Supplications by Bahá’u’lláh

Introduction

The following is a collection of two-hundred provisionally translated prayers and supplications revealed by Bahá’u’lláh in Arabic, which, as far I am aware, have not previously been translated into English. Despite how many prayers are translated here, it is still only a small measure of what Bahá’u’lláh revealed through out His life. These supplications, whether gleaned from Tablets enunciating the central principles of His faith or from personal letters to devoted disciples, display His matchless command of vivid imagery and illustration, His adept skill in metaphor and His unswerving love and devotion to God.

Some of these supplications Bahá’u’lláh revealed in His own voice, addressing His Lord Who entrusted Him with a divine mission to all humanity, and to Whom He alone could give voice to the sorrows and hardships with which He was met at the hands of those to whom He proclaimed His gospel of peace, love and universal justice. In these very same supplications, He affirms the truth of the Revelation which He received, and declares His indomitable trust in God, while beseeching Him to lead a wayward and perplexed humanity to the message which finds embodiment in His words and His stainless life.

Other supplications He revealed in the voice of the believers, that they might be inspired, by virtue of the soul-stirring words of these revealed prayers, to practice in their lives the standards that Bahá’u’lláh sought to inculcate in His loved ones, and draw ever nearer to God by perpetually holding His remembrance and praise in their hearts.

There are six compilations in the original language from which this prayers have  been translated, being Ad’íyyah Mubárakah, in three volumes; Nafaḥátu’r-Raḥmán; Volume 63 of the National Iranian Bahá’í Archives; Nasá’imu’r-Raḥmán; Majmú’ih-yi-Munáját-i-Áthár-i-Qalam-i-A’lá, Volume One; and lastly, Ad’íyyih-i-Ḥaḍrat-i-Maḥbúb. The work of those who labored in compiling the prayers of the Blessed Beauty for these aforementioned volumes has been invaluable, for without their efforts this present compilation would not have been possible.

I am moreover indebted to Shoghi Effendi, the late Guardian of the Faith, in the creation of this compilation, having benefitted, in the perusal of his masterful renderings, from his insights which his penetrating vision into the Bahá’í Revelation accorded him. If these provisional translations be regarded as having any merit, it is due in no small measure to the standard of excellency he established and exemplified in his writings, and most especially in his renderings of the works of Bahá’u’lláh.

I would also especially like to thank Alison Marshall and Laura Foster for proofreading the English text and providing a much-needed index. 

It is hoped that this work be granted the acceptance and good-pleasure of the Blessed Beauty, for the sake of Whose loved ones these prayers have been translated and compiled, to the end that they may see the magnitude, the plenteousness, the sublimity and the grandeur that is the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, draw ever nearer to Him, consecrate all the more their lives to His service, and ceaselessly proclaim His glory to the peoples of the world.

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Supplications by Bahá’u’lláh