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.
- The Universal House of Justice (Introduction to ‘The
Summons of the Lord of Hosts’)