It was this composite work which, shortly after its completion,
Bahá’u’lláh instructed be written in the form of a pentacle, symbolizing
the human temple. To it He added, as a conclusion, what Shoghi Effendi has
described as “words which reveal the importance He attached to those
Messages, and indicate their direct association with the prophecies 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.
During the last years of His ministry Bahá’u’lláh Himself arranged for the
publication for the first time of definitive versions of some of His
principal works, and the Súriy-i-Haykal was awarded a prominent position
among them.
Of the various writings that make up the Súriy-i-Haykal, one requires
particular mention. The Lawḥ-i-Sulṭán, the Tablet to Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh,
Bahá’u’lláh’s lengthiest epistle to any single sovereign, was revealed in
the weeks immediately preceding His final banishment to ‘Akká. It was
eventually delivered to the monarch by Badí‘, a youth of seventeen, who
had entreated Bahá’u’lláh for the honour of rendering some service. His
efforts won him the crown of martyrdom and immortalized his name. The
Tablet contains the celebrated passage describing the circumstances in
which the divine call was communicated to Bahá’u’lláh and the effect it
produced. Here, too, we find His unequivocal offer to meet with the Muslim
clergy, in the presence of the Sháh, and to provide whatever proofs of the
new Revelation they might consider to be definitive, a test of spiritual
integrity significantly failed by those who claimed to be the
authoritative trustees of the message of the Qur’án.
Included in this collection, as well, is the first full translation of the
Súriy-i-Mulúk or Súrih of the Kings, which Shoghi Effendi described as
“the most momentous Tablet revealed by Bahá’u’lláh in which He, for the
first time, directs His words collectively to the entire company of the
monarchs of East and West”. It sets forth both the character of His
mission and the standard of justice that must govern the exercise of their
rule in this Day of God:
Lay not aside the fear of God, O kings of the earth, and beware
that ye transgress not the bounds which the Almighty hath fixed.
Observe the injunctions laid upon you in His Book, and take good
heed not to overstep their limits. Be vigilant, that ye may not do
injustice to anyone, be it to the extent of a grain of mustard
seed. Tread ye the path of justice, for this, verily, is the
straight path.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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