Recitation of the Tablets of Visitation at Baha’i Holy Days

The Universal House of Justice has received your letter of 15 June 1992 regarding the conduct of Bahá'í Holy Day observances. We have been asked to provide the following response.

The commemoration of Holy Days, including the development of programs for these observances, is a matter left to the discretion of the appropriate National and Local Spiritual Assemblies, which are entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that such observances are conducted in a manner in keeping with the spirit of the divine teachings and ordinances. While it is customary for the Tablets of Visitation to be recited at the conclusion of the Holy Day programs held at the Bahá'í World Centre, as well as in countries of the Middle East, this practice is not binding upon Bahá'í communities elsewhere, nor has a specific time been fixed for the recitations to occur.

Nothing has been found in the Bahá'í Writings requiring the friends to stand and face the Qiblih whenever the Tablets of Visitation are recited. No issue should be made of this matter when a Holy Day observance is being held. However, when one is actually in, or within the precincts of one of the Holy Shrines, it is an act of simple reverence to stand and face that Shrine when the Tablet of Visitation is recited. 

- The Universal House of Justice  (From a letter dated 19 August 1992 written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to an individual believer; Baha’i Library Online)

A healing miracle performed by the Báb: - Reported by Muhammad Big, the leader of the mounted escort that accompanied the Báb from Isfahan to Tabriz

In the “Taríkh-i-Jadíd,” Muhammad Big is reported to have related the following account to Hájí Mírzá Jání:

“So we mounted and rode on till we came to a brick caravanserai distant two parsangs from the city. Thence we proceeded to Milán, where many of the inhabitants came to see His Holiness, and were filled with wonder at the majesty and dignity of that Lord of mankind. In the morning, as we were setting out from Milán, an old woman brought a scald-headed child, whose head was so covered with scabs that it was white down to the neck, and entreated His Holiness to heal him. The guards would have forbidden her but His Holiness prevented them, and called the child to Him. Then He drew a handkerchief over its head and repeated certain words; which he had no sooner done than the child was healed. And in that place about two hundred persons believed and underwent a true and sincere conversion.” 

(Taríkh-i-Jadíd, pages 222–21; Footnotes to chapter 12 of 'The Dawn-Breakers', provided by Shoghi Effendi)

1990: “One World for All” Concerts with Dizzy Gillespie

At the end of the East-West German conflict and the beginning of the reconciliation between East and West, the German Baha’i community organized the benefit tour “One World for All” Concerts with Dizzy Gillespie which occurred May 9 to 11, 1990.  John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was a famous American Baha’i jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer who often used his art to promote the teachings of the Baha’i Faith.

Three concerts were given in three days in East-Berlin, Moscow and Prague under the patronage of Willy Brandt (former German Chancellor) with a kick-off concert in the Palace of the Republic in Berlin. In Prague, his legendary words, “There is only one world or none” in the middle of the concert in the presence of Václav Havel, then president of Czechoslovakia, earned him minutes of applause.

The aim of the project was to proclaim the message of the unity of mankind in Eastern Bloc countries. This happened at a time when religion was viewed as an opium for the people in those countries and wasn’t openly discussed. The project resulted in numerous references to the teachings of the Baha'i Faith in the press and other media, a historic milestone.

“Bahá’u’lláh’s inscrutable purpose… so thoroughly infused into the conduct of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá”

Bahá’u’lláh’s inscrutable purpose, we must ever bear in mind, has been so thoroughly infused into the conduct of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and their motives have been so closely wedded together, that the mere attempt to dissociate the teachings of the former from any system which the ideal Exemplar of those same teachings has established would amount to a repudiation of one of the most sacred and basic truths of the Faith. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Dispensation of Baha’u’llah; included in ‘The World Order of Baha’u’llah’)

Pilgrimages of the Hand of the Cause Tarázu’lláh Samandari

• 
  As a youth the desire of Tarázu’lláh’s heart was to gain admittance to the presence of Bahá’u’lláh who was then an exile in the Turkish penal colony of Akká. The pilgrimage of his brother and cousin increased his ardour for meeting his Beloved. This bounty was conferred upon him in 1891 when he made the arduous journey of several weeks from Persia to the Holy Land, accompanied by his sister and his maternal aunt. At the age of seventeen he was in the entourage of Bahá’u’lláh in ‘Akká for six months and remained there for about four weeks after the passing of the Blessed Beauty in 1892. 
• Bahá’u’lláh received him, three days after his arrival, in the House of ‘Abbúd, and on other occasions in Bahjí, the garden of Ridván and elsewhere.
• During his 1891 pilgrimage, he had the supreme honour on two occasions to be in the presence of Bahá’u’lláh at the time of revelation. Although he acknowledged that this experience was impossible to describe, he said the Words poured forth like a mighty torrent, while the greatest majesty was evident in His person. On other occasions, Bahá’u’lláh manifested His own title "Mazlúmíyyih" (the Wronged One).
• On the morning of Naw-Rúz, Bahá’u’lláh sent Tarázu’lláh a gift of clothes, a robe, a shirt, a cummerbund and socks. The same day He received the friends in a small garden. The famous poets, Nabil and ‘Andalíb, had composed poems for the occasion. The garden was adorned with citrus trees; rain was drizzling. On this day the friends gathered at the Feast had the supreme bounty of hearing Bahá’u’lláh revealing verses. A banquet was served and Tarázu’lláh and other friends accompanied the Blessed Beauty on His return to Bahji.
• Tarázu’lláh received permission from ‘Abdu’l-Baha to make another pilgrimage in 1898. With a group of friends from Persia he stayed in ‘Akká for four months and ten days, in the company of the Master, gaining in spirituality and knowledge.
• In 1908, Tarázu’lláh made a third pilgrimage for forty days, in a period when conditions in the Holy Land were very unsettled; 'Abdu’l-Bahá’s life was in danger and the enemies of the Faith were emboldened by events which seemed momentarily to assure their ascendancy. 
• In 1910 he travelled to the Holy Land and spent two months in the presence of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá…
• In the autumn of 1940 Tarázu’lláh and his wife were granted permission to make the pilgrimage to the Holy Land. During their stay for forty days Shoghi Effendi surrounded them with kindness and made use of Tarázu’lláh’s ability by giving him a number of original Tablets to identify.

(Adapted from a write-up by Mihdi Samandari, ‘The Baha’i World 1968-1973’)

References to Bahá’u’lláh and His Day from Muhammad, the Apostle of God

To Him Muhammad, the Apostle of God, had alluded in His Book as 

• the “Great Announcement,” 
• and declared His Day to be the Day whereon “God” will “come down” “overshadowed with clouds,” 
• the Day whereon “thy Lord shall come and the angels rank on rank,” and “The Spirit shall arise and the angels shall be ranged in order.” 
• His advent He, in that Book, in a súrih said to have been termed by Him “the heart of the Qur’án,” had foreshadowed as that of the “third” Messenger, sent down to “strengthen” the two who preceded Him. 
• To His Day He, in the pages of that same Book, had paid a glowing tribute, glorifying it as 
• the “Great Day,” 
• the “Last Day,” 
• the “Day of God,” 
• the “Day of Judgment,” 
• the “Day of Reckoning,” 
• the “Day of Mutual Deceit,” 
• the “Day of Severing,” 
• the “Day of Sighing,” 
• the “Day of Meeting,”
• the Day “when the Decree shall be accomplished,” 
• the Day whereon the second “Trumpet blast” will be sounded, 
• the “Day when mankind shall stand before the Lord of the world,” and “all shall come to Him in humble guise,” 
• the Day when “thou shalt see the mountains, which thou thinkest so firm, pass away with the passing of a cloud,” 
• the Day “wherein account shall be taken,” 
• “the approaching Day, when men’s hearts shall rise up, choking them, into their throats,” 
• the Day when “all that are in the heavens and all that are on the earth shall be terror-stricken, save him whom God pleaseth to deliver,” 
• the Day whereon “every suckling woman shall forsake her sucking babe, and every woman that hath a burden in her womb shall cast her burden,” 
• the Day “when the earth shall shine with the light of her Lord, and the Book shall be set, and the Prophets shall be brought up, and the witnesses; and judgment shall be given between them with equity; and none shall be wronged.”

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’)

The members of the Universal House of Justice, elected at Ridván, 1968

Left to right: Mr. H. Borrah Kavelin, Mr. Hushmand Fatheazam, Dr. David S. Ruhe, Mr. David Hofman, Mr. Ian Semple, Mr. Charles Wolcott, Mr. Hugh Chance, Mr. Amoz Gibson, Mr. 'Ali Nakhjaváni.

The reason “the Prophets of God, not excepting Bahá’u’lláh Himself, [have] chosen to appear, and deliver their Message” in certain countries and amidst certain “peoples and races”

How often have the Prophets of God, not excepting Bahá’u’lláh Himself, chosen to appear, and deliver their Message in countries and amidst peoples and races, at a time when they were either fast declining, or had already touched the lowest depths of moral and spiritual degradation. 

• The appalling misery and wretchedness to which the Israelites had sunk, under the debasing and tyrannical rule of the Pharaohs, in the days preceding their exodus from Egypt under the leadership of Moses; 
• the decline that had set in in the religious, the spiritual, the cultural, and the moral life of the Jewish people, at the time of the appearance of Jesus Christ; 
• the barbarous cruelty, the gross idolatry and immorality, which had for so long been the most distressing features of the tribes of Arabia and brought such shame upon them when Muhammad arose to proclaim His Message in their midst; 
• the indescribable state of decadence, with its attendant corruption, confusion, intolerance, and oppression, in both the civil and religious life of Persia, so graphically portrayed by the pen of a considerable number of scholars, diplomats, and travelers, at the hour of the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh—

all demonstrate this basic and inescapable fact. To contend that the innate worthiness, the high moral standard, the political aptitude, and social attainments of any race or nation is the reason for the appearance in its midst of any of these Divine Luminaries would be an absolute perversion of historical facts, and would amount to a complete repudiation of the undoubted interpretation placed upon them, so clearly and emphatically, by both Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l Bahá. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Advent of Divine Justice’)

New Site: Compilations prepared from Baha'i Multimedia Resources Sites

 pdf downloadable

• 2025: Daily Verses of God Revealed by Bahá'u'lláh and the Báb - morning & evening

• Baha’i Stories for Children - Volume 1

• A Study Guide to 'The Dispensation of Baha'u'llah': - a weighty treatise by Shoghi Effendi

The human soul

…the various organs and members, the parts and elements, that constitute the body of man, though at variance, are yet all connected one with the other by that all-unifying agency known as the human soul, that causeth them to function in perfect harmony and with absolute regularity, thus making the continuation of life possible. The human body, however, is utterly unconscious of that all-unifying agency, and yet acteth with regularity and dischargeth its functions according to its will. 

- ‘Abdu’l-Baha  (‘Tablet to August Forel)

Bahá’í Administrative Order “can never be identified with any of the standard types of government referred to by Aristotle in his works”; It “embodies and blends with the spiritual verities on which it is based the beneficent elements which are to be found in each one of them.”

Whereas this Administrative Order cannot be said to have been modeled after any of these recognized systems of government, it nevertheless embodies, reconciles and assimilates within its framework such wholesome elements as are to be found in each one of them. The hereditary authority which the Guardian is called upon to exercise, the vital and essential functions which the Universal House of Justice discharges, the specific provisions requiring its democratic election by the representatives of the faithful—these combine to demonstrate the truth that this divinely revealed Order, which can never be identified with any of the standard types of government referred to by Aristotle in his works, embodies and blends with the spiritual verities on which it is based the beneficent elements which are to be found in each one of them. The admitted evils inherent in each of these systems being rigidly and permanently excluded, this unique Order, however long it may endure and however extensive its ramifications, cannot ever degenerate into any form of despotism, of oligarchy, or of demagogy which must sooner or later corrupt the machinery of all man-made and essentially defective political institutions. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Dispensation of Baha’u’llah; included in ‘The World Order of Baha’u’llah’)

The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Baha is “the Charter of the New World”

The creative energies released by the Law of Bahá’u’lláh, permeating and evolving within the mind of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, have, by their very impact and close interaction, given birth to an Instrument which may be viewed as the Charter of the New World Order which is at once the glory and the promise of this most great Dispensation. The Will may thus be acclaimed as the inevitable offspring resulting from that mystic intercourse between Him Who communicated the generating influence of His divine Purpose and the One Who was its vehicle and chosen recipient. Being the Child of the Covenant—the Heir of both the Originator and the Interpreter of the Law of God—the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá can no more be divorced from Him Who supplied the original and motivating impulse than from the One Who ultimately conceived it. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Dispensation of Baha’u’llah; included in ‘The World Order of Baha’u’llah’)

“the chief motive actuating” the Guardian “to undertake the task of editing and translating Nabíl’s immortal Narrative”

Indeed the chief motive actuating me to undertake the task of editing and translating Nabíl’s immortal Narrative has been to enable every follower of the Faith in the West to better understand and more readily grasp the tremendous implications of His[the Báb’s] exalted station and to more ardently admire and love Him.

Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Dispensation of Baha’u’llah’; included in ‘The World Order of Baha’u’llah’)

The “superlative character of His [Bahá’u’lláh’s] Revelation as compared with the Dispensation preceding it”

Stressing the superlative character of His Revelation as compared with the Dispensation preceding it, Bahá’u’lláh makes the following affirmation: “If all the peoples of the world be invested with the powers and attributes destined for the Letters of the Living, the Báb’s chosen disciples, whose station is ten thousand times more glorious than any which the apostles of old have attained, and if they, one and all, should, swift as the twinkling of an eye, hesitate to recognize the light of My Revelation, their faith shall be of no avail and they shall be accounted among the infidels.” “So tremendous is the outpouring of Divine grace in this Dispensation that if mortal hands could be swift enough to record them, within the space of a single day and night there would stream verses of such number as to be equivalent to the whole of the Persian Bayán.”

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Dispensation of Baha’u’llah; included in ‘The World Order of Baha’u’llah’)

The Báb asks Baha’u’llah: - to “reveal from the heights of the Most Lofty and Mystic Mount a faint, an infinitesimal glimmer of Thy impenetrable Mystery”

“And when the appointed hour hath struck,” He [the Báb] again addresses Bahá’u’lláh in that same commentary, [the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá] “do Thou, by the leave of God, the All-Wise, reveal from the heights of the Most Lofty and Mystic Mount a faint, an infinitesimal glimmer of Thy impenetrable Mystery, that they who have recognized the radiance of the Sinaic Splendor may faint away and die as they catch a lightening glimpse of the fierce and crimson Light that envelops Thy Revelation.”

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Dispensation of Baha’u’llah’; included in ‘The World Order of Baha’u’llah’)

‘Abdu’l-Baha’s hour of birth

My brother, Abbas Effendi, now our Lord, was born at Teheran in the spring of 1844, at midnight following the day upon which, in the evening, the Bab made his declaration. 

- Bahiyyih Khanum  (Recorded in an interview by Madam Canavarro, Akka, included by Myron H. Phelps in his book: ‘Life and Teachings of Abbas Effendi’, 1903)

“the mystery of supplication…the wisdom of praying for the fulfilment of one’s needs”

Thou didst question the necessity for prayer, and the wisdom that might lie behind it. What reason could there be, thou didst ask, considering that God hath perfected His creation, ordering all matters in the best way possible, assigning unto every thing its due measure, and appointing for it, with consummate exactitude and precision, its proper station—what reason could there be to make supplication and entreaty, to pray for needs to be fulfilled, and to beg for succour and assistance? 

Know thou that it belongeth to the weak to make entreaty to the Source of strength, and that it becometh the petitioner of heavenly grace to humbly supplicate to Him Who is the All-Glorious, the Lord of grace abounding. Whensoever the worshipper communeth with his Lord, turneth wholly unto Him, and supplicateth some portion of His boundless grace, then this very act of supplication is a light unto his heart, a collyrium unto his eye, a source of life unto his soul, and a cause of exaltation unto his being. 

Observe then how, when thou dost thyself commune with God and recitest “Thy Name is my healing”, thy heart is thrilled, thy soul transported with the rapture of the love of God, and thy spirit drawn towards His heavenly Kingdom. Through these sensations, moreover, thy receptive capacity is increased, and the more capacious the container, the more copious its contents; the more vehement one’s thirst, the sweeter in one’s palate the outpouring bounty of the cloud. This is the mystery of supplication; this is the wisdom of praying for the fulfilment of one’s needs. 

- ‘Abdu’l-Baha  (From a Tablet; Additional Tablets, Extracts and Talks; online Baha’i Reference Library of the Baha’i World Center)

Some Extracts from the Baha’i Writings on the nature of God

Prepared by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, 1992

From the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh

...God, the unknowable Essence, the divine Being, is immensely exalted beyond every human attribute, such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and regress. Far be it from His glory that human tongue should adequately recount His praise, or that human heart comprehend His fathomless mystery. He is and hath ever been veiled in the ancient eternity of His Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly hidden from the sight of men. "No vision taketh in Him, but He taketh in all vision; He is the Subtile, the All-Perceiving."[Cf. Qur’án 6:104] No tie of direct intercourse can possibly bind Him to His creatures. He standeth exalted beyond and above all separation and union, all proximity and remoteness. No sign can indicate His presence or His absence; inasmuch as by a word of His command all that are in heaven and on earth have come to exist, and by His wish, which is the Primal Will itself, all have stepped out of utter nothingness into the realm of being, the world of the visible. (The Kitáb-i-qán (Wilmette: Bahá’i Publishing Trust, 1985), p. 98)

And since there can be no tie of direct intercourse to bind the one true God with His creation, and no resemblance whatever can exist between the transient and the Eternal, the contingent and the Absolute, He hath ordained that in every age and dispensation a pure and stainless Soul be made manifest in the kingdoms of earth and heaven. Unto this subtle, this mysterious and ethereal Being He hath assigned a twofold nature; the physical, pertaining to the world of matter, and the spiritual, which is born of the substance of God Himself. He hath, moreover, conferred upon Him a double station. The first station, which is related to His innermost reality, representeth Him as One Whose voice is the voice of God Himself.... The second station is the human station, exemplified by the following verses: "I am but a man like you." "Say, praise be to my Lord! Am I more than a man, an apostle?" (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u'lláh (Wilmette: Bahá’i Publishing Trust, 1983). pp. 66-67)

Know assuredly that God’s creation hath existed from eternity, and will continue to exist forever. Its beginning hath had no beginning, and its end knoweth no end. His name, the Creator, presupposeth a creation, even as His title, the Lord of Men, must involve the existence of a servant.

New Site: The Advent of Divine Justice

Passages in sequential order from a letter by Shoghi Effendi known as ‘The Advent of Divine Justice’, 25 December 1938