The Hidden Words by the Tigris

*A retelling based on **The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh**, Volume 1, by Adib Taherzadeh, chapter 6, "The Hidden Words," and on Shoghi Effendi's account in **God Passes By**. Words in quotation marks are quoted from those books and from **The Hidden Words** itself.*

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In the years of His exile in Baghdád, Bahá'u'lláh was often seen, Adib Taherzadeh writes, pacing the bank of the Tigris "rapt in meditation." Shoghi Effendi records that it was during such walks that He revealed the Hidden Words, which he calls a "marvelous collection of gem-like utterances." The book was revealed in the year 1274 A.H., about 1858, partly in Arabic and partly in Persian.

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Taherzadeh adds that in one of His Tablets Bahá'u'lláh explains that some of its passages were revealed on a single occasion and recorded in one Tablet, and that the rest, revealed at different times, were added to them later. In the early days of the Faith the collection was known as the "Hidden Book of Fáṭimih." Shí'ah Muslims believe that such a book, words of consolation given by the angel Gabriel to Fáṭimih, the daughter of Muḥammad, after her Father's death, is in the keeping of the promised Qá'im. Bahá'u'lláh identified the Hidden Words with that book.

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The Arabic part opens with Bahá'u'lláh's own description of what the book contains: "This is that which hath descended from the realm of glory, uttered by the tongue of power and might, and revealed unto the Prophets of old. We have taken the inner essence thereof and clothed it in the garment of brevity, as a token of grace unto the righteous, that they may stand faithful unto the Covenant of God, may fulfill in their lives His trust, and in the realm of spirit obtain the gem of Divine virtue."

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Each short passage begins with an address such as "O Son of Spirit!", "O Son of Man!" or "O My Friends!" The first reads: "O Son of Spirit! My first counsel is this: Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart, that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable and everlasting." The fifth reads: "O Son of Being! Love Me, that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, My love can in no wise reach thee."

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Taherzadeh calls the book a guide for the soul on its journey to God, whose chief aim is to detach man from this world and to protect his soul from "its greatest enemy, himself." He tells how 'Abdu'l-Bahá, in a Tablet to the teacher Mírzá 'Abbás, known as Qábil, urged him to read the Hidden Words day and night and to pray that he might carry out their counsels, making clear that the book was given to the believers not merely to be read but to be put into practice.

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Qábil chanted passages from it every day, and spent much of his life travelling from village to village to teach the Faith.

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*This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see **The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh**, Volume 1, by Adib Taherzadeh; and for the text itself, **The Hidden Words** of Bahá'u'lláh.*

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