What follows is my provisional translation (in other words, not official or authorized; see here for more) of a Tablet of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the original text of which has been published in Ma’ákhidh-i-Ash‘ár dar Áthár-i-Bahá’í, vol. 4, pp. 151–52, where it is mentioned that this Tablet was written for a certain Mírzá Ḥusayn.
He is the All-Glorious!
O thou wanderer enamored of God! Who bade thee join the company of the homeless and enter the assemblage of the heart-surrendered, to step into the circle of the destitute and gain admittance to the gathering of lovers? Thou didst possess a tranquil heart and a soul free of any calamity, thou didst enjoy peace of mind and wert acquainted well with repose of spirit, and yet thou didst barter the composure of thy heart for distress and exchange the serenity of thy soul for the affliction of hardship. Like these wanderers thou didst become rootless, and like these love-struck souls thou didst become lost in wildernesses and deserts. Thou didst give up thy home to plunder and pillage, and to the jackals of Shiraz thou didst pay tax and tribute.
Didst thou not know that thou wouldst fall into such grievous trials and become entangled in such dire tribulations? After all, thou shouldst have taken heed from the vagrancy of these destitute souls and derive counsel from the captivity of these oppressed ones.
This is the Path of God and the Way of the Lord; it is the Road of self-sacrifice and devotion, of forsaking comfort and prosperity. This sanctified raiment admitteth no stain of defilement, and this resplendent Beauty accepteth no ornament or adornment. It cometh to the field stripped of every garment and appeareth liberated from every bond. Were it not so, every prisoner of passion would raise the banner of love, and every captive of comfort and wealth would pitch the tent of divine attraction.
Love, from the start, did show its wild and bloody way
So those who stood outside would turn and run away[1]
In truth, were it not for the tribulations endured in God’s path, with what would the palate of the lovers of the Divine Beauty be sweetened? And were it not for the cup of trials and sufferings quaffed in the love of the All-Merciful, in what would the taste of the yearning ones find delight? The Báb—may my soul and the soul of all existence be sacrificed for His sacred threshold—hath declared in one of His prayers: “O Lord! Were it not for the tribulations in Thy path, I would never have consented to come from the realms of Thy holiness to these places of the visible realm.”
Thou, too, hast received a portion from this Most Great Ocean, taking thy share and part from this camphor-tempered fountain of truth,[2] but this much is enough. It is hoped that through God’s grace, from this time forward, confirmations from the unseen world might reach thee, and that thou mayest attain to the desire of thy heart and soul. At all times when we attain the Sacred Threshold, we remember thee. We beseech God that He may graciously aid thine honorable self to achieve such a bounty that its lights may forever shine resplendent from the world’s horizon.
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[1] Derived from a couplet in Rúmí’s Mathnaví, Book 3, verse 4751.
[2] Cf. Qur’án 76:5.
A typescript of the original Persian text of this Tablet appears below.
Adib Masumian 