What follows is my provisional translation (in other words, not official or authorized; see here for more) of an unpublished Tablet of Bahá’u’lláh. I am grateful to Steven Phelps for supplying me with scans of two versions of the original text, which come from manuscript collections held at the British Library (Or15724, pp. 169–170 and Or15726, pp. 117–118), and both of which I drew on to prepare the original-language typescript that appears underneath the translation in lieu of the scans themselves, which I have not made available here due to copyright reasons. See also my translation of a very similar Tablet of Bahá’u’lláh here.
To Jináb-i-Muḥammad, upon him be the Glory of God
Y Z[1]
He is God, exalted is He, the Lord of wisdom and utterance
Convey to the divines these words of Bahá: “Ye have deemed Us to be deserving of blame. Why did ye turn away from the Seal of the Prophets?[2] What sin was manifested from Christ? What crime appeared from the Interlocutor?[3] Judge fairly, by God, and be not of the oppressors. If ye say, ‘We did not live in that age,’ We reply, ‘Those who rose up to curse and execrate in repudiation and objection were like unto you.’ The Coptic[4] divines caviled at the Interlocutor; and the Judaic and idolatrous scholars at Christ; and the pagan, Christian, and Jewish doctors at the Seal of the Prophets. They brought about what moved the Mother Book to wail in lamentation. From time immemorial, the divines of the age have prevented the people from acceptance and commanded them to turn away. Were you to reflect for a fraction of a moment, ye would bear witness to what hath streamed from the Pen of the Most High.” Say: “O concourse of divines! The path is clear and the proof is evident; the Book is revealed, the divine Lote-tree upraised. Fear God, exalted be His glory, and act as ye have been bidden. Reject not the grace of God, and hinder not the Daystar of Justice from shedding His splendor. By the righteousness of God! This Day hath never had any peer or likeness. Abandon vain imagining and set your faces toward the horizon of certitude. There is, in this Day, no refuge unto which anyone can escape or flee, unless it be to God alone.” Say: “O concourse of ignorant ones! Erelong will ye behold what hath flowed from the Supreme Pen. This, verily, is the truth, and no doubt is there about it.”
Wisdom hath deterred Us from proclaiming to the divines. We have put forth statements and said what was needed, yet even if the whole world were to say it, it would bear no fruit and have no effect. “It shall only add to the ruin of the wicked.”[5] We beseech God, exalted be His glory, not to withhold from His servants the ocean of His bounty. He is the Almighty, the Most Powerful.
Our glory rest upon thee, and upon them whom nothing whatsoever hath kept back from God, the Fashioner of the heavens, the Lord of all names.
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[1] Presumably an abbreviation of Yazd, for which this Tablet was destined.
[2] Muḥammad.
[3] Moses.
[4] The Copts were the original inhabitants of Egypt, in contrast to the Hebrews who settled there later.
[5] Qur’án 17:82.
A typescript of the original Persian and Arabic text of this Tablet appears below (all punctuation and short vowel marks are mine).
Adib Masumian 