He is Abha!
O ye who are turned to the Supreme Appearance!
Day and night, morn and eve, at sunrise and at sunset we are remembering, with all our hearts and souls, the friends of the Merciful One, asking God's help and confirmation that the believers of the pure territory, the Holy Land, may become excellent in all conditions of morality, characteristics, behavior, manners, conduct and actions, that they may appear with ecstasy, enthusiasm, love, consciousness, assurance, steadfastness, firmness, concord and harmony, with bright faces and splendid beauty in the community of the world.
O ye friends of God! Today is the day of union and this age is the age of harmony in the world of existence. "Verily, God loveth those who are working in His path in groups, for they are a solid foundation." Consider ye that He says "in groups," united and bound together, supporting one another. "To work," mentioned in this holy verse, does not mean, in this greatest age, to perform it with swords, spears, shafts and arrows, but rather with sincere intentions, good designs, useful advices, divine moralities, beautiful actions, spiritual qualities, educating the public, guiding the souls of mankind, diffusing spiritual fragrances, explaining divine illustrations, showing convincing proofs and doing charitable deeds. When the holy souls, through the angelic power, will arise to show forth these celestial characteristics, establishing a band of harmony, each of these souls shall be regarded as one thousand persons and the waves of this greatest ocean shall be considered as the army of the hosts of the Supreme Concourse.
What a great blessing it is that when the torrents, streams, currents, tides and drops are all gathered in one place, they will form a great ocean and the real harmony shall overcome and reign in such a manner that all the rules, laws, distinctions and differences of the imaginations of these souls shall disappear and vanish like little drops and shall be submerged in the ocean of spiritual unity. By the Ancient Beauty, in this case and condition, the blessings of the great ocean will overflow and canals shall become as spacious as an endless ocean and each drop shall become as a boundless sea!
O ye friends of God! Strive to attain to this high and sublime station and show forth such a brightness in these days, that its radiance may appear from the eternal horizons. This is the real foundation of the Cause of God; this is the essence of the divine doctrine; this is the cause of the revelation of the heavenly scriptures; this is the means of the appearance of the Sun of the divine world; this is the way of the establishment of God upon the bodily throne.
O ye friends of God! Notice that His Holiness the Báb—May the souls of all the creatures be a ransom to Him!—for this very eminent intention, exposed His holy breast to the arrows of all casualties. So, as the principal design of the Blessed Perfection—May the souls of the people of the Supreme Concourse be a ransom to Him!—was the same great intention, therefore His Holiness the Báb made His blessed breast the target for thousands of bullets from the people of enmity and rancor in this path, and was martyred with great oppression. The pure blood of thousands of divine and holy souls was shed and poured in this path, and how many blessed bodies of the sincere friends of the divine God were hanged on the scaffold!
The Blessed Beauty of Abha—May the divine souls of the existence be a ransom to His friends!—endured personally, all kinds of calamities and bore the most violent ordeals. There remained no torture which did not come to His holy body and no suffering which did not descend upon His pure spirit. How many nights He could not take rest, under the chains and heaviness of fetters, and how many days He gave Himself not a minute's repose because of the burden of fetters and chains!
From Niyavaran to Teheran that pure spirit, who was brought up on a bed of down, was forced to run, with bare head and bare feet, under chains and fetters, and, in a dark and narrow subterranean prison, He was put with murderers, thieves, criminals and malefactors; at every moment a new torture was inflicted upon Him and at every moment His martyrdom was expected by all.
After a long time, He was sent from the city of His residence to foreign countries. For many years, in Baghdad, at every moment a new arrow was darted toward His holy breast, and at every instant a sword was bent on His pure body. At no instant was there any hope for safety and security, and the enemies, with utmost dexterity, were attacking the blessed soul from all sides, and He alone, personally, resisted them all.
After all these hardships and calamities, He was sent from Baghdad in Asia to Europe, and in that terrible exile, great affliction, vehement torture and constant attack, the plots, calumniations, enmity, rancor and hatred of the people of the Bayan were added to those which came from the people of the Qur’an, The pen is unable to explain it all, but surely you have heard and learned about it.
After twenty-four years in the greatest prison, Acca, His life was ended in great trouble and hardship.
In short, all the time of the sojourn of the Blessed Perfection (Baha’u’llah)—May the souls of all existence be a ransom to His forbearance!—in this mortal world, He was either restrained with chains or kept under hanging swords, enduring the most painful afflictions. At last, in this greatest prison, His holy body was extremely weakened from the intense sufferings and His beautiful person became as weak as a web from this continual hardship. His main purpose in bearing this heavy burden and all these troubles, which gave forth their waves like an ocean, accepting the chains and fetters and showing forth the greatest forbearance, was for the sake of harmony, concord and union among all the people of the world and for the establishment of the signs of the real unity among all nations, until the essential Unity (of God) might (at last) appear in the existing realities, and the light of the saying: "Thou seest no difference among the creatures of God" might shine forth upon the whole world.
O friends of God! Now is the time of movement and striving—then try and endeavor! As the Blessed Perfection—May my soul be a ransom to the dust under the feet of his friends!—was constantly in the field of martyrdom, we, also, must endeavor to pour out our lives, and to hear, with our spiritual ears, the divine advices and exhortations, leaving our limited beings and forsaking the vain ideas of differences of the physical world, in order to serve this eminent purpose and this principal design, which has been planted by the hand of divine favor; and not veil, with the dark clouds of self-interest and superstition, the light emanating from the Kingdom of Abha, nor become as barring dikes to the waves of the supreme ocean, nor to prevent the diffusion of the fragrances of the garden of the glorious beauty, nor stop the inundation of the rains of the divine grace in this day, nor to hinder the rays of the Sun of Reality.
This is what God has commanded in His scriptures, books and holy Tablets, declaring His commandments to His sincere servants.
Upon ye be the mercy and the blessings of God!
(Signed) ‘Abdu’l-Baha Abbas
(Star of the West, vol. 7, no. 5, June 5, 1916)
