January 18, 2017

Risáliy-i-Síyásíyyih (A Treatise on Statesmanship) – by ‘Abdu’l-Baha, 1893


-- provisional translation
He is God

Praise and benediction are owed to the pure Lord, who made the appearance of the sacred perfections of the human realm the foundation for his creation. Thus might the invisible Essence become visible in the court of perception by means of modalities, effects, laws, deeds, essences and mysteries. And thus might the lights of the reality of the saying, “I was a hidden treasure and loved to be known” become apparent from the dawning-place of the morn of vision.

Praise and glorification are also due to the complete individual reality of the great one, who is the sun of the reality of the divine world, the most great luminary of the human realm, the center of the divine self-disclosure, and the dawning-place of the attributes of the one true Lord. By means of his appearance, the secret of “thus I created the creation, so that I might be known” became a reality. “And thou beholdest the earth blackened, then, when We send down water upon it, it quivers, and swells, and puts forth herbs of every joyous kind.” (1)

In these days and times, events contrary to all religious laws and destructive of both human society and of the divine foundation have occurred as a result of the actions of some ignorant, unwise insurgents and fomenters of turmoil. They made the perspicuous divine religion a pretext, and by their sedition and clamor they have brought shame upon the people of Iran before the nations of the world, whether they be friends or strangers. Praise be to God! They claim to be shepherds, but they bear the characteristics of wolves. They read the Qur’an, but they desire to behave like rapacious beasts. They have a human form, but they approve of bestial conduct. “When it is said to them, ‘Do not corruption in the land,’ they say, ‘We are only ones that put things right.’ Truly, they are the workers of corruption but they are not aware.”(2) It has therefore become imperative that a brief discourse be delivered concerning the foundation stone of the divine religion, and to alert the friends to be wise and awake.