Bahai Faith; Kings and rulers; Shoghi, Effendi, 1897-1957 -- Correspondence
“O kings of Christendom! Heard ye not the saying of Jesus, the Spirit of
God, ‘I go away, and come again unto you’? Wherefore, then, did ye fail,
when He did come again unto you in the clouds of heaven, to draw nigh unto
Him, that ye might behold His face, and be of them that attained His
Presence? In another passage He saith: ‘When He, the Spirit of Truth, is
come, He will guide you into all truth.’ And yet, behold how, when He did
bring the truth, ye refused to turn your faces towards Him, and persisted
in disporting yourselves with your pastimes and fancies. Ye welcomed Him
not, neither did ye seek His Presence, that ye might hear the verses of
God from His own mouth, and partake of the manifold wisdom of the
Almighty, the All-Glorious, the All-Wise. Ye have, by reason of your
failure, hindered the breath of God from being wafted over you, and have
withheld from your souls the sweetness of its fragrance. Ye continue
roving with delight in the valley of your corrupt desires. Ye and all ye
possess shall pass away. Ye shall, most certainly, return to God, and
shall be called to account for your doings in the presence of Him Who
shall gather together the entire creation....”
The Báb, moreover, in the Qayyúm-i-Asmá, His celebrated commentary on the
Súrih of Joseph, revealed in the first year of His Mission, and
characterized by Bahá’u’lláh as “the first, the greatest, and mightiest of
all books” in the Bábí Dispensation, has issued this stirring call to the
kings and princes of the earth:
“O concourse of kings and of the 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.”
And again: “Fear ye God, O concourse of kings, lest ye remain afar 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.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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