Introduction
In the following Tablet, Bahá’u’lláh describes the metaphysical reality of the Manifestation of God. As affirmed in the Bahá’í Writings, the Manifestations of God are those figures—such as Zoroaster, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, and Bahá’u’lláh—who mediate between God and humanity, and reflect the attributes and perfections of the absolute and transcendent Deity in the contingent realm of creation. These Manifestations have three stations or existential aspects: the corporeal, which refers to their physical bodies; the human, which refers to the individual reality of the rational soul that grounds their human faculties of thought and reason; and the divine, which refers to that everlasting emanation of the Godhead, variously called the First Intellect, the Word, the Primal Will, and the Holy Spirit, which comprises the highest aspect of the being of the Manifestations of God, which ensures Their spiritual unity, and which endows Them with an unmediated, intuitive, and all-encompassing knowledge of the realities of things. It is with the divine station of the Manifestation of God, as a cosmical and supernatural metaphysical entity, that Bahá’u’lláh is concerned in this Tablet.
In the following provisional translation, a meagre—and in-progress—attempt has been made to convey something of the profound depth of meaning and beauty of expression contained in the Arabic original. Two other provisional translations have been produced in the past. One, by an anonymous author, appeared in the 1923 compilation titled Bahá’í Scriptures, and another has been produced by Stephen Lambden, and is available on his academic website. The Tablet has been published in the Arabic compilation La’áli’u’l-Ḥikma, volume one, pages 56-61, and is listed in the Phelps Inventory under entry BH00686. An interlinear file containing the original Arabic after the provisional translation is forthcoming.
The Tablet of the Manifestation (Lawḥ-i-Ẓuhúr)
Provisional Translation
In the Name of God, the Most Holy, the Omniscient, the Omnipotent, the Almighty
O thou who hast fixed thy gaze on the direction of God and art immersed in the sea of His presence and good pleasure: Know thou that the Manifestation is not an entity composed of the four elements. He is rather the inner Mystery of Divine Unity, the Pre-existent Being, the Eternal Substance, and the Unknowable Essence. He cannot be known by anything save Himself, such that one could conceive Him to be a reality emergent from the four elements or any of the fundamental constituents discussed by the philosophers, much less the four natural qualities. All such things have, instead, proceeded from His command and through the operation of His will. Always hath He existed, and forever shall He abide, without anything subsisting with Him, even as He is now in truth.
He established Himself upon the throne and revealeth to thee the verses, for He hath perceived in thy heart the fire of thy love. Is there anyone in this mortal realm so possessed of eloquence as to equal Him, any revelator who could stand before Him to surpass Him in His Cause, any being who could even claim to exist when brought face to face with Him? Nay, by thy Lord, the All-Merciful! All are nothing, void. If He were to be known through another, it could not be established that His essence transcendeth likeness, that His being is sanctified of similitude, and that He, in His singularity, is utterly distinct from the phenomena of created being.
This Ocean none may traverse, for by His speech hath been created all thou seest in the heavens or on earth. By My Self, the True One! Were He to make Himself known, as He truly is, to His creatures, they would each and all sever themselves from all things beside Him and dwell in the precincts of His presence. Indeed, thou wouldst see the kings priding themselves in their servitude to their true King, and sultans casting aside their crowns, hastening toward His direction, and walking the paths of His good pleasure. Since [this reality] is concealed from the eyes of men, they have turned toward things beside Him and, flying on the wings of self, soar in the atmosphere of their idle fancies and delusions.
Testify in thy essence, in thy soul, and with thy tongue that there is none other God but Him, Whom none but Himself can know, Whom none may dare approach. He it is Who, though unmanifest in Himself, nonetheless revealeth His effulgence within His being. Thus do We teach thee of the mystery of Deity, the being of Divinity, and the Essence abiding from all eternity.
As to the matter of bodies, they are thrones for this Divine Manifestation, which none but the Manifestation Himself hath recognized. Though these same bodies appear in the realm of creation in the forms that ye perceive, thou wouldst testify—if thou wert to look upon them with the vision of reality and with innate insight—that they, despite being composed of the elements, are nonetheless so sanctified therefrom that there could be no true likeness between these bodies and any physical constituent. Consider the diamond: Can other stones compare to it? Thus hath the exposition been revealed from thy Lord, the Almighty, the All-Powerful, the Omnipotent. Indeed, were it not for the temples of the Divine Manifestations, the temples of men would not have been created.
Wert thou to focus thy sight, thou wouldst discern that all the worlds of thy Lord unfold through the very appearance of the Manifestations of God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. In every world, the Manifestation revealeth Himself in accord with the capacity of that world. So in the world of spirits, it is through the signs of the spirit that He sheddeth His effulgence upon, and becometh manifest to, the denizens of that realm. Likewise is the manner of His appearance in the world of bodies, in the worlds of the divine names and attributes, and in those planes inscrutable to all save God. To every realm is its own measure of the grace extended by the Manifestation. He manifesteth to them through His image to guide them unto God, His Lord, to draw them nigh to the seat of His command, and to enable them to attain to that which He hath ordained. Notwithstanding, even as His [inner] reality cannot be described, so also is everything attributable to Him inscrutable—save to a fixed measure.
Think on the essence of thy soul. Without it, neither thy senses nor thy limbs and members could operate: the eye would not see; the ear would not hear; the tongue would not speak; the hand would not grasp; the leg would not stride. Yet, though thy soul, in its essence, is sovereign and ruler over all these powers and faculties—such that God made their subsistence and operation dependent upon it—it is through the eye, nonetheless, that the soul must see, through the ear that it must ear, and through the tongue that it must converse. Wert thou to ponder over this truth, thou wouldst perceive that such is His majesty that He suffereth no diminution to His station by His attentions and gracious condescension [toward the lower realms of being]. In this connection, think on the artificer who fashioneth a ring. Although the ring’s maker, he nonetheless adorneth his finger therewith. Thus, if the Manifestation—exalted be He—should appear in the garment of the creature, this is only a token of His grace. The people would, otherwise, flee from Him in terror, and be unable to draw near to Him, seat themselves before His face, hear His wondrous melodies, and delight in that which proceedeth from His mouth and is revealed from the heaven of His will. In this, [His manner of appearance,] is such wisdom that—wert thou to contemplate for as long as God endureth—thou wouldst, with every passing moment, come to fresh realizations. Yea, were He—exalted be He—to appear as He really is, and in His true form and condition, none could bear to approach Him or consort with Him.
Consider likewise the dais, throne, or seat, and their like. One among the people of God fashioneth a throne through the confirmations that descend upon men from the heaven of His grace and the clouds of His bounty. The true Fashioner, then, is established upon it. Before He seated Himself, nobody attended to that throne so as to find that it was, indeed, His handiwork. Yet after He hath seated Himself, all former relation was severed from it, and it became the throne of the All-Merciful Lord, around which revolve the realities of all that hath been created in the heavens and on earth. The recognition of such a throne is dependent on the sight of the observer and the vision of the seer. Whoever is possessed of luminous and penetrating sight perceiveth that it hath been created before the heavens and the earth; it hath ever been a throne and shall forever remain the same as it was. Between it and all other things there is thus no relation or connection, direction or indication.
All things therefore testify, and with the tongues of their inner being proclaim, that they [the bodies of the Manifestation] are the thrones of the All-Merciful, and in the world of creation and origination are without similitude and likeness. Through the very elements whereof they are composed have the physical elements emerged, such that thou seest, from their fire hath been generated the fire of all beings, a fire that speaketh in the divine and blessed Branch, outstretched in the Sinai of the Exalted Lord, before Moses Who conversed with God. From their primordial water thou findest that every soul is living, abiding. Likewise, ponder thou on that which is inferior to them and be certain. This is the mention of the station of the One Who is established thereon: How can the station of His Temple be compared to that which dependeth upon it? Thus do We deliver unto thee the speech of the Absolute Deity, that thou mayest meditate thereon and attain unto that which thou hast desired of God, thy Lord and the Lord of all nations.
O Hádí! Whatsoever We deliver unto thee and mention to thee in this Tablet hath been expressed according to the language of the people of this world. Otherwise—and I swear by Him in the grasp of Whose power all things are subject—in this station there lie with Us expositions which it doth not beseem Us to utter in these days, during which the people have differed, have forsaken Him Who is the Lord of lords, and have elected to adore, with fervent adoration, an idol that they themselves, with the hands of their corrupt inclinations, have fashioned. Blessed art thou by reason of what God hath desired for thee, and inasmuch as thou didst walk the path of His good pleasure, until thou didst stand before His face, the face of One resplendent and unapproachable.
He hath ever manifested Himself unto His creation through the mode of His creation, even as He revealed His effulgence upon thee in truth, and delivered thee from the floods of the suggestions of them who disbelieved in God, waged war upon His Self, and took to themselves, at every moment, lords to worship beside God—they were accounted among the people of perversion and of error in the book of a perspicuous glory. Wert thou to immerse thyself in the ocean of power and might, thou wouldst be assured that He is able to take one of the objects of His fashioning and to transform it into the maker of whatsoever He should desire. None other God is there but He, the Almighty and Omnipotent. All power lieth herein—would that thou might ponder! All grace lieth herein—would that thou might witness!
Beseech thou God, thy Lord, to manifest His Cause throughout the lands and to uplift His servants to such a station that He may mention to them whatsoever He desireth, without the covering of veils, may inform them of the wonders of His knowledge, and may feed them with the fruits of the Lote-Tree of His grace and bounty, that all may suffice themselves with His all-sufficing wealth, and be empowered through the power of Him Who is the transcendent and holy.
By Him by Whose command all have been set in motion! If I were to find the people as We had created them, I would open one of the portals of mercy and inner meaning, that they might behold all mysteries and conquer the lands through the names of their Lord. Yet thou seest the people and hear the things that have proceeded from their mouths. Such grace hath therefore been withheld, save unto that measure the sprinklings whereof ye have perceived. Over this is thy Lord a witness and all-informed. Were We to manifest Ourself more than We have, We would be hemmed in by the swine and the dogs.
Thus doth the Bird of the Throne warble its melody, and the Dove coo its song, out of love for thee, that thou mayest be among the thankful. Praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds.