The Revelation of the Fire Tablet

*A retelling based on **The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh**, volume 3, by Adib Taherzadeh, with details of the imprisonment from Shoghi Effendi's **God Passes By**. Words in quotation marks are quoted from those books.*

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Bahá'u'lláh and His companions reached 'Akká as prisoners in August 1868 and were confined in the army barracks. Shoghi Effendi records that soon after their arrival all but two of them fell sick, and three died. The few pilgrims who managed to reach the prison gates, some of them having walked the whole way from Persia, could at most glimpse His face from beyond the second moat, standing opposite the window of His prison.

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In June 1870 His son Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, fell through an unguarded skylight while pacing the roof of the barracks in prayer, and died the next day. His dying wish was that his life might be accepted as a ransom for those who were prevented from attaining the presence of their Beloved.

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Toward the end of 1871 Bahá'u'lláh received a letter from one of His devoted followers in Persia, Ḥájí Siyyid 'Alí-Akbar-i-Dahají. In answer He revealed the Lawḥ-i-Qad-Iḥtaraqa'l-Mukhliṣún, known in the West as the Fire Tablet. Taherzadeh writes that it came at a time when great sorrows surrounded Bahá'u'lláh because of the hostility and betrayal of a few who had once claimed to be helpers of the Cause of God, and who were now spreading slander against Him among the people of 'Akká. In this Tablet, he says, the Pen of Bahá'u'lláh lamented "in a manner unprecedented in all His Writings."

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The Tablet is in Arabic rhyming verse. It opens with the grief of separation:

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> Indeed the hearts of the sincere are consumed in the fire of separation: > Where is the gleaming of the light of Thy Countenance, O Beloved of the > worlds?

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Taherzadeh explains that in much of the Tablet it is as if Bahá'u'lláh's human person recounts His afflictions. He speaks of His "Face" being "hidden in the dust of slander," and says that "the door leading to the Divine Presence is locked." Then, as the "Tongue of Grandeur," He replies to Himself:

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> We have made abasement the garment of glory, > And affliction the adornment of Thy temple, O Pride of the worlds.

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> When the swords flash, go forward! > When the shafts fly, press onward! O Thou Sacrifice of the worlds.

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Bahá'u'lláh addressed the recipient directly: "O 'Ali-Akbar, thank thy Lord for this Tablet whence thou canst breathe the fragrance of My meekness, and know what hath beset Us in the path of God, the Adored of all the worlds." Of the Tablet He also wrote: "Should all the servants read and ponder this, there shall be kindled in their veins a fire that shall set aflame the worlds." Taherzadeh notes that believers often recite it in times of difficulty and suffering.

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*This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see **The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh**, volume 3, by Adib Taherzadeh.*

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