Bahai Faith; Kings and rulers; Shoghi, Effendi, 1897-1957 -- Correspondence
The most important of His Tablets addressed to individual sovereigns
Bahá’u’lláh ordered to be written in the form of a pentacle, symbolizing
the temple of man, including therein, as a conclusion, the following words
which reveal the importance He attached to those Messages, and indicate
their direct association with the prophecy of the Old Testament: “Thus
have We built the Temple with the hands of power and might, could ye but
know it. This is the Temple promised unto you in the Book. Draw ye nigh
unto it. This is that which profiteth you, could ye but comprehend it. Be
fair, O peoples of the earth! Which is preferable, this, or a temple which
is built of clay? Set your faces towards it. Thus have ye been commanded
by God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. Follow ye His bidding, and
praise ye God, your Lord, for that which He hath bestowed upon you. He,
verily, is the Truth. No God is there but He. He revealeth what He
pleaseth, through His words ‘Be and it is.’”
Referring to this same subject, He, in one of His Tablets, thus addresses
the followers of Jesus Christ: “O concourse of the followers of the Son!
Verily, the Temple hath been built with the hands of the will of your
Lord, the Almighty, the All-Bounteous. Bear, then, witness, O people, unto
that which I say: Which is preferable, that which is built of clay, or
that which is built by the hands of your Lord, the Revealer of verses?
This is the Temple promised unto you in the Tablets. It calleth aloud: ‘O
followers of religions! Haste ye to attain unto Him Who is the Source of
all causes, and follow not every infidel and doubter.’”
It should not be forgotten that, apart from these specific Tablets in
which the kings of the earth are severally and collectively addressed,
Bahá’u’lláh has revealed other Tablets—the Lawḥ-i-Ra’ís being an
outstanding example—and interspersed the mass of His voluminous writings
with unnumbered passages, in which direct addresses, as well as
references, have been made to ministers, governments, and their accredited
representatives. I am not concerned, however, with such addresses and
references, which, vital as they are, cannot be regarded as being endowed
with that peculiar pregnancy which direct and specific messages, voiced by
the Manifestation of God and directed to the world’s Chief Magistrates in
His day, must possess.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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