To Israel He was neither more nor less than the incarnation of the
“Everlasting Father,” the “Lord of Hosts” come down “with ten thousands of
saints”; to Christendom Christ returned “in the glory of the Father,” to
_Sh_í’ah Islám the return of the Imám Ḥusayn; to Sunní Islám the descent
of the “Spirit of God” (Jesus Christ); to the Zoroastrians the promised
_Sh_áh-Bahrám; to the Hindus the reincarnation of Krishna; to the
Buddhists the fifth Buddha.
In the name He bore He combined those of the Imám Ḥusayn, the most
illustrious of the successors of the Apostle of God—the brightest “star”
shining in the “crown” mentioned in the Revelation of St. John—and of the
Imám ‘Alí, the Commander of the Faithful, the second of the two
“witnesses” extolled in that same Book. He was formally designated
Bahá’u’lláh, an appellation specifically recorded in the Persian Bayán,
signifying at once the glory, the light and the splendor of God, and was
styled the “Lord of Lords,” the “Most Great Name,” the “Ancient Beauty,”
the “Pen of the Most High,” the “Hidden Name,” the “Preserved Treasure,”
“He Whom God will make manifest,” the “Most Great Light,” the “All-Highest
Horizon,” the “Most Great Ocean,” the “Supreme Heaven,” the “Pre-Existent
Root,” the “Self-Subsistent,” the “Day-Star of the Universe,” the “Great
Announcement,” the “Speaker on Sinai,” the “Sifter of Men,” the “Wronged
One of the World,” the “Desire of the Nations,” the “Lord of the
Covenant,” the “Tree beyond which there is no passing.” He derived His
descent, on the one hand, from Abraham (the Father of the Faithful)
through his wife Katurah, and on the other from Zoroaster, as well as from
Yazdigird, the last king of the Sásáníyán dynasty. He was moreover a
descendant of Jesse, and belonged, through His father, Mírzá Abbás, better
known as Mírzá Buzurg—a nobleman closely associated with the ministerial
circles of the Court of Fatḥ-‘Alí _Sh_áh—to one of the most ancient and
renowned families of Mázindarán.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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