3. The Content must be used solely for a non-commercial purpose. Although this blanket permission to reproduce the Content is given freely such that no special permission is required, the Bahá’í International Community retains full copyright protection for all Content included at this Site under all applicable national and international laws. For permission to publish, transmit, display or otherwise use the Content for any commercial purpose, please contact us (http://reference.bahai.org/en/contact.html). CONTENTS Baha’i Terms of Use Introduction Súriy-i-Haykal Pope Pius IX Napoleon III Czar Alexander II Queen Victoria Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh Súriy-i-Ra’ís Lawḥ-i-Ra’ís Lawḥ-i-Fu’ád Súriy-i-Mulúk NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION KEY TO PASSAGES TRANSLATED BY SHOGHI EFFENDI INTRODUCTION The years following Bahá’u’lláh’s arrival in Adrianople witnessed His Revelation’s attainment, in the words of Shoghi Effendi, of “its meridian glory” through the proclamation of its Founder’s message to the kings and rulers of the world. During this relatively brief but turbulent period of the Faith’s history, and in the early years of His subsequent exile in 1868 to the fortress town of ‘Akká, He summoned the monarchs of East and West collectively, and some among them individually, to recognize the Day of God and to acknowledge the One promised in the scriptures of the religions professed by the recipients of His summons. “Never since the beginning of the world”, Bahá’u’lláh declares, “hath the Message been so openly proclaimed.” The present volume brings together the first full, authorized English translation of these major writings. Among them is the complete Súriy-i-Haykal, the Súrih of the Temple, one of Bahá’u’lláh’s most challenging works. It was originally revealed during His banishment to Adrianople and later recast after His arrival in ‘Akká. In this version He incorporated His messages addressed to individual potentates—Pope Pius IX, Napoleon III, Czar Alexander II, Queen Victoria, and Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh. It was this composite work which, shortly after its completion, Bahá’u’lláh instructed be written in the form of a pentacle, symbolizing the human temple. To it He added, as a conclusion, what Shoghi Effendi has described as “words which reveal the importance He attached to those Messages, and indicate their direct association with the prophecies of the Old Testament”: Thus have We built the Temple with the hands of power and might, could ye but know it. This is the Temple promised unto you in the Book. Draw ye nigh unto it. This is that which profiteth you, could ye but comprehend it. Be fair, O peoples of the earth! Which is preferable, this, or a temple which is built of clay? Set your faces towards it. Thus have ye been commanded by God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. During the last years of His ministry Bahá’u’lláh Himself arranged for the publication for the first time of definitive versions of some of His principal works, and the Súriy-i-Haykal was awarded a prominent position among them. Of the various writings that make up the Súriy-i-Haykal, one requires particular mention. The Lawḥ-i-Sulṭán, the Tablet to Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh, Bahá’u’lláh’s lengthiest epistle to any single sovereign, was revealed in the weeks immediately preceding His final banishment to ‘Akká. It was eventually delivered to the monarch by Badí‘, a youth of seventeen, who had entreated Bahá’u’lláh for the honour of rendering some service. His efforts won him the crown of martyrdom and immortalized his name. The Tablet contains the celebrated passage describing the circumstances in which the divine call was communicated to Bahá’u’lláh and the effect it produced. Here, too, we find His unequivocal offer to meet with the Muslim clergy, in the presence of the Sháh, and to provide whatever proofs of the new Revelation they might...