Eventually, as an ever-evolving civilization exhausts its spiritual sources, a process of disintegration sets in, as it does throughout the phenomenal world. Turning again to analogies offered by nature, Baha'u'llah compares this hiatus in the development of civilization to the onset of winter. Moral vitality diminishes, as does social cohesion. Challenges which would have been overcome at an earlier age, or been turned into opportunities for exploration and achievement, become insuperable barriers. Religion loses its relevance, and experimentation becomes increasingly fragmented, further deepening social divisions. Increasingly, uncertainty about the meaning and value of life generates anxiety and confusion. Speaking about this condition in our own age Baha'u'llah says:

We can well perceive how the whole human race is encompassed with great, with incalculable afflictions. We see it languishing on its bed of sickness, sore-tried and disillusioned. They that are intoxicated by self-conceit have interposed themselves between it and the Divine and infallible Physician. Witness how they have entangled all men, themselves included, in the mesh of their devices. They can neither discover the cause of the disease, nor have they any knowledge of the remedy. They have conceived the straight to be crooked, and have imagined their friend an enemy.51

[15] When each of the Divine impulses has fulfilled itself, the process recurs. A new Manifestation of God appears with the fuller measure of Divine inspiration for the next stage in the awakening and civilizing of humankind:

Consider the hour at which the supreme Manifestation of God revealeth Himself unto men. Ere that hour cometh, the Ancient Being, Who is still unknown of men and hath not as yet given utterance to the Word of God, is Himself the All-Knower in a world devoid of any man that hath known Him. He is indeed the Creator without a creation.... This is indeed the Day of which it hath been written: "Whose shall be the Kingdom this Day?" And none can be found ready to answer!52

Until a section of humanity begins to respond to the new Revelation, and a new spiritual and social paradigm begins to take shape, people subsist spiritually and morally on the last traces of earlier Divine endowments. The routine tasks of society may or may not be done; laws may be obeyed or flouted; social and political experimentation may flame up or fail; but the roots of faith—without which no society can indefinitely endure—have been exhausted. At the "end of the age," at the "end of the world," the spiritually minded begin to turn again to the Creative source. However clumsy or disturbing the process may be, however inelegant or unfortunate some of the options considered, such searching is an instinctive response to the awareness that an immense chasm has opened in the ordered life of humankind.53 The effects of the new Revelation, Baha'u'llah says, are universal, and not limited to the life and teachings of the Manifestation of God Who is the Revelation's focal point. Though not understood, these effects increasingly permeate human affairs, revealing the contradictions in popular assumptions and in society, and intensifying the search for understanding.

The succession of the Manifestations is an inseparable dimension of existence, Baha'u'llah declares, and will continue throughout the life of the world: "God hath sent down His Messengers to succeed to Moses and Jesus, and He will continue to do so till 'the end that hath no end'..."54

The Day of God

What does Baha'u'llah hold to be the goal of the evolution of human consciousness? In the perspective of eternity, its purpose is that God should see, ever more clearly, the reflection of His perfections in the mirror of His creation, and that, in the words of Baha'u'llah:

...every man may testify, in himself, by himself, in the station of the Manifestation of his Lord, that verily there is no God save Him, and that every man may thereby win his way to the summit of realities, until none shall contemplate anything whatsoever but that he shall see God therein.55

Within the context of the history of civilization, the objective of the succession of divine Manifestations has been to prepare human consciousness for the race's unification as a single species, indeed as a single organism capable of taking up the responsibility for its collective future: "He Who is your Lord, the All-Merciful," Baha'u'llah says, "cherisheth in His heart the desire of beholding the entire human race as one soul and one body." 56 Not until humanity has accepted its organic oneness can it meet even its immediate [16] challenges, let alone those that lie ahead: "The well-being of mankind," Baha'u'llah insists, "its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established." 57 Only a unified global society can provide its children with the sense of inner assurance implied in one of Baha'u'llah's prayers to God: "Whatever duty Thou hast prescribed unto Thy servants of extolling to the utmost Thy majesty and glory is but a token of Thy grace unto them, that they may be enabled to ascend unto the station conferred upon their own inmost being, the station of the knowledge of their own selves." 58 Paradoxically, it is only by achieving true unity that humanity can fully cultivate its diversity and individuality. This is the goal which the missions of all of the Manifestations of God known to history have served, the Day of "one fold and one shepherd." 59 Its attainment, Baha'u'llah says, is the stage of civilization upon which the human race is now entering.

One of the most suggestive analogies to be found in the writings not only of Baha'u'llah, but of the Bab before Him, is the comparison between the evolution of the human race and the life of the individual human being. Humanity has moved through stages in its collective development which are reminiscent of the periods of infancy, childhood, and adolescence in the maturation of its individual members. We are now experiencing the beginnings of our collective maturity, endowed with new capacities and opportunities of which we as yet have only the dimmest awareness.60

Against this background, it is not difficult to understand the primacy given in Baha'u'llah's teachings to the principle of unity. The oneness of humanity is the leitmotif of the age now opening, the standard against which must be tested all proposals for the betterment of humanity. There is, Baha'u'llah insists, but one human race; inherited notions that a particular racial or ethnic group is in some way superior to the rest of humanity are without foundation. Similarly, since all of the Messengers of God have served as agents of the one Divine Will, their revelations are the collective legacy of the entire human race; each person on earth is a legitimate heir of the whole of that spiritual tradition. Persistence in prejudices of any kind is both damaging to the interests of society and a violation of the Will of God for our age:

O contending peoples and kindreds of the earth! Set your faces towards unity, and let the radiance of its light shine upon you. Gather ye together, and for the sake of God resolve to root out whatever is the source of contention amongst you.... There can be no doubt whatever that the peoples of the world, of whatever race or religion, derive their inspiration from one heavenly Source, and are the subjects of one God. The difference between the ordinances under which they abide should be attributed to the varying requirements and exigencies of the age in which they were revealed. All of them, except a few which are the outcome of human perversity, were ordained of God, and are a reflection of His Will and Purpose. Arise and, armed with the power of faith, shatter to pieces the gods of your vain imaginings, the sowers of dissension amongst you....61

The theme of unity runs throughout Baha'u'llah's writings: "The tabernacle of unity hath been raised; regard ye not one another as strangers." 62 "Consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship." 63 "Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch." 64

[17] The process of humanity's coming-of-age has occurred within the evolution of social organization. Beginning from the family unit and its various extensions, the human race has developed, with varying degrees of success, societies based on the clan, the tribe, the city-state, and most recently the nation. This progressively broader and more complex social milieu provides human potential with both stimulation and scope for development, and this development, in turn, has induced ever-new modifications of the social fabric. Humanity's coming-of-age, therefore, must entail a total transformation of the social order. The new society must be one capable of embracing the entire diversity of the race and of benefiting from the full range of talents and insights which many thousands of years of cultural experience have refined:

This is the Day in which God's most excellent favors have been poured out upon men, the Day in which His most mighty grace hath been infused into all created things. It is incumbent upon all the peoples of the world to reconcile their differences, and, with perfect unity and peace, abide beneath the shadow of the Tree of His care and loving-kindness.... Soon will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead. Verily, thy Lord speaketh the truth, and is the Knower of things unseen.65

The chief instrument for the transformation of society and the achievement of world unity, Baha'u'llah asserts, is the establishment of justice in the affairs of humankind. The subject has a central place in His teachings:

The light of men is Justice. Quench it not with the contrary winds of oppression and tyranny. The purpose of justice is the appearance of unity among men. The ocean of divine wisdom surgeth within this exalted word, while the books of the world cannot contain its inner significance....66

In His later writings Baha'u'llah made explicit the implications of this principle for the age of humanity's maturity. "Women and men have been and will always be equal in the sight of God," 67 He asserts, and the advancement of civilization requires that society so organize its affairs as to give full expression to this fact. The earth's resources are the property of all humanity, not of any one people. Different contributions to the common economic welfare deserve and should receive different measures of reward and recognition, but the extremes of wealth and poverty which afflict most nations on earth, regardless of the socio-economic philosophies they profess, must be abolished.

Announcement to the Kings

The writings which have been quoted in the foregoing were revealed, for the most part, in conditions of renewed persecution. Soon after the exiles' arrival in Constantinople, it became apparent that the honors showered upon Baha'u'llah during His journey from Baghdad had represented only a brief interlude. The Ottoman authorities' decision to move the "Babi" leader and His companions to the capital of the empire rather than to some remote province deepened the alarm among the representatives of the Persian government.68 Fearing that the developments in Baghdad would be repeated, and might attract this time not only the sympathy but perhaps even the allegiance of influential figures in the Turkish government, the Persian ambassador pressed insistently for the dispatch of the exiles to some more distant part of the empire. His argument was that the spread of a new religious message in the capital could produce political as well as religious repercussions.

[18] Initially, the Ottoman government strongly resisted. The chief minister, Ali Pasha, had indicated to Western diplomats his belief that Baha'u'llah was "a man of great distinction, exemplary conduct, great moderation, and a most dignified figure." His teachings were, in the minister's opinion, "worthy of high esteem" because they counteracted the religious animosities dividing the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim subjects of the empire.69

Gradually, however, a degree of resentment and suspicion developed. In the Ottoman capital, political and economic power was in the hands of court functionaries who, with but few exceptions, were persons of little or no competence. Venality was the oil on which the machinery of government operated, and the capital was a magnet for a horde of people who flocked there from every part of the empire and beyond, seeking favors and influence. It was expected that any prominent figure from another country or from one of the tribute territories would, immediately upon arrival in Constantinople, join the throngs of patronage-seekers in the reception rooms of the pashas and ministers of the imperial court. No element had a worse reputation than the competing groups of Persian political exiles who were known for both their sophistication and their lack of scruple.

To the distress of friends who urged Him to make use of the prevailing hostility toward the Persian government and of the sympathy which His own sufferings had aroused, Baha'u'llah made it clear that He had no requests to make. Although several government ministers made social calls at the residence assigned to Him, he did not take advantage of these openings. He was in Constantinople, He said, as the guest of the Sultan, at his invitation, and His interest lay in spiritual and moral concerns.

Many years later, the Persian ambassador, Mirza Husayn Khan, reflecting on his tour of duty in the Ottoman capital, and complaining about the damage which the greed and untrustworthiness of his countrymen had done to Persia's reputation in Constantinople, paid a surprisingly candid tribute to the example which Baha'u'llah's conduct had been able briefly to set.70 At the time, however, he and his colleagues made use of the situation to represent it as an astute way on the exile's part of concealing secret conspiracies against public security and the religion of the State. Under pressure of these influences, the Ottoman authorities finally took the decision to transfer Baha'u'llah and His family to the provincial city of Adrianople. The move was made hastily, in the depth of an extremely severe winter. Housed there in inadequate buildings, lacking suitable clothing and other provisions, the exiles endured a year of great suffering. It was clear that, though charged with no crime and given no opportunity to defend themselves, they had arbitrarily been made state prisoners.

From the point of view of religious history, the successive banishments of Baha'u'llah to Constantinople and Adrianople have a striking symbolism. For the first time, a Manifestation of God, Founder of an independent religious system which was soon to spread throughout the planet, had crossed the narrow neck of water separating Asia from Europe, and had set foot in "the West." All of the other great religions had arisen in Asia and the ministries of their Founders had been confined to that continent. Referring to the fact that the dispensations of the past, and particularly those of Abraham, Christ, and Muhammad, had produced their most important effects on the development of civilization [19] during the course of their westward expansion, Baha'u'llah predicted that the same thing would occur in this new age, but on a vastly larger scale: "In the East the Light of His Revelation hath broken; in the West the signs of His dominion have appeared. Ponder this in your hearts, O people..." 71

It is then perhaps not surprising that Baha'u'llah chose this moment to make public the mission which had been slowly enlisting the allegiance of the followers of the Bab throughout the Middle East. His announcement took the form of a series of statements which are among the most remarkable documents in religious history. In them, the Manifestation of God addresses the "Kings and Rulers of the world," announcing to them the dawning of the Day of God, alluding to the as yet inconceivable changes which were gathering momentum throughout the world, and calling on them as the trustees of God and of their fellow human beings to arise and serve the process of the unification of the human race. Because of the veneration in which they were held by the mass of their subjects, and because of the absolute nature of the rule which most of them exercised, it lay in their power, He said, to assist in bringing about what He called the "Most Great Peace," a world order characterized by unity and animated by Divine justice.

Only with the greatest difficulty can the modern reader envision the moral and intellectual world in which these monarchs of a century ago lived. From their biographies and private correspondence, it is apparent that, with few exceptions, they were personally devout, taking a leading part in the spiritual life of their respective nations, often as the heads of the state religions, and convinced of the unerring truths of the Bible or the Qur'an. The power which most of them wielded they attributed directly to the divine authority of passages in these same Scriptures, an authority about which they were vigorously articulate. They were the anointed of God. Prophecies of "the Latter Days" and "the Kingdom of God" were not for them myth or allegory, but certainties upon which all moral order rested and in which they would themselves be called on by God to give an account of their stewardship.

The letters of Baha'u'llah address themselves to this mental world:

O Kings of the earth! He Who is the sovereign Lord of all is come. The Kingdom is God's, the omnipotent Protector, the Self-Subsisting.... This is a Revelation to which whatever ye possess can never be compared, could ye but know it.

Take heed lest pride deter you from recognizing the Source of Revelation, lest the things of this world shut you out as by a veil from Him Who is the Creator of heaven.... By the righteousness of God! It is not Our wish to lay hands on your kingdoms. Our mission is to seize and possess the hearts of men....72

Know ye that the poor are the trust of God in your midst. Watch that ye betray not His trust, that ye deal not unjustly with them and that ye walk not in the ways of the treacherous. Ye will most certainly be called upon to answer for His trust on the day when the Balance of Justice shall be set, the day when unto every one shall be rendered his due, when the doings of all men, be they rich or poor, shall be weighed.

...

[20] Examine Our Cause, inquire into the things that have befallen Us, and decide justly between Us and Our enemies, and be ye of them that act equitably towards their neighbor. If ye stay not the hand of the oppressor, if ye fail to safeguard the rights of the downtrodden, what right have ye then to vaunt yourselves among men? 73

If ye pay no heed unto the counsels which ... We have revealed in this Tablet, Divine chastisement shall assail you from every direction, and the sentence of His justice shall be pronounced against you. On that day ye shall have no power to resist Him, and shall recognize your own impotence....74

The vision of the "Most Great Peace" evoked no response from the rulers of the nineteenth century. Nationalistic aggrandizement and imperial expansion recruited not only kings but parliamentarians, academics, artists, newspapers, and the major religious establishments as eager propagandists of Western triumphalism. Proposals for social change, however disinterested and idealistic, quickly fell captive to a swarm of new ideologies thrown up by the rising tide of dogmatic materialism. In the Orient, mesmerized by its own claims to represent all that humanity ever could or would know of God and truth, the Islamic world sank steadily deeper into ignorance, lethargy, and a sullen hostility to a human race which failed to acknowledge this spiritual preeminence.

Arrival in the Holy Land

Given the earlier events in Baghdad, it seems surprising that the Ottoman authorities did not anticipate what would result from the establishment of Baha'u'llah in another major provincial capital. Within a year of His arrival in Adrianople, their prisoner had attracted first the interest and then the fervent admiration of figures prominent in both the intellectual and administrative life of the region. To the dismay of the Persian consular representatives, two of the most devoted of these admirers were Khurshid Pasha, the Governor of the province, and the Shaykhu'l-Islam, the leading Sunni religious dignitary. In the eyes of His hosts and the public generally, the exile was a moral philosopher and saint the validity of whose teachings was reflected not only in the example of His own life but in the changes they effected among the flood of Persian pilgrims who flocked to this remote center of the Ottoman Empire in order to visit Him.75

These unanticipated developments convinced the Persian ambassador and his colleagues that it was only a matter of time before the Baha'i movement, which was continuing to spread in Persia, would have established itself as a major influence in Persia's neighboring and rival empire. Throughout this period of its history, the ramshackle Ottoman Empire was struggling against repeated incursions by Tsarist Russia, uprisings among its subject peoples, and persistent attempts by the ostensibly sympathetic British and Austrian governments to detach various Turkish territories and incorporate them into their own empires. These unstable political conditions in Turkey's European provinces offered new and urgent arguments supporting the ambassador's appeal that the exiles be sent to a distant colony where Baha'u'llah would have no further contact with influential circles, whether Turkish or Western.

When the Turkish foreign minister, Fu'ad Pasha, returned from a visit to Adrianople, his astonished reports of the reputation which Baha'u'llah had come [21] to enjoy throughout the region appeared to lend credibility to the Persian embassy's suggestions. In this climate of opinion, the government abruptly decided to subject its guest to strict confinement. Without warning, early one day, Baha'u'llah's house was surrounded by soldiers, and the exiles were ordered to prepare for departure to an unknown destination.

The place chosen for this final banishment was the grim fortress-town of Akka (Acre) on the coast of the Holy Land. Notorious throughout the empire for the foulness of its climate and the prevalence of many diseases, Akka was a penal colony used by the Ottoman State for the incarceration of dangerous criminals who could be expected not to survive too long their imprisonment there. Arriving in August 1868, Baha'u'llah, the members of His family, and a company of His followers who had been exiled with Him were to experience two years of suffering and abuse within the fortress itself, and then be confined under house arrest to a nearby building owned by a local merchant. For a long time the exiles were shunned by the superstitious local populace who had been warned in public sermons against "the God of the Persians," who was depicted as an enemy of public order and the purveyor of blasphemous and immoral ideas. Several members of the small group of exiles died of the privations and other conditions to which they were subjected.76

It seems, in retrospect, the keenest irony that the selection of the Holy Land as the place of Baha'u'llah's forced confinement should have been the result of pressure from ecclesiastical and civil enemies whose aim was to extinguish His religious influence. Palestine, revered by three of the great monotheistic religions as the point where the worlds of God and of man intersect, held then, as it had for thousands of years, a unique place in human expectation. Only a few weeks before Baha'u'llah's arrival, the main leadership of the German Protestant Templer movement sailed from Europe to establish at the foot of Mount Carmel a colony that would welcome Christ, whose advent they believed to be imminent. Over the lintels of several of the small houses they erected, facing across the bay to Baha'u'llah's prison at Akka, can still be seen such carved inscriptions as "Der Herr ist nahe" ("The Lord is near").77

In Akka, Baha'u'llah continued the dictation of a series of letters to individual rulers, which He had begun in Adrianople. Several contained warnings of the judgment of God on their negligence and misrule, warnings whose dramatic fulfillment aroused intense public discussion throughout the Near East. Less than two months after the exiles arrived in the prison-city, for example, Fu'ad Pasha, the Ottoman foreign minister, whose misrepresentations had helped precipitate the banishment, was abruptly dismissed from his post and died in France of a heart attack. The event was marked by a statement which predicted the early dismissal of his colleague, Prime Minister Ali Pasha, the overthrow and death of the Sultan, and the loss of Turkish territories in Europe, a series of disasters which followed on the heels of one another.78

A letter to Emperor Napoleon III warned that, because of his insincerity and the misuse of his power: "...thy kingdom shall be thrown into confusion, and thine empire shall pass from thine hands, as a punishment for that which thou hast wrought.... Hath thy pomp made thee proud? By My life! It shall [22] not endure..." 79 Of the disastrous Franco-Prussian War and the resulting overthrow of Napoleon III, which occurred less than a year after this statement, Alistair Horne, a modern scholar of nineteenth century French political history has written:

History knows of perhaps no more startling instance of what the Greeks called peripateia, the terrible fall from prideful heights. Certainly no nation in modern times, so replete with apparent grandeur and opulent in material achievement, has ever been subjected to a worse humiliation in so short a time.80

Only a few months before the unexpected series of events in Europe that led to the invasion of the Papal States and the annexation of Rome by the forces of the new Kingdom of Italy, a statement addressing Pope Pius IX had urged the Pontiff "Abandon thy kingdom unto the kings, and emerge from thy habitation, with thy face set towards the Kingdom... Be as thy Lord hath been.... Verily, the day of ingathering is come, and all things have been separated from each other. He hath stored away that which He chose in the vessels of justice, and cast into the fire that which befitteth it...." 81

Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, whose armies had won such a sweeping victory in the Franco-Prussian War, had been warned by Baha'u'llah in the Kitab-i-Aqdas to heed the example of the fall of Napoleon III and of other rulers who had been victorious in war, and not to allow pride to keep him back from recognizing this Revelation. That Baha'u'llah foresaw the failure of the German Emperor to respond to this warning is shown by the ominous passage which appears later in that same Book:

O banks of the Rhine! We have seen you covered with gore, inasmuch as the swords of retribution were drawn against you; and you shall have another turn. And We hear the lamentations of Berlin, though she be today in conspicuous glory.82

A strikingly different note characterizes two of the major pronouncements, that addressed to Queen Victoria83 and another to the "Rulers of America and the Presidents of the Republics therein." The former praises the pioneering achievement represented by the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire, and commends the principle of representative government. The latter, which opens with the announcement of the Day of God, concludes with a summons, a virtual mandate, that has no parallel in any of the other messages: "Bind ye the broken with the hands of justice, and crush the oppressor who flourisheth with the rod of the commandments of your Lord, the Ordainer, the All-Wise." 84

Religion as Light and Darkness

Baha'u'llah's severest condemnation is reserved for the barriers which, throughout history, organized religion has erected between humanity and the Revelations of God. Dogmas, inspired by popular superstition and perfected by misspent intelligence, have repeatedly been imposed on a Divine process whose purpose has at all times been spiritual and moral. Laws of social interaction, revealed for the purpose of consolidating community life, have been made the basis for structures of arcane doctrine and practice which have burdened the masses whose benefit they were supposed to serve. Even the exercise of intellect, the chief tool possessed by the human race, has been deliberately hampered, producing an eventual breakdown in the dialogue between faith and science upon which civilized life depends.

[23] The consequence of this sorry record is the worldwide disrepute into which religion has fallen. Worse, organized religion has become itself a most virulent cause of hatred and warfare among the peoples of the world. "Religious fanaticism and hatred," Baha'u'llah warned over a century ago, "are a worlddevouring fire, whose violence none can quench. The Hand of Divine power can, alone, deliver mankind from this desolating affliction." 85

Those whom God will hold responsible for this tragedy, Baha'u'llah says, are humanity's religious leaders, who have presumed to speak for Him throughout history. Their attempts to make the Word of God a private preserve, and its exposition a means for personal aggrandizement, have been the greatest single handicap against which the advancement of civilization has struggled. In the pursuit of their ends, many of them have not hesitated to raise their hands against the Messengers of God themselves, at their advent:

Leaders of religion, in every age, have hindered their people from attaining the shores of eternal salvation, inasmuch as they held the reins of authority in their mighty grasp. Some for the lust of leadership, others through want of knowledge and understanding, have been the cause of the deprivation of the people. By their sanction and authority, every Prophet of God hath drunk from the chalice of sacrifice...86

In an address to the clergy of all faiths, Baha'u'llah warns of the responsibility which they have so carelessly assumed in history:

Ye are even as a spring. If it be changed, so will the streams that branch out from it be changed. Fear God, and be numbered with the godly. In like manner, if the heart of man be corrupted, his limbs will also be corrupted. And similarly, if the root of a tree be corrupted, its branches, and its offshoots, and its leaves, and its fruits, will be corrupted.87

These same statements, revealed at a time when religious orthodoxy was one of the major powers throughout the world, declared that this power had effectively ended, and that the ecclesiastical caste has no further social role in world history: "O concourse of divines! Ye shall not henceforward behold yourselves possessed of any power..." 88 To a particularly vindictive opponent among the Muslim clergy, Baha'u'llah said: "Thou art even as the last trace of sunlight upon the mountaintop. Soon will it fade away as decreed by God, the All-Possessing, the Most High. Thy glory and the glory of such as are like thee have been taken away...89

It is not the organization of religious activity which these statements address, but the misuse of such resources. Baha'u'llah's writings are generous in their appreciation not only of the great contribution which organized religion has brought to civilization, but also of the benefits which the world has derived from the self-sacrifice and love of humanity that have characterized clergymen and religious orders of all faiths:

Those divines ... who are truly adorned with the ornament of knowledge and of a goodly character are, verily, as a head to the body of the world, and as eyes to the nations....90

Rather, the challenge to all people, believers and unbelievers, clergy and laymen alike, is to recognize the consequences now being visited upon the world as the result of the universal corruption of the religious impulse. In the [24] prevailing alienation of humanity from God over the past century, a relationship on which the fabric of moral life itself depends has broken down. Natural faculties of the rational soul, vital to the development and maintenance of human values, have become universally discounted:

The vitality of men's belief in God is dying out in every land; nothing short of His wholesome medicine can ever restore it. The corrosion of ungodliness is eating into the vitals of human society; what else but the Elixir of His potent Revelation can cleanse and revive it?... The Word of God, alone, can claim the distinction of being endowed with the capacity required for so great and far-reaching a change.91

World Peace

In the light of subsequent events, the warnings and appeals of Baha'u'llah's writings during this period take on a terrible poignancy:

O ye the elected representatives of the people in every land!... Regard the world as the human body which, though at its creation whole and perfect, hath been afflicted, through various causes, with grave disorders and maladies. Not for one day did it gain ease, nay its sickness waxed more severe, as it fell under the treatment of ignorant physicians, who gave full rein to their personal desires...

We behold it, in this day, at the mercy of rulers so drunk with pride that they cannot discern clearly their own best advantage, much less recognize a Revelation so bewildering and challenging as this....92

This is the Day whereon the earth shall tell out her tidings. The workers of iniquity are her burdens, could ye but perceive it....93

All men have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization. The Almighty beareth Me witness: To act like the beasts of the field is unworthy of man. Those virtues that befit his dignity are forbearance, mercy, compassion and loving-kindness towards all the peoples and kindreds of the earth....94

A new life is, in this age, stirring within all the peoples of the earth; and yet none hath discovered its cause or perceived its motive. Consider the peoples of the West. Witness how, in their pursuit of that which is vain and trivial, they have sacrificed, and are still sacrificing, countless lives for the sake of its establishment and promotion....95

In all matters moderation is desirable. If a thing is carried to excess, it will prove a source of evil.... Strange and astonishing things exist in the earth but they are hidden from the minds and the understanding of men. These things are capable of changing the whole atmosphere of the earth and their contamination would prove lethal....96

In later writings, including those addressed to humanity collectively, Baha'u'llah urged the adoption of steps toward what He called the "Great Peace." These, He said, would mitigate the sufferings and dislocation which He saw lying ahead of the human race until the world's peoples embrace the Revelation of God and through it bring about the Most Great Peace:

[25] The time must come when the imperative necessity for the holding of a vast, an all-embracing assemblage of men will be universally realized. The rulers and kings of the earth must needs attend it, and, participating in its deliberations, must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations of the world's Great Peace amongst men. Such a peace demandeth that the Great Powers should resolve, for the sake of the tranquility of the peoples of the earth, to be fully reconciled among themselves. Should any king take up arms against another, all should unitedly arise and prevent him. If this be done, the nations of the world will no longer require any armaments, except for the purpose of preserving the security of their realms and of maintaining internal order within their territories.... The day is approaching when all the peoples of the world will have adopted one universal language and one common script. When this is achieved, to whatsoever city a man may journey, it shall be as if he were entering his own home.... That one indeed is a man who, today, dedicateth himself to the service of the entire human race.... It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.97

"Not of Mine Own Volition"

In His letter to Nasiri'd-Din Shah, the ruler of Persia, which refrains from any rebuke concerning His imprisonment in the Siyah-Chal and the other injustices He had experienced at the king's hand, Baha'u'llah speaks of His own role in the Divine Plan:

I was but a man like others, asleep upon My couch, when lo, the breezes of the All-Glorious were wafted over Me, and taught Me the knowledge of all that hath been. This thing is not from Me, but from One Who is Almighty and All-Knowing. And He bade Me lift up My voice between earth and heaven, and for this there befell Me what hath caused the tears of every man of understanding to flow. The learning current amongst men I studied not; their schools I entered not. Ask of the city wherein I dwelt, that thou mayest be well assured that I am not of them who speak falsely.98

The mission to which He had devoted His entire life, which had cost Him the life of a cherished younger son99, as well as all of His material     , possessions which had undermined His health, and brought imprisonment, exile, and abuse, was not one that He had initiated. "Not of Mine own volition," He said, had He entered on such a course:

Think ye, O people, that I hold within My grasp the control of God's ultimate Will and Purpose?... Had the ultimate destiny of God's Faith been in Mine hands, I would have never consented, even though for one moment, to manifest Myself unto you, nor would I have allowed one word to fall from My lips. Of this God Himself is, verily, a witness.100

[26] Having surrendered unreservedly to God's summons, He was equally in no doubt about the role which He had been called upon to play in human history. As the Manifestation of God to the age of fulfillment, He is the one promised in all the scriptures of the past, the "Desire of all nations," the "King of Glory." To Judaism He is "Lord of Hosts"; to Christianity, the Return of Christ in the glory of the Father; to Islam, the "Great Announcement"; to Buddhism, the Maitreya Buddha; to Hinduism, the new incarnation of Krishna; to Zoroastrianism, the advent of "Shah-Bahram."101

Like the Manifestations of God gone before Him, He is both the Voice of God and its human channel: "When I contemplate, O my God, the relationship that bindeth me to Thee, I am moved to proclaim to all created things 'verily I am God!'; and when I consider my own self, lo, I find it coarser than clay!" 102

"Certain ones among you," He declared, "have said: 'He it is Who hath laid claim to be God.' By God! This is a gross calumny. I am but a servant of God Who hath believed in Him and in His signs... My tongue, and My heart, and My inner and My outer being testify that there is no God but Him, that all others have been created by His behest, and been fashioned through the operation of His Will.... I am He that telleth abroad the favors with which God hath, through His bounty, favored Me. If this be My transgression, then I am truly the first of the transgressors...."103

Baha'u'llah's writings seize upon a host of metaphors in their attempt to express the paradox that lies at the heart of the phenomenon of God's Revelation of His Will:

I am the royal Falcon on the arm of the Almighty. I unfold the drooping wings of every broken bird and start it on its flight.104

This is but a leaf which the winds of the will of thy Lord, the Almighty, the All-Praised, have stirred. Can it be still when the tempestuous winds are blowing? Nay, by Him Who is the Lord of all Names and Attributes! They move it as they list....105

The Covenant of God with Humankind

In June 1877, Baha'u'llah at last emerged from the strict confinement of the prison-city of Akka, and moved with His family to "Mazra'ih", a small estate a few miles north of the city.106 As had been predicted in His statement to the Turkish government, Sultan Abdu'l-Aziz had been overthrown and assassinated in a palace coup, and gusts from the winds of political change sweeping the world were beginning to invade even the shuttered precincts of the Ottoman imperial system. After a brief two-year stay at Mazra'ih, Baha'u'llah moved to "Bahji", a large mansion surrounded by gardens, which His sin Abdu'l-Baha had rented for Him and the members of His extended family.107 The remaining twelve years of His life were devoted to His writings on a wide range of spiritual and social issues, and to receiving a stream of Baha'i pilgrims who made their way, with great difficulty, from Persia and other lands.

Throughout the Near and Middle East the nucleus of a community life was beginning to take shape among those who had accepted His message. For its guidance, Baha'u'llah had revealed a system of laws and institutions designed to give practical effect to the principles in His writings.108 Authority was vested in councils democratically elected by the whole community, provisions were made to exclude the possibility of a clerical elite arising, and principles of consultation and group decision making were established.

[27] At the heart of this system was what Baha'u'llah termed a "new Covenant" between God and humankind. The distinguishing feature of humanity's coming of age is that, for the first time in its history, the entire human race is consciously involved, however dimly, in the awareness of its own oneness and of the earth as a single homeland. This awakening opens the way to a new relationship between God and humankind. As the peoples of the world embrace the spiritual authority inherent in the guidance of the Revelation of God for this age, Baha'u'llah said, they will find in themselves a moral empowerment which human effort alone has proven incapable of generating. "A new race of men"109 will emerge as the result of this relationship, and the work of building a global civilization will begin. The mission of the Baha'i community was to demonstrate the efficacy of this Covenant in healing the ills that divide the human race.

Baha'u'llah died at Bahji on May 29, 1892, in His 75th year. At the time of His passing, the cause entrusted to Him forty years earlier in the darkness of Teheran's Black Pit was poised to break free of the Islamic lands where it had taken shape, and to establish itself first across America and Europe and then throughout the world. In doing so, it would itself become a vindication of the promise of the new Covenant between God and humankind. For alone of all the world's independent religions, the Baha'i Faith and its community of believers were to pass successfully through the critical first century of their existence with their unity firmly intact, undamaged by the age-old blight of schism and faction. Their experience offers compelling evidence for Baha'u'llah's assurance that the human race, in all its diversity, can learn to live and work as one people, in a common global homeland.

Just two years before His death, Baha'u'llah received at Bahji one of the few Westerners to meet Him, and the only one to leave a written account of the experience. The visitor was Edward Granville Browne, a rising young orientalist from Cambridge University, whose attention had originally been attracted by the dramatic history of the Bab and His heroic band of followers. Of his meeting with Baha'u'llah, Browne wrote:

Though I dimly suspected whither I was going and whom I was to behold (for no distinct intimation had been given to me), a second or two elapsed ere, with a throb of wonder and awe, I became definitely conscious that the room was not untenanted. In the corner where the divan met the wall sat a wondrous and venerable figure... The face of him on whom I gazed I can never forget, though I cannot describe it. Those piercing eyes seemed to read one's very soul; power and authority sat on that ample brow... No need to ask in whose presence I stood, as I bowed myself before one who is the object of a devotion and love which kings might envy and emperors sigh for in vain! A mild dignified voice bade me be seated, and then continued:—"Praise be to God that thou hast attained!...Thou hast come to see a prisoner and an exile...We desire but the good of the world and the happiness of the nations; yet they deem us a stirrer up of strife and sedition worthy of bondage and banishment...That all nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers; that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that diversity of religion should cease, and differences of race be annulled—what harm is there in this?...Yet so it shall be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the 'Most great Peace' shall come..."110

NOTES

1. Baha'u'llah ("Glory of God") was born Husayn-'Ali. The authoritative work on the missions of the Bab and Baha'u'llah is Shoghi Effendi's God Passes By (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1987). For a biographical study see Hasan Balyuzi's Baha'u'llah: The King of Glory (Oxford: George Ronald, 1980). Baha'u'llah's writings are extensively reviewed in Adib Taherzadeh's The Revelation of Baha'u'llah (Oxford: George Ronald, 1975), four volumes.

2. Britannica Yearbook, 1988, indicates that, although the Baha'i community numbers only about five million members, the Faith has already become the most widely diffused religion on earth, after Christianity. There are today 155 Baha'i National Assemblies in independent countries and major territories of the globe, and more than 17,000 elected Assemblies functioning at the local level. It is estimated that 2,112 nationalities and tribes are represented.

3. Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, Vol. VIII (London: Oxford, 1954), p. 117.

4. The Bab ("Gate" or "Door") was born Siyyid Ali-Muhammad in Shiraz, October 20, 1819.

5. Passages in the Bab's writings which refer to the advent of "Him Whom God will make manifest" include cryptic references to "the year Nine" and "the year Nineteen" (i.e. roughly 1852 and 1863, calculating in lunar years from the year of the Bab's inauguration of His mission, 1844). On several occasions the Bab also indicated to certain of His followers that they would themselves come to recognize and serve "Him Whom God will make manifest."

6. The proclamation of the Bab's message had been carried out in mosques and public places by enthusiastic bands of followers, many of them young seminarians. The Muslim clergy had replied by inciting mob violence. Unfortunately, these events coincided with a political crisis created by the death of Muhammad Shah and a struggle over the succession. It was the leaders of the successful political faction, behind the boy-king Nasiri'd-Din Shah, who then turned the royal army against the Babi enthusiasts. The latter, raised in a Muslim frame of reference, and believing that they had a moral right to self-defense, barricaded themselves in makeshift shelters and withstood long, bloody sieges. When they had eventually been overcome and slaughtered, and the Bab had been executed, two deranged Babi youth stopped the Shah in a public road and fired birdshot at him, in an ill-conceived attempt at assassination. It was this incident which provided the excuse for the worst of the massacres of Babis which evoked protests from Western embassies. For an account of the period see W. Hatcher and D. Martin, The Baha'i Faith: The Emerging Global Religion (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985), pp. 6-32.

7. For an account of these events see God Passes By, chapters I-V. Western interest in the Babi movement was aroused, particularly, by the publication in 1865 of Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau's Les religions et les philosophies dans l'Asie centrale (Paris: Didier, 1865).

8. Baha'u'llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1979), pp. 20-21.

9. A number of Western diplomatic and military observers have left harrowing accounts of what they witnessed. Several formal protests were registered with the Persian authorities. See Moojan Momen, The Babi and Baha'i Religions, 1844-1944 (Oxford: George Ronald, 1981).

10. Epistle, p. 21.

11. Epistle, p. 22.

12. There was, understandably, great suspicion in Persia about the intentions of the British and Russian governments, both of which had long interfered in Persian affairs.

13. The focal point of these problems was one Mirza Yahya, a younger half-brother of Baha'u'llah. While still a youth and under the guidance of Baha'u'llah Yahya had been appointed by the Bab as nominal head of the Babi community, pending the imminent advent of "Him Whom God will make manifest." Falling under the influence of a former Muslim theologian, Siyyid Muhammad Isfahani, however, Yahya gradually became estranged from his brother. Rather than being expressed openly, this resentment found its outlet in clandestine agitation, which had a disastrous effect on the exiles' already low morale. Yahya eventually refused to accept Baha'u'llah's declaration, and played no role in the development of the Baha'i Faith which this declaration initiated.

14. Baha'u'llah, The Book of Certitude (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1985), p. 251.

15. Baha'u'llah, The Hidden Words of Baha'u'llah (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1985), Arabic 2 on pp. 3-4, Arabic 5 on p. 4, Arabic 35 on p. 12, Arabic 12 on p. 6. Except where the context makes it obvious, the conventional use of the English word "man" translates the concept of "humanity".

16. Certitude, pp. 3-4, pp. 195-200.

17. Cited in God Passes By, p. 137.

18. Quotation from Prince Zaynu'l-'Abidin Khan, God Passes By, p. 135.

19. See Note 68 below.

20. God Passes By, p. 153. Increasingly, after 1863, the word "Baha'i" replaced "Babi" as the designation for the new faith, marking the fact that an entirely new religion had emerged.

21. Cited in Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1984), p. 77.

22. Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1983), pp. 10-11.

23. Gleanings, p. 297.

24. Gleanings, p. 334.

25. Gleanings, p. 8.

26. Gleanings, p. 8.

27. The two statements quoted may be found cited by Abdu'l-Baha in J. E. Esslemont, Baha'u'llah and the New Era (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust 1987), p. 170 and Tablets of Baha'u'llah Revealed after the Kitab-i-Aqdas (Haifa: Baha'i World Centre, 1982), pp. 22-23, respectively.

28. God Passes By, pp. 127-57, gives an account of these events.

29. Gleanings, pp. 4-5.

30. Certitude, p. 98.

31. Certitude, p. 99.

32. Certitude, pp. 99-100.

33. Certitude, pp. 103-4.

34. Gleanings, p. 59.

35. Gleanings, pp. 66-67.

36. Gleanings, pp. 65-66.

37. Cited in Advent, p. 79.

38. Gleanings, p. 136.

39. Gleanings, p. 80.

40. Gleanings, p. 164.

41. Gleanings, p. 329.

42. For a detailed exposition of this subject see Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1970), pp. 163-201.

43. Examples, in the words of Jesus, are "Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God..." (Matthew 19:17); "I and my Father are one." (John 10:30)

44. Gleanings, pp. 177-79.

45. Gleanings, pp. 54, 55.

46. Gleanings, p. 56.

47. New Testament, John 1:10.

48. Gleanings, pp. 141-42.

49. Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah: Selected Letters (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1982), p. 117.

50. Gleanings, p. 74. In the Baha'i writings the term "Adam" is used symbolically in two different senses. The one refers to the emergence of the human race, while the other designates the first of the Manifestations of God.

51. Gleanings, p. 213.

52. Gleanings, p. 151.

53. See Baha'u'llah, The Seven Valleys and The Four Valleys (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1986), pp. 6-7: "Yea, although to the wise it be shameful to seek the Lord of Lords in the dust, yet this betokeneth intense ardor in searching."

54. World Order, p. 116.

55. Seven Valleys, pp. 1-2.

56. Gleanings, p. 214.

57. Gleanings, p. 286.

58. Gleanings, pp. 4-5.

59. New Testament, John 10:16.

60. For elaboration on the subject of Baha'u'llah's teachings on the process of the maturation of the human race, see World Order, pp. 162-63, 202.

61. Gleanings, p. 217.

62. Tablets, p. 164.

63. Gleanings, p. 95.

64. Tablets, p. 164.

65. Gleanings, pp. 6-7.

66. Tablets, pp. 66-67.

67. Women: A Compilation (Toronto: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1986), p. 26.

68. A combination of unusual circumstances had made the central authorities in Constantinople especially sympathetic to Baha'u'llah, and resistant to pressure from the Persian government. The governor of Baghdad, Namiq Pasha, had written enthusiastically to the capital about both the character and influence of the distinguished Persian exile. Sultan Abdu'l-'Aziz found the reports intriguing because, although he was Caliph of Sunni Islam, he considered himself a mystical seeker. Equally important, in another way, was the reaction of his chief minister, Ali Pasha. To the latter, who was an accomplished student of Persian language and literature as well as a would-be modernizer of the Turkish administration, Baha'u'llah seemed a highly sympathetic figure. It was no doubt this combination of sympathy and interest which led the Ottoman government to invite Baha'u'llah to the capital rather than send Him to a more remote center or deliver Him to the Persian authorities, as the latter were urging.

69. For the full text of the report of the Austrian ambassador, Count von Prokesch-Osten, in a letter to the Comte de Gobineau, January 10, 1886, see Babi and Baha'i Religions, pp. 186-87.

70. Revelation, Vol. 2, p. 399.

71. Tablets, p. 13.

72. Gleanings, pp. 210-12.

73. Gleanings, pp. 251-52.

74. Gleanings, p. 252.

75. For a description of these events see Revelation, Vol. 3, especially pp. 296, 331.

76. For a description of this experience see God Passes By, pp. 180-89.

77. In the 1850s two German religious leaders, Christoph Hoffmann and Georg David Hardegg, collaborated in the development of the "Society of Templers," devoted to creating in the Holy Land a colony or colonies which would prepare the way for Christ, on His return. Leaving Germany on August 6, 1868, the founding group arrived in Haifa on October 30, 1868, two months after Baha'u'llah's own arrival.

78. For a description of the disasters which befell European Turkey in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 see Addendum III in King of Glory, pp. 460-62.

79. Epistle, p. 51.

80. Alistair Horne, The Fall of Paris (London: Macmillan, 1965), p. 34.

81. Cited in Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day Is Come (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1980), pp. 32-33.

82. Cited in Promised Day, p. 37.

83. Cited in Promised Day, p. 35.

84. Cited in Shoghi Effendi, Citadel of Faith: Messages to America 1947-1957 (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1980), pp. 18-19.

85. Epistle, p. 14.

86. Certitude, p. 15.

87. Cited in Promised Day, p. 83.

88. Cited in Promised Day, p. 81.

89. Epistle, p. 99.

90. Cited in Promised Day, pp. 110-11.

91. Gleanings, p. 200.

92. Gleanings, pp. 254-55.

93. Gleanings, p. 40.

94. Gleanings, p. 215.

95. Gleanings, p. 196.

96. Tablets, p. 69.

97. Tablets, pp. 165-67.

98. Epistle, p. 11. The phrase "Not of Mine own volition" appears in the same paragraph immediately above the excerpt cited.

99. Baha'u'llah's son, Mirza Mihdi,a youth of twenty-two, died in 1870 in an accidental fall resulting from the conditions in which the family was imprisoned.

100. Gleanings, pp. 91.

101. God Passes By, pp. 94-96.

102. World Order, p. 113.

103. Gleanings, p. 228.

104. Tablets, p. 169.

105. Epistle, pp. 11-12.

106. Although Sultan Abdu'l-Aziz' order of banishment was never formally revoked, the responsible political authorities came to regard it as null and void. They, therefore, indicated that Baha'u'llah could establish His residence outside the city walls, should He choose to do so.

107. The mansion, which had been built by a wealthy Christian Arab merchant of Akka, had been abandoned by him when an outbreak of plague began to spread. The property was first rented and, some years after Baha'u'llah's passing, purchased by the Baha'i community. Baha'u'llah's grave is located in a Shrine in the gardens of Bahji, and is now the focal point of pilgrimage for the Baha'i world.

108. For a summary of this body of teaching see World Order, pp. 143-57, and Shoghi Effendi's Principles of Baha'i Administration (London: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1973), throughout. A fully annotated English translation of the central document in this body of writings, the Kitab-i-Aqdas ("The Most Holy Book"), is being published to coincide with the centenary of Baha'u'llah's passing, 1992.

109. Advent, p. 16.

110. Edward G. Browne, A Traveller's Narrative (New York: Baha'i Publishing Committee, 1930), pp. xxxix-xl.