Shah, He has complained that the inmates of the fortress were confined to two guards and four dogs.

Secluded on the heights of a remote and dangerously situated mountain, on the frontiers of the Ottoman and Russian empires; imprisoned within the solid walls of a four-towered fortress; cut off from His family, His kindred and His disciples; living in the vicinity of a bigoted and turbulent community who, by race, tradition, language and creed, differed from the vast majority of the inhabitants of Persia; guarded by the people of a district which, as the birthplace of the Grand Vizir, had been made the recipient of the special favors of his administration, the Prisoner of Mah-Kfi seemed in the eyes of His adversary to be doomed to languish away the

flower of His youth, and witness, at no distant date, the complete annihilation of His hopes. That adversary was soon to realize, however, how gravely he had misjudged both his Prisoner and those on whom he had lavished his favors. An unruly, a proud and unreasoning people were gradually subdued by the gentleness of the Báb, were chastened by His modesty, were edified by His counsels, and instructed by His wisdom. They were so carried away by their love for Him that their first act every morning, notwithstanding the remonstrations of the domineering ‘Ali Iflién, and the repeated threats of disciplinary measures received from Ṭihrán, was to seek a place where they could catch a glimpse of His face, and beseech from afar His benediction upon their daily work. In cases of dispute it was their wont to hasten to the foot of the fortress, and, with their eyes fixed upon His abode, invoke His name, and adjure one another to speak the truth. ‘Ali Ifllan himself, under the influence of a strange vision, felt such mortification that he was impelled to relax the severity of his discipline, as an atonement for his past behavior. Such became his leniency that an increasing stream of eager and devout pilgrims began to be ad [Page 46]

46 WORLD ORDER

mitted at the gates of the fortress. Among them was the dauntless and indefatigable Mullá Ḥusayn, who had walked on foot the entire way from Mashad in the east of Persia to Méh-Kfi, the westernmost outpost of the realm, and was able, after so arduous a journey, to celebrate the festival of Naw-Rúz (1848) in the company of his Beloved.

Secret agents, however, charged to watch ‘Ali Khan, informed Haji Mirza Aqasi of the turn events were taking, whereupon he immediately decided to transfer the B511) to the fortress of Qlihriq (about April 10, 1848), surnamed by Him the Jabal-iShadid ( the Grievous Mountain) . There He was consigned to the keeping of Yaḥyá Khan, a brother-in-law of Muhammad Shéh. Though at the outset he acted with the utmost severity, he was eventually compelled to yield to the fascination of his Prisoner. Nor were the Kurds, who lived in the village of thhriq, and whose hatred of the Shi‘ihs exceeded even that of the inhabitants of Méh-Kfi, able to resist the pervasive power of the Prisoner’s influence. They too were to be seen every morning, ere they started for their daily work, to approach the fortress and prostrate themselves in adoration before its holy Inmate.

“So great was the confluence of the people,” is the testimony of a European eye-witness, writing in his memoirs of the Báb, “that the courtyard, not being large enough to contain His hearers, the majority remained in the street and listened with wrapt attention to the verses of the new Qur an.”

Indeed the turmoil raised in (lfihriq eclipsed the scenes which Méh-Kfi had witnessed. Siyyids of distinguished merit, eminent ‘ulamés, and even government officials were boldly and rapidly espousing the Cause of the Prisoner. The conversion of the zealous, the famous Mirzá Asadu’llah, surnamed Dayyan, a prominent official of high literary repute, who was endowed by the Báb with the “hidden and preserved knowledge”, and extolled as the “repository of the trust of the one true God”, and the arrival of a dervish, a former navvéb, from India, whom the Bab in a vision had hidden renounce wealth and position, and hasten on foot to meet Him in A(fllirhéyjan, brought the situation to a head. Accounts of these startling events reached Tabríz, were thence communicated to Tihran, and forced Hájí Mirzá Áqásí again to intervene. Dayyén’s father, an intimate friend of that minister, had already

[Page 47]THE BAB’s CAPTIVITY 47

expressed to him his grave apprehension at the manner in which the able Functionaries of the state were being won over to the new Faith. To allay the rising excitement the Báb was summoned to Tabríz. Fearful of the enthusiasm of the people of A(ihirbéyjan, those into whose custody He had been delivered decided to deflect their route, and avoid the town of Ighuy, passing instead through Urfimiyyih. On His arrival in that town Prince Malik Qásim Mirza ceremoniously received Him, and was even seen, on a certain Friday, when his Guest was riding on His way to the public bath, to accompany Him on foot, while the Prince’s footmen endeavored to restrain the people who, in their overflowing enthusiasm, were pressing to catch a glimpse of so marvelous a Prisoner. Tabríz, in its turn in the throes of wild excitement, joyously hailed His arrival. Such was the fervor of popular feeling that the Báb was assigned a place outside the gates of the city. This, however, failed to allay the prevailing emotion. Precautions, warnings and restrictions served only to aggravate a situation that had already become critical. It was at this juncture that the Grand Vizir issued his historic order for the immediate convocation of the

ecclesiastical d i gn i tar i e s of Tabríz to consider the most effectual measures which would, once and for all, extinguish the flames of so devouring a confiagration.

The circumstances attending the examination of the Báb, as a result of so precipitate an act, may well rank as one of the chief landmarks of His dramatic career. The avowed purpose of that convocation was to arraign the Prisoner, and deliberate on the steps to be taken for the extirpation of His so-called heresy. It instead afforded Him the supreme opportunity of His mission to assert in public, formally and without any reservation, the claims inherent in His Revelation. In the official residence, and in the presence, of the governor of Adhirbéyjan, Nasiri’d-Din Mirzá, the heir to the throne; under the presidency of Haji Mulla Mahmud, the Nizamu’l‘Ulama, the Prince’s tutor; before the assembled ecclesiastical dignitaries of Tabríz, the leaders of the Shaylghu’l-Islam, and the Imém-Jum‘ih, the Bath, having seated Himself in the chief place which had been reserved for the VaIi-‘Ahd (the heir to the throne), gave, in ringing tones, His celebrated answer to the question put to Him by the President of that assembly. “I am”,

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He exclaimed, “I am, I am the Promised One! I am the One Whose name you have for a thousand years invoked, at Whose mention you have risen, Whose advent you have longed to witness, and the hour of Whose Revelation you have prayed God to hasten. Verily, I say, it is incumbent upon the peoples of both the East and the West to obey My word, and to pledge allegiance to My person.” Awe-struck, those present momentarily dropped their heads in silent confusion. Then Mullá Muhammad-i-Mamaqani, t h a t one-eyed white-bearded renegade, summoning sufficient courage, with characteristic insolence, reprimanded Him as a perverse and contemptible followerer of Satan; to which the undaunted Youth retorted that He maintained what He had already asserted. To the query subsequently addressed to Him by the Nizému’l-‘Ulama the Báb affirmed that His words constituted the most incontrovertible evidence of His mission, adduced verses from the Qur‘an to establish the truth of His assertion, and claimed to be able to reveal, within the space of two days and two nights verses equal to the whole of that Book. In answer to a criticism calling His attention to an infraction by Him

of the rules of grammar, He cited certain passages from the Qur‘an as corroborative evidence, and, turning aside, With firmness and dignity, a frivolous and irrelevant remark thrown at Him by one of those who were present, summarily disbanded that gathering by Himself rising and quitting the room. The convocation thereupon dispersed, its members confused, divided among themselves, bitterly resentful and humiliated through their failure to achieve their purpose. Far from daunting the spirit of their Captive, far from inducing Him to recant or abandon His mission, that gathering was productive of no other result than the decision, arrived at after considerable argument and discussion, to inflict the bastinado on Him, at the hands, and in the prayer-house of the heartless and avaricious Mirzá ‘Ali-Asghar, the Shaylghu’l-Islém of that city. Confounded in his schemes Hájí Mirzá Áqásí was forced to order the Báb to be taken back to thhriq.

This dramatic, this unqualified and formal declaration of the Bab’s prophetic mission was not the sole consequence of the foolish act which condemned the Author of so weighty a Revelation to a three years’ confinement in the mountains of A(fllirbéyjén.

[Page 49]THE BAB’s CAPTIVITY 49

This period of captivity, in a remote corner of the realm, far removed from the storm centers of Shíráz, Iṣfahán, and Tihran, afforded Him the necessary leisure to launch upon His most monumental work, as well as to engage on other subsidiary compositions designed to unfold the whole range, and impart the full force of His short-lived yet momentous Dispensation. Alike in the magnitude of the writings emanating from His pen, and in the diversity of the subjects treated in those writings, His Revelation stands wholly unparalleled in the annals of any previous religion. He Himself affirms, while confined in MahKfi, that up to that time His writings, embracing highly diversified subjects, had amounted to more than five hundred thousand verses. “The verses which have rained from this Cloud of Divine mercy”, is Bahá’u’lláh’s testimony in the Kitáb-i-Íqán, “have been so abundant that none hath yet been able to estimate their number. A score of volumes are now available. How many still remain beyond our reach! How many have been plundered and have fallen into the hands of the enemy, the fate of which none knoweth!” No less arresting is the variety of themes presented by these voluminous writ ings, such as prayers, homiles, orations, Tablets of visitation, scientific treatises, doctrinal dissertations, exhortations, commentaries on the Qur‘an and on various traditions, epistles to the highest religious and ecclesiastical dignitaries of the realm, and laws and ordinances for the consolidation of His Faith and the direction of its activities. Already in s_liiraz, at the earliest stage of His ministry, He had revealed what Bahá’u’lláh has characterized as “the first, the greatest, and mightiest of all books” in the Babi Dispensation, the celebrated commentary on the surih of Joseph, entitled the Qayyfimu’l-Asma, whose fundamental purpose was to forecast what the true Joseph (Bahá’u’lláh) would, in a succeeding Dispensation, endure at the hands of one who was at once His archenemy and blood brother. This work, comprising above nine thousand three hundred verses, and divided into one hundred and eleven chapters, each chapter a commentary on one verse of the above-mentioned surih, opens with the Báb’s clarion-call and dire warnings addressed to the “concourse of kings and of the sons of kings”; forecasts the mands his Grand Vizir, Haji doom of Muhammad Shah; comMirzá Aqasi, to abdicate his

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authority; admonishes the entire Muslim ecclesiastical order; cautions more specifically the members of the Shi‘ih community; extols the virtues, and anticipates the coming, of Bahá’u’lláh, the “Remnant of God”, the “Most Great Master”; and proclaims, in unequivocal language, the independence and universality of the Bábi Revelation, unveils its import, and affirms the inevitable triumph of its Author. It, moreover, directs the “people of the West” to “issue forth from your cities and aid the Cause of God”; warns the peoples of the earth of the “terrible, the most grievous vengeance of God”; threatens the whole Islamic world with “the Most Great Fire” were they to turn aside from the newlyrevealed Law; foreshadows the Author’s martyrdom; eulogizes the high station ordained for the people of Bahá, the “Companions of the crimson-colored ruby Ark”; prophesies the fading out and utter obliteration of some of the greatest luminaries in the firmament of the Bábi Dispensation; and even predicts “afi‘lictive torment”, in both the “Day of Our Return” and in “the world which is to come”, for the usurpers of the Imamate, who “waged war against Husayn

(Imém Husayn) in the Land of the Euphrates”.

It was this Book which the Bábis universally regarded, during almost the entire ministry of the Báb, as the Qur’án of the people of the Bayén; whose first and most challenging chapter was revealed in the presence of Mullá Husayn, on the night of its Author’s Declaration; some of whose pages were borne, by that same disciple, to Bahá’u’lláh, as the first fruits of a Revelation which instantly won His enthusiastic allegiance; whose entire text was translated into Persian by the brilliant and gifted Táhirih; whose passages inflamed the hostility of Husayn Khén and precipitated the initial outbreak of persecution in Shiréz; a single page of which had captured the imagination and entranced the soul of Hujjat; and whose contents had set afire the intrepid defenders of the Fort of Sliéylgh Tabarsi and the heroes of Nayriz and Zanjén.

This work, of such exalted merit, of such far-reaching influ ence, was followed by the revelation of the Báb’s first Tablet to

Muhammad Shaih; of His Tablets t0 Sultén ‘Abdu’l-Majid and to Najib Péshé, the Véli of Baghdád; of the Sahifiy-ibaynu’LḤaramayn, revealed between Mecca and Medina, in

answer to questions posed by Mirzá Muhit-i-Kimméni; of the

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Epistle to the Sherif of Mecca; of the Kitabu’r-Ruh, comprising seven hundred sfirihs; of the Kilasa’il-i-Sa‘ih, which enjoined the alteration of the formula of the adhan; of the Risaliy-i-Furu‘-i-‘Adliyyih, rendered into Persian by Mullá Muhammad-TaqiyHaréti; of the commentary on the sfirih of Kawthar, which effected such a transformation in the soul of Vahid; Of the commentary on the sfirih of Va’l-‘Asr, in the house of the Imam-Jum‘ih of Iṣfahán; Of the dissertation on the Specific Mission of Muhammad, written at the request of Mamic_hihr Khán; of the second Tablet t0 Muhammad Shah, craving an audience in which to set forth the truths of the new Revelation, and dissipate his doubts; and of the Tablets sent from the village of Siyah-Dihén t0 the ‘ulamés of Qasvin and t0 Haji Mirzá Aqasi, inquiring from him as to the cause of the sudden change in his decision.

The great bulk of the writings emanating from the Báb’s prolific mind was, however, reserved for the period of His confinement in Méh-Kfi and Cllihriq. To this period must probably belong the unnumbered Epistles which, as attested by no less an authority than Bahá’u’lláh, the Bath specifically addressed to the divines of every city in Persia,

as well as to those residing in Najaf and Karbila, wherein He set forth in detail the errors committed by each one of them. It was during His incarceration in the fortress of Mah-Kfi that He, according to the testimony of shaylfil Hasan-i-Zunfizi, who transcribed during those nine months the verses dictated by the Bab to His amanuensis, revealed no less than nine commentaries on the Whole of the Qur‘ancommentaries whose fate, alas, is unknown, and one of which, at least the Author Himself affirmed, surpassed in some respects a book as deservedly famous as the Qayyfimu’l-Asma.

Within the walls of that same fortress the Bayan (Exposition) —that monumental repository of the laws and precepts of the new Dispensation and the treasury enshrining most of the Báb’s references and tributes to, as well as His warning regarding, “Him Whom God will make manifest” —Was revealed. Peerless among the doctrinal works of the Founder of the Bábi Dispensation; consisting of nine Véhids (Unities) of nineteen chapters each, except the last Vahid, comprising only ten chapters; not to be confounded with the smaller and less weighty Arabic Bayén, revealed during the same period; fulfilling the Muhammadan

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prophecy that “a Youth from Bani-Hasilim . . . will reveal a new Book and promulgate a new Law”; wholly safeguarded from the interpolation and corruption which has been the fate of so many of the Báb’s lesser works, this Book, of about eight thousand verses, occupying a pivotal position in Babi literature, should be regarded primarily as a eulogy of the Promised One rather than a code of laws and ordinances designed to be a permanent guide to future generations. This Book at once abrogated the laws and ceremonials enjoined by the Qur‘an regarding prayer, fasting, marriage, divorce and inheritance, and upheld, in its integrity, the belief in the prophetic mission of Muhammad, even as the Prophet of Islam before Him had annulled the ordinances of the Gospel and yet recognized the Divine origin of the Faith of Jesus Christ. It moreover interpreted in a masterly fashion the meaning of certain terms frequently occurring in the sacred Books of previous Dispensations such as Paradise, Hell, Death, Resurrection, the Return, the Balance, the Hour, the Last Judgment, and the like. Designedly severe in the rules and regulations it imposed, revolutionizing in the principles it in

stilled, calculated to awaken from their age-long torpor the clergy and the people, and to administer a sudden and fatal blow to obsolete and corrupt institutions, it proclaimed, through its drastic provisions, the advent of the anticipated Day, the Day when “the Summoner shall summon to a stern business” when He will “demolish whatever hath been before Him, even as the Apostle of God demolished the ways of those that preceded Him.”

It should be noted, in this connection, that in the third Véhid of this Book there occurs a passage which, alike in its explicit reference to the name of the Promised One, and in its anticipation of the Order which, in a later age, was to be identified with His Revelation, deserves to rank as one of the most significant statements recorded in any of the Báb’s writings. “Well is it with him”, is His prophetic announcement, “who fixeth his gaze upon the Order of Bahá’u’lláh, and rendereth thanks unto his Lord. For He will assuredly he made manifest. God hath indeed irrevocably ordained it in the Bayan.” It is with that selfsame Order that the Founder of the promised Revelation, twenty years later —— incorporating that same term in His Kitáb-i-Aqdas —identified the System envisaged

[Page 53]THE BAB’s CAPTIVITY 53

in that Book, affirming that “this most great Order” had deranged the world’s equilibrium, and revolutionized mankind’s ordered life. It is the features of that self-same Order which, at a later stage in the evolution of the Faith, the Center of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant and the appointed Interpreter of His teachings, delineated through the provisions of His Will and Testament. It is the structural basis of that selfsame Order which, in the Formative Age of that same Faith, the stewards of that same Covenant, the elected representatives of the world-wide Bahá’í community, are now laboriously and unitedly establishing. It is the superstructure of that self—same Order, attaining its full stature through the emergence of the Bahá’í W o r l d Commonwealth -— the Kingdom of God on earthwhich the Golden Age of that same Dispensation must, in the fulness of time, ultimately witness.

The 3211) was still in Méh-Kfi when He wrote the most detailed and illuminating of His Tablets to Muhammad shéh. Prefaced by a laudatory reference to the unity of God, to His Apostles and to the twelve Imams; unequivocal in its assertion of the divinity of its Author and of the supernatural powers with which His

Revelation had been invested; precise in the verses and traditions it cites in confirmation of so audacious a claim; severe in its condemnation of some of the officials and representatives of the shéh’s administration, particularly of the “wicked and accursed” Husayn Khan; moving in its description of the humiliation and hardships to which its writer had been subjected, this historic document resembles, in many of its features, the Lawh-i-Sultén, the Tablet addressed, under similar circumstances, from the prison-fortress of ‘Akká by Bahá’u’lláh t0 Nasiri’d-Din Shah, and constituting His lengthiest epistle to any single sovereign.

The Dalé’il-i-Sab‘ih (Seven Proofs), the most important of the polemical works of the Báb, was revealed during that same period. Remarkably lucid, admirable in its precision, original in conception, unanswerable in its argument, this work, apart from the many and divers proofs of His mission which it adduces, is noteworthy for the blame it assigns to the “seven powerful sovereigns ruling the world” in His day, as well as for the manner in which it stresses the responsibilities, and censures the conduct, of the Christian divines of a former age who, had they recognized the truth of Muham

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mad’s mission, He contends, would have been followed by the mass of their co-religionists.

During the Báb’s confinement in the fortress of ghibriq, where He spent almost the whole of the two remaining years of His life, the Lawh-i-Hurlifét (Tablet of the Letters) was revealed, in honor of Dayyan—a Tablet which, however misconstrued at first as an exposition of the science of divination, was later recognized to have unravelled, On the one hand, the mystery of the Mustaghath, and to have abstrusely alluded, on the other, to the nineteen years which must needs elapse between the Declaration of the Báb and that of Bahá’u’lláh. It was during these years——years darkened throughout by the rigors of the Báb’s captivity, by the severe indignities inflicted upon Him, and by the news of the disasters that overtook the heroes of Mazindarén and Nayriz—that He revealed, soon after His return from Tabríz, His denunciatory Tablet to Haji Mirza Aqasi. Couched in bold and moving language, unsparing in its condemnation, this epistle was forwarded to the intrepid Hujjat who, as corroborated by Bahá’u’lláh, delivered it to that wicked minister.

To this period of incarceration

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in the fortresses of Mah-Kfi and (llihriq — a period of unsurpassed fecundity, yet bitter in its humiliations and ever-deepening sorrows—belong almost all the written references, whether in the form of warnings, appeals or exhortations, which the Bah, in anticipation of the approaching hour of His supreme affliction, felt it necessary to make to the Author of a Revelation that was soon to supersede His own. Conscious from the very beginning of His twofold mission, as the Bearer of a wholly independent Revelation and the Herald of One still greater than His own, He could not content Himself with the vast number of commentaries, of prayers, of laws and ordinances, of dissertations and epistles, of homilies and orations that had incessantly streamed from His pen. The Greater Covenant into which, as affirmed in His writings, God had, from time immemorial, e n t e r e (1, through the Prophets of all ages, with the whole of mankind, regarding the new-born Revelation, had already been fulfilled. It had now to be supplemented by a Lesser Covenant which He felt bound to make with the entire body of His followers concerning the One Whose advent He characterized as the fruit and ultimate purpose of His Dispensa [Page 55]THE BAB’s CAPTIVITY 55

tion. Such a Covenant had invariably been the feature of every previous religion. It had existed, under various forms, with varying degrees of emphasis, had always been couched in veiled language, and had been alluded to in cryptic prophecies, in ahstruse allegories, in unauthenticated traditions, and in the fragmentary and obscure passages of the sacred Scripture. In the Bábi Dispensation, however, it was destined to be established in clear and unequivocal language, though not embodied in a separate document. Unlike the Prophets gone before Him, Whose Covenants were shrouded in mystery, unlike Bahá’u’lláh, Whose clearly defined Covenant was incorporated in a specially written Testament, and designated by Him as “the Book of My Covenant”, the Báb chose to intersperse His Book of Laws, the Persian Bayén, with unnumbered passages, some designedly obscure, mostly indubitably clear and conclusive, in which He fixes the date of the promised Revelation, extols its virtues, asserts its pre-eminent character, assigns to it unlimited powers and prerogatives, and tears down every barrier that might be an obstacle to its recognition. “He, verily,” Bahá’u’lláh, referring to

the Bath in His Kitab-i-Badi‘, has

stated, “hath not fallen short of His duty to exhort the people of the Bayén and to deliver unto them His Message. In no age or dispensation hath any Manifestation made mention, in such detail and in such explicit language, of

the Manifestation destined to sueceed Him.”

Some of His disciples the Báb assiduously prepared to expect the imminent Revelation. Others He orally assured would live to see its day. To Mulla Baqir, one of the Letters of the Living, He actually prophesied, in a Tablet addressed to him, that he would meet the Promised One face to face. To Sayyah, another disciple, He gave verbally a similar assurance. Mullá Husayn He directed to Ṭihrán, assuring him that in that city was enshrined a Mystery Whose light neither Hijaz nor shiraz could rival. Quddús, on the eve of his final separation from Him, was promised that he would attain the presence of the One Who was the sole Object of their adoration and love. To s_llaylfil while in Mah-Kfi. that he would Hasan-i-Zunfizi He declared, behold in Karbilá the countenance of the promised Husayn. On Dayyan He conferred the title of “the third Letter to believe in Him Whom God shall

make manifest”, while to ‘Azim

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He divulged, in the Kitáb-iPanj-Sha‘n, the name, and announced the approaching advent, of Him Who was to consummate His own Revelation.

A successor or vicegerent the B511) never named, an interpreter of His teachings He refrained from appointing. So transparently clear were His references to the Promised One, so brief was to be the duration of His own Dispensation, that neither the one nor the other was deemed necessary. All He did was, according to the testimony of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in “A Traveller’s Narrative”, to nominate, on the advice of Bahá’u’lláh and of another disciple, Mirza Yaḥyá, who would act solely as a figure-head pending the manifestation of the Promised One, thus enabling Bahá’u’lláh to promote, in relative security, the Cause so dear to His heart.

“The Bayén”, the Báb in that Book, referring to the Promised One, affirms, “is, from beginning to end, the repository of all of His attributes, and the treasury of both His fire and His light.” “If thou attainest unto His Revelation,” He, in another connection declares, “and oheyest Him, thou wilt have revealed the fruit of the Bayén; if not, thou art unworthy of mention before

God.” “O people of the Bayén!”

\

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He, in that same Book, thus warns the entire company of His followers, “act not as the people of the Qur’án have acted, for if ye do so, the fruits of your night will come to naught.” “Sufier not the Bayén”, is His emphatic injunction, “and all that hath been revealed therein to withhold you from that Essence of Being and Lord of the visible and invisible.” “Beware, beware,” is His significant warning addressed to Vahid, “lest in the days of His Revelation the Vahid of the Bayan (eighteen Letters of the Living and the B5113) shut thee out as by a veil from Him, inasmuch as this Vahid is but a creature in His sight.” And again:

\“0 congregation of the Bayén,

and all Who are therein! Recognize ye the limits imposed upon you, for such a One as the Point of the Bayan Himself hath believed in Him Whom God shall make manifest before all things were created. Therein, verily, do I glory before all who are in the kingdom of heaven and earth.”

“In the year nine”, He, referring to the date of the advent of the promised Revelation, has explicitly written, “ye will attain unto all good.” “In the year

nine, ye will attain unto the presence of God.” And again: “After Hin (68) a Cause shall be given

[Page 57]THE BAB’s CAPTIVITY 57

unto you which ye shall come to know.” “Ere nine will have elapsed from the inception of this Cause,” He more particularly has stated, “the realities of the created things will not be made manifest. All that thou hast as yet seen is but the stage from the moist germ until We clothed it with flesh. Be patient, until thou beholdest a new creation. Say: ‘Blessed, therefore, be God, the most excellent of Makers!’ ” “Wait thou,” is His statement to ‘Azim, “until nine will have elapsed from the time of the Bayén. Then exclaim: ‘Blessed, therefore, be God, the most excellent of Makers!’ ” “Be attentive,” He, referring in a remarkable passage to the year nineteen, has admonished, “from the inception of the Revelation till the number of Vahid (19).” “The Lord of the Day of Reckoning,” He, even more explicity, has stated, “will be manifested at the end of Vahid (l9) and the beginning of eighty (1280 A.H.).” “Were He to appear this very moment,” He, in His eagerness to insure that the proximity of the promised Revelation should not withhold men from the Promised One, has revealed, “I would be the first to adore Him, and the first to bow down before Him.”

“I have written down in My

mention of Him,” He thus extols the Author of the anticipated Revelation, “these gem-like words: ‘N o allusion of Mine can allude unto Him, neither anything mentioned in the Bayén.’ ” “I, Myself, am but the first servant to believe in Him and in His signs. . . .” “The year-old germ,” He significantly affirms, “that holdeth within itself the potentialities of the Revelation that is to come is endowed with a potency superior to the combined forces of the whole of the Bayén.” And again: “The whole of the Bayan is only a leaf amongst the leaves of His Paradise.” “Better is it for thee,” He similarly asserts, “to recite but one of the verses of Him Whom God shall make manifest than to set down the whole of the Bayén, for on that Day that one verse can save thee, whereas the entire Bayén cannot save thee.” “Today the Bayén is in the stage of seed; at the beginning of the manifestation of Him Whom God shall make manifest its ultimate perfection will become apparent.” “The Bayén

deriveth all its glory from Him Whom God shall make mani fest.” “All that hath been revealed in the Bayén is but a ring upon My hand, and I Myself

am, verily, but a ring upon the

hand of Him Whom God shall

[Page 58].mr ~1.,—~—V.r_e~¢=a...r~ A— a - —-

58 WORLD ORDER

make manifest. . . . He turneth it as He pleaseth, for whatsoever He pleaseth, and through whatsoever He pleaseth. He, verily, is the Help in Peril, the Most High.” “Certitude itself,” He, in reply to Vahid and to one of the Letters of the Living who had inquired regarding the promised One, had declared “is ashamed to be called upon to certify His truth . . . and Testimony itself is ashamed to testify unto Him.” Addressing this same Vahid, He moreover had stated: “Were I to be assured that in the day of His manifestation thou wilt deny Him, I would unhesitatingly disown thee . . . If, on the other hand, I be told that a Christian, who beareth no allegiance to My Faith, will believe in Him, the same will I regard as the apple of My eye.”

And finally is this, His moving invocation to God: “Bear Thou witness that, through this Book, I have covenanted with all created things concerning the mission of Him Whom Thou shalt make manifest, ere the covenant concerning My own mission had been established. Sufficient witness art Thou and they that have believed in Thy signs.” “I, verily, have not fallen short of My duty to admonish that people,” is yet another testimony from His pen,

“. . . If on the day of His Revela

tion all that are on earth bear Him allegiance, Mine inmost being will rejoice, inasmuch as all will have attained the summit of their existence. . . . If not, My soul will be saddened. I truly have nurtured all things for this purpose. How, then, can any one be veiled from Him?”

The last three and most eventful years of the Báb’s ministry had, as we have observed in the preceding pages, witnessed not only the formal and public declaration of His mission, but also an unprecedented eflusion of His inspired writings, including both the revelation of the fundamental laws of His Dispensation and also the establishment of that Lesser Covenant which was to safeguard the unity of His followers and pave the way for the advent of an incomparably mightier Revelation. It was during this same period, in the early days of His incarceration in the fortress of Chiríq, that the independence of the newborn Faith was openly recognized and asserted by His disciples. The laws underlying the new Dispensation had been revealed by its Author in a prison-fortress in the mountains of A(fllirbayjan, while the Dispensation itself was now to be inaugurated in a plain on the border of Mazindaran, at

[Page 59]THE BAB’s CAPTIVITY 59

a conference of His assembled followers.

Bahá’u’lláh, maintaining through continual correspondence close contact with the Báb, and Himself the directing force behind the manifold activities of His struggling fellow-disciples, unobtrusively yet effectually presided over that conference, and guided and controlled its proceedings. Quddfis, regarded as the exponent of the conservative element Within it, affected, in pursuance of a pre-conceived plan designed to mitigate the alarm and consternation which such a conference was sure to arouse, to oppose the seemingly extremist views advocated by the impetuous Táhirih. The primary purpose of that gathering was to implement the revelation of the Bayan by a sudden, a complete and dramatic break with the past ——with its order, its ecclesiasticism, its traditions, and ceremonials. The subsidiary purpose of the conference was to consider the means of emancipating the Báb from His cruel confinement in Chiríq. The first was eminently successful; the second was destined from the outset to fail.

The scene of such a challenging and far-reaching proclamation was the hamlet of Badasht, where Bahá’u’lláh had rented,

amidst pleasant surroundings, three gardens, one of which He assigned to Quddfis, another to Táhirih, whilst the third He reserved for Himself. The eightyone disciples who had gathered from various provinces were His guests from the day of their arrival to the day they dispersed. On each of the twenty—two days of His sojourn in that hamlet He revealed a Tablet, which was chanted in the presence of the assembled believers. On every believer He conferred a new name, without, however, disclosing the identity of the one who had bestowed it. He Himself was henceforth designated by the name Bahá. Upon the Last Letter of the Living was conferred the appellation of Quddfis, while Qurratu’l-‘Ayn was given the title of Táhirih. By these names they were all subsequently addressed by the Báb in the Tablets He revealed for each one of them.

It was Bahá’u’lláh Who steadily, unerringly, yet unsuspectedly, steered the course of that memorable episode, and it was Bahá’u’lláh Who brought the meeting to its final and dramatic climax. One day in His presence, when illness had confined Him to bed, Táhirih, regarded as the fair and spotless emblem of chastity and the incarnation of the holy Fatimih, appeared sud

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denly, adorned yet unveiled, before the assembled companions, seated herself on the righthand of the afl'righted and infuriated Quddfis, and, tearing through her fiery words the veils guarding the sanctity of the ordinances of Islam, sounded the clarioncall, and proclaimed the inauguration, of a new Dispensation. The efiect was electric and instantaneous. She, of such stainless purity, so reverenced that even to gaze at her shadow was deemed an improper act, appeared for a moment, in the eyes of her scandalized heholders, to have defamed herself, shamed the Faith she had espoused, and sullied the immortal Countenance she symbolized. Fear, anger, bewilderment, swept their inmost souls, and stunned their faculties. ‘Abdu’l-Iflléliq-i-Iṣfahání, aghast and deranged at such a sight, out his throat with his own hands. Spattered with blood, and frantic with excitement, he fled away from her face. A few, abandoning their companions, renounced their Faith. Others stood mute and transfixed before her. Still others must have recalled with throbbing hearts the Islamic tradition foreshadowing the appearance of Fatimih herself unveiled while crossing the Bridge (Sirét) on the promised Day of

Judgment. Quddfis, mute with rage, seemed to be only waiting for the moment when he could strike her down with the sword he happened to be then holding in his hand.

Undeterred, unruflled, exultant with joy, Táhirih arose, and, without the least premeditation and in a language strikingly resembling that of the Qur’án, delivered a fervid and eloquent appeal to the remnant of the assembly, ending it with this bold assertion: “I am the Word which the Qá’im is to utter, the Word which shall put to flight the chiefs and nobles of the earth!” Thereupon, she invited them to embrace each other and celebrate so great an occasion.

On that memorable day the “Bugle” mentioned in the Qur’án was sounded, the “stunning trumpet-hlast” was loudly raised, and the “Catastrophe” came to pass. The days immediately following so startling a departure from the time-honored traditions of Islam witnessed a veritable revolution in the outlook, habits, ceremonials and manner of worship of these hitherto zealous and devout upholders of the Muhammadan Law. Agitated as had been the Conference from first to last, deplorable as was the secession of the few who refused to countenance the annulment of

[Page 61]THE BAB’s CAPTIVITY 61

the fundamental statutes of the Islamic Faith, its purpose had been fully and gloriously accomplished. Only four years earlier the Author of the Bábi Revelation had declared His mission to Mullá Ḥusayn in the privacy of His home in Shiréz. Three years after that Declaration, within the walls of the prisonfortress of Mah-Kfi, He was dictating to His amanuensis the fundamental and distinguishing precepts of His Dispensation. A year later, His followers, under the actual leadership of Bahá’u’lláh, the i r fellow-disciple, were themselves, in the hamlet of Badasilt, abrogating the Qur’ánic Law, repudiating both the divinely-ordained and manmade precepts of the Faith of Muhammad, and shaking ofi the shackles of its antiquated system. Almost immediately after, the Báb Himself, still a prisoner, was Vindicating the acts of His disciples by asserting, formally and unreservedly, His claim to he the promised Qa’im, in the presence of the Heir to the Throne, the leading exponents of the shaykhi community, and the most illustrious ecclesiastical dignitaries assembled in the capital of Adllirbayjan.

A little over four years had elapsed since the birth of the Báb’s Revelation when the trum pet-blast announcing the formal extinction of the old, and the inauguration of the new Dispensation was sounded. No pomp, no pageantry marked so great a turning point in the world’s religious history. Nor was its modest setting commensurate with such a sudden, startling, complete emancipation from the dark and embattled forces of fanaticism, of priestcraft, of religious orthodoxy and superstition. The assembled host consisted of no more than a single woman and a handful of men,‘ mostly recruited from the very ranks they were attacking, and devoid, with few exceptions, of wealth, prestige and power. The Captain of the host was Himself an absentee, a captive in the grip of His foes. The arena was a tiny hamlet in the plain of Badasht on the border of Mazindarén. The trumpeter was a lone woman, the noblest of her sex in that Dispensation, whom even some of her co-religionists pronounced a heretic. The call she sounded was the death-knell Of the twelve hundred year old law of Islam.

Accelerated, twenty years later, by another trumpet-blast, announcing the formulation of the laws of yet another Dispensation, this process of disintegration, associated with the declin

[Page 62]62 WORLD ORDER

ing fortunes of a superannuated, though divinely revealed Law, gathered further momentum, precipitated, in a later age, the annulment of t h e Shari‘ah canonical Law in Turkey, led to the virtual abandonment of that Law in Shi‘ih Persia, has, more recently, been responsible for the dissociation of the System

the recognition of that System in the Holy Land itself, and is destined to culminate in the secularization of the Muslim states, and in the universal recognition of the Law of Bahá’u’lláh by all the nations, and its enthronement in the hearts of all the peoples, of the Muslim world.

envisaged in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas from the Sunni ecclesiastical Law in Egypt, has paved the way for

Chapter two of “God Passes By”, by Shoghi Effendi, a survey of the first hundred years of the Bahá’í Faith.

Praise be to Thee, O Lord My God, for the wondrous revelations of Thy inscrutable decree and the manifold woes and trials Thou hast destined for Myself. At one .‘ time Thou didst deliver Me into the hands of Nimrod; .1 at another Thou hast allowed Pharaoh’s rod to persecute i Me. Thou, alone, canst estimate, through Thine allencompassing knowledge and the operation of Thy Will, 1' the incalculable afflictions I have suffered at their hands. \ Again Thou didst cast Me unto the prison-cell of the ungodly, for no reason except that I was moved to whisper into the ears of the well-favored denizens of Thy Kingdom an intimation of the vision with which Thou hadst, through Thy knowledge, inspired Me, and rel vealed to Me its meaning through the potency of Thy «‘5 might. And again Thou didst decree that I be beheaded by the sword of the infidel. Again I was crucified for having unveiled to men’s eyes the hidden gems of Thy glorious unity, for having revealed to them the wondrous signs of Thy sovereign and everlasting power.

—Bahá’u’lláh

[Page 63]Ecliforia/

N MAY 23, 1912, ‘Abdu’l Baha addressed a group of Bahá’ís gathered in the home of Mr. and Mrs. F rancis W. Breed in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He took the occasion as opportunity to inform these believers, and through them, the world, of the spiritual meaning of the appearance of the Báb.

“This is May 23, the Anniversary of the Message and Declaration of His Holiness the Báb,” He said. “It is a blessed day and the dawn of Manifestation, for the appearance of the Báb was the early light of the true morn, whereas the manifestation of the Blessed Beauty, Bahá’u’lláh, was the shining forth of the Sun. Therefore it is a blessed day, the inception of the heavenly bounty, the beginning of the Divine eflulgence.

“On this day in 1844 His Holiness the 3511) was sent forth heralding and proclaiming the Kingdom of God, announcing the glad-tidings of the coming of His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh and withstanding the opposition of the whole Persian nation. Some of the Persians followed Him. For this they suffered the most griev HIS HEAVENLY EXAMPLE

ous difficulties and severe ordeals.”

Concerning the life of the Bail), ‘Abdu’l-Bahá gave this brief summary. “His Holiness the Bab was subjected to bitter persecution in Shíráz where He first proclaimed His mission and message. A period of famine afflicted that region and the Báb journeyed to Iṣfahán. There the learned men rose against Him in great hostility. He was arrested and sent to Tabríz. F rom thence He was transferred to Méh-Kli and finally imprisoned in the strong castle of thhriq. Afterward He was martyred in Tabríz.”

The message of the Báb is thus described. “In all His books and tablets He mentioned Bahá’u’lláh and announced the glad tidings of His Manifestation, prophesying that He would reveal Himself in the ninth year. He said that in the ninth year (i.e., 1853) ‘you will attain to all happiness’ . . . In His first book, ‘The Best of Stories’ He says, ‘0 Remnant of God! I am wholly sacrificed to Thee; I am content with curses in Thy path; I crave naught but to be slain

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64 WORLD ORDER

for Thy love; and God the

Supreme sufficethas an eternal

protection.’ ” Then to the Bahá’ís the Master

added: “Consider how His Holiness the Báb endured difficulties and tribulations; how He gave His life in the Cause of God; how He was attracted to the love of the Blessed Beauty, Bahá’u’lláh; and how He announced the glad tidings of His Manifestation. We must follow His heavenly example; we must be self-sacrificing and aglow with the fire of the love of God. We must partake of the bounty and grace of the Lord, for His Holiness the Bah has admonished us to arise in service to the Cause of God, to be absolutely severed from all else save God during the day of the Blessed Perfection, Bahá’u’lláh, to be completely attracted by the love of Bahá’u’lláh, to love all humanity for His sake, be lenient and merciful to all for Him and to upbuild the oneness of the world of humanity. Therefore this day, May 23, is the Anniversary of a blessed event.”

It is through the sacrifice of such an exalted Being that the flame is rekindled On the cold and barren altar of the human heart. It is through the intense purity of His love that the veils of race, nation and creed are

burned away and the oneness of mankind created as the central truth of a new era.

Herein lies the diflerence between worship of the Manifestation who appears in this day, and perpetuation of the worship directed to the Prophet of the past; that the former is inspired by love of God and encounters expressions of His living power, while the latter has become the formula of a social group and intensifies an exclusive loyalty to that group.

Were it not for the renewal of religion, there would ‘be no organic development of the human soul through the emergence of new powers, new attitudes and new perceptions. The same guiding force which enlarges the arena of man’s social experience operates upon him to sacrifice his lesser past for the greater present and future. The world today cannot cope with its social problems with yesterday’s creeds and their multiple communions. Hence before these problems congealed to the substance of war and revolution, the Bab arose and pointed the way to God. From that hour humanity has been responsible for its collective actions under the law of oneness, for the law of separa tion had been annulled. -——H. H.

[Page 65]A Personal Impression of the B511)

DR. CORMICK

0U ask me for some particu lars of my interview with the founder of the sect known as the Bábis. Nothing of importance transpired in this interview, as the Báb was aware of my having been sent with two other Persian doctors to see whether he was of sane mind or merely a madman, to decide the question whether to put him to death or not. With this knowledge he was loath to answer any questions put to him. To all inquiries he merely regarded us with a mild look, chanting in a low melodious voice some hymns, I suppose. Two other Siyyids, his intimate friends, were also present, who subsequently were put to death with him, besides a couple of government officials. He only once deigned to answer me, on my saying that I was not a Musulman and was willing to know something about his religion, as I might perhaps be inclined to adopt it. He regarded me very intently on my saying this, and replied that he had no doubt of all Europeans coming

Dr. Cormick was an English physician long resident in Tabríz, where he was highly respected.

over to his religion. Our report to the Shah at that time was of a nature to spare his life. He was put to death some time after by the order of the Amir-Nizam Mirza Taqi Iflian. On our report he merely got the bastinado, in which operation a farrasil, whether intentionally or not, struck him across the face with the stick destined for his feet, which produced a great wound and swelling of the face. On being asked whether a Persian surgeon should be brought to treat him, he expressed a desire that I should be sent for, and I accordingly treated him for a few days, but in the interviews consequent on this I could never get him to have a confidential chat with me, as some government people were always present, he being a prisoner. He was very thankful for my attention to him. He was a very mild and delicatelooking man, rather small in stature and very fair for a Persian, with a melodious soft voice, which struck me much. Being a Siyyid he was dressed in the habit of that sect, as were also his two companions. In fact his whole look and deport 65

[Page 66]

55 WORLD ORDER

ment went far to dispose one in his favor. Of his doctrine I heard nothing from his own lips, although the idea was that there existed in his religion a certain

pains to conceal it, but on the contrary told them of it. Most assuredly the Musulman fanaticism does not exist in his religion, as applied to Christians, nor is

there that restraint of females

approach to Christianity. He that now exists.

was seen by some Armenian carpenters, who were sent to make some repairs in his prison, read. ing the Bible, and he took no

The above is taken from a footnote in the Dawn-Breakers where it is quoted from E. G. Browne’s “Materials for the Study of the Béhi Religion”.

Exalted, immeasurably exalted art Thou above any attempt to measure the greatness of Thy Cause, above any comparison that one may seek to make, above the efforts of the human tongue to utter its import! F rom everlasting Thou hast existed, alone with no one beside Thee, and wilt, to everlasting, continue to remain the same, in the sublimity of Thine essence and the inaccessible heights of Thy glory.

And when Thou didst purpose to make Thyself known unto men, Thou didst successively reveal the Manifestations of Thy Cause, and ordained each to be a sign of Thy Revelation among Thy people, and the Day-Spring of Thine invisible Self amidst Thy creatures, until the time when, as decreed by Thee, all Thy previous Revelations culminated in Him Whom Thou hast appointed as the Lord of all who are in the heaven of revelation and the kingdom of creation, Him Whom Thou hast established as the Sovereign Lord of all who are in the heavens and all who are on the earth. In this Thou hadst no other purpose except to try them who have manifested Thy most excellent titles unto all who are in heaven and _on earth. He it was Whom Thou hast determined to be the Herald of Thy Most Great Revelation, and the Announcer of Thy Most Ancient Splendor. He it was Whom Thou hast commanded to establish His covenant with all created things. —Bahá’u’lláh

[Page 67]The Destiny of America

WILLIAM KENNETH CHRISTIAN

HE history of America is the separate nations. They were jeal record of a unique historical experience. In 300 years America has continued the social experience of the entire human race. The sheer impact and the great meaning of this social drama has‘ never been adequately portrayed.

America’s historical experience began with the family,the unit of‘ life in the pioneer era. As pioneers spread farther and farther west across the continent, penetrating the valleys, the plains, and the mountainous regions, the dominant social unit was the family. As towns' were organized and the community grew, the community spirit and form of life developed. This is akin to the tribal spirit and organization in the development of the whole human race. As towns united for protection and other common purposes, a higher form of human and social loyalty came into being. This colonial life was like the city-state, or, in many instances', like the leagues of cities in western Europe.

As early colonial life expanded, we find the early colonies functioning in many ways like

ous of each other and lacked the co-operative spirit. When the revolt against the mother country was over, the Articles of Confederation were adopted. But these proved inadequate to adjust the relationships of thirteen growing colonies, as‘ The League of Nations proved inadequate following the first world war. Then the American people averted conflict and solved their problem by forming a federal government. Today our country is a federation of forty-eight nations! We frequently overlook this great historic step, for we have formed a higher loyalty,—to the common federal government.

Let me repeat: In 300 years America recapitulated the social experience of the entire human race.

Now that The United States of America stands as‘ a strong figure in this greatest world crisis, millions of us wonder what the destiny of our country will be in the months and years ahead.

Are we capable of presenting to the world a vision and a practical plan to make the coming peace just and permanent?

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68 WORLD ORDER

Yes,—we can. Our national experience has” shown the value of federalism in solving the problems between great states and millions of people of different races, classes and creeds.

The American people, because of their unique history, have proved themselves capable of great practical Vision and energy in working for justice. Mr. Harry Overstreet writes of the seven great adventures that make American history. They are:first, pioneering for freedom of worship; second, creating a government representative of the people; third, establishing a system of education for all; fourth, removing the system of racial slavery from our midst; fifth, utilizing our brain power to gain control of nature; sixth, giving women freedom and equality with men; and seventh, our desire “to make the world safe for democracy”.

We have not completely succeeded in each of these great adventures. In our efforts “to make the world safe for democracy”, we ignored the greatest lesson of our own historical experience,—the great and practical method of federalism,—the very method which had given our own culture and democracy a chance to develop from weak and precarious beginnings.

An eastern Philosopher said: ——“Unification of the whole of mankind is the hall-mark of the stage, which human society is now approaching. Unit of family, of tribe, of city-state, and nation have been successfully attempted and fully established. World Unity is the goal toward which a harassed humanity is striving. Nation—building has come to an end. The anarchy inherent in state sovereignty is moving towards a climax. A world, growing to maturity, must abandon this‘ fetish: recognize the oneness and wholeness of human relationships, and establish once and for all the machinery that justice can incarnate in this fundamental principle of its life.”

Unification of the human race can be achieved justly on the basis of federalism. This can be one of America’s great contributions” to the coming world reconstruction. But America can do more than contribute the principle of federalism; the United States can lead all the world spiritually. And will this not answer a great need in the coming peace?

Many groups all about our country are discussing ways to build the peace that is to follow this period of destruction. All agree that the coming peace must include a world structure of an

[Page 69]DESTINY OF AMERICA 69

international federal government to make possible the solution of our complicated world problems. The Bahá’í Principles provide a practical vision for the reconstruction that is to follow this confluct. They are these:“The unity of the human race, according to the principles of the world wide Bahá’í Faith, implies the establishment of a world commonwealth in which all nations, races, creeds and classes are closely and permanently united, and in which the autonomy of its state members, and the personal freedom and initiative of the individuals who compose them, are definitely and completely safeguarded. This commonwealth must, as far as' we can visualize it, consist of a world legislature whose members will, as the trustees of all mankind, ultimately enact such laws as shall be required to regulate the life, s'atisfy the needs and adjust the relationships of all races and peoples. A world executive body backed by an international police force, will carry out the decisions arrived at, and apply the laws enacted by this world legislature, and will safeguard the organic unity of the whole commonwealth. A world tribunal of justice will judge and deliver its compulsory and final verdict in all disputes that aris'e between

the various elements constituting this universal system. A mechaniSm of world inter-communication will be devised, embracing the whole planet, freed from national hindrances and restrictions, and functioning with greater swiftnes's and complete regularity. As basis of this world-communication between all peoples, a world language will either he invented, or chosen from among the existing languages, which will be taught in the schools of all the federated nations, as an auxiliary to their mother tongue, in order that there may be a common understanding. A world script, a world literature, a uniform and universal system of currency, of weights and measures, will simplify and facilitate the intercourse and understanding among the nations and races of mankind. In such a world society, science and religion, the two most potent forces in human life, will be reconciled, will co-operate, and will harmoniously develop, and universal justice will reign. The Press will, under such a system, while giving full scope to the expression of the diversified views and convictions of mankind, no longer be manipulated by vested interests, whether public or private, and

will be liberated from the influ [Page 70]70 WORLD ORDER

ence of contending governments and peoples. The economic resources of the world will be organized, its sources of raw materials will be tapped, and fully utilized, its markets will be co-ordinated and developed, and the distribution of its products will be equitably regulated.”

This is a pre-view of a world in which war has been obliterated

tical vision which the United States, by its history, its culture, and its achievements, is well qualified to uphold for all the world. What a destiny this will be for America! Can America rise to leadership in such a great enterprise?

A radio script prepared for the National Bahá’í Radio Committee and broadcast over a number of stations since 1942.

from the earth. Here is; a prac All the people of the world are, as thou dost observe, in the sleep of negligence. They have forgotten God altogether. They are all busy in war and strife. They are undergoing misery and destruction. They are, like unto the loathsome worms, trying to lodge in the depth of the ground, while a single flood of rain sweeps all their nests and lodging away. Nevertheless, they do not come to their senses. Where is the majesty of the Emperor of Russia? Where is the might of the German Emperor? Where is the greatness of the Emperor of Austria? In a short time all these palaces were turned into ruins and all these pretentious edifices underwent destruction. They left no fruit and no trace, save eternal ruin.

The souls who have been enlightened with the light of the Kingdom, however, have founded eternal sovereignty. They shine, like unto the stars, upon the horizon of eternal glory. The Apostles were fishers. Consider to what great sovereignty they did attain, whose duration and permanence runs to eternity! ——‘ABDU’L-BAHA

[Page 71]WITH OUR READERS

MAY 23rd, as our regular readers know, marks the one hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of the Báb and of the birth of the Bahá’í Faith. This issue of WORLD ORDER commemorates that event, so epochal and glorious for all mankind.

That our occasional readers may understand the Báb’s great and twofold station, unique in the religious history of the world, we quote from Shoghi Effendi’s letter or pamphlet published under the title, The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh. He writes:

“There can be no doubt that the claim of the two-fold station ordained for the Báb by the Almighty, a claim which He Himself has so boldly advanced, which Bahá’u’lláh has repeatedly affirmed, and to which the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has finally given the sanction of its testimony, constitutes the most distinctive feature of the Bahá’í Dispensation. It is a further evidence of its uniqueness, a tremendous accession to its strength, to the mysterious power and authority with which this holy cycle has been invested. Indeed the greatness of the Báb consists primarily, not in His being the divinely appointed Forerunner of so transcendent 3 Revelation, but rather with His having been invested with the powers inherent in the inaugurator of a separate religious Dispensation, and in His wielding, to a degree unrivalled by the Messengers gone before Him, the sceptre of independent

Prophethood.”

‘l' I'

Bahá’u’lláh’s words concerning the

“Day of God” which are used as the

frontispiece of this issue are found in Prayers and Meditations beginning on page 272. His loving and revealing “Tribute to the Báb” is selected from words found in the Kitdb-i-fqdn, pages 230-236. These words are quoted by Shoghi Effendi in the Introduction to The Dawn Breakers.

The volumes of revealed verses which flowed from the pen of the Báb during the brief six years of His life after His Declaration were largely lost in the persecutions of those and later years when lives and writings were alike ruthlessly destroyed. Of those which remain only a few have been translated into

English. The “Utteranees of the Báb” used in this number are culled from The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh and from The Promised Day Is Come

and have been translated by Shoghi

Effendi.

Nabil’s Narrative, The Dawn Breakers, is our chief source of knowledge of the Báb and of the events of those early years of the Bahá’í Faith. It is from that book that the Báb’s “Address to the Letters of the Living” is taken. The Béh’s first disciples were known as Letters of the Living.

The words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explaining so clearly the Second Coming of Christ are found in the book entitled Some Answered Questions.

In our March number we printed the introduction to Shoghi Effendi’s forthcoming book entitled God Passes By and in the April number

the first chapter. “The Báb’s Cap 71

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72 WORLD ORDER

tivity” which appears in this number is chapter two in this same book. The reading of it cannot fail to give us a deeper understanding of the meaning of the Báb’s tragic yet glorious life and invincible power.

The “Description of the Báb”, quoted from a footnote in The Dawn Breakers, is valuable not for its completeness but because, as far as we know, Dr. Cormick was the only European who made any record of his impressions of His Holiness the B511). A passage in another place in The Dawn-Breakers further emphasizes the unusual appeal of the voice of the B531): “The voice of the Báb, as He dictated the teachings and principles of His Faith, could be clearly heard by those dwelling at the foot of the mountain. The melody of His chanting, the rhythmic flow of the verses which streamed from His lips caught our ears and penetrated into our very souls. Mountain and valley re-echoed the majesty of His voice. Our hearts vibrated in their depths to the appeal of His utterance.”

Other brief excerpts help us to picture the appearance and personality of the Báb. He is spoken of as “A Youth of radiant countenance”; and one says: “I was profoundly impressed by the gentle yet compelling manner in which this strange Youth spoke to me. As I followed Him, His gait, the charm of His voice, the dignity of His hearing, served to enhance my first impressions of this unexpected meeting.,,

The editorial article which completes this issue proclaims once more in words quoted from ‘Abdu’l Bahá and in the words of the writer the tremendous importance of the event which took place in Iran one hundred years ago.

ii i i

The business manager of WORLD ORDER tells us that one of our Alaska pioneers ordered 67 copies of the February, 1944, issue of the magazine to be sent to the individuals to whom she had previously given the Message. This pioneer writes: “The article, “Bahá’í Teachings for a World Religion” by Mr. Holley, I feel is an excellent follow-up work for the contacts to whom I have had the privilege to give the Message in the past few years. The magazine as a whole also answers the many questions of these particular people. We think it is a very outstanding issue.”

‘I' ‘I' §

The June issue, also, will be a special Centenary edition of the magazine. While this month the intention has been to ofler selections from Bahá’í Writings which throw clear light on the Báb, His Declaration and His Mission, the aim in June will be to make available selections from the various addresses delivered during the course of the Centenary program. With the consent Of the National Spiritual Assembly, all those taking part, whether chairmen or speakers, have been requested to submit copies of their remarks in advance, in order to make the June number a lasting souvenir of the Centenary and an interesting and helpful pamphlet for spreading the Faith.

——THE‘ EDITORS.

[Page 73]I

Bahá’í World Faith

V This bodk contains a represehtative selection Iof the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh and of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and is the largest collection of Bahá’í , literature in English translation now available in one volume.

_ A detailed Table of Contents and an Index make the Bahá’í teach! ‘5 ings readily accessible for study as well as reading and. meditation.

‘ The plan ‘of the book menges the contents in nine chapters, as " follows: 3;?

Part One—Writi‘ngs of Bahá’u’lláh Chapter One—,The Great Announcement Chqpter Two—The Prpmised One Chapter Three—T he Life of the Soul Chapter Four—Laws of‘the New Age Chapter Five—The Mystery of ‘God

?; “.

¢ Pa‘rt Two—Writihgs of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

"1" Chapter Six—The Faith of Bahá’u’lláh ' Chapter Seven—Soul, Mind and Spirit ‘ ' ‘ Chapter Eight—The Loem of Reality.

is Chapter Ninc——-The Divine Plan

. Each of these chapters has been treated as a unit of significance, and the sequence-ef‘ the nine chapters conveys a sense of the unfoldment 'of' the Bahá’í Dispensatibn ii: the Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh,_His Will and Testament, the Tablets and Addresses of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and in His Testament and Plan for the World Order of 'Bahá’u’lláh.

The passages selected have been taken from fifteen different publications as well as ‘from the National Archives.

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[Page 74]Unity is the essential truth of religion and when so understood embraces all the virtues of the human world.—‘ABDU’L-BAHIL