Bahá'u'lláh's Tablet to the Kings

A retelling based on God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi, which describes the Súriy-i-Mulúk, with passages from the Tablet as translated in The Summons of the Lord of Hosts. Words in quotation marks are quoted from those books.

In December 1863 Bahá'u'lláh, His family and companions were sent from Constantinople to Adrianople, a twelve-day journey in the cold of winter. He lived in Adrianople until 1868, and there He revealed the Súriy-i-Mulúk, the Súrih of Kings. Shoghi Effendi calls it "the most momentous Tablet revealed by Bahá'u'lláh," one "in which He, for the first time, directs His words collectively to the entire company of the monarchs of East and West."

The Tablet begins: "This is a Tablet from this Servant, who is called Husayn in the kingdom of names, to the concourse of the kings of the earth."

In it, as Shoghi Effendi summarizes, Bahá'u'lláh discloses the character of His Mission, calls the kings to embrace His Message, affirms the Revelation of the Báb, and reproves them for their indifference. He tells them: "For your glory consisteth not in your sovereignty, but rather in your nearness unto God and your observance of His command as sent down in His holy and preserved Tablets." He enjoins them to be just and vigilant, and to make peace among themselves: "Compose your differences and reduce your armaments, that the burden of your expenditures may be lightened, and that your minds and hearts may be tranquillized." He commends the poor to their care: "Know ye that the poor are the trust of God in your midst." And He warns that if they refuse to heed His counsels, "Divine chastisement" will "assail" them "from every direction."

The Tablet also speaks separately to the Ottoman Sultán, 'Abdu'l-'Azíz, and his ministers; to the kings of Christendom; to the French and Persian ambassadors in Constantinople; to the Muslim clergy of that city, its wise men and its people; to the people of Persia; and to the philosophers of the world.

To the Sultán, Bahá'u'lláh describes His own banishment: "They expelled Us, however, from thy city with an abasement with which no abasement on earth can compare." Of the winter in Adrianople He writes: "Neither My family, nor those who accompanied Me, had the necessary raiment to protect them from the cold in that freezing weather." Yet, as Shoghi Effendi notes, in the same Tablet He asserts His loyalty to the Sultán and assures him of His prayers on his behalf.

Shoghi Effendi writes that Bahá'u'lláh prophesied His "triumph upon earth" even if no king should turn towards Him. Later, from the prison of 'Akká, Bahá'u'lláh addressed the kings again, in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas and in Tablets to individual rulers. Shoghi Effendi describes those kings as having "already been collectively admonished and warned in the Súriy-i-Mulúk revealed in Adrianople."

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi, and for the text of the Tablet, The Summons of the Lord of Hosts.

Effendi, S.. (1944). *God Passes By*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/shoghi-effendi/god-passes-by/