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  ^[1] Brief Note: Text of this note and the authorized translation is taken from a memorandum from the Research Department in Haifa to the Universal House of Justice, dated December 31^st, 1995, concerning the inquiry by an individual believer. No source text for the prayer is known to the present editor. The text of the memorandum has been edited slightly for brevity: (MW’s note).

   The Research Department has studied the inquiry of Mr...... in an e-mail dated 17^th November 1995 to the Universal House of Justice. Mr. . . . requests information concerning a prayer revealed by Bahá’u’lláh in a Tablet to Mírzá ’Abu’l-Fadl as it appears in Star of the West, vol. 14, no. 6 (September 1923), page 166.

   Recently, the Research Department at the Bahá’í World Centre located the original of a Tablet from Bahá’u’lláh to Mírzá ’Abu’l-Fadl, the opening lines of which are similar to those of the prayer in question. We provide the authorized translation below.

   In this Tablet, Bahá’u’lláh gives no prescription for how the prayer is to be recited or used.

   In response to Mr. ....’s query to the Research Department at the National Bahá’í Centre in Wilmette, we have been unable to locate an original for the prayer which appears in the Star Of The West, and are, therefore, unable to confirm its authenticity.

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   Say: O God, my God! Glory be to Thee for Thou has guided me to the horizon of Thy Revelation and illumined me with the splendours of the luminary of Thy bounty and mercy, hast enabled me to utter Thy praise and caused me to behold that which hath been revealed by Thy Pen.

   I beseech Thee, O Thou the Possessor of the kingdom of names and Fashioner of earth and heaven, by the rustling of the Divine Lote-Tree and by Thy sweet utterance which hath attracted the inmost realities off all things, to raise me up amidst Thy servants through Thy Name.

   I am he who hath yearned in the daytime and the night season to stand at the door of Thy bounty and be ready before the seat of Thy justice. O my God! Drive not away the one who hath clung to the cord of Thy nearness and deprive not him who hath sought Thy most sublime station, the summit of glory, and the supreme Object, the Spot in which every atom calleth out with the most clear accents, saying: “The kingdoms of earth and heaven, as well as glory and grandeur belong to God, the Almighty, the Most Glorious, the Bestower of gifts. ...”

   Say: Praise be to Thee, O Lord my God, for Thou has guided me to the horizon of Thy Revelation and has honoured me to be remembered though Thy Name. I beseech Thee by the effulgences of the sun of Thy bestowal and by the billows of the sea of Thy mercy to grant that my utterance may be inspired by Thine exalted Words, so as to attract the realities of all created things. Thou art verily powerful, through Thy glorious and wondrous Words, over what Thou willest.

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Notes

^[1] Persian name for this prayer as per suggestion of Dr. Iraj Ayman, in an e-mail message to Jonah Winters, February 2002. (MW’s note).