The Shrine of the Bab,
Mount Carmel
Israel
Mount Carmel
Israel
Dear Ones,
If you are new to our pages, you may not know that a merciful God has never left His children without a divine Revelation, constantly guiding our steps toward an ever-advancing civilization, with its anticipated apotheoses, a thousand years of unquestioned, perfect peace, the promised Millennium!
But where are we in this process, you may ask, as the world seems to be marching toward total destruction? And are there obstacles in the way that could be removed to avert this fate and to hasten this divine plan?
But where are we in this process, you may ask, as the world seems to be marching toward total destruction? And are there obstacles in the way that could be removed to avert this fate and to hasten this divine plan?
As to both questions, we will simply inform you that after the Mohammedan dispensation that followed that of Christ, a holy Figure appeared in the Middle East to break the rapacious and inverted ways of a Muslim world that was then irreparably corrupted. It is of Him that we will now speak briefly. First, through the words of his illustrious successor, for Whom He was soon to give His life:
No sooner had mankind attained the stage of maturity, than the Word revealed to men’s eyes the latent energies with which it had been endowed—energies which manifested themselves in the plenitude of their glory when the Ancient Beauty appeared, in the year sixty, in the person of ‘Alí-Muḥammad, the Báb.
The Bab's ministry, though brief, proved to be very eventful and productive. Already admired by the masses of Persia, long subjected to the cruelty of their governors and the corruption of their clergy, His teachings were so sublime, and His admonitions so contrary to the wretchedness to which Islam had been reduced, that the Bab was soon brought before the most eminent Imams of the Ottoman Empire, now assembled in the mosque of Edirne. Not to listen eagerly to His claims, but rather to hastily condemn Him to execution for proclaiming to be none other than the Mahdi, the long-awaited Hidden Imam of Shiite Islam!
I am, I am, I am the Promised One. I am the one Whose name you have for 1000 years invoked, at Whose mention you have risen, Whose advent you have longed to witness, and the hour of Whose Revelation you have prayed God to hasten.
Condemned for apostasy, arrested and taken to the barracks of Tabriz, He was to be gloriously martyred on July 9, 1850, the circumstances of His death described by Ernest Renan, specialist on the Abrahamic religions, as unprecedented in the annals of religious history.
A.L.M. Nicolas, the renowned Orientalist who observed the development of the Babi movement in Persia at the time and became the first Western follower, left this touching tribute to posterity:
I do not know how to thank you nor how to express to you the joy that inundates my heart. Thus, one must not only admit but love and admire the Báb. Poor great Prophet born at the very heart of Persia without any means of instruction and who alone in the world, encircled with enemies, by the force of his genius was able to create a universal and wise religion. That Bahá'u'lláh has, since then, succeeded him, may be, but I wish that the sublimity of the Báb be admired, who besides paid with his life, with his blood for the reform he preached. Cite me another comparable example. Finally, I can die in peace.Now let's read what young Bab proclaimed about Himself, historically recorded as fact by other witnesses such as Arthur de Gobineau, including the phenomenal quantity of his revealed verses, which total almost ten times those of the Bible!
And if anyone should reflect on the appearance of this Tree, he will undoubtedly testify to the loftiness of the Cause of God. For if one from whose life only twenty-four years have passed, and who is devoid of those sciences wherein all are learned, now reciteth verses after such fashion without thought or hesitation, writes a thousand verses of prayer in the course of five hours without pause of the pen, and produceth commentaries and learned treatises on such lofty themes as the true understanding of God and of the oneness of His Being, in a manner which doctors and philosophers confess surpasseth their power of understanding, then there is no doubt that all that hath been manifested is divinely inspired. Notwithstanding their life-long diligent study, what pains do these divines take when writing a single line in Arabic! Yet after such efforts the result is but words which are unworthy of mention. All these things are for a proof unto the people; otherwise the religion of God is too mighty and glorious for anyone to comprehend through aught but itself; rather by it all else is understood.
In a luminous eulogy, the second of the Twin Manifestations prophesied to appear on the Last Day, that is, at the very end of the prophetic cycle inaugurated by Adam and completed by Muhammad, unveiled the unique station of the Bab, defined His mission, expounded His prerogatives, and exalted His authority:
Magnify Thou, moreover, such as have believed in Him and in His signs and have turned towards Him, from among those that have acknowledged Thy unity in His Latter Manifestation—a Manifestation whereof He hath made mention in His Tablets, and in His Books, and in His Scriptures, and in all the wondrous verses and gem-like utterances that have descended upon Him. It is this same Manifestation Whose covenant Thou hast bidden Him establish ere He had established His own covenant. He it is Whose praise the Bayán hath celebrated. In it His excellence hath been extolled, and His truth established, and His sovereignty proclaimed, and His Cause perfected. Blessed is the man that hath turned unto Him, and fulfilled the things He hath commanded, O Thou Who art the Lord of the world and the Desire of all them that have known Thee!
Praised be Thou, O my God, inasmuch as Thou hast aided us to recognize and love Him. I, therefore, beseech Thee by Him and by Them Who are the Daysprings of Thy Divinity, and the Manifestations of Thy Lordship, and the Treasuries of Thy Revelation, and the Depositories of Thine inspiration, to enable us to serve and obey Him, and to empower us to become the helpers of His Cause and the dispersers of His adversaries. Powerful art Thou to do all that pleaseth Thee. No God is there beside Thee, the Almighty, the All-Glorious, the One Whose help is sought by all men!In that exposition, not only the greatness of the Bab could be recognized, but also that of its Author, the Glory of God, BAHA'U'LLAH, the Manifestation of the Last Day!
- Baha'u'llah
Since the emphatic call of both the Bab and Baha'u'llah, the Twin Manifestations, millions throughout the world have responded and are now wholeheartedly engaged in the realization of this quantum leap in the destiny of the nations.
Each of you is warmly invited to JOIN this effort.
Each of you is warmly invited to JOIN this effort.
Be wonderfully blessed !
Loesha