Introduction by Joshua Hall

The following Tablet was revealed by Bahá’u’lláh after the death of the father of one of the believers. In it, He commiserates with the man’s loss, and relates the death of His own father and how He had but the consolation of God’s servants, while he, by receiving this Tablet of Bahá’u’lláh, has such consolation as given by the tongue of God Himself.

Bahá’u’lláh asserts that God, being more compassionate than a thousand fathers, is the One to whom we should turn in times of grief. He upholds that death, far from being an absolute end, is rather a transition in the ever greater journey towards God.

It is my hope that others will be as moved by this Tablet as I have been.

View interlinear file with the original Arabic

A Tablet of Consolation

Provisional Translation by Joshua Hall

God, in whom is solace, who is the All-Knowing and All-Wise, consoles you in his grace. Grieve not then for your father, for he hath ascended unto God and from him is the fragrance of My love, who am the Almighty, diffused. Ye should rather lament over the heedless, not over him who hath attained to the remembrance of Me, the All-Wise. God forgave the sins of your father ere his death and since hath exalted him to a station no pen can describe.

Convey My greetings to the man named ‘Ali and say that none should grieve in My days or sorrow over aught. Behold the surging ocean of the bounty of thy Lord and rejoice. When my own father died, I was even younger than thou art, and was comforted by but a few of the Lord’s servants, yet thou hast consolation from the tongue of God Himself, the Most Holy, the Glorious, the Sublime. Judge aright: is sorrow seemly after this? No, by My beauty that dawns from this day-spring resplendent! And so have We addressed thee in Our grace, lest thou be grieved by the fickle fortunes of this world. With thy Lord is understanding and knowledge.  

This is no day of woe and weeping. Ye who believe in God should rejoice in the days of your Lord, the All-Forgiving, the Munificent. He it is who suffices you and who is more loving than a thousand fathers. No rather, though such be said of Him according to this world, He is in Himself exalted far above being limited by His own attributes or compassed by the pen and ink, and unto this testifies every man of insight.

Trust in Him and busy yourselves in remembrance of Him; be gladdened, then, that He should make mention of you in this, the Most Great Prison, with verses with which no treasure of the world can compare. Blessed indeed is he who ascended; he is of those who have been guided in the light of the Cause of God, and who with an illumined visage have turned unto the Beloved. By the goodness of your father’s will have ye have been born and risen to serve your Lord, the Ancient of Days. Remember him, then, with happiness as We remember him in this exalted station. Upon him be the Glory of God, the glory of them in My kingdom, and every eloquent word in his remembrance.