The Reading of the Covenant

*A retelling based on **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi. The words in quotation marks are from Shoghi Effendi's account and from Bahá'u'lláh's Book of the Covenant (the Kitáb-i-'Ahd), as published in **Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh**.*

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Bahá'u'lláh passed away at Bahjí, near 'Akká, at the hour of dawn on 29 May 1892. Shoghi Effendi explains in *God Passes By* that, to guide His followers after His passing, Bahá'u'lláh had established a Covenant. He had anticipated it in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, alluded to it when He bade farewell to the members of His family gathered at His bedside in His last days, and set it down in a document He called "the Book of My Covenant." During His last illness He entrusted this document to His eldest Son, 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

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The Book of the Covenant was written entirely in Bahá'u'lláh's own hand. On the ninth day after His ascension it was unsealed in the presence of nine witnesses chosen from among His companions and members of His family. On the afternoon of that same day it was read before a large company gathered at His Most Holy Tomb, among them His sons, some of the Báb's kinsmen, pilgrims and resident believers.

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In it Bahá'u'lláh wrote: "It is incumbent upon the Aghsán, the Afnán and My Kindred to turn, one and all, their faces towards the Most Mighty Branch." The Aghsán were His sons, the Afnán the kindred of the Báb, and the Most Mighty Branch was 'Abdu'l-Bahá. Bahá'u'lláh identified Him with the One "Whom God hath purposed," to Whom the Kitáb-i-Aqdas had told the believers to turn once Bahá'u'lláh was no longer with them.

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Shoghi Effendi writes that this document "can find no parallel in the Scriptures of any previous Dispensation, not excluding that of the Báb Himself." Bahá'u'lláh had named, in His own hand, the One to Whom His followers must turn after Him.

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*This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi.*

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