A Study of Baha’u’llah’s
Kitab-i-Iqan, The Book of Certitude
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Baha’u’llah gives evidence from the Islamic traditions about the greatness of the Cause of the Bab, and the beloved Guardian elaborates on this to show both the immensity and the glory of the Revelation of Baha’u’llah and also the importance of our teaching work. [F.A.]
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How pressing and sacred the responsibility that now weighs upon those who are already acquainted with these teachings! How glorious the task of those who are called upon to vindicate their truth, and demonstrate their practicability to an unbelieving world! Nothing short of an immovable conviction in their divine origin, and their uniqueness in the annals of religion; nothing short of an unwavering purpose to execute and apply them to the administrative machinery of the Cause, can be sufficient to establish their reality, and insure their success. How vast is the Revelation of Baha'u'llah! How great the magnitude of His blessings showered upon humanity in this day! And yet, how poor, how inadequate our conception of their significance and glory! This generation stands too close to so colossal a Revelation to appreciate, in their full measure, the infinite possibilities of His Faith, the unprecedented character of His Cause, and the mysterious dispensations of His Providence.
In the Iqan, Baha'u'llah, wishing to emphasize the transcendent character of this new Day of God, reinforces the strength of His argument by His reference to the text of a correct and authorized tradition, which reveals the following: "Knowledge is twenty and seven letters. All that the Prophets have revealed are two letters thereof. No man thus far hath known more than these two letters. But when the Qa'im shall arise, He will cause the remaining twenty and five letters to be made manifest." And then immediately follow these confirming and illuminating words of Baha'u'llah: "Consider: He hath declared knowledge to consist of twenty and seven letters, and regarded all the prophets, from Adam even unto Muhammad, the 'seal,' as expounders of only two letters thereof. He also saith that the Qa'im will reveal all the remaining twenty and five letters. Behold from this utterance how great and lofty is His station! His rank excelleth that of all the prophets, and His revelation transcendeth the comprehension and understanding of all their chosen ones. A revelation, of which the prophets of God, His saints and chosen ones have either not been informed or which, in pursuance of God's inscrutable decree, they have not disclosed -- such a revelation, these vile and villainous people have sought to measure with their own deficient minds, their own deficient learning and understanding."
In another passage of the same Book, Baha'u'llah, referring to the transformation effected by every Revelation in the ways, thoughts and manners of the people, reveals these words: "Is not the object of every Revelation to effect a transformation in the whole character of mankind, a transformation that shall manifest itself, both outwardly and inwardly, that shall affect both its inner life and external conditions? For if the character of mankind be not changed, the futility of God's universal Manifestations would be apparent."
Did not Christ Himself, addressing His disciples, utter these words: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth"?
From the text of this recognized tradition, as well as from the words of Christ, as attested by the Gospel, every unprejudiced observer will readily apprehend the magnitude of the Faith which Baha'u'llah has revealed, and recognize the staggering weight of the claim He has advanced. No wonder if Abdu'l-Baha has portrayed in such lurid colors the fierceness of the agitation that shall center in the days to come round the nascent institutions of the Faith. We can now but faintly discern the beginnings of that turmoil which the rise and ascendancy of the Cause of God is destined to cast in the world.
(Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 24 )
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Nowhere but in the Kitab-i-Iqan, Baha'u'llah's masterly exposition of the one unifying truth underlying all the Revelations of the past, can we obtain a clearer apprehension of the potency of those forces inherent in that Preliminary Manifestation with which His own Faith stands indissolubly associated. Expatiating upon the unfathomed import of the signs and tokens that have accompanied the Revelation proclaimed by the Bab, the promised Qa'im, He recalls these prophetic words: "Knowledge is twenty and seven letters. All that the Prophets have revealed are two letters thereof. No man thus far hath known more than these two letters. But when the Qa'im shall arise, He will cause the remaining twenty and five letters to be made manifest." "Behold," adds Baha'u'llah, "how great and lofty is His station!" "Of His Revelation," He further adds, "the Prophets of God, His saints and chosen ones, have either not been informed, or in pursuance of God's inscrutable Decree, they have not disclosed."
And yet, immeasurably exalted as is the station of the Bab, and marvellous as have been the happenings that have signalized the advent of His Cause, so wondrous a Revelation cannot but pale before the effulgence of that Orb of unsurpassed splendor Whose rise He foretold and whose superiority He readily acknowledged. We have but to turn to the writings of the Bab Himself in order to estimate the significance of that Quintessence of Light of which He, with all the majesty of His power, was but its humble and chosen Precursor.
Again and again the Bab admits, in glowing and unequivocal language, the preeminent character of a Faith destined to be made manifest after Him and to supersede His Cause. "The germ," He asserts in the Persian Bayan, the chief and best-preserved repository of His laws, "that holds within itself the potentialities of the Revelation that is to come is endowed with a potency superior to the combined forces of all those who follow me." "Of all the tributes," the Bab repeatedly proclaims in His writings, "I have paid to Him Who is to come after Me, the greatest is this, My written confession, that no words of Mine can adequately describe Him, nor can any reference to Him in my Book, the Bayan, do justice to His Cause." Addressing Siyyid Yahyay-i-Darabi, surnamed Vahid, the most learned and influential among his followers, He says: "By the righteousness of Him Whose power causeth the seed to germinate and Who breatheth the spirit of life into all things, were I to be assured that in the day of His Manifestation thou wilt deny Him, I would unhesitatingly disown thee and repudiate thy faith.... If, on the other hand, I be told that a Christian, who beareth no allegiance to My Faith, will believe in Him, the same will I regard as the apple of Mine eye."
(Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 61 )
To strive to obtain a more adequate understanding of the
significance of Baha'u'llah's stupendous Revelation must, it is my unalterable
conviction, remain the first obligation and the object of the constant endeavor
of each one of its loyal adherents. An exact and thorough comprehension of so
vast a system, so sublime a revelation, so sacred a trust, is for obvious
reasons beyond the reach and ken of our finite minds. We can, however, and it
is our bounden duty to seek to derive fresh inspiration and added sustenance as
we labor for the propagation of His Faith through a clearer apprehension of the
truths it enshrines and the principles on which it is based.
In a
communication addressed to the American believers I have in the course of my
explanation of the station of the Bab made a passing reference to the
incomparable greatness of the Revelation of which He considered Himself to be
the humble Precursor. He Whom Baha'u'llah has acclaimed in the Kitab-i-Iqan as
that promised Qa'im Who has manifested no less than twenty-five out of the
twenty-seven letters which all the Prophets were destined to reveal -- so great
a Revealer has Himself testified to the preeminence of that superior Revelation
that was soon to supersede His own. "The germ," the Bab asserts in
the Persian Bayan, "that holds within itself the potentialities of the
Revelation that is to come is endowed with a potency superior to the combined
forces of all those who follow me." "Of all the tributes," He
again affirms, "I have paid to Him Who is to come after Me, the greatest
is this, My written confession, that no words of Mine can adequately describe
Him, nor can any reference to Him in My Book, the Bayan, do justice to His
Cause." "The Bayan," He in that same Book categorically declares,
"and whosoever is therein revolve round the saying of 'Him Whom God shall
make manifest,' even as the Alif (the Gospel) and whosoever was therein
revolved round the saying of Muhammad, the Apostle of God." "A
thousand perusals of the Bayan," He further remarks, "cannot equal
the perusal of a single verse to be revealed by 'Him Whom God shall make
manifest.'... Today the Bayan is in the stage of seed; at the beginning of the
manifestation of 'Him Whom God shall make manifest' its ultimate perfection
will become apparent.... The Bayan and such as are believers therein yearn more
ardently after Him than the yearning of any lover after his beloved.... The
Bayan deriveth all its glory from 'Him Whom God shall make manifest.' All
blessing be upon him who believeth in Him and woe betide him that rejecteth His
truth."
(Shoghi
Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 100 )