What follows is my provisional translation (in other words, not official or authorized; see here for more) of a Tablet of Bahá’u’lláh, the original text of which appears in a manuscript collection held at the British Library (Or15696, pp. 106–07). It is apparently an authentic Tablet, in that we have this facsimile of it, which seems to be written in the hand of Bahá’u’lláh Himself. It is strongly recommended that the endnotes to this provisional translation be read along with the translation itself, since they attempt to explain the nuances of mustagháth, a key word in this Tablet.
O Innovator of every unprecedented thing!
This is what hath been sent down from the heaven of eternity, wherein is expounded the station in which the Beauty of God is established on the throne of His Great Name. He is, in truth, the One Promised in all the Tablets by every name, little as ye know it. In the Bayán He was named “Him Who shall be made manifest,” and He will appear in Mustagháth[1] with evident sovereignty. Say: I swear by God that this is a Day whose like hath not been beheld by the eyes of the unseen, how much less by the eyes of these veiled ones! Blessed, therefore, is the one who appeareth on that day before the Presence of God with sublime humility and reciteth this Tablet in front of the Throne, that the Ear of God may hear its melodies which appeared aforetime between heaven and earth. Thus hath this Name been recounted in a seat which God hath sanctified from the mention of all mankind. We, verily, have intended naught else by what hath been stated in this Tablet but Mine own Self, Whose might extendeth over all things. Whoso awaiteth a Revelation after Me is of the lost.[2] He who will appear after a thousand [years] shall speak in My Name, and in Mustagháth[3] will come unto you Him Who shall bear witness to Me that I am God, the Lord of the heavens and the earth. None can comprehend this Revelation except to a certain degree. His knowledge embraceth all things.
After Me, O people, cleave ye to the Aghṣán[4] that have branched out from this Ancient Root. Through them shall the fragrances of My garment waft throughout the world, yet none shall discover them save every steadfast believer. It behoveth you, O people of Bahá, to remain firm in the Cause of God under all circumstances. Take heed that ye not follow every wicked fool.
After the Aghṣán, a lofty station hath been ordained for the servant who attendeth the Throne.[5] It befitteth you to show respect to the people[6] in Whose midst appeared the Best-Beloved of the worlds[7] from among them that have believed in God, the Almighty, the All-Praised. Thus hath it been revealed in the Bayán and also in this luminous Tablet. He who turneth away from them is of those who are in grevious misbelief. Such a one would indeed be of them that are utterly lost, unless he repenteth. He is, in truth, the Ever-Forgiving, the Most Merciful.
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[1] Mustagháth is an Arabic word that means “the One Who is invoked for help,” and in the Báb’s Writings, He applies this name both to the messianic figure who was to succeed Him and also the time in which He would appear. Bahá’ís interpret these, respectively, as references to Bahá’u’lláh and “the year 19”—that is, nineteen years after the declaration of the Báb in 1844, meaning 1863, the year of Bahá’u’lláh’s own declaration. Bahá’u’lláh appears to be referring to His own Revelation in this sentence, as confirmed by such utterances in the following sentences as “I swear by God that this is a Day whose like hath not been beheld . . .” and “We, verily, have intended naught else by what hath been stated in this Tablet but Mine own Self . . .” If that reading is correct, then the portion of this sentence that states “and He will appear in Mustagháth with evident sovereignty” should be read as an utterance expressed in the voice of the Báb (such as a direct quote or paraphrase from Bábí scripture) that refers to His own advent, rather than a Revelation subsequent to it, though the latter meaning is one that seems allowable in a future-oriented context, as discussed in note 3 below. For more on mustagháth in Persian, refer to Muhammad Afnan, Majmú‘iy-i-Maqálát, vol. 1, pp. 198–210. Discussions of this term in English can be found in Nader Saiedi, Gate of the Heart, p. 357; idem., Logos and Civilization, pp. 187–91 and 273; and Udo Schaefer, et al., Making the Crooked Straight, pp. 600–09.
[2] There were some Bábís who rejected the proclamation of Bahá’u’lláh and continued to await the Bábí Messiah based on their misbelief that the time of Mustagháth had not yet come. Bahá’u’lláh was presumably addressing this remark to those Bábís indirectly, warning them not to wait any longer when He had already fulfilled the prophecy of the mustagháth through His advent.
[3] In note 1 above, it is mentioned that, in Bábí parlance, the word mustagháth primarily refers to the advent of Bahá’u’lláh marked by His declaration in 1863. However, another dimension to the meaning of mustagháth lies in its Abjad equivalency with the number 2,001. Since the word is being mentioned here immediately after mentioning the lapse of a thousand years, it may be that Bahá’u’lláh was using mustagháth in this context to foreshadow that the advent of the next Manifestation of God after Him would occur roughly two thousand years later, or establish that amount of time as the upper boundary of a chronological range (1,000–2,000 years) subsequent to His Revelation in which that next Manifestation will appear. Another possibility, proposed to me by Mohammad Norozi, is that mustaghath has no numeric significance with respect to the coming of the next Manifestation, but that the term instead signifies an undefined time in the future, not identifiable with a specific year but obviously after a thousand years have elapsed since the proclamation of Bahá’u’lláh, when the Cause of God will have reached its consummation—a meaning corroborated by the Báb in His Lawḥ-i-Ḥurúfát, also known as the Hayákil-i-Váḥidih, both names for the last part of a major work He revealed titled the Panj Sha‘n.
[4] The male descendants of Bahá’u’lláh.
[5] Mírzá Áqá Ján, the amanuensis of Bahá’u’lláh. Steven Phelps has pointed out to me that this paragraph and the one before it, which discusses the Aghṣán, are very similar to the unpublished “postscript” to the Kitáb-i-‘Ahd, summarized by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice in Christopher Buck and Youli A. Ioannesyan, “The 1893 Russian Publication of Baha’u’llah’s Last Will and Testament: An Academic Attestation of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s Successorship,” published in Bahá’í Studies Review, no. 19 (see p. 40 here), suggesting that there may be a close relationship between this Tablet and that book, and that they may have been revealed around the same time (c. 1890–91), the latter dealing with the near future and the former with the far future.
[6] Ṭá’ifih in the original Arabic, literally meaning “group,” but here a reference to the Afnáns (the maternal relatives of the Báb), given the connection made between this sentence and the Bayán in the next one.
[7] The Báb.
A typescript of the original Arabic text of this Tablet appears below (all punctuation mine).
Adib Masumian 