God Passes By

by Effendi Shoghi

To ‘Alí Páshá, the Grand Vizir, Bahá’u’lláh addressed the Súriy-i-Ra’ís. In this He bids him “hearken to the voice of God”; declares that neither his “grunting,” nor the “barking” of those around him, nor “the hosts of the world” can withhold the Almighty from achieving His purpose; accuses him of having perpetrated that which has caused “the Apostle of God to lament in the most sublime Paradise,” and of having conspired with the Persian Ambassador to harm Him; forecasts “the manifest loss” in which he would soon find himself; glorifies the Day of His own Revelation; prophesies that this Revelation will “erelong encompass the earth and all that dwell therein,” and that the “Land of Mystery (Adrianople) and what is beside it ... shall pass out of the hands of the King, and commotions shall appear, and the voice of lamentation shall be raised, and the evidences of mischief shall be revealed on all sides”; identifies that same Revelation with the Revelations of Moses and of Jesus; recalls the “arrogance” of the Persian Emperor in the days of Muḥammad, the “transgression” of Pharaoh in the days of Moses, and of the “impiety” of Nimrod in the days of Abraham; and proclaims His purpose to “quicken the world and unite all its peoples.”

The ministers of the Sulṭán, He, in the Súriy-i-Mulúk, reprimands for their conduct, in passages in which He challenges the soundness of their principles, predicts that they will be punished for their acts, denounces their pride and injustice, asserts His integrity and detachment from the vanities of the world, and proclaims His innocence.

The French Ambassador accredited to the Sublime Porte, He, in that same Súrih, rebukes for having combined with the Persian Ambassador against Him; reminds him of the counsels of Jesus Christ, as recorded in the Gospel of St. John; warns him that he will be held answerable for the things his hands have wrought; and counsels him, together with those like him, not to deal with any one as he has dealt with Him.

To the Persian Ambassador in Constantinople, He, in that same Tablet, addresses lengthy passages in which He exposes his delusions and calumnies, denounces his injustice and the injustice of his countrymen, assures him that He harbors no ill-will against him, declares that, should he realize the enormity of his deed, he would mourn all the days of his life, affirms that he will persist till his death in his heedlessness, justifies His own conduct in Ṭihrán and in ‘Iráq, and bears witness to the corruption of the Persian minister in Baghdád and to his collusion with this minister.

To the entire company of the ecclesiastical leaders of Sunní Islám in Constantinople He addresses a specific message in the same Súriy-i-Mulúk in which He denounces them as heedless and spiritually dead; reproaches them for their pride and for failing to seek His presence; unveils to them the full glory and significance of His Mission; affirms that their leaders, had they been alive, would have “circled around Him”; condemns them as “worshippers of names” and lovers of leadership; and avows that God will find naught acceptable from them unless they “be made new” in His estimation.

To the wise men of the City of Constantinople and the philosophers of the world He devotes the concluding passages of the Súriy-i-Mulúk, in which He cautions them not to wax proud before God; reveals to them the essence of true wisdom; stresses the importance of faith and upright conduct; rebukes them for having failed to seek enlightenment from Him; and counsels them not to “overstep the bounds of God,” nor turn their gaze towards the “ways of men and their habits.”

To the inhabitants of Constantinople He, in that same Tablet, declares that He “feareth no one except God,” that He speaks “naught except at His (God) bidding,” that He follows naught save God’s truth, that He found the governors and elders of the city as “children gathered about and disporting themselves with clay,” and that He perceived no one sufficiently mature to acquire the truths which God had taught Him. He bids them take firm hold on the precepts of God; warns them not to wax proud before God and His loved ones; recalls the tribulations, and extols the virtues, of the Imám Ḥusayn; prays that He Himself may suffer similar afflictions; prophesies that erelong God will raise up a people who will recount His troubles and demand the restitution of His rights from His oppressors; and calls upon them to give ear to His words, and return unto God and repent.

And finally, addressing the people of Persia, He, in that same Tablet, affirms that were they to put Him to death God will assuredly raise up One in His stead, and asserts that the Almighty will “perfect His light” though they, in their secret hearts, abhor it.

So weighty a proclamation, at so critical a period, by the Bearer of so sublime a Message, to the kings of the earth, Muslim and Christian alike, to ministers and ambassadors, to the ecclesiastical heads of Sunní Islám, to the wise men and inhabitants of Constantinople—the seat of both the Sultanate and the Caliphate—to the philosophers of the world and the people of Persia, is not to be regarded as the only outstanding event associated with Bahá’u’lláh’s sojourn in Adrianople. Other developments and happenings of great, though lesser, significance must be noted in these pages, if we would justly esteem the importance of this agitated and most momentous phase of Bahá’u’lláh’s ministry.

It was at this period, and as a direct consequence of the rebellion and appalling downfall of Mírzá Yaḥyá, that certain disciples of Bahá’u’lláh (who may well rank among the “treasures” promised Him by God when bowed down with chains in the Síyáh-Chál of Ṭihrán), including among them one of the Letters of the Living, some survivors of the struggle of Tabarsí, and the erudite Mírzá Aḥmad-i-Azghandí, arose to defend the newborn Faith, to refute, in numerous and detailed apologies, as their Master had done in the Kitáb-i-Badí’, the arguments of His opponents, and to expose their odious deeds. It was at this period that the limits of the Faith were enlarged, when its banner was permanently planted in the Caucasus by the hand of Mullá Abú-Talíb and others whom Nabíl had converted, when its first Egyptian center was established at the time when Siyyid Ḥusayn-i-Káshání and Ḥájí Báqir-i-Káshání took up their residence in that country, and when to the lands already warmed and illuminated by the early rays of God’s Revelation—‘Iráq, Turkey and Persia—Syria was added. It was in this period that the greeting of “Alláh-u-Abhá” superseded the old salutation of “Alláh-u-Akbar,” and was simultaneously adopted in Persia and Adrianople, the first to use it in the former country, at the suggestion of Nabíl, being Mullá Muḥammad-i-Furúghí, one of the defenders of the Fort of Shaykh Tabarsí. It was in this period that the phrase “the people of the Bayán,” now denoting the followers of Mírzá Yaḥyá, was discarded, and was supplanted by the term “the people of Bahá.” It was during those days that Nabíl, recently honored with the title of Nabíl-i-‘Aẓam, in a Tablet specifically addressed to him, in which he was bidden to “deliver the Message” of his Lord “to East and West,” arose, despite intermittent persecutions, to tear asunder the “most grievous veil,” to implant the love of an adored Master in the hearts of His countrymen, and to champion the Cause which his Beloved had, under such tragic conditions, proclaimed. It was during those same days that Bahá’u’lláh instructed this same Nabíl to recite on His behalf the two newly revealed Tablets of the Pilgrimage, and to perform, in His stead, the rites prescribed in them, when visiting the Báb’s House in Shíráz and the Most Great House in Baghdád—an act that marks the inception of one of the holiest observances, which, in a later period, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas was to formally establish. It was during this period that the “Prayers of Fasting” were revealed by Bahá’u’lláh, in anticipation of the Law which that same Book was soon to promulgate. It was, too, during the days of Bahá’u’lláh’s banishment to Adrianople that a Tablet was addressed by Him to Mullá ‘Alí-Akbar-i-Sháhmírzádí and Jamál-i-Burújirdí, two of His well-known followers in Ṭihrán, instructing them to transfer, with the utmost secrecy, the remains of the Báb from the Imám-Zádih Ma’ṣúm, where they were concealed, to some other place of safety—an act which was subsequently proved to have been providential, and which may be regarded as marking another stage in the long and laborious transfer of those remains to the heart of Mt. Carmel, and to the spot which He, in His instructions to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, was later to designate. It was during that period that the Súriy-i-Ghusn (Súrih of the Branch) was revealed, in which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s future station is foreshadowed, and in which He is eulogized as the “Branch of Holiness,” the “Limb of the Law of God,” the “Trust of God,” “sent down in the form of a human temple”—a Tablet which may well be regarded as the harbinger of the rank which was to be bestowed upon Him, in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, and which was to be later elucidated and confirmed in the Book of His Covenant. And finally, it was during that period that the first pilgrimages were made to the residence of One Who was now the visible Center of a newly-established Faith—pilgrimages which by reason of their number and nature, an alarmed government in Persia was first impelled to restrict, and later to prohibit, but which were the precursors of the converging streams of Pilgrims who, from East and West, at first under perilous and arduous circumstances, were to direct their steps towards the prison-fortress of Akká—pilgrimages which were to culminate in the historic arrival of a royal convert at the foot of Mt. Carmel, who, at the very threshold of a longed-for and much advertised pilgrimage, was so cruelly thwarted from achieving her purpose.