Nabíl and the Tablet of Visitation

A retelling based on The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh by Adib Taherzadeh (volume 4, with details from volume 1), which tells how the Tablet of Visitation came to be compiled. Words in quotation marks are from Taherzadeh, from God Passes By, or from the Tablet of Visitation in Shoghi Effendi's translation.

Bahá'u'lláh passed away at Bahjí at dawn on 29 May 1892. Among the believers there was Nabíl-i-A'ẓam, whose history of the early days of the Faith is known in English as The Dawn-Breakers. Shoghi Effendi records that Nabíl "had had the privilege of a private audience with Bahá'u'lláh during the days of His illness." Taherzadeh writes that one of his last contributions was an account of the passing of Bahá'u'lláh.

'Abdu'l-Bahá gave Nabíl a particular task: to select from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh the passages that now make up the Tablet of Visitation. Nabíl composed none of it. Taherzadeh traced its sources. The first four paragraphs come from a Tablet Bahá'u'lláh revealed for one of His followers, Áqá Bábá; the fifth and sixth from a Tablet to a believer Taherzadeh could not identify; and the last from a Tablet to Khadíjih-Bagum, the wife of the Báb.

The Tablet opens: "The praise which hath dawned from Thy most august Self, and the glory which hath shone forth from Thy most effulgent Beauty, rest upon Thee, O Thou Who art the Manifestation of Grandeur, and the King of Eternity, and the Lord of all who are in heaven and on earth!" Its third paragraph begins: "I bear witness that he who hath known Thee hath known God, and he who hath attained unto Thy presence hath attained unto the presence of God." Later it says: "I bear witness that the eye of creation hath never gazed upon one wronged like Thee." It closes with a prayer for blessings on "the Divine Lote-Tree and its leaves, and its boughs, and its branches."

According to Taherzadeh, the Tablet is recited in the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh at Bahjí and in the Shrine of the Báb, and at the commemorations of the Ascension of Bahá'u'lláh and the Martyrdom of the Báb. Outside the Shrines, its recital is limited to those two occasions. It is also published in Prayers and Meditations by Bahá'u'lláh as number 180.

Nabíl did not long survive his Lord. Taherzadeh writes that he "was inconsolable after the ascension of his Lord." Shoghi Effendi records that Nabíl, "in his uncontrollable grief, drowned himself in the sea shortly after the passing of his Beloved."

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh by Adib Taherzadeh, volume 4, and volume 1, pp. 205–6.

Taherzadeh, A.. (1987). *The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Volume 4*. George Ronald.