I swear by Thy glory, O Thou Who art the Lord of all being and the
Possessor of all things visible and invisible! Every man of understanding
hath been so bewildered at Thy knowledge, and every man endued with
insight been so perplexed in his attempt to fathom the signs of Thy great
glory, that all have recognized their powerlessness to visualize, and
their impotence to soar into, the heaven wherefrom one of the Luminaries
of the Manifestations of Thy knowledge and of the Day-Springs of Thy
wisdom hath shone forth. Who is he that shall befittingly describe this
most sublime station and this most august seat—the seat which, as decreed
by Thee, transcendeth the comprehension of Thy creatures and the
testimonies of Thy servants, and which hath everlastingly been hid from
the understanding and the knowledge of men, and been closed with the seal
of Thy name, the Self-Subsisting.
I swear by Thy glory and Thy sovereignty which overshadow the kingdoms of
earth and of heaven! Were any of Thy chosen Ones and Thy Messengers to
meditate on the manifold evidences of Thy most exalted Pen—a Pen which is
driven by the fingers of Thy will—and were he to muse on its mysteries,
and its tokens, and all that it showeth forth, he would be so perplexed
that his tongue would fail to extol and describe Thee, and his heart would
be utterly unable to understand Thee. For he would, at one time, discover
that from this Pen there floweth out unto all created things the water
that is life indeed, and that the Pen itself hath been named by Thee the
trumpet whereby the dead speed out of their sepulchers. At another time he
would find that there proceedeth from this Pen such fire as Thine own
Revelation can kindle, and as He Who conversed with Thee (Moses) on Sinai
hath perceived.
How marvelous, then, are the manifold tokens of Thy might, and how great
are the diverse evidences of Thy power! The learned have, without
exception, admitted their ignorance when confronted with the radiance of
the Luminary of Thy knowledge; and the mighty have all confessed their
impotence in the face of the billowing Ocean of Thy power; and the rich
have one and all acknowledged their poverty before the effusions of the
Treasuries of Thy wealth; and the worldly wise have each recognized their
nothingness beside the splendors of the Light of Thy beauty; and the
exalted have all witnessed unto their abasement when face to face with the
effulgence of the Day-Star of Thy glory; and they who are in authority
have borne witness to their own evanescence and to the evanescence of
others, and discovered the eternity of Thy majesty, and of Thy
sovereignty, and of Thy sublimity, and of Thy power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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