creation

The twelfth Hidden Word in Arabic — Bahá'u'lláh's reminder that the soul was fashioned with God's own hands and was not intended for the dust of bondage.

In the opening chapter of *Some Answered Questions*, 'Abdu'l-Bahá takes up Laura Clifford Barney's question about nature itself — and gives, in one sentence, a sweeping definition: nature is the appearance of composition and decomposition, the meeting and parting of life and death, governed by a single universal law.

In *Some Answered Questions*, 'Abdu'l-Bahá addresses Laura Clifford Barney's question on the creation of the human being — distinguishing the *species* from the *individual* and explaining the eternal pre-existence of humanity in the divine knowledge.