Nay, by “trumpet” is meant the trumpet-call of Muḥammad’s Revelation,
which was sounded in the heart of the universe, and by “resurrection” is
meant His own rise to proclaim the Cause of God. He bade the erring and
wayward arise and speed out of the sepulchres of their bodies, arrayed
them with the beauteous robe of faith, and quickened them with the breath
of a new and wondrous life. Thus at the hour when Muḥammad, that divine
Beauty, purposed to unveil one of the mysteries hidden in the symbolic
terms “resurrection,” “judgment,” “paradise,” and “hell,” Gabriel, the
Voice of Inspiration, was heard saying: “Erelong will they wag their heads
at Thee, and say, ‘When shall this be?’ Say: ‘Perchance it is nigh.’”(85)
The implications of this verse alone suffice the peoples of the world,
were they to ponder it in their hearts.
Gracious God! How far have that people strayed from the way of God!
Although the Day of Resurrection was ushered in through the Revelation of
Muḥammad, although His light and tokens had encompassed the earth and all
that is therein, yet that people derided Him, gave themselves up to those
idols which the divines of that age, in their vain and idle fancy, had
conceived, and deprived themselves of the light of heavenly grace and of
the showers of divine mercy. Yea, the abject beetle can never scent the
fragrance of holiness, and the bat of darkness can never face the
splendour of the sun.
Such things have come to pass in the days of every Manifestation of God.
Even as Jesus said: “Ye must be born again.”(86) Again He saith: “Except a
man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom
of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born
of the Spirit is spirit.”(87) The purport of these words is that whosoever
in every dispensation is born of the Spirit and is quickened by the breath
of the Manifestation of Holiness, he verily is of those that have attained
unto “life” and “resurrection” and have entered into the “paradise” of the
love of God. And whosoever is not of them, is condemned to “death” and
“deprivation,” to the “fire” of unbelief, and to the “wrath” of God. In
all the scriptures, the books and chronicles, the sentence of death, of
fire, of blindness, of want of understanding and hearing, hath been
pronounced against those whose lips have tasted not the ethereal cup of
true knowledge, and whose hearts have been deprived of the grace of the
holy Spirit in their day. Even as it hath been previously recorded:
“Hearts have they with which they understand not.”(88)
In another passage of the Gospel it is written: “And it came to pass that
on a certain day the father of one of the disciples of Jesus had died.”
That disciple reporting the death of his father unto Jesus, asked for
leave to go and bury him. Whereupon, Jesus, that Essence of Detachment,
answered and said: “Let the dead bury their dead.”(89)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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