Know thou, O servant, that one day, upon awakening, We found
the beloved of God at the mercy of Our adversaries. Sentinels were posted at
every gate and no one was permitted to enter or leave. Indeed, they perpetrated
a sore injustice, for the loved ones of God and His kindred were left on the
first night without food. Such was the fate of those for whose sake the world
and all that is therein have been created. Woe betide the perpetrators and
those who led them into such evil!
Erelong will God consume their souls in the fire. He, verily, is the
fiercest of avengers.
The people surrounded the house, and Muslims and Christians
wept over Us, and the voice of lamentation was upraised between earth and
heaven by reason of what the hands of the oppressors had wrought. We perceived
that the weeping of the people of the Son exceeded the weeping of others—a sign
for such as ponder.
One of My companions offered up his life, cutting his throat
with his own hands for the love of God, an act unheard of in bygone centuries
and which God hath set apart for this Revelation as an evidence of the power of
His might. [1] He, verily, is the Unconstrained, the All-Subduing. As for the
one who thus slew himself in ‘Iráq, [2] he truly is the King and Beloved of
Martyrs, and that which he evinced was a testimony from God unto the peoples of
the earth. Such souls have been influenced by the Word of God, have tasted the
sweetness of His remembrance, and are so transported by the breezes of reunion
that they have detached themselves from all that dwell on earth and turned unto
the Divine Countenance with faces beaming with light. And though they have
committed an act which God hath forbidden, He hath nevertheless forgiven them
as a token of His mercy. He, verily, is the Ever-Forgiving, the Most
Compassionate. So enraptured were these souls by Him Who is the All-Compelling
that the reins of volition slipped from their grasp, until at last they
ascended to the dwelling of the Unseen and entered the presence of God, the
Almighty, the All-Knowing.
- Baha’u’llah (Súriy-i-Ra’ís, addressed to ‘Álí
Páshá, the Ottoman Prime Minister; ‘The Summons of the Lord of Hosts’)
[1] Hájí Ja‘far-i-Tabrízí; he was prevented in time from
ending his life
[2] Siyyid Ismá‘íl of Zavárih
We notice a similar development in the extent of its
literature—a literature which, restricted at first to the narrow range of
hurriedly transcribed, often corrupted, secretly circulated, manuscripts, so
furtively perused, so frequently effaced, and at times even eaten by the
terrorized members of a proscribed sect, has, within the space of a century,
swelled into innumerable editions, comprising tens of thousands of printed
volumes, in diverse scripts, and in no less than forty languages, some
elaborately reproduced, others profusely illustrated, all methodically and
vigorously disseminated through the agency of world-wide, properly constituted
and specially organized committees and Assemblies. 
