START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROMISED DAY IS COME*** The Promised Day Is Come by Shoghi Effendi Edition 1, (September 2006) BAHAâI TERMS OF USE You have permission to freely make and use copies of the text and any other information ("Content") available on this Site including printing, emailing, posting, distributing, copying, downloading, uploading, transmitting, displaying the Content in whole or in part subject to the following: 1. Our copyright notice and the source reference must be attached to the Content; 2. The Content may not be modified or altered in any way except to change the font or appearance; 3. The Content must be used solely for a non-commercial purpose. Although this blanket permission to reproduce the Content is given freely such that no special permission is required, the BahÃ¡âÃ­ International Community retains full copyright protection for all Content included at this Site under all applicable national and international laws. For permission to publish, transmit, display or otherwise use the Content for any commercial purpose, please contact us (http://reference.bahai.org/en/contact.html). CONTENTS Bahaâi Terms of Use Preface The Promised Day Is Come This Judgment of God What Response to His Call? Features of This Moving Drama A World Receded from Him Recipients of the Message Tablets to the Kings The Most Great Law Revealed Revealed to the Pope Let the Oppressor Desist Godâs Vicar on Earth Humiliation Immediate and Complete The Rise of Bolshevism End of the Holy Roman Empire What of Turkey and Persia? The Doom of Imperial Turkey Divine Retribution on the QÃ¡jÃ¡r Dynasty The Decline in the Fortunes of Royalty Recognition of Kingship The Crumbling of Religious Orthodoxy Words Addressed to Muslim Ecclesiastics The Falling Fortunes of _Sh_Ã­âih IslÃ¡m The Collapse of the Caliphate A Warning Unto All Nations His Messages to Christian Leaders Christian Nations against Christian Nations The Continuity of Revelation The Three False Gods The Weakened Pillars of Religion Godâs Purpose The Great Age to Come Religion and Social Evolution The Wider, Inclusive Loyalty World Commonwealth PREFACE The fundamental principle enunciated by BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h ... is that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is a continuous and progressive process, that all the great religions of the world are divine in origin, that their basic principles are in complete harmony, that their aims and purposes are one and the same, that their teachings are but facets of one truth, that their functions are complementary, that they differ only in the nonessential aspects of their doctrines, and that their missions represent successive stages in the spiritual evolution of human society.... ...His mission is to proclaim that the ages of the infancy and of the childhood of the human race are past, that the convulsions associated with the present stage of its adolescence are slowly and painfully preparing it to attain the stage of manhood, and are heralding the approach of that Age of Ages when swords will be beaten into plowshares, when the Kingdom promised by Jesus Christ will have been established, and the peace of the planet definitely and permanently ensured. Nor does BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h claim finality for His own Revelation, but rather stipulates that a fuller measure of the truth He has been commissioned by the Almighty to vouchsafe to humanity, at so critical a juncture in its fortunes, must needs be disclosed at future stages in the constant and limitless evolution of mankind. The BahÃ¡âÃ­ Faith upholds the unity of God, recognizes the unity of His Prophets, and inculcates the principle of the oneness and wholeness of the entire human race. It proclaims the necessity and the inevitability of the unification of mankind, asserts that it is gradually approaching, and claims that nothing short of the transmuting spirit of God, working through His chosen Mouthpiece in this day, can ultimately succeed in bringing it about. It, moreover, enjoins upon its followers the primary duty of an unfettered search after truth, condemns all manner of prejudice and superstition, declares the purpose of religion to be the promotion of amity and concord, proclaims its essential harmony with science, and recognizes it as the foremost agency for the pacification and the orderly progress of human society.... MÃ­rzÃ¡ á¸¤usayn-âAlÃ­, surnamed BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h (the Glory of God), a native of MÃ¡zindarÃ¡n, Whose advent the BÃ¡b [Herald and Forerunner of BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h] had foretold, ... was imprisoned in á¹¬ihrÃ¡n, was banished, in 1852, from His native land to Ba_gh_dÃ¡d, and thence to Constantinople and Adrianople, and finally to the prison city of AkkÃ¡, where He remained incarcerated for no less than twenty-four years, and in whose neighborhood He passed away in 1892. In the course of His banishment, and particularly in Adrianople and AkkÃ¡, He formulated the laws and ordinances of His Dispensation, expounded, in over a hundred volumes, the principles of His Faith, proclaimed His Message to the kings and rulers of both the East and the West, both Christian and Muslim, addressed the Pope, the Caliph of IslÃ¡m, the Chief Magistrates of the Republics of the American continent, the entire Christian sacerdotal order, the leaders of _Sh_Ã­âih and SunnÃ­ IslÃ¡m, and the high priests of the Zoroastrian religion. In these writings He proclaimed His Revelation, summoned those whom He addressed to heed His call and espouse His Faith, warned them of the consequences of their refusal, and denounced, in some cases, their arrogance and tyranny.... The Faith which this order serves, safeguards and promotes is ... essentially supernatural, supranational, entirely non-political, non-partisan, and diametrically opposed to any policy or school of thought that seeks to exalt any particular race, class or nation. It is free from any form of ecclesiasticism, has neither priesthood nor rituals, and is supported exclusively by voluntary contributions made by its avowed adherents. Though loyal to their respective governments, though imbued with the love of their own country, and anxious to promote at all times, its best interests, the followers of the BahÃ¡âÃ­ Faith, nevertheless, viewing mankind as one entity, and profoundly attached to its vital interests, will not hesitate to subordinate every particular interest, be it personal, regional or national, to the over-riding interests of the generality of mankind, knowing full well that in a world of interdependent peoples and nations the advantage of the part is best to be reached by the advantage of the whole, and that no lasting result can be achieved by any of the component parts if the general interests of the entity itself are neglected.... âShoghi Effendi THE PROMISED DAY IS COME Friends and fellow-heirs of the Kingdom of BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h: A tempest, unprecedented in its violence, unpredictable in its course, catastrophic in its immediate effects, unimaginably glorious in its ultimate consequences, is at present sweeping the face of the earth. Its driving power is remorselessly gaining in range and momentum. Its cleansing force, however much undetected, is increasing with every passing day. Humanity, gripped in the clutches of its devastating power, is smitten by the evidences of its resistless fury. It can neither perceive its origin, nor probe its significance, nor discern its outcome. Bewildered, agonized and helpless, it watches this great and mighty wind of God invading the remotest and fairest regions of the earth, rocking its foundations, deranging its equilibrium, sundering its nations, disrupting the homes of its peoples, wasting its cities, driving into exile its kings, pulling down its bulwarks, uprooting its institutions, dimming its light, and harrowing up the souls of its inhabitants. âThe time for the destruction of the world and its people,â BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡hâs prophetic pen has proclaimed, âhath arrived.â âThe hour is approaching,â He specifically affirms, âwhen the most great convulsion will have appeared.â âThe promised day is come, the day when tormenting trials will have surged above your heads, and beneath your feet, saying: âTaste ye what your hands have wrought!ââ âSoon shall the blasts of His chastisement beat upon you, and the dust of hell enshroud you.â And again: âAnd when the appointed hour is come, there shall suddenly appear that which shall cause the limbs of mankind to quake.â âThe day is approaching when its [civilizationâs] flame will devour the cities, when the Tongue of Grandeur will proclaim: âThe Kingdom is Godâs, the Almighty, the All-Praised!ââ âThe day will soon come,â He, referring to the foolish ones of the earth, has written, âwhereon they will cry out for help and receive no answer.â âThe day is approaching,â He moreover has prophesied, âwhen the wrathful anger of the Almighty will have taken hold of them. He, verily, is the Omnipotent, the All-Subduing, the Most Powerful. He shall cleanse the earth from the defilement of their corruption, and shall give it for an heritage unto such of His servants as are nigh unto Him.â âAs to those who deny Him Who is the Sublime Gate of God,â the BÃ¡b, for His part, has affirmed in the QayyÃºm-i-AsmÃ¡, âfor them We have prepared, as justly decreed by God, a sore torment. And He, God, is the Mighty, the Wise.â And further, âO peoples of the earth! I swear by your Lord! Ye shall act as former generations have acted. Warn ye, then, yourselves of the terrible, the most grievous vengeance of God. For God is, verily, potent over all things.â And again: âBy My glory! I will make the infidels to taste, with the hands of My power, retributions unknown of anyone except Me, and will waft over the faithful those musk-scented breaths which I have nursed in the midmost heart of My throne.â Dear friends! The powerful operations of this titanic upheaval are comprehensible to none except such as have recognized the claims of both BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h and the BÃ¡b. Their followers know full well whence it comes, and what it will ultimately lead to. Though ignorant of how far it will reach, they clearly recognize its genesis, are aware of its direction, acknowledge its necessity, observe confidently its mysterious processes, ardently pray for the mitigation of its severity, intelligently labor to assuage its fury, and anticipate, with undimmed vision, the consummation of the fears and the hopes it must necessarily engender. THIS JUDGMENT OF GOD This judgment of God, as viewed by those who have recognized BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h as His Mouthpiece and His greatest Messenger on earth, is both a retributory calamity and an act of holy and supreme discipline. It is at once a visitation from God and a cleansing process for all mankind. Its fires punish the perversity of the human race, and weld its component parts into one organic, indivisible, world-embracing community. Mankind, in these fateful years, which at once signalize the passing of the first century of the BahÃ¡âÃ­ Era and proclaim the opening of a new one, is, as ordained by Him Who is both the Judge and the Redeemer of the human race, being simultaneously called upon to give account of its past actions, and is being purged and prepared for its future mission. It can neither escape the responsibilities of the past, nor shirk those of the future. God, the Vigilant, the Just, the Loving, the All-Wise Ordainer, can, in this supreme Dispensation, neither allow the sins of an unregenerate humanity, whether of omission or of commission, to go unpunished, nor will He be willing to abandon His children to their fate, and refuse them that culminating and blissful stage in their long, their slow and painful evolution throughout the ages, which is at once their inalienable right and their true destiny. âBestir yourselves, O people,â is, on the one hand, the ominous warning sounded by BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h Himself, âin anticipation of the days of Divine Justice, for the promised hour is now come.â âAbandon that which ye possess, and seize that which God, Who layeth low the necks of men, hath brought. Know ye of a certainty that if ye turn not back from that which ye have committed, chastisement will overtake you on every side, and ye shall behold things more grievous than that which ye beheld aforetime.â And again: âWe have fixed a time for you, O people! If ye fail, at the appointed hour, to turn towards God, He, verily, will lay violent hold on you, and will cause grievous afflictions to assail you from every direction. How severe indeed is the chastisement with which your Lord will then chastise you!â And again: âGod assuredly dominateth the lives of them that wronged Us, and is well aware of their doings. He will most certainly lay hold on them for their sins. He, verily, is the fiercest of Avengers.â And finally: âO ye peoples of the world! Know verily that an unforeseen calamity is following you and that grievous retribution awaiteth you. Think not the deeds ye have committed have been blotted from My sight. By My Beauty! All your doings hath My pen graven with open characters upon tablets of chrysolite.â âThe whole earth,â BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h, on the other hand, forecasting the bright future in store for a world now wrapt in darkness, emphatically asserts, âis now in a state of pregnancy. The day is approaching when it will have yielded its noblest fruits, when from it will have sprung forth the loftiest trees, the most enchanting blossoms, the most heavenly blessings.â âThe time is approaching when every created thing will have cast its burden. Glorified be God Who hath vouchsafed this grace that encompasseth all things, whether seen or unseen!â âThese great oppressions,â He, moreover, foreshadowing humanityâs golden age, has written, âare preparing it for the advent of the Most Great Justice.â This Most Great Justice is indeed the Justice upon which the structure of the Most Great Peace can alone, and must eventually, rest, while the Most Great Peace will, in turn, usher in that Most Great, that World Civilization which shall remain forever associated with Him Who beareth the Most Great Name. Beloved friends! Well nigh a hundred years have elapsed since the Revelation of BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h dawned upon the worldâa Revelation, the nature of which, as affirmed by Himself, ânone among the Manifestations of old, except to a prescribed degree, hath ever completely apprehended.â For a whole century God has respited mankind, that it might acknowledge the Founder of such a Revelation, espouse His Cause, proclaim His greatness, and establish His Order. In a hundred volumes, the repositories of priceless precepts, mighty laws, unique principles, impassioned exhortations, reiterated warnings, amazing prophecies, sublime invocations, and weighty commentaries, the Bearer of such a Message has proclaimed, as no Prophet before Him has done, the Mission with which God had entrusted Him. To emperors, kings, princes and potentates, to rulers, governments, clergy and peoples, whether of the East or of the West, whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, or Zoroastrian, He addressed, for well-nigh fifty years, and in the most tragic circumstances, these priceless pearls of knowledge and wisdom that lay hid within the ocean of His matchless utterance. Forsaking fame and fortune, accepting imprisonment and exile, careless of ostracism and obloquy, submitting to physical indignities and cruel deprivations, He, the Vicegerent of God on earth, suffered Himself to be banished from place to place and from country to country, till at length He, in the Most Great Prison, offered up His martyred son as a ransom for the redemption and unification of all mankind. âWe verily,â He Himself has testified, âhave not fallen short of Our duty to exhort men, and to deliver that whereunto I was bidden by God, the Almighty, the All-Praised. Had they hearkened unto Me, they would have beheld the earth another earth.â And again: âIs there any excuse left for anyone in this Revelation? No, by God, the Lord of the Mighty Throne! My signs have encompassed the earth, and My power enveloped all mankind, and yet the people are wrapped in a strange sleep!â WHAT RESPONSE TO HIS CALL? Howâwe may well ask ourselvesâhas the world, the object of such Divine solicitude, repaid Him Who sacrificed His all for its sake? What manner of welcome did it accord Him, and what response did His call evoke? A clamor, unparalleled in the history of _Sh_Ã­âih IslÃ¡m, greeted, in the land of its birth, the infant light of the Faith, in the midst of a people notorious for its crass ignorance, its fierce fanaticism, its barbaric cruelty, its ingrained prejudices, and the unlimited sway held over the masses by a firmly entrenched ecclesiastical hierarchy. A persecution, kindling a courage which, as attested by no less eminent an authority than the late Lord Curzon of Kedleston, has been unsurpassed by that which the fires of Smithfield evoked, mowed down, with tragic swiftness, no less than twenty thousand of its heroic adherents, who refused to barter their newly born faith for the fleeting honors and security of a mortal life. To the bodily agonies inflicted upon these sufferers, the charges, so unmerited, of Nihilism, occultism, anarchism, eclecticism, immorality, sectarianism, heresy, political partisanshipâeach conclusively disproved by the tenets of the Faith itself and by the conduct of its followersâwere added, swelling thereby the number of those who, unwittingly or maliciously, were injuring its cause. Unmitigated indifference on the part of men of eminence and rank; unrelenting hatred shown by the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the Faith from which it had sprung; the scornful derision of the people among whom it was born; the utter contempt which most of those kings and rulers who had been addressed by its Author manifested towards it; the condemnations pronounced, the threats hurled, and the banishments decreed by those under whose sway it arose and first spread; the distortion to which its principles and laws were subjected by the envious and the malicious, in lands and among peoples far beyond the country of its originâall these are but the evidences of the treatment meted out by a generation sunk in self-content, careless of its God, and oblivious of the omens, prophecies, warnings and admonitions revealed by His Messengers. The blows so heavily dealt the followers of so precious, so glorious, so potent a Faith failed, however, to assuage the animosity that inflamed its persecutors. Nor did the deliberate and mischievous misrepresentations of its fundamental teachings, its aims and purposes, its hopes and aspirations, its institutions and activities, suffice to stay the hand of the oppressor and the calumniator, who sought by every means in their power to abolish its name and extirpate its system. The hand which had struck down so vast a number of its blameless and humble lovers and servants was now raised to deal its Founders the heaviest and cruelest blows. The BÃ¡bââthe Point,â as affirmed by BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h, âround Whom the realities of the Prophets and Messengers revolveââwas the One first swept into the maelstrom which engulfed His supporters. Sudden arrest and confinement in the very first year of His short and spectacular career; public affront deliberately inflicted in the presence of the ecclesiastical dignitaries of _Sh_Ã­rÃ¡z; strict and prolonged incarceration in the bleak fastnesses of the mountains of Ã_dh_irbayjÃ¡n; a contemptuous disregard and a cowardly jealousy evinced respectively by the Chief Magistrate of the realm and the foremost minister of his government; the carefully staged and farcical interrogatory sustained in the presence of the heir to the Throne and the distinguished divines of TabrÃ­z; the shameful infliction of the bastinado in the prayer house, and at the hands of the _Sh_ay_kh_uâl-IslÃ¡m of that city; and finally suspension in the barrack-square of TabrÃ­z and the discharge of a volley of above seven hundred bullets at His youthful breast under the eyes of a callous multitude of about ten thousand people, culminating in the ignominious exposure of His mangled remains on the edge of the moat without the city gateâthese were the progressive stages in the tumultuous and tragic ministry of One Whose age inaugurated the consummation of all ages, and Whose Revelation fulfilled the promise of all Revelations. âI swear by God!â the BÃ¡b Himself in His Tablet to Muá¸¥ammad _Sh_Ã¡h has written, âShouldst thou know the things which in the space of these four years have befallen Me at the hands of thy people and thine army, thou wouldst hold thy breath from fear of God.... Alas, alas, for the things which have touched Me!... I swear by the Most Great Lord! Wert thou to be told in what place I dwell, the first person to have mercy on Me would be thyself. In the heart of a mountain is a fortress [MÃ¡kÃº] ... the inmates of which are confined to two guards and four dogs. Picture, then, My plight.... In this mountain I have remained alone, and have come to such a pass that none of those gone before Me have suffered what I have suffered, nor any transgressor endured what I have endured!â âHow veiled are ye, O My creatures,â He, speaking with the voice of God, has revealed in the BayÃ¡n, â...who, without any right, have consigned Him unto a mountain [MÃ¡kÃº], not one of whose inhabitants is worthy of mention.... With Him, which is with Me, there is no one except him who is one of the Letters of the Living of My Book. In His presence, which is My Presence, there is not at night even a lighted lamp! And yet, in places [of worship] which in varying degrees reach out unto Him, unnumbered lamps are shining! All that is on earth hath been created for Him, and all partake with delight of His benefits, and yet they are so veiled from Him as to refuse Him even a lamp!â What of BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h, the germ of Whose Revelation, as attested by the BÃ¡b, is endowed with a potency superior to the combined forces of the BÃ¡bÃ­ Dispensation? Was He notâHe for Whom the BÃ¡b had suffered and died in such tragic and miraculous circumstancesâmade, for nearly half a century and under the domination of the two most powerful potentates of the East, the object of a systematic and concerted conspiracy which, in its effects and duration, is scarcely paralleled in the annals of previous religions? âThe cruelties inflicted by My oppressors,â He Himself in His anguish has cried out, âhave bowed Me down, and turned My hair white. Shouldst thou present thyself before My throne, thou wouldst fail to recognize the Ancient Beauty, for the freshness of His countenance is altered and its brightness hath faded, by reason of the oppression of the infidels. I swear by God! His heart, His soul, and His vitals are melted!â âWert thou to hear with Mine ear,â He also declares, âthou wouldst hear how âAlÃ­ [the BÃ¡b] bewaileth Me in the presence of the Glorious Companion, and how Muá¸¥ammad weepeth over Me in the all-highest Horizon, and how the Spirit [Jesus] beateth Himself upon the head in the heaven of My decree, by reason of what hath befallen this Wronged One at the hands of every impious sinner.â âBefore Me,â He elsewhere has written, âriseth up the Serpent of wrath with jaws stretched to engulf Me, and behind Me stalketh the lion of anger intent on tearing Me in pieces, and above Me, O My Well-Beloved, are the clouds of Thy decree, raining upon Me the showers of tribulations, whilst beneath Me are fixed the spears of misfortune, ready to wound My limbs and My body.â âCouldst thou be told,â He further affirms, âwhat hath befallen the Ancient Beauty, thou wouldst flee into the wilderness, and weep with a great weeping. In thy grief, thou wouldst smite thyself on the head, and cry out as one stung by the sting of the adder.... By the righteousness of God! Every morning I arose from My bed I discovered the hosts of countless afflictions massed behind My door, and every night when I lay down, lo! My heart was torn with agony at what it had suffered from the fiendish cruelty of its foes. With every piece of bread the Ancient Beauty breaketh is coupled the assault of a fresh affliction, and with every drop He drinketh is mixed the bitterness of the most woeful of trials. He is preceded in every step He taketh by an army of unforeseen calamities, while in His rear follow legions of agonizing sorrows.â Was it not He Who, at the early age of twenty-seven, spontaneously arose to champion, in the capacity of a mere follower, the nascent Cause of the BÃ¡b? Was He not the One Who by assuming the actual leadership of a proscribed and harrassed sect exposed Himself, and His kindred, and His possessions, and His rank, and His reputation to the grave perils, the bloody assaults, the general spoliation and furious defamations of both government and people? Was it not Heâthe Bearer of a Revelation, Whose day âevery Prophet hath announced,â for which âthe soul of every Divine Messenger hath thirsted,â and in which âGod hath proved the hearts of the entire company of His Messengers and Prophetsââwas not the Bearer of such a Revelation, at the instigation of _Sh_Ã­âih ecclesiastics and by order of the _Sh_Ã¡h himself forced, for no less than four months, to breathe, in utter darkness, whilst in the company of the vilest criminals and freighted down with galling chains, the pestilential air of the vermin-infested subterranean dungeon of á¹¬ihrÃ¡nâa place which, as He Himself subsequently declared, was mysteriously converted into the very scene of the annunciation made to Him by God of His Prophethood? âWe were consigned,â He wrote in His âEpistle to the Son of the Wolf,â âfor four months to a place foul beyond comparison. As to the dungeon in which this Wronged One and others similarly wronged were confined, a dark and narrow pit were preferable.... The dungeon was wrapped in thick darkness, and Our fellow prisoners numbered nearly a hundred and fifty souls: thieves, assassins, and highwaymen. Though crowded, it had no other outlet than the passage by which We entered. No pen can depict that place, nor any tongue describe its loathsome smell. Most of these men had neither clothes nor bedding to lie on. God alone knoweth what befell Us in that most foul-smelling and gloomy place!â ââAbduâl-BahÃ¡,â writes Dr. J.E. Esslemont, âtells how one day He was allowed to enter the prison-yard to see His beloved Father when He came out for His daily exercise. BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h was terribly altered, so ill He could hardly walk. His hair and beard unkempt, His neck galled and swollen from the pressure of a heavy steel collar, His body bent by the weight of His chains.â âFor three days and three nights,â NabÃ­l has recorded in his chronicle, âno manner of food or drink was given to BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h. Rest and sleep were both impossible to Him. The place was infested with vermin, and the stench of that gloomy abode was enough to crush the very spirits of those who were condemned to suffer its horrors.â âSuch was the intensity of His suffering that the marks of that cruelty remained imprinted upon His body all the days of His life.â And what of the other tribulations which, before and immediately after this dreadful episode, touched Him? What of His confinement in the home of one of the kad-_kh_udÃ¡s of á¹¬ihrÃ¡n? What of the savage violence with which He was stoned by the angry people in the neighborhood of the village of NÃ­yÃ¡lÃ¡? What of His incarceration by the emissaries of the army of the _Sh_Ã¡h in MÃ¡zindarÃ¡n, and His receiving the bastinado by order, and in the presence, of the assembled siyyids and mujtahids into whose hands He had been delivered by the civil authorities of Ãmul? What of the howls of derision and abuse with which a crowd of ruffians subsequently pursued Him? What of the monstrous accusation brought against Him by the Imperial household, the Court and the people, when the attempt was made on the life of NÃ¡á¹£iriâd-DÃ­n _Sh_Ã¡h? What of the infamous outrages, the abuse and ridicule heaped on Him when He was arrested by responsible officers of the government, and conducted from NÃ­yÃ¡varÃ¡n âon foot and in chains, with bared head and bare feet,â and exposed to the fierce rays of the midsummer sun, to the SÃ­yÃ¡h-_Ch_Ã¡l of á¹¬ihrÃ¡n? What of the avidity with which corrupt officials sacked His house and carried away all His possessions and disposed of His fortune? What of the cruel edict that tore Him from the small band of the BÃ¡bâs bewildered, hounded, and shepherdless followers, separated Him from His kinsmen and friends, and banished Him, in the depth of winter, despoiled and defamed, to âIrÃ¡q? Severe as were these tribulations which succeeded one another with bewildering rapidity as a result of the premeditated attacks and the systematic machinations of the court, the clergy, the government and the people, they were but the prelude to a harrowing and extensive captivity which that edict had formally initiated. Extending over a period of more than forty years, and carrying Him successively to âIrÃ¡q, SulaymÃ¡nÃ­yyih, Constantinople, Adrianople and finally to the penal colony of AkkÃ¡, this long banishment was at last ended by His death, at the age of over three score years and ten, terminating a captivity which, in its range, its duration and the diversity and severity of its afflictions, is unexampled in the history of previous Dispensations. No need to expatiate on the particular episodes which cast a lurid light on the moving annals of those years. No need to dwell on the character and actions of the peoples, rulers and divines who have participated in, and contributed to heighten the poignancy of the scenes of this, the greatest drama in the worldâs spiritual history. FEATURES OF THIS MOVING DRAMA To enumerate a few of the outstanding features of this moving drama will suffice to evoke in the reader of these pages, already familiar with the history of the Faith, the memory of those vicissitudes which it has experienced, and which the world has until now viewed with such frigid indifference. The forced and sudden retirement of BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h to the mountains of SulaymÃ¡nÃ­yyih, and the distressing consequences that flowed from His two yearsâ complete withdrawal; the incessant intrigues indulged in by the exponents of _Sh_Ã­âih IslÃ¡m in Najaf and KarbilÃ¡, working in close and constant association with their confederates in Persia; the intensification of the repressive measures decreed by Sulá¹­Ã¡n âAbduâl-âAzÃ­z which brought to a head the defection of certain prominent members of the exiled community; the enforcement of yet another banishment by order of that same Sulá¹­Ã¡n, this time to that far off and most desolate of cities, causing such despair as to lead two of the exiles to attempt suicide; the unrelaxing surveillance to which they were subjected upon their arrival in AkkÃ¡, by hostile officials, and the insufferable imprisonment for two years in the barracks of that town; the interrogatory to which the Turkish pÃ¡_sh_Ã¡ subsequently subjected his Prisoner at the headquarters of the government; His confinement for no less than eight years in a humble dwelling surrounded by the befouled air of that city, His sole recreation being confined to pacing the narrow space of His roomâthese, as well as other tribulations, proclaim, on the one hand, the nature of the ordeal and the indignities He suffered, and point, on the other, the finger of accusation at those mighty ones of the earth who had either so sorely maltreated Him, or deliberately withheld from Him their succor. No wonder that from the Pen of Him Who bore this anguish with such sublime patience these words should have been revealed: âHe Who is the Lord of the seen and unseen is now manifest unto all men. His blessed Self hath been afflicted with such harm that if all the seas, visible and invisible, were turned into ink, and all that dwell in the kingdom into pens, and all that are in the heavens and all that are on earth into scribes, they would, of a certainty, be powerless to record it.â And again: âI have been, most of the days of My life, even as a slave, sitting under a sword hanging on a thread, knowing not whether it would fall soon or late upon him.â âAll this generation,â He affirms, âcould offer Us were wounds from its darts, and the only cup it proffered to Our lips was the cup of its venom. On Our neck We still bear the scar of chains, and upon Our body are imprinted the evidences of an unyielding cruelty.â âTwenty years have passed, O kings!â He, addressing the kings of Christendom, at the height of His mission, has written, âduring which We have, each day, tasted the agony of a fresh tribulation. No one of them that were before Us hath endured the things We have endured. Would that ye could perceive it! They that rose up against Us have put Us to death, have shed Our blood, have plundered Our property, and violated Our honor. Though aware of most of Our afflictions, ye, nevertheless, have failed to stay the hand of the aggressor. For is it not your clear duty to restrain the tyranny of the oppressor, and to deal equitably with your subjects, that your high sense of justice may be fully demonstrated to all mankind?â Who is the ruler, may it not be confidently asked, whether of the East or of the West, who, at any time since the dawn of so transcendent a Revelation, has been prompted to raise his voice either in its praise or against those who persecuted it? Which people has, in the course of so long a captivity, felt urged to arise and stem the tide of such tribulations? Who is the sovereign, excepting a single woman, shining in solitary glory, who has, in however small a measure, felt impelled to respond to the poignant call of BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h? Who amongst the great ones of the earth was inclined to extend this infant Faith of God the benefit of his recognition or support? Which one of the multitudes of creeds, sects, races, parties and classes and of the highly diversified schools of human thought, considered it necessary to direct its gaze towards the rising light of the Faith, to contemplate its unfolding system, to ponder its hidden processes, to appraise its weighty message, to acknowledge its regenerative power, to embrace its salutary truth, or to proclaim its eternal verities? Who among the worldly wise and the so-called men of insight and wisdom can justly claim, after the lapse of nearly a century, to have disinterestedly approached its theme, to have considered impartially its claims, to have taken sufficient pains to delve into its literature, to have assiduously striven to separate facts from fiction, or to have accorded its cause the treatment it merits? Where are the preeminent exponents, whether of the arts or sciences, with the exception of a few isolated cases, who have lifted a finger, or whispered a word of commendation, in either the defense or the praise of a Faith that has conferred upon the world so priceless a benefit, that has suffered so long and so grievously, and which enshrines within its shell so enthralling a promise for a world so woefully battered, so manifestly bankrupt? To the mounting tide of trials which laid low the BÃ¡b, to the long-drawn-out calamities which rained on BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h, to the warnings sounded by both the Herald and the Author of the BahÃ¡âÃ­ Revelation, must be added the sufferings which, for no less than seventy years, were endured by âAbduâl-BahÃ¡, as well as His pleas, and entreaties, uttered in the evening of His life, in connection with the dangers that increasingly threatened the whole of mankind. Born in the very year that witnessed the inception of the BÃ¡bÃ­ Revelation; baptized with the initial fires of persecution that raged around that nascent Cause; an eyewitness, when a boy of eight, of the violent upheavals that rocked the Faith which His Father had espoused; sharing with Him, the ignominy, the perils, and rigors consequent upon the successive banishments from His native-land to countries far beyond its confines; arrested and forced to support, in a dark cell, the indignity of imprisonment soon after His arrival in AkkÃ¡; the object of repeated investigations and the target of continual assaults and insults under the despotic rule of Sulá¹­Ã¡n âAbduâl-á¸¤amÃ­d, and later under the ruthless military dictatorship of the suspicious and merciless JamÃ¡l PÃ¡_sh_Ã¡âHe, too, the Center and Pivot of BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡hâs peerless Covenant and the perfect Exemplar of His teachings, was made to taste, at the hands of potentates, ecclesiastics, governments and peoples, the cup of woe which the BÃ¡b and BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h, as well as so many of their followers, had drained. With the warnings which both His pen and voice have given in countless Tablets and discourses, during an almost lifelong incarceration and in the course of His extended travels in both the European and American continents, they who labor for the spread of His Fatherâs Faith in the Western world are sufficiently acquainted. How often and how passionately did He appeal to those in authority and to the public at large to examine dispassionately the precepts enunciated by His Father? With what precision and emphasis He unfolded the system of the Faith He was expounding, elucidated its fundamental verities, stressed its distinguishing features, and proclaimed the redemptive character of its principles? How insistently did He foreshadow the impending chaos, the approaching upheavals, the universal conflagration which, in the concluding years of His life, had only begun to reveal the measure of its force and the significance of its impact on human society? A co-sharer in the woeful trials and momentary frustrations afflicting the BÃ¡b and BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h; reaping a harvest in His lifetime wholly incommensurate to the sublime, the incessant and strenuous efforts He had exerted; experiencing the initial perturbations of the world-shaking catastrophe in store for an unbelieving humanity; bent with age, and with eyes dimmed by the gathering storm which the reception accorded by a faithless generation to His Fatherâs Cause was raising, and with a heart bleeding over the immediate destiny of Godâs wayward childrenâHe, at last, sank beneath a weight of troubles for which they who had imposed them upon Him, and upon those gone before Him, were soon to be summoned to a dire reckoning. âHasten, O my God!â He cried, at a time when adversity had sore beset Him, âthe days of my ascension unto Thee, and of my coming before Thee, and of my entry into Thy presence, that I may be delivered from the darkness of the cruelty inflicted by them upon me, and may enter the luminous atmosphere of Thy nearness, O my Lord, the All-Glorious, and may rest under the shadow of Thy most great mercy.â âYÃ¡ BahÃ¡âuâl-AbhÃ¡ [O Thou the Glory of Glories]!â He wrote in a Tablet revealed during the last week of His life, âI have renounced the world and the people thereof, and am heartbroken and sorely afflicted because of the unfaithful. In the cage of this world I flutter even as a frightened bird, and yearn every day to take my flight unto Thy Kingdom. YÃ¡ BahÃ¡âuâl-AbhÃ¡! Make me to drink of the cup of sacrifice, and set me free. Relieve me from these woes and trials, from these afflictions and troubles.â Dear friends! Alas, a thousand times alas, that a Revelation so incomparably great, so infinitely precious, so mightily potent, so manifestly innocent, should have received, at the hands of a generation so blind and so perverse, so infamous a treatment! âO My servants!â BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h Himself testifies, âThe one true God is My witness! This most great, this fathomless and surging ocean is near, astonishingly near, unto you. Behold it is closer to you than your life vein! Swift as the twinkling of an eye ye can, if ye but wish it, reach and partake of this imperishable favor, this God-given grace, this incorruptible gift, this most potent and unspeakably glorious bounty.â A WORLD RECEDED FROM HIM After a revolution of well nigh one hundred years what is it that the eye encounters as one surveys the international scene and looks back upon the early beginnings of BahÃ¡âÃ­ history? A world convulsed by the agonies of contending systems, races and nations, entangled in the mesh of its accumulated falsities, receding farther and farther from Him Who is the sole Author of its destinies, and sinking deeper and deeper into a suicidal carnage which its neglect and persecution of Him Who is its Redeemer have precipitated. A Faith, still proscribed, yet bursting through its chrysalis, emerging from the obscurity of a century-old repression, face to face with the awful evidences of Godâs wrathful anger, and destined to arise above the ruins of a smitten civilization. A world spiritually destitute, morally bankrupt, politically disrupted, socially convulsed, economically paralyzed, writhing, bleeding and breaking up beneath the avenging rod of God. A Faith Whose call remained unanswered, Whose claims were rejected, Whose warnings were brushed aside, Whose followers were mowed down, Whose aims and purposes were maligned, Whose summons to the rulers of the earth were ignored, Whose Herald drained the cup of martyrdom, over the head of Whose Author swept a sea of unheard-of tribulations, and Whose Exemplar sank beneath the weight of lifelong sorrows and dire misfortunes. A world that has lost its bearings, in which the bright flame of religion is fast dying out, in which the forces of a blatant nationalism and racialism have usurped the rights and prerogatives of God Himself, in which a flagrant secularismâthe direct offspring of irreligionâhas raised its triumphant head and is protruding its ugly features, in which the âmajesty of kingshipâ has been disgraced, and they who wore its emblems have, for the most part, been hurled from their thrones, in which the once all-powerful ecclesiastical hierarchies of IslÃ¡m, and to a lesser extent those of Christianity, have been discredited, and in which the virus of prejudice and corruption is eating into the vitals of an already gravely disordered society. A Faith Whose institutionsâthe pattern and crowning glory of the age which is to comeâhave been ignored and in some instances trampled upon and uprooted, Whose unfolding system has been derided and partly suppressed and crippled, Whose rising Orderâthe sole refuge of a civilization in the embrace of doomâhas been spurned and challenged, Whose Mother-Temple has been seized and misappropriated, and Whose âHouseââthe âcynosure of an adoring worldââhas, through a gross miscarriage of justice, as witnessed by the worldâs highest tribunal, been delivered into the hands of, and violated by, its implacable enemies. We are indeed living in an age which, if we would correctly appraise it, should be regarded as one which is witnessing a dual phenomenon. The first signalizes the death pangs of an order, effete and godless, that has stubbornly refused, despite the signs and portents of a century-old Revelation, to attune its processes to the precepts and ideals which that Heaven-sent Faith proffered it. The second proclaims the birth pangs of an Order, divine and redemptive, that will inevitably supplant the former, and within Whose administrative structure an embryonic civilization, incomparable and world-embracing, is imperceptibly maturing. The one is being rolled up, and is crashing in oppression, bloodshed, and ruin. The other opens up vistas of a justice, a unity, a peace, a culture, such as no age has ever seen. The former has spent its force, demonstrated its falsity and barrenness, lost irretrievably its opportunity, and is hurrying to its doom. The latter, virile and unconquerable, is plucking asunder its chains, and is vindicating its title to be the one refuge within which a sore-tried humanity, purged from its dross, can attain its destiny. âSoon,â BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h Himself has prophesied, âwill the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead.â And again: âBy Myself! The day is approaching when We will have rolled up the world and all that is therein, and spread out a new Order in its stead.â âThe day is approaching when God will have raised up a people who will call to remembrance Our days, who will tell the tale of Our trials, who will demand the restitution of Our rights, from them who, without a tittle of evidence, have treated Us with manifest injustice.â Dear friends! For the trials which have afflicted the Faith of BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h a responsibility appalling and inescapable rests upon those into whose hands the reins of civil and ecclesiastical authority were delivered. The kings of the earth and the worldâs religious leaders alike must primarily bear the brunt of such an awful responsibility. âEveryone well knoweth,â BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h Himself testifies, âthat all the kings have turned aside from Him, and all the religions have opposed Him.â âFrom time immemorial,â He declares, âthey who have been outwardly invested with authority have debarred men from setting their faces towards God. They have disliked that men should gather together around the Most Great Ocean, inasmuch as they have regarded, and still regard, such a gathering as the cause of, and the motive for, the disruption of their sovereignty.â âThe kings,â He moreover has written, âhave recognized that it was not in their interest to acknowledge Me, as have likewise the ministers and the divines, notwithstanding that My purpose hath been most explicitly revealed in the Divine Books and Tablets, and the True One hath loudly proclaimed that this Most Great Revelation hath appeared for the betterment of the world and the exaltation of the nations.â âGracious God!â writes the BÃ¡b in the DalÃ¡âil-i-Sabâih (Seven Proofs) with reference to the âseven powerful sovereigns ruling the worldâ in His day, âNone of them hath been informed of His [the BÃ¡bâs] Manifestation, and if informed, none hath believed in Him. Who knoweth, they may leave this world below full of desire, and without having realized that the thing for which they were waiting had come to pass. This is what happened to the monarchs that held fast unto the Gospel. They awaited the coming of the Prophet of God [Muá¸¥ammad], and when He did appear, they failed to recognize Him. Behold how great are the sums which these sovereigns expend without even the slightest thought of appointing an official charged with the task of acquainting them in their own realms with the Manifestation of God! They would thereby have fulfilled the purpose for which they have been created. All their desires have been and are still fixed upon leaving behind them traces of their names.â The BÃ¡b, moreover, in that same treatise, censuring the failure of the Christian divines to acknowledge the truth of Muá¸¥ammadâs mission, makes this illuminating statement: âThe blame falleth upon their doctors, for if these had believed, they would have been followed by the mass of their countrymen. Behold then, that which hath come to pass! The learned men of Christendom are held to be learned by virtue of their safeguarding the teaching of Christ, and yet consider how they themselves have been the cause of menâs failure to accept the Faith and attain unto salvation!â RECIPIENTS OF THE MESSAGE It should not be forgotten that it was the kings of the earth and the worldâs religious leaders who, above all other categories of men, were made the direct recipients of the Message proclaimed by both the BÃ¡b and BahÃ¡âuâllÃ¡h. It was they who were deliberately addressed in numerous and historic Tablets, who were summoned to respond to the Call of God, and to whom were directed, in clear and forcible language, the appeals, the admonitions and warnings of His persecuted Messengers. It was they who, when the Faith was born, and later when its mission was proclaimed, were still, for the most part, wielding unquestioned and absolute civil and ecclesiastical authority over their subjects and followers. It was they who, whether glorying in the pomp and pageantry of a kingship as yet scarcely restricted by constitutional limitations, or entrenched within the strongholds of a seemingly inviolable ecclesiastical power, assumed ultimate responsibility for any wrongs inflicted by those whose immediate destinies they controlled. It would be no exaggeration to say that in most of the countries of the European and Asiatic continents absolutism, on the one hand, and complete subservience to ecclesiastical hierarchies, on the other, were still the outstanding features of the political and religious life of the masses. These, dominated and shackled, were robbed of the necessary freedom that would enable them to either appraise the claims and merits of the Message proffered to them, or to embrace unreservedly its truth. Small wonder, then, that the Author of the BahÃ¡âÃ­ Faith, and to a lesser degree its Herald, should have directed at the worldâs supreme rulers and religious leaders the full force of Their Messages, and made them the recipients of some of Their most sublime Tablets, and invited them, in a language at once clear and insistent, to heed Their call. Small wonder that They should have taken the pains to unroll before their eyes the truths of Their respective Revelations, and should have expatiated on Their woes and sufferings. Small wonder that They should have stressed the preciousness of the opportunities which it was in the power of these rulers and leaders to
{'title': 'The Promised Day Is Come by Effendi Shoghi', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}