Paragraph 122

As the commentators of the Qur’án and they that follow the letter thereof misapprehended the inner meaning of the words of God and failed to grasp their essential purpose, they sought to demonstrate that, according to the rules of grammar, whenever the term “idhá” (meaning “if” or “when”) precedeth the past tense, it invariably hath reference to the future. Later, they were sore perplexed in attempting to explain those verses of the Book wherein that term did not actually occur. Even as He hath revealed: “And there was a blast on the trumpet,—lo! it is the threatened Day! And every soul is summoned to a reckoning,—with him an impeller and a witness.” In explaining this and similar verses, they have in some cases argued that the term “idhá” is implied. In other instances, they have idly contended that whereas the Day of Judgment is inevitable, it hath therefore been referred to as an event not of the future but of the past. How vain their sophistry! How grievous their blindness! They refuse to recognize the trumpet-blast which so explicitly in this text was sounded through the revelation of Muḥammad. They deprive themselves of the regenerating Spirit of God that breathed into it, and foolishly expect to hear the trumpet-sound of the Seraph of God who is but one of His servants! Hath not the Seraph himself, the angel of the Judgment Day, and his like been ordained by Muḥammad’s own utterance? Say: What! Will ye give that which is for your good in exchange for that which is evil? Wretched is that which ye have falsely exchanged! Surely ye are a people, evil, in grievous loss.


Wow. This paragraph kind of stumped us. We read it, and re-read it, and then re-re-read it, and still had a difficult time figuring out what to talk about. We found it difficult to understand, awkward to follow, and had a hard time getting pretty much any sort of a grasp on it.

And so, what did we do? We went back to the beginning. Oh, but not the beginning of this book, but rather to Ruhi Book 1.

What, we asked ourselves, is the overarching theme of this entire paragraph?

Before we answer that, though, we want to just mention something that we haven't actually said before about the entire book. It seems that Part 1 is dedicated not to answering the questions of the uncle of the Bab, but rather to reframing the questions themselves. It is as if Baha'u'llah is telling him that the very questions he is asking are the wrong sort of questions. They are framed in the understanding current amongst the theologians of the day, and are therefore based on an incorrect premise. It is as if the uncle is asking, "When did the stars fall from heaven? When did the sun cease to shine?" Baha'u'llah is sitting here saying that these are the wrong questions. What we should be asking is "How did the stars fall? How did the sun cease to shine?" Rather than asking if these things occurred, based on our faulty understanding of what we expect to happen, we should be asking the Messenger of God how these things occurred.

Well, that brings us to Part 2.

Now that we have a better understanding of what to ask, Baha'u'llah is now re-framing the questions that are specific to the uncle's request.

Part 1 concerned us deeply because it helped us understand a historical perspective, no matter what our starting point.

Part 2 is specifically concerned with issues relating to Islam. And this, truth be told, is beyond us.

But now, with that clearly stated, we can go back to this paragraph and ask ourselves what Baha'u'llah, in short, is talking about.

He seems to be addressing an issue around the singular term, idhá, and showing how the theologians have twisted and turned to try to explain things in ways that they can understand. You see, they are of the belief that the questions regarding the Judgment Day all relate to the distant future. And so, when the text of the Qur'an talks about it in the present tense, they are at a loss. They come up with the explanation that the future tense is somehow implied, even though the text clearly phrases it in the present tense. "It is the threatened Day." "Every soul is summoned to a reckoning." Yes, it refers to the future, but it also relates to the present day, both at the same time.

And it is interesting to note that Baha'u'llah is not condemning them for mis-leading the people deliberately. He is not accusing them of malicious intent. Instead He laments their vain sophistry. He says that their argument is superficially sound, and may make some sort of sense on the surface, but doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. He accuses them of blindness, not wickedness.

There is an element of sadness in this paragraph for us, for the scholars have deprived themselves of this regenerating spirit by clinging to their preconceived ideas. They had an idea, that the Day of Judgment was in the distant future, and then tried to force the text to support this theory. Instead, what they should have done is been detached from their idea and examined the text to see if it supported their theory. After all, "No man shall attain the shores of the ocean of true understanding except he be detached from all that is in heaven and on earth."

When studying the text, and trying to understand it, it is important to recognize the need for detachment and humility. After all, let's put this in perspective. Someone was reading these passages in the Qur'an, and thought that these references, perhaps, spoke of some future time. Sure. That sounds reasonable. Then what they should have done is looked at the text again to see if their idea was supported by the text. Instead what they did was insist that their theory was right, and it became a recognized tradition. Now, it has the weight of doctrine. And it is because of this that a great many people have been led astray.

Time and again, those very basic concepts that Baha'u'llah introduced at the beginning of book prove to be the exact tools we need to understand everything that follows.

Paragraph 121

When the light of Qur’ánic Revelation was kindled within the chamber of Muḥammad’s holy heart, He passed upon the people the verdict of the Last Day, the verdict of resurrection, of judgment, of life, and of death. Thereupon the standards of revolt were hoisted, and the doors of derision opened. Thus hath He, the Spirit of God, recorded, as spoken by the infidels: “And if thou shouldst say, ‘After death ye shall surely be raised again,’ the infidels will certainly exclaim, ‘This is nothing but manifest sorcery.’” Again He speaketh: “If ever thou dost marvel, marvellous surely is their saying, ‘What! When we have become dust, shall we be restored in a new creation?’” Thus, in another passage, He wrathfully exclaimeth: “Are We wearied out with the first creation? Yet are they in doubt with regard to a new creation!”

This is a very interesting paragraph. After all, Baha'u''llah has talked a lot about the spiritual interpretation of sacred Text quite a lot already, yet this paragraph here seems to be an oddity. Why is it here? and what on earth can we say about it? It seems to be just a few quotes that don't appear to have much more to say except that we need to look at all these quotes with a spiritual eye.

But is that it?

We have just read a number of paragraphs, circling around the overarching theme of sovereignty, that deal with the idea of spiritual interpretation. Remember that phrase from a few paragraphs ago, regarding the wolf and the lamb? "Besides, of what profit would it be to the world were such a thing to take place?" This seems to be a very important concept here. If we take a literal view of these lines, what good would it do the world?

And remember, this is in response to a series of questions from the uncle of the Bab regarding His Sovereignty. "Where is it? How was He a sovereign?" It also deals with the other questions regarding other signs of the Day of Resurrection, or the Last Days.

The uncle of the Bab, like most Muslims of his day, saw the Day of Resurrection as referring to some day in the distant future. Yet it seems as if Muhammad is referring to His own day, here in these quotes.

In that first quote, Muhammad is letting His followers know that if they talk about the resurrection, the infidels will claim it to be sorcery. Ok. Fine. No problem, just a warning.

In the second quote, He seems to be saying that if we are ever struck with wonder, we should really wonder that the unbelievers don't believe in the Resurrection.

That third quote, exclaimed in anger, says "Oh, I'm sick and tired of it all", in essence. And yet, He says, they doubt that there is a new creation happening right before their very eyes.

Baha'u'llah is not really giving us any answers here. He is, instead, leading us on with questions, which will be answered in the upcoming paragraphs.

Muhammad passed judgment on those around Him, and was met with derision, as evidenced by these quotes. And yet today, or the today of a hundred and fifty years ago, we don't question Him. Similarly, judgment was passed by the Bab, and He was met with this same derision.

Right now, Baha'u'llah seems to be merely pointing out a parallel reaction. Anything further will be explained in the next few paragraphs.

But for us, we just want to make sure that it is crystal clear that this Day of Resurrection, and all the prophecies that refer to it, applies to every single Manifestation of God. Yes, it refers to some distant future, but it also applies to the time of Muhammad, and Jesus, and Buddha, and even the next Messenger after Baha'u'llah. This seems to be so important a concept that He refers to it over and over again in these pages.

And finally, we just wanted to point out another "progression" that He does. If you look at the quotes that He refers to in this paragraph, there is a bit of a path. In the first quote, you die but are raised again. It seems like not a lot of time has passed, either minutes or days. In the second quote, you have already become dust. A lot more time has elapsed in this one, so much so that you have completely decayed. That takes a long time, but still, the result is the same, in that you are restored. In the third, all of creation has passed away. Now we are talking ages, possibly eons. A huge amount of time has gone by. But not to worry, an entirely new creation has replaced it. All is good in the world.

Paragraph 120

Consider how with this one verse which hath descended from the heaven of the Will of God, the world and all that is therein have been brought to a reckoning with Him. Whosoever acknowledged His truth and turned unto Him, his good works outweighed his misdeeds, and all his sins were remitted and forgiven. Thereby is the truth of these words concerning Him made manifest: “Swift is He in reckoning.” Thus God turneth iniquity into righteousness, were ye to explore the realms of divine knowledge, and fathom the mysteries of His wisdom. In like manner, whosoever partook of the cup of love, obtained his portion of the ocean of eternal grace and of the showers of everlasting mercy, and entered into the life of faith—the heavenly and everlasting life. But he that turned away from that cup was condemned to eternal death. By the terms “life” and “death,” spoken of in the scriptures, is intended the life of faith and the death of unbelief. The generality of the people, owing to their failure to grasp the meaning of these words, rejected and despised the person of the Manifestation, deprived themselves of the light of His divine guidance, and refused to follow the example of that immortal Beauty.

You may notice the similarity between this and the previous paragraphs. In the last few, He talked about how, with a single word, Muhammad separated all these things from all these other things, such as "light from darkness, the righteous from the ungodly, and the believing from the infidel". He also mentioned the problem with taking some of these verses literally, such as the lamb and the wolf enjoying a good meal together.

Here, as in many instances in Part 1, He points out that life and death, when mentioned in the scriptures, in this manner, means "the life of faith and the death of unbelief". In other words, it is not meant to be taken literally.

We could talk about this a lot, really, but it seems that anything we say would be merely repeating what Baha'u'llah has already said, and we would do it in a more lengthy, and less interesting, manner.

Instead, we noticed the word "consider". This is a point where we can consider so many things, and this time we want to use this paragraph to do something a little different. Look at the word "ocean". It is used here in a similar manner to how He uses it elsewhere in this book, so we would see how it is used throughout.

The first instance, as you will no doubt recall, is in the very first sentence: No man shall attain the shores of the ocean of true understanding... (1)

He also refers, in subsequent paragraphs, to:

• the ocean of the divine presence (2)
• ocean of truths treasured in these holy words (3)
• the ocean of true understanding (4)
• the ocean of His bountiful grace (5)
• the ocean of divine knowledge (6)
• the billowing ocean of God's grace (7)
• the ocean of His tender mercies (8)
• the oceans of wisdom (9)
• the ocean of eternal grace (10)
• the ocean of faith (11)
• the ocean of divine mercy (12)
• the ocean of the inner meaning of these words (13)
• the Ocean of everlasting bounty (14)
• the ocean of eternal grace (15)
• the ocean of acceptance (16)
• the ocean of His knowledge (17)
• the oceans of ancient and everlasting holiness (18)
• the ocean of ancient Knowledge (19)
• that Ocean of divine wisdom (20)

That's a lot of oceans.

As we noticed, fairly quickly, many of them refer to some form of knowledge.

But is there a path here? Well, let's find out.

It begins with the ocean of true understanding (1) and our search to reach its shores. Let's suppose that this desire comes from our understanding of the previous scriptures. We begin with sincere search, and attain, in the Day of our Lord, the divine presence(2). Once we have attained His presence, we truly begin to see the deep truths treasured in these holy words (3), as we are discovering in this very book. This leads us on to a true understanding (4), and helps us unravel the mysteries in those very texts.

When we reach this higher understanding, based on the Writings of Baha'u'llah, we begin to receive His bountiful grace (5), which carries us forward to divine knowledge (6). Previously, it may have been our own deficient knowledge, based on our sincere understanding, but now it is closer to Baha'u'llah's, and yet we are still only at the very beginning of this path. We must continue to study and reflect on His Words. We must act on them, moving them off the page and into our daily lives. We have to reflect on our actions and, in light of the guidance from His mighty Pen, strive to make every day an improvement over yesterday. This is when we will get a far greater sense of the billowing ocean of God's grace (7). This is when we can truly see His tender mercies (8).

Sometimes, though, we will encounter tests and difficulties. This isn't just a possibility. It is a guarantee. As we move forward, we know that we are making progress because the road is getting more difficult. If it wasn't getting more difficult, we wouldn't be able to grow. It is like when we exercise our body. If we do not push ourselves, we will not gain any benefit. When we look past our own comfort to the end of things, then we can begin to sense God's wisdom (9). When we reconcile ourselves to God's will, and strive to maintain that radiant acquiescence in the face of tests and trials, then we can begin to get a sense of His eternal grace (10). Again, it may seem like step seven, but it is, in truth, a spiral. We see this grace at a higher level. We understand more thoroughly that He is always bestowing upon us His ever-loving favours. We see the wisdom of the struggle, and the benefits that arise from it. And while we may not actively enjoy it, we accept it gracefully and radiantly.

This is when we have truly started on that path of faith (11) that Baha'u'llah describes, that path in which we are willing to give up everything. When we do this, all those tests and trials seem to fade in His light, and we sense that continual divine mercy (12) in our life. It is not a temporary thing, that we only sense when things are going well, but even recognize it when those difficult times are before us.

It is only then that we can truly start to appreciate the inner meaning of these words (13), and not just their surface meaning. We see many layers of meaning in all His Words. We see truths in the former scriptures that we never sensed before, things that were hidden to our eyes, but are now evident in light of historical experience. Now we begin to sense His everlasting bounty (14) in a whole new way, and can get an even higher sense of that eternal grace (15). As we read the Iqan, we recognize that this eternal grace is far more profound than we had imagined. This is when we are better able to enter into that state of acceptance (16) with whatsoever He has ordained. We see more clearly that cycle He has described of crisis and victory. We see the various twistings and turnings of history as nothing more than curves on that eternal road of history, leading us ever forward to that promised Kingdom.

When we see this, when we truly begin to accept whatever He has ordained for us, then we find ourselves at a whole new level of His knowledge (17). This is when we begin to get an even grander sense of His ancient and everlasting holiness (18). This is when we can clearly see the truths in all faiths and recognize His overwhelming presence in all of history. We see ourselves not as some random, final pinnacle of history, but as another step in that eternal path God has laid out for us. We see ourselves and our Faith as another pearl on that divine strand. We see the ancient Knowledge (19) intermingled, and identical to, that present Knowledge, which has been restated for today.

This, dear Reader, is when we truly begin to get a greater sense of the divine wisdom (20) that pervades all aspects of our life.

Even with all of this, we can still recall that this incredible book was written before Baha'u'llah declared His mission. And that, dear Reader, fills us with even more awe and wonder.