1. O Lord! Thou art the Remover of every anguish and the
Dispeller of every affliction. Thou art He Who banisheth every
sorrow and setteth free every slave, the Redeemer of every
soul. O Lord! Grant deliverance through Thy mercy, and reckon
me among such servants of Thine as have gained
salvation.
-The Báb
2. Say: God
sufficeth all things above all things, and nothing in the
heavens or the earth but God sufficeth. Verily, He is in
Himself the Knower, the Sustainer, the Omnipotent.
-The Báb
3. Is there any
Remover of difficulties save God? Say: Praised be God! He is
God! All are His servants, and all abide by His bidding!
-The Báb
4. I adjure Thee
by Thy might, O my God! Let no harm beset me in times of
tests, and in moments of heedlessness guide my steps aright
through Thine inspiration. Thou art God, potent art Thou to do
what Thou desirest. No one can withstand Thy Will or thwart
Thy Purpose.
-The Báb
5. Ages rolled
away, until they attained their consummation in this, the Lord
of days, the Day whereon the Day Star of the Bayán manifested
itself above the horizon of mercy, the Day in which the Beauty
of the All-Glorious shone forth in the exalted person of …
the Báb. No sooner did He reveal Himself, than all the people
rose up against Him. … "God," said He, "is My
witness, O people! I am come to you with a Revelation from the
Lord, your God, the Lord of your fathers of old. Look not, O
people, at the things ye possess. Look rather at the things
God hath sent down unto you. This, surely, will be better for
you than the whole of creation, could ye but perceive it.
Repeat the gaze, O people, and consider the testimony of God
and His proof which are in your possession, and compare them
unto the Revelation sent down unto you in this Day, that the
truth, the infallible truth, may be indubitably manifested
unto you..." The more He exhorted them, the fiercer grew
their enmity, till, at the last, they put Him to death with
shameful cruelty.
-Bahá'u'lláh:
Gleanings, Pages: 144-149
6. Immediately
before and soon after this humiliating treatment meted out to
the Báb two highly significant incidents occurred, incidents
that cast an illuminating light on the mysterious
circumstances surrounding the opening phase of His martyrdom.
The farrash-bashi had abruptly interrupted the last
conversation which the Báb was confidentially having in one
of the rooms of the barracks with His amanuensis … and was
drawing the latter aside, and severely rebuking him, when he
was thus addressed by his Prisoner: "Not until I have
said to him all those things that I wish to say can any
earthly power silence Me. Though all the world be armed
against Me, yet shall it be powerless to deter Me from
fulfilling, to the last word, My intention." To the
Christian Sam Khan - the colonel of the Armenian regiment
ordered to carry out the execution - who, seized with fear
lest his act should provoke the wrath of God, had begged to be
released from the duty imposed upon him, the Báb gave the
following assurance: "Follow your instructions, and if
your intention be sincere, the Almighty is surely able to
relieve you of your perplexity."
Sam Khan
accordingly set out to discharge his duty. A spike was driven
into a pillar which separated two rooms of the barracks facing
the square. Two ropes were fastened to it from which the Báb
and one of his disciples, the youthful and devout … Anis,
who had previously flung himself at the feet of his Master and
implored that under no circumstances he be sent away from Him,
were separately suspended. The firing squad ranged itself in
three files, each of two hundred and fifty men. Each file in
turn opened fire until the whole detachment had discharged its
bullets. So dense was the smoke from the seven hundred and
fifty rifles that the sky was darkened. As soon as the smoke
had cleared away the astounded multitude of about ten thousand
souls, who had crowded onto the roof of the barracks, as well
as the tops of the adjoining houses, beheld a scene which
their eyes could scarcely believe.
The Báb had
vanished from their sight! Only his companion remained, alive
and unscathed, standing beside the wall on which they had been
suspended. The ropes by which they had been hung alone were
severed. "The Siyyid-i-Báb has gone from our
sight!" cried out the bewildered spectators. A frenzied
search immediately ensued. He was found, unhurt and unruffled,
in the very room He had occupied the night before, engaged in
completing His interrupted conversation with His amanuensis.
"I have finished My conversation …" were the words
with which the Prisoner, so providentially preserved, greeted
the appearance of the farrash-bashi, "Now you may proceed
to fulfill your intention." Recalling the bold assertion
his Prisoner had previously made, and shaken by so stunning a
revelation, the farrash-bashi quitted instantly the scene, and
resigned his post.
Sam Khan,
likewise, remembering, with feelings of awe and wonder, the
reassuring words addressed to him by the Báb, ordered his men
to leave the barracks immediately, and swore, as he left the
courtyard, never again, even at the cost of his life, to
repeat that act… (The) colonel of the body-guard,
volunteered to replace him. On the same wall and in the same
manner the Báb and His companion were again suspended, while
the new regiment formed in line and opened fire upon them.
This time, however, their breasts were riddled with bullets,
and their bodies completely dissected, with the exception of
their faces which were but little marred. "O wayward
generation!" were the last words of the Báb to the
gazing multitude, as the regiment prepared to fire its volley,
"Had you believed in Me every one of you would have
followed the example of this youth, who stood in rank above
most of you, and would have willingly sacrificed himself in My
path. The day will come when you will have recognized Me; that
day I shall have ceased to be with you." …
So momentous an
event could hardly fail to arouse widespread and keen interest
even beyond the confines of the land in which it had
occurred... "A veritable miracle," is the
pronouncement made by a noted French Orientalist. "A true
God-man," is the verdict of a famous British traveler and
writer. "The finest product of his country," is the
tribute paid Him by a noted French publicist. "That Jesus
of the age ... a prophet, and more than a prophet," is
the judgment passed by a distinguished English divine.
"The most important religious movement since the
foundation of Christianity," is the possibility that was
envisaged for the Faith the Báb had established by that
far-famed Oxford scholar, the late Master of Balliol.
It would indeed
be no exaggeration to say that nowhere in the whole compass of
the world's religious literature, except in the Gospels, do we
find any record relating to the death of any of the
religion-founders of the past comparable to the martyrdom
suffered by the Prophet of Shiraz. So strange, so inexplicable
a phenomenon, attested by eye-witnesses, corroborated by men
of recognized standing, and acknowledged by government as well
as unofficial historians among the people who had sworn
undying hostility to the Babi Faith, may be truly regarded as
the most marvelous manifestation of the unique potentialities
with which a Dispensation promised by all the Dispensations of
the past had been endowed. The passion of Jesus Christ, and
indeed His whole public ministry, alone offer a parallel to
the Mission and death of the Báb, a parallel which no student
of comparative religion can fail to perceive or ignore. In the
youthfulness and meekness of the Inaugurator of the Babi
Dispensation; in the extreme brevity and turbulence of His
public ministry; in the dramatic swiftness with which that
ministry moved towards its climax; in the apostolic order
which He instituted, and the primacy which He conferred on one
of its members; in the boldness of His challenge to the time-honored
conventions, rites and laws which had been woven into the
fabric of the religion He Himself had been born into; in the
role which an officially recognized and firmly entrenched
religious hierarchy played as chief instigator of the outrages
which He was made to suffer; in the indignities heaped upon
Him; in the suddenness of His arrest; in the interrogation to
which He was subjected; in the derision poured, and the
scourging inflicted, upon Him; in the public affront He
sustained; and, finally, in His ignominious suspension before
the gaze of a hostile multitude - in all these we cannot fail
to discern a remarkable similarity to the distinguishing
features of the career of Jesus Christ.
-Shoghi Effendi:
God Passes By, Pages: 49-60
7. "Every
stone of that building, every stone of the road leading to
it," (`Abdu'l-Bahá), many a time was heard to remark,
"I have with infinite tears and at tremendous cost,
raised and placed in position." "One night,"
He, according to an eye-witness, once observed, "I was so
hemmed in by My anxieties that I had no other recourse than to
recite and repeat over and over again a prayer of the Báb
which I had in My possession, the recital of which greatly
calmed Me. The next morning the owner of the plot himself came
to Me, apologized and begged Me to purchase his
property." …
On … the day of
the first Naw-Rúz (1909), which He celebrated after His
release from His confinement, Abdu'l-Bahá had the marble
sarcophagus transported with great labor to the vault prepared
for it, and in the evening, by the light of a single lamp, He
laid within it, with His own hands - in the presence of
believers from the East and from the West and in circumstances
at once solemn and moving - the wooden casket containing the
sacred remains of the Báb and His companion.
When all was
finished, and the earthly remains of the Martyr-Prophet of
Shiraz were, at long last, safely deposited for their
everlasting rest in the bosom of God's holy mountain,
Abdu'l-Bahá, Who had cast aside His turban, removed His shoes
and thrown off His cloak, bent low over the still open
sarcophagus, His silver hair waving about His head and His
face transfigured and luminous, rested His forehead on the
border of the wooden casket, and, sobbing aloud, wept with
such a weeping that all those who were present wept with Him.
That night He could not sleep, so overwhelmed was He with
emotion.
"The most
joyful tidings is this," He wrote later in a Tablet
announcing to His followers the news of this glorious victory,
"that the holy, the luminous body of the Báb ... after
having for sixty years been transferred from place to place,
by reason of the ascendancy of the enemy, and from fear of the
malevolent, and having known neither rest nor tranquility has,
through the mercy of the Abhá Beauty, been ceremoniously
deposited, on the day of Naw-Rúz, within the sacred casket,
in the exalted Shrine on Mt. Carmel... By a strange
coincidence, on that same day of Naw-Rúz, a cablegram was
received from Chicago, announcing that the believers in each
of the American centers had elected a delegate and sent to
that city ... and definitely decided on the site and
construction of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar."
-Shoghi Effendi:
God Passes By, Pages: 275-276
8. Tablet of
Visitation
The praise which
hath dawned from Thy most august Self, and the glory which
hath shone forth from Thy most effulgent Beauty, rest upon
Thee, O Thou Who art the Manifestation of Grandeur, and the
King of Eternity, and the Lord of all who are in heaven and on
earth! I testify that through Thee the sovereignty of God and
His dominion, and the majesty of God and His grandeur, were
revealed, and the Day-Stars of ancient splendor have shed
their radiance in the heaven of Thine irrevocable decree, and
the Beauty of the Unseen hath shone forth above the horizon of
creation. I testify, moreover, that with but a movement of Thy
Pen Thine injunction "Be Thou" hath been enforced,
and God's hidden Secret hath been divulged, and all created
things have been called into being, and all the Revelations
have been sent down.
I bear witness,
moreover, that through Thy beauty the beauty of the Adored One
hath been unveiled, and through Thy face the face of the
Desired One hath shone forth, and that through a word from
Thee Thou hast decided between all created things, causing
them who are devoted to Thee to ascend unto the summit of
glory, and the infidels to fall into the lowest abyss.
I bear witness
that he who hath known Thee hath known God, and he who hath
attained unto Thy presence hath attained unto the presence of
God. Great, therefore, is the blessedness of him who hath
believed in Thee, and in Thy signs, and hath humbled himself
before Thy sovereignty, and hath been honored with meeting
Thee, and hath attained the good pleasure of Thy will, and
circled around Thee, and stood before Thy throne. Woe betide
him that hath transgressed against Thee, and hath denied Thee,
and repudiated Thy signs, and gainsaid Thy sovereignty, and
risen up against Thee, and waxed proud before Thy face, and
hath disputed Thy testimonies, and fled from Thy rule and Thy
dominion, and been numbered with the infidels whose names have
been inscribed by the fingers of Thy behest upon Thy holy
Tablets.
Waft, then, unto
me, O my God and my Beloved, from the right hand of Thy mercy
and Thy loving-kindness, the holy breaths of Thy favors, that
they may draw me away from myself and from the world unto the
courts of Thy nearness and Thy presence. Potent art Thou to do
what pleaseth Thee. Thou, truly, hast been supreme over all
things.
The remembrance
of God and His praise, and the glory of God and His splendor,
rest upon Thee, O Thou Who art His Beauty! I bear witness that
the eye of creation hath never gazed upon one wronged like
Thee. Thou wast immersed all the days of Thy life beneath an
ocean of tribulations. At one time Thou wast in chains and
fetters; at another Thou wast threatened by the sword of Thine
enemies. Yet, despite all this, Thou didst enjoin upon all men
to observe what had been prescribed unto Thee by Him Who is
the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
May my spirit be
a sacrifice to the wrongs Thou didst suffer, and my soul be a
ransom for the adversities Thou didst sustain. I beseech God,
by Thee and by them whose faces have been illumined with the
splendors of the light of Thy countenance, and who, for love
of Thee, have observed all whereunto they were bidden, to
remove the veils that have come in between Thee and Thy
creatures, and to supply me with the good of this world and
the world to come. Thou art, in truth, the Almighty, the Most
Exalted, the All-Glorious, the Ever-Forgiving, the Most
Compassionate.
Bless Thou, O
Lord my God, the Divine Lote-Tree and its leaves, and its
boughs, and its branches, and its stems, and its offshoots, as
long as Thy most excellent titles will endure and Thy most
august attributes will last. Protect it, then, from the
mischief of the aggressor and the hosts of tyranny. Thou art,
in truth, the Almighty, the Most Powerful. Bless Thou, also, O
Lord my God, Thy servants and Thy handmaidens who have
attained unto Thee. Thou, truly, art the All-Bountiful, Whose
grace is infinite. No God is there save Thee, the
Ever-Forgiving, the Most Generous.
(Bahá'u'lláh:
Prayers and Meditations, pages 310-313)
