Bahá'u'lláh's Tablet to Queen Victoria

In the third volume of *The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh,* Adib Taherzadeh devotes a section to the Tablet, written in Arabic, that Bahá’u’lláh addressed to Queen Victoria of Britain. It was revealed during the first years of His confinement in the prison-city of ‘Akká, when, as Shoghi Effendi records in *God Passes By,* the Prisoner of ‘Akká directed His appeals, warnings and exhortations to the kings and religious leaders of the world.

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The Tablet opens with a summons:

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> O Queen in London! Incline thine ear unto the voice of thy Lord, the > Lord of all mankind, calling from the Divine Lote-Tree ...

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It bids her cast away all that is on earth and attire the head of her kingdom with the crown of the remembrance of her Lord, and it declares that all that had been mentioned in the Gospel had been fulfilled.

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Bahá’u’lláh, Taherzadeh notes, commends the Queen for having “forbidden the trading in slaves” and for having “entrusted the reins of counsel into the hands of the representatives of the people.” Taherzadeh observes that Bahá’u’lláh Himself, in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, forbids the trading of slaves, and that He approves a system of government in which the representatives of the people take part.

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The Tablet goes on to counsel the members of Parliament. They are to be trustworthy among His servants, and to regard themselves as the representatives of all that dwell on earth. To the elected representatives of the people in every land it says:

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> Take ye counsel together, and let your concern be only for that which > profiteth mankind, and bettereth the condition thereof, if ye be of > them that scan heedfully.

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It likens the world to a human body afflicted with grave maladies and made worse by ignorant physicians, and names the sovereign remedy: the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith.

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To the rulers of the earth the Tablet offers a further counsel. Shoghi Effendi summarizes it in *God Passes By*: Bahá’u’lláh invites the kings to hold fast to “the Lesser Peace,” since they had refused “the Most Great Peace”; exhorts them to be reconciled among themselves, to unite and to reduce their armaments; bids them not to lay excessive burdens on their subjects; and sets out the principle that should any one among them take up arms against another, all should rise against him. Taherzadeh quotes the words:

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> Now that ye have refused the Most Great Peace, hold ye fast unto this, > the Lesser Peace, that haply ye may in some degree better your own > condition and that of your dependants.

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The Lesser Peace, Taherzadeh explains, is a political peace, to be concluded between the nations of the world with the aim of abolishing global wars. He regards it as a milestone on the way to the Most Great Peace, which will come only with the spiritualization of the peoples of the world.

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As for the Queen herself, Shoghi Effendi records in *The Promised Day Is Come* that, on reading the Tablet revealed for her, she is reported to have remarked: “If this is of God, it will endure; if not, it can do no harm.”

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*A retelling based on **The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh**, Vol. 3 — ‘Akká, the Early Years (Adib Taherzadeh, George Ronald, 1983). For the fuller account, see the original.*

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