“O Muḥammad!”, are some of the words He uttered on that memorable
occasion, as testified by Himself in a Tablet, “He Who is the Spirit hath,
verily, issued from His habitation, and with Him have come forth the souls
of God’s chosen ones and the realities of His Messengers. Behold, then,
the dwellers of the realms on high above Mine head, and all the
testimonies of the Prophets in My grasp. Say: Were all the divines, all
the wise men, all the kings and rulers on earth to gather together, I, in
very truth, would confront them, and would proclaim the verses of God, the
Sovereign, the Almighty, the All-Wise. I am He Who feareth no one, though
all who are in heaven and all who are on earth rise up against me.... This
is Mine hand which God hath turned white for all the worlds to behold.
This is My staff; were We to cast it down, it would, of a truth, swallow
up all created things.” Mír Muḥammad, who had been sent ahead to announce
Bahá’u’lláh’s arrival, soon returned, and informed Him that he who had
challenged His authority wished, owing to unforeseen circumstances, to
postpone for a day or two the interview. Upon His return to His house
Bahá’u’lláh revealed a Tablet, wherein He recounted what had happened,
fixed the time for the postponed interview, sealed the Tablet with His
seal, entrusted it to Nabíl, and instructed him to deliver it to one of
the new believers, Mullá Muḥammad-i-Tabrízí, for the information of Siyyid
Muḥammad, who was in the habit of frequenting that believer’s shop. It was
arranged to demand from Siyyid Muḥammad, ere the delivery of that Tablet,
a sealed note pledging Mírzá Yaḥyá, in the event of failing to appear at
the trysting-place, to affirm in writing that his claims were false.
Siyyid Muḥammad promised that he would produce the next day the document
required, and though Nabíl, for three successive days, waited in that shop
for the reply, neither did the Siyyid appear, nor was such a note sent by
him. That undelivered Tablet, Nabíl, recording twenty-three years later
this historic episode in his chronicle, affirms was still in his
possession, “as fresh as the day on which the Most Great Branch had penned
it, and the seal of the Ancient Beauty had sealed and adorned it,” a
tangible and irrefutable testimony to Bahá’u’lláh’s established ascendancy
over a routed opponent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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