The Epistle's Counsels on Trustworthiness

In the *Epistle to the Son of the Wolf*, the closing major Tablet revealed by Bahá'u'lláh in 1891, a substantial passage is devoted to the spiritual and social significance of trustworthiness — *al-amánah* in the Arabic of the Tablet, often translated *fidelity* or *trust* in the English versions.

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Bahá'u'lláh names the quality with the highest possible elevation. *Trustworthiness,* He writes, *is the supreme instrument for the prosperity of the world.* The phrase is worth attending to. Trustworthiness is not, in His framing, merely a personal virtue commendable in private dealings. It is the *supreme instrument* — the principal mechanism — by which the prosperity of the world is brought about.

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The reasoning unfolds. The Tablet observes that all the ordinary commerce, government, education, and family life of the human race depend on the foundation of mutual trust. The merchant trusts that the contracts entered into will be honoured. The citizen trusts that the laws promulgated will be enforced. The teacher trusts that the qualifications presented by the student are genuine. The parent trusts that the friend who takes the child to school will return the child safely.

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Where this trust is broken, the entire elaborate structure of human society begins to tremble. Each transaction becomes a defensive operation. Each relationship requires costly safeguards. The *prosperity* of the world — the ordinary thriving of human life — declines.

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Bahá'u'lláh ties the quality of trustworthiness directly to the standing of the Bahá'í community in the eyes of the world.

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> The followers of My Cause must show forth such a character, > such a degree of trustworthiness, that the very mention of > their name shall, in every quarter, be a guarantee of > their reliability.

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The standard is high and explicit. The Bahá'í believer is to be the person whose name carries, on its own, the weight of integrity. Public reputation, in this framing, is not a vanity to be cultivated but a public good that the believer is charged with maintaining.

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The passage continues by addressing specific forms of breach of trust. *Backbiting* is named. *Calumny* is named. *The sowing of suspicion* is named. *The breaking of contractual obligations* is named. Each is rejected as incompatible with the spiritual standing the Faith requires.

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The closing of the passage is consequential. *Were the human race to act in accordance with the principles laid down in this Tablet,* Bahá'u'lláh writes, *the world would in time enter the paradise foretold by the Prophets.* The ordinary daily practice of trustworthiness, by ordinary persons in ordinary circumstances, is — in His understanding — the principal practical instrument by which the Most Great Peace will, in time, be brought about.

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The Epistle's passage on trustworthiness is among the most quoted of Bahá'u'lláh's later utterances. It functions, in the contemporary Bahá'í community, as the direct foundation for the institutional teachings on financial ethics, on the conduct of work, on the discharge of contractual obligation, and on the public character of the individual believer.

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