Course: Introducing the Kitáb-i-Aqdas for Deepening, Devotion, Discourse (2024)
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Christopher Buck
by Farshid Anvar
The paragraph chosen for deepening is paragraph 174 of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas:
O people of the world! When the Mystic Dove will have winged its flight from its Sanctuary of Praise and sought its far-off goal, its hidden habitation, refer ye whatsoever ye understand not in the Book to Him Who hath branched from this mighty Stock.
Deepening and Discourse
I read the above paragraph along with paragraph 121:
When the ocean of My presence hath ebbed and the Book of My Revelation is ended, turn your faces towards Him Whom God hath purposed, Who hath branched from this Ancient Root.
I think the modes of these passages are “Laws and Ordinances.”
I think this is the bedrock of the Blessed Beauty’s [Bahá’u’lláh’s] teaching and fundamental to all the laws and ordinances. His Holiness promised Unity of the Faith.
The purpose of that which hath been sent down from the heaven of the Will of God in this most exalted, this most holy Revelation, is the unity of the world and love and fellowship among its peoples.
Additional Tablets and Extracts from Tablets Revealed by Bahá’u’lláh
Beseech thou God, the True One, that He may graciously shield the followers of this Revelation from the idle fancies and corrupt imaginings of such as belong to the former Faith, and may not deprive them of the effulgent splendors of the daystar of true unity.
These passages of the Most Holy Book provide the instrumentality for maintaining true unity. No Bahá’ís or even “people of the world” are allowed to deviate from this fundamental ordinance.
The Notes that follow the Kitáb-i-Aqdas make the following points about paragraphs 174 and 121.
145. turn your faces toward Him Whom God hath purposed, Who hath branched from this Ancient Root ¶121
Bahá’u’lláh here alludes to ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá as His Successor and calls upon the believers to turn towards Him. In the Book of the Covenant, His Will and Testament, Bahá’u’lláh discloses the intention of this verse. He states: “The object of this sacred verse is none other except the Most Mighty Branch.” The “Most Mighty Branch” is one of the titles conferred by Bahá’u’lláh on ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá. (See also notes 66 and 184.)
66. Aghṣán ¶42
“Aghṣán” (plural of Ghuṣn) is the Arabic word for “Branches.” This term is used by Bahá’u’lláh to designate His male descendants. It has particular implications not only for the disposition of endowments but also for the succession of authority following the passing of Bahá’u’lláh (see note 145) and of ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá. Bahá’u’lláh, in the Book of His Covenant, appointed ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá, His eldest son, as the Center of His Covenant and the Head of the Faith. ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá, in His Will and Testament, appointed Shoghi Effendi, His eldest grandson, as the Guardian and Head of the Faith.
This passage of the Aqdas, therefore, anticipates the succession of chosen Aghṣán and thus the institution of the Guardianship and envisages the possibility of a break in their line. The passing of Shoghi Effendi in 1957 precipitated the very situation provided for in this passage, in that the line of Aghṣán ended before the Universal House of Justice had been established (see note 67).
67. revert to the people of Bahá ¶42
Bahá’u’lláh provides for the possibility that the line of Aghṣán would terminate prior to the establishment of the Universal House of Justice. He designated that in such a situation “endowments shall revert to the people of Bahá.” The term “people of Bahá” is used with a number of different meanings in the Bahá’í Writings. In this instance, they are described as those “who speak not except by His leave and judge not save in accordance with what God hath decreed in this Tablet.” Following the passing of Shoghi Effendi in 1957, the Hands of the Cause of God directed the affairs of the Cause until the election of the Universal House of Justice in 1963 (ref. note 183, not included below).
184. refer ye whatsoever ye understand not in the Book to Him Who hath branched from this mighty Stock ¶174
Bahá’u’lláh invests ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá with the right of interpreting His holy Writ (see also note 145).
Further, the Kitáb-i-‘Ahd (Book of the Covenant) clarifies that these verses of God refer to ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá and enjoined all Bahá’ís to turn to ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá after His passing.
The Will of the divine Testator is this: It is incumbent upon the Aghṣán, the Afnán and My Kindred to turn, one and all, their faces towards the Most Mighty Branch. Consider that which We have revealed in Our Most Holy Book: “When the ocean of My presence hath ebbed and the Book of My Revelation is ended, turn your faces towards Him Whom God hath purposed, Who hath branched from this Ancient Root.” The object of this sacred verse is none except the Most Mighty Branch [‘Abdu’l‑Bahá]. Thus have We graciously revealed unto you Our potent Will, and I am verily the Gracious, the All-Bountiful. Verily God hath ordained the station of the Greater Branch [Muḥammad ‘Alí] to be beneath that of the Most Great Branch [‘Abdu’l‑Bahá]. He is in truth the Ordainer, the All-Wise. We have chosen “the Greater” after “the Most Great,” as decreed by Him Who is the All-Knowing, the All-Informed.
The Blessed Beauty, in numerous tablets addressed ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá as the Most Mighty Branch of God – for example in the Lawḥ-i-Arḍ-i-Bá (Tablet of the Land of Bá):
Praise be to Him Who hath honored the Land of Bá through the presence of Him round Whom all names revolve. All the atoms of the earth have announced unto all created things that from behind the gate of the Prison-city there hath appeared and above its horizon there hath shone forth the Orb of the beauty of the great, the Most Mighty Branch of God—His ancient and immutable Mystery—proceeding on its way to another land. Sorrow, thereby, hath enveloped this Prison-city, whilst another land rejoiceth.
This Tablet was revealed by the Blessed Beauty when ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá visited Beirut – the Land of Bá.
In spite of the fact that the Most Holy Book was promulgated during His Holiness’s lifetime and He saw (and approved) the printed version of the book, and despite the fact that the Will of Bahá’u’lláh was read in the presence of all members of His family and a document was prepared declaring the authenticity of the Will and Testament and successorship of the Master, and that all those present signed the document, including Muḥammad ‘Alí – these facts did not stop Muhamad Ali from breaking the covenant and depriving himself of the God-given privileges.
It is of great surprise that, in spite of the existence of such a mighty Will and Testament in writing, prominent people (who had been Bahá’ís) followed Muḥammad ‘Alí:
And finally, he who, from the moment the Divine Covenant was born until the end of his life, showed a hatred more unrelenting than that which animated the afore-mentioned adversaries of ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá, who plotted more energetically than any one of them against Him, and afflicted his Father’s Faith with a shame more grievous than any which its external enemies had inflicted upon it—such a man, together with the infamous crew of Covenant-breakers whom he had misled and instigated, was condemned to witness, in a growing measure, as had been the case with Mírzá Yaḥyá and his henchmen, the frustration of his evil designs, the evaporation of all his hopes, the exposition of his true motives and the complete extinction of his erstwhile honor and glory. His brother, Mírzá Ḍíyá’u’lláh, died prematurely; Mírzá Áqá Ján, his dupe, followed that same brother, three years later, to the grave; and Mírzá Badí‘u’lláh, his chief accomplice, betrayed his cause, published a signed denunciation of his evil acts, but rejoined him again, only to be alienated from him in consequence of the scandalous behavior of his own daughter. Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí’s half-sister, Furúghíyyih, died of cancer, whilst her husband, Siyyid ‘Alí, passed away from a heart attack before his sons could reach him, the eldest being subsequently stricken in the prime of life, by the same malady. Muḥammad-Javád-i-Qazvíní, a notorious Covenant-breaker, perished miserably. Shu‘á‘u’lláh who, as witnessed by ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá in His Will, had counted on the murder of the Center of the Covenant, and who had been despatched to the United States by his father to join forces with Ibráhím Khayru’lláh, returned crestfallen and empty-handed from his inglorious mission. Jamál-i-Burújirdí, Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí’s ablest lieutenant in Persia, fell a prey to a fatal and loathsome disease; Siyyid Mihdíy-i-Dahají, who, betraying ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá, joined the Covenant-breakers, died in obscurity and poverty, followed by his wife and his two sons; Mírzá Ḥusayn-‘Alíy-i-Jahrumí, Mírzá Ḥusayn-i-Shírázíy-i-Khurṭúmí and Ḥájí Muḥammad-Ḥusayn-i-Káshání, who represented the arch-breaker of the Covenant in Persia, India and Egypt, failed utterly in their missions; whilst the greedy and conceited Ibráhím-i-Khayru’lláh, who had chosen to uphold the banner of his rebellion in America for no less than twenty years, and who had the temerity to denounce, in writing, ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá, His “false teachings, His misrepresentations of Bahaism, His dissimulation,” and to stigmatize His visit to America as “a death-blow” to the “Cause of God,” met his death soon after he had uttered these denunciations, utterly abandoned and despised by the entire body of the members of a community, whose founders he himself had converted to the Faith, and in the very land that bore witness to the multiplying evidences of the established ascendancy of ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá, Whose authority he had, in his later years, vowed to uproot.
For example, Jamál-i-Burújirdí and Ibráhím-i-Khayru’lláh were not only able teachers of the Faith but also were involved in concealment and transfer of the Remains of His Holiness the Báb.
… [A] Tablet, revealed by Bahá’u’lláh in Adrianople, directed Mullá ‘Alí-Akbar-i-Shahmírzádí and Jamál-i-Burújirdí to transfer them without delay to some other spot, an instruction which, in view of the subsequent reconstruction of that shrine, proved to have been providential.
In the same year that this precious Trust reached the shores of the Holy Land and was delivered into the hands of ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá, He, accompanied by Dr. Ibráhím Khayru’lláh, whom He had already honored with the titles of “Bahá’s Peter,” “The Second Columbus” and “Conqueror of America,” drove to the recently purchased site which had been blessed and selected by Bahá’u’lláh on Mt. Carmel, and there laid, with His own hands, the foundation-stone of the edifice, the construction of which He, a few months later, was to commence.
Mírzá Áqá Ján was His Holiness’s amanuensis for a very long time.
This Tablet was revealed in the voice of Bahá’u’lláh’s amanuensis, Mírzá Áqá Ján, surnamed Khádimu’lláh (Servant of God). Out of respect, the Bahá’ís, rather than addressing Bahá’u’lláh directly, would write to Mírzá Áqá Ján. The reply would be in the form of a letter from Mírzá Áqá Ján quoting words of Bahá’u’lláh, but would, in fact, be dictated in its entirety by Bahá’u’lláh. All parts of such Tablets, even those which ostensibly are the words of Mírzá Áqá Ján himself, are Sacred Scripture revealed by Bahá’u’lláh
Additional Tablets and Extracts from Tablets Revealed by Bahá’u’lláh
However, the Power of the Covenant is far mightier than any human will.
Devotion
I read these passages once a week and read and re-read any articles I can find.
Once a week, I will say the prayer for the Covenant:
If thou desirest to be freed from affliction, recite thou this prayer which hath been revealed by the Pen of the All-Merciful: “O God, my God! I testify to Thy unity and to Thy oneness. I beseech Thee, O Thou Possessor of names and Fashioner of the heavens, by the pervasive influence of Thine exalted Word and the potency of Thy supreme Pen, to aid me with the ensigns of Thy power and might, and to protect me from the mischief of Thine enemies who have violated Thy Covenant and Thy Testament. Thou art, verily, the Almighty, the Most Powerful.” This invocation is an impregnable stronghold and an indomitable army. It conferreth protection and ensureth deliverance.
Response from instructor, Chris Buck
Farshid:
Thanks for your well-researched, deeply motivated, and profoundly insightful reflection on the Covenant, culminating in this statement of yours, which I greatly respect and admire:
Once a week, I will say the prayer for the Covenant.
Keep up the great work!
Chris
