Bahá'u'lláh's Counsel to the Son of the Wolf

A retelling based on the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf by Bahá'u'lláh, with background from Shoghi Effendi's God Passes By. Words in quotation marks are from the Epistle, in Shoghi Effendi's translation, or from God Passes By.

About a year before His ascension in 1892, Bahá'u'lláh revealed near 'Akká the last of His major Tablets. It was addressed to Shaykh Muḥammad-Taqíy-i-Najafí, a leading cleric of Iṣfahán. The Shaykh's father, Shaykh Muḥammad-Báqir, had been denounced by Bahá'u'lláh as "the Wolf," and so the son is known as the Son of the Wolf.

Shoghi Effendi records in God Passes By that the father had pronounced the death sentence on two brothers of Iṣfahán, the King of Martyrs and the Beloved of Martyrs, who "were celebrated for their generosity, trustworthiness, kindliness and piety." The son took part in the persecution himself. When a believer named Mírzá Ashraf was put to death in Iṣfahán, Shaykh Muḥammad-Taqí and his pupils trampled on his body.

To this man Bahá'u'lláh wrote: "Give ear, O distinguished divine, unto the voice of this Wronged One. He verily, counselleth thee for the sake of God, and exhorteth thee unto that which will cause thee to draw nigh unto Him under all conditions."

He told the Shaykh to purify his soul, to turn toward the Most Great House, and to recite a prayer, which He then set down in full. It is a long prayer of repentance, written for the Shaykh to say in his own person. In it the speaker confesses to having shed the blood of God's loved ones, and turns to God for pardon: "Thou seest the sinner, O my Lord, who hath turned towards the dawning-place of Thy forgiveness and Thy bounty, and the mountain of iniquity that hath sought the heaven of Thy mercy and pardon." Another line reads: "As mine iniquities waxed greater and greater, Thy forbearance towards me augmented, and as the fire of my rebelliousness grew fiercer, the more did Thy forgiveness and Thy grace seek to smother up its flame."

In the Epistle Bahá'u'lláh also describes His own sufferings, among them the four months He spent in the dungeon of Ṭihrán in 1852: "We were consigned for four months to a place foul beyond comparison." He quotes many passages from His earlier Writings and sets out proofs of His Cause. More than once He asks the Shaykh to judge fairly: "Meditate, O Shaykh, and be fair in what thou sayest."

At one point He writes that the Most Sublime Pen has told Him: "Admonish the Shaykh even as Thou hast admonished one of Thy Branches (sons), that haply the breezes of Thine utterance may attract and draw him nigh unto God, the Lord of the worlds." He then sets before the Shaykh the counsels He had once given His own son, beginning: "Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity." Among them are these words: "Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech. Be unjust to no man, and show all meekness to all men."

Shoghi Effendi describes the Epistle as a Tablet in which Bahá'u'lláh calls upon the Shaykh "to repent of his acts." He lists Shaykh Muḥammad-Taqí among the persecutors in Persia who later "lost, one by one, their prestige and authority."

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, and for Bahá'u'lláh's own words, see Epistle to the Son of the Wolf.

Bahá'u'lláh. (1891). *Epistle to the Son of the Wolf*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/bahaullah/epistle-son-wolf/