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The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh
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Pages 172-179
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Collapse of Islám
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The collapse of the power of the Shí'ih hierarchy, in a land
which had for centuries been one of the impregnable strongholds
of Muslim fanaticism, was the inevitable consequence of that wave
of secularization which, at a later time, was to invade some of the
most powerful and conservative ecclesiastical institutions in both the
European and American continents. Though not the direct outcome
of the last war, this sudden trembling which had seized this hitherto
immovable pillar of Islamic orthodoxy accentuated the problems and
deepened the restlessness with which a war-weary world was being
afflicted. Shí'ih Islám had lost once for all, in Bahá'u'lláh's native
land and as the direct consequence of its implacable hostility to His
Faith, its combative power, had forfeited its rights and privileges,
had been degraded and demoralized, and was being condemned to
hopeless obscurity and ultimate extinction. No less than twenty
thousand martyrs, however, had to sacrifice their lives ere the Cause
for which they had stood and died could register this initial victory
over those who were the first to repudiate its claims and mow down
its gallant warriors. "Vileness and poverty were stamped upon
them, and they returned with wrath from God."
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"Behold," writes Bahá'u'lláh, commenting on the decline of a
fallen people, "how the sayings and doings of Shí'ih Islám have
dulled the joy and fervor of its early days, and tarnished the pristine
brilliancy of its light. In its primitive days, whilst they still adhered
to the precepts associated with the name of their Prophet, the Lord
of mankind, their career was marked by an unbroken chain of victories
and triumphs. As they gradually strayed from the path of
their Ideal Leader and Master, as they turned away from the light
of God and corrupted the principle of His Divine unity, and as
they increasingly centered their attention upon them who were only
the revealers of the potency of His Word, their power was turned
into weakness, their glory into shame, their courage into fear. Thou
dost witness to what a pass they have come."
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The downfall of the Qájár Dynasty, the avowed defender and
the willing instrument of a decaying clergy, almost synchronized
with the humiliation which the Shí'ih ecclesiastical leaders had suffered.
From Muhammad Sháh down to the last and feeble monarch
of that dynasty, the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh was denied the impartial
consideration, the disinterested and fair treatment which its cause
had rightly demanded. It had, on the contrary, been atrociously harassed,
consistently betrayed and prosecuted. The martyrdom of the
Báb; the banishment of Bahá'u'lláh; the confiscation of His earthly
possessions; His incarceration in Mazindarán; the reign of terror
that confined Him in the most pestilential of dungeons; the intrigues,
the protests, and calumnies which thrice renewed His exile and led
to His ultimate imprisonment in the most desolate of cities; the
shameful sentences passed, with the connivance of the judicial and
ecclesiastical authorities, against the person, the property, and the
honor of His innocent followers--these stand out as among the
blackest acts for which posterity will hold this blood-stained dynasty
responsible. One more barrier that had sought to obstruct the forward
march of the Faith was now removed.
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Though Bahá'u'lláh had been banished from His native land,
the tide of calamity which had swept with such fury over Him and
over the followers of the Báb, was by no means receding. Under the
jurisdiction of the Sultán of Turkey, the arch-enemy of His Cause,
a new chapter in the history of His ever-recurring trials had opened.
The overthrow of the Sultanate and the Caliphate, the twin pillars
of Sunní Islám, can be regarded in no other light except as the inevitable
consequence of the fierce, the sustained and deliberate persecution
which the monarchs of the tottering House of Uthmán, the
recognized successors of the Prophet Muhammad, had launched
against it. From the city of Constantinople, the traditional seat of
both the Sultanate and the Caliphate, the rulers of Turkey had, for
a period covering almost three quarters of a century, striven, with
unabated zeal, to stem the tide of a Faith they feared and abhorred.
From the time Bahá'u'lláh set foot on Turkish soil and was made
a virtual prisoner of the most powerful potentate of Islám to the
year of the Holy Land's liberation from Turkish yoke, successive
Caliphs, and in particular the Sultáns `Abdu'l-`Azíz and `Abdu'l-Hamíd,
had, in the full exercise of the spiritual and temporal authority
which their exalted office had conferred upon them, afflicted
both the Founder of our Faith and the Center of His Covenant with
such pain and tribulation as no mind can fathom nor pen or tongue
describe. They alone could have measured or borne them.
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To these afflictive trials Bahá'u'lláh has repeatedly testified: "By
the righteousness of the Almighty! Were I to recount to thee the
tale of the things that have befallen Me, the souls and minds of men
would be incapable of sustaining its weight. God Himself beareth
Me witness." "Twenty years have passed," He, addressing the kings
of Christendom, has written, "during which We have, each day,
tasted the agony of a fresh tribulation. No one of them that were
before Us hath endured the things We have endured. Would that
ye could perceive it! They that rose up against us have put us to
death, have shed our blood, have plundered our property, and violated
our honor." "Recall to mind My sorrows," He, in another connection,
has revealed, "My cares and anxieties, My woes and trials,
the state of My captivity, the tears that I have shed, the bitterness of
Mine anguish, and now Mine imprisonment in this far-off land...
Couldst thou be told what hath befallen the Ancient Beauty, thou
wouldst flee into the wilderness, and weep with a great weeping...
Every morning I arose from my bed, I discovered the hosts of
countless afflictions massed behind My door; and every night when
I lay down, lo, My heart was torn with agony at what it had suffered
from the fiendish cruelty of its foes."
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The orders which these foes issued, the banishments they decreed,
the indignities they inflicted, the plans they devised, the investigations
they conducted, the threats they pronounced, the atrocities
they were prepared to commit, the intrigues and baseness to
which they, their ministers, their governors, and military chieftains
had stooped, constitute a record which can hardly find a parallel in
the history of any revealed religion. The mere recital of the most
salient features of that sinister theme would suffice to fill a volume.
They knew full well that the spiritual and administrative Center of
the Cause they had striven to eradicate had now shifted to their
dominion, that its leaders were Turkish citizens, and that whatever
resources these could command were at their mercy. That for a
period of almost three score years and ten, while still in the plenitude
of its unquestioned authority, while reinforced by the endless machinations
of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of a neighboring
nation, and assured of the support of those of Bahá'u'lláh's kindred
who had rebelled against, and seceded from, His Cause, this despotism
should have failed in the end to extirpate a mere handful of its
condemned subjects must, to every unbelieving observer, remain one
of the most intriguing and mysterious episodes of contemporary
history.
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The Cause of which Bahá'u'lláh was still the visible leader had,
despite the calculations of a short-sighted enemy, undeniably triumphed.
No unbiased mind, penetrating the surface of conditions
surrounding the Prisoner of Akká, could any longer mistake or
deny it. Though the tension which had been relaxed was, for a time,
heightened after Bahá'u'lláh's ascension and the perils of a still unsettled
situation were revived, it was becoming increasingly evident
that the insidious forces of decay, which for many a long year
were eating into the vitals of a diseased nation, were now moving
towards a climax. A series of internal convulsions, each more devastating
than the previous one, had already been unchained, destined
to bring in their wake one of the most catastrophic occurrences of
modern times. The murder of that arrogant despot in the year 1876;
the Russo-Turkish conflict that soon followed in its wake; the wars
of liberation which succeeded it; the rise of the Young Turk movement;
the Turkish Revolution of 1909 that precipitated the downfall
of `Abdu'l-Hamíd; the Balkan wars with their calamitous consequences;
the liberation of Palestine enshrining within its bosom
the cities of Akká and Haifa, the world center of an emancipated
Faith; the further dismemberment decreed by the Treaty of Versailles;
the abolition of the Sultanate and the downfall of the House
of Uthmán; the extinction of the Caliphate; the disestablishment
of the State Religion; the annulment of the Sharí'ah Law and the
promulgation of a universal Civil Code; the suppression of various
orders, beliefs, traditions and ceremonials believed to be inextricably
interwoven with the fabric of the Muslim Faith--these followed
with an ease and swiftness that no man had dared envisage. In these
devastating blows, administered by friend and foe alike, by Christian
nations and professing Muslims, every follower of the persecuted
Faith of Bahá'u'lláh recognized evidences of the directing
Hand of the departed Founder of his religion, Who, from the invisible
Realm, was unloosing a flood of well-deserved calamities
upon a rebellious religion and nation.
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Compare the evidences of Divine visitation which befell the persecutors
of Jesus Christ with these historic retributions which, in
the latter part of the first century of the Bahá'í Era, have hurled
to dust the chief adversary of the religion of Bahá'u'lláh. Had not
the Roman Emperor, in the second half of the first century of the
Christian Era, after a distressful siege of Jerusalem, laid waste the
Holy City, destroyed the Temple, desecrated and robbed the Holy
of Holies of its treasures, and transported them to Rome, reared a
pagan colony on the mount of Zion, massacred the Jews, and exiled
and dispersed the survivors?
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Compare, moreover, these words which the persecuted Christ,
as witnessed by the Gospel, addressed to Jerusalem, with Bahá'u'lláh's
apostrophe to Constantinople, revealed while He lay in His
far-off Prison, and recorded in His Most Holy Book: "O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them
which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy
children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her
wings!" And again, as He wept over the city: "If thou hadst known,
even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy
peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall
come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee,
and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall
lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and
they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou
knewest not the time of thy visitation."
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"O Spot that art situate on the shores of the two seas!" Bahá'u'lláh
thus apostrophizes the City of Constantinople, "The throne of
tyranny hath, verily, been established upon thee, and the flame of
hatred hath been kindled within thy bosom, in such wise that the
Concourse on high and they who circle around the Exalted Throne
have wailed and lamented. We behold in thee the foolish ruling over
the wise, and darkness vaunting itself against the light. Thou art
indeed filled with manifest pride. Hath thine outward splendor made
thee vainglorious? By Him Who is the Lord of mankind! It shall
soon perish, and thy daughters and thy widows and all the kindreds
that dwell within thee shall lament. Thus informeth thee the All-Knowing,
the All-Wise."
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To Sultán `Abdu'l-`Azíz, the monarch who decreed each of Bahá'u'lláh's
three banishments, the Founder of our Faith, while a
prisoner in the Sultán's capital, addressed these words: "Hearken,
O king, to the speech of Him that speaketh the truth, Him that doth
not ask thee to recompense Him with the things God hath chosen to
bestow upon thee, Him Who unerringly treadeth the Straight Path
...Set before thine eyes God's unerring Balance and, as one
standing in His presence, weigh in that Balance thine actions every
day, every moment of thy life. Bring thyself to account ere thou art
summoned to a reckoning, on the day when no man shall have
strength to stand for fear of God, the day when the hearts of the
heedless ones shall be made to tremble."
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To the Ministers of the Turkish State, He, in that same Tablet,
revealed: "It behooveth you, O Ministers of State, to keep the precepts
of God, and to forsake your own laws and regulations, and to
be of them who are guided aright... Ye shall, erelong, discover
the consequences of that which ye shall have done in this vain life,
and shall be repaid for them... How great the number of those
who, in bygone ages, have committed the things ye have committed,
and who, though superior to you in rank, have, in the end, returned
unto dust, and been consigned to their inevitable doom!... Ye
shall follow in their wake, and shall be made to enter a habitation
wherein none shall be found to befriend or help you... The days
of your life shall roll away, and all the things with which ye are
occupied, and of which ye boast yourselves, shall perish, and ye
shall, most certainly, be summoned by a company of His angels to
appear at the spot where the limbs of the entire creation shall be
made to tremble, and the flesh of every oppressor to creep...
This is the day that shall inevitably come upon you, the hour that
none can put back."
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To the inhabitants of Constantinople, while He lived the life of
an exile in their midst, Bahá'u'lláh, in that same Tablet, addressed
these words: "Fear God, ye inhabitants of the City, and sow not the
seeds of dissension amongst men... Your days shall pass away
as have the days of them who were before you. To dust shall ye
return, even as your fathers of old did return." "We found," He,
moreover, remarks, "upon Our arrival in the City its governors and
elders as children gathered about and disporting themselves with
clay... Our inner eye wept sore over them, and over their transgressions
and their total disregard of the thing for which they were
created... The day is approaching when God will have raised
up a people who will call to remembrance Our days, who will tell
the tale of Our trials, who will demand the restitution of Our rights
from them that, without a tittle of evidence, have treated Us with
manifest injustice. God assuredly dominateth the lives of them that
wronged Us, and is well aware of their doings. He will, most certainly,
lay hold on them for their sins. He, verily, is the fiercest of
avengers." "Wherefore," He graciously exhorteth them, "hearken
ye unto My speech, and return ye to God and repent, that He,
through His grace, may have mercy upon you, may wash away your
sins, and forgive your trespasses. The greatness of His mercy surpasseth
the fury of His wrath, and His grace encompasseth all who
have been called into being and been clothed with the robe of life,
be they of the past or of the future."
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And, finally, in the Lawh-i-Ra'ís we find these prophetic words
recorded: "Hearken, O Chief ... to the Voice of God, the Sovereign,
the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting... Thou hast, O
Chief, committed that which hath made Muhammad, the Apostle of
God, groan in the Most Exalted Paradise. The world hath made
thee proud, so much so that thou hast turned away from the Face
through Whose brightness the Concourse on high hath been illumined.
Soon thou shalt find thyself in evident loss... The day
is approaching when the Land of Mystery (Adrianople) and what
is beside it shall be changed, and shall pass out of the hands of the
King, and commotions shall appear, and the voice of lamentation
shall be raised, and the evidences of mischief shall be revealed on
all sides, and confusion shall spread by reason of that which hath
befallen these captives at the hands of the hosts of oppression. The
course of things shall be altered, and conditions shall wax so grievous,
that the very sands on the desolate hills will moan, and the trees
on the mountain will weep, and blood will flow out of all things.
Then wilt thou behold the people in sore distress."
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Thirteen hundred years had to elapse from the death of the
Prophet Muhammad ere the illegitimacy of the institution of the
Caliphate, the founders of which had usurped the authority of the
lawful successors of the Apostle of God, would be fully and publicly
demonstrated. An institution which in its inception had trampled
upon so sacred a right and unchained the forces of so distressful a
schism, an institution which, in the latter days, had dealt so grievous
a blow to a Faith Whose Forerunner was Himself a descendant
of the very Imáms whose authority that institution had repudiated,
deserved full well the chastisement that had sealed its fate.
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The text of certain Muhammadan traditions, the authenticity of
which Muslims themselves recognize, and which have been extensively
quoted by eminent Oriental Bahá'í scholars and authors, will
serve to corroborate the argument and illuminate the theme I have
attempted to expound: "In the latter days a grievous calamity shall
befall My people at the hands of their ruler, a calamity such as no
man ever heard to surpass it. So fierce will it be that none can find
a shelter. God will then send down One of My descendants, One
sprung from My family, Who will fill the earth with equity and
justice, even as it hath been filled with injustice and tyranny." And,
again: "A day shall be witnessed by My people whereon there will
have remained of Islám naught but a name, and of the Qur'án
naught but a mere appearance. The doctors of that age shall be the
most evil the world hath ever seen. Mischief hath proceeded from
them, and on them will it recoil." And, again: "At that hour His
malediction shall descend upon you, and your curse shall afflict you,
and your religion shall remain an empty word on your tongues. And
when these signs appear amongst you, anticipate the day when the
red-hot wind will have swept over you, or the day when ye will have
been disfigured, or when stones will have rained upon you."
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"O people of the Qur'án," Bahá'u'lláh, addressing the combined
forces of Sunní and Shí'ih Islám, significantly affirms, "Verily, the
Prophet of God, Muhammad, sheddeth tears at the sight of your
cruelty. Ye have assuredly followed your evil and corrupt desires,
and turned away your face from the light of guidance. Erelong will
ye witness the result of your deeds; for the Lord, My God, lieth in
wait and is watchful of your behavior... O concourse of Muslim
divines! By your deeds the exalted station of the people hath been
abased, the standard of Islám hath been reversed, and its mighty
throne hath fallen."
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