Sequential excerpts from the book ‘God Passes By’, written in 1944 by Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith

11/25/24

“Bahá’u’lláh’s confirmatory testimony to the inconceivable greatness and preeminent character of His own Revelation."

  • “He around Whom the Point of the Bayán (Báb) hath revolved is come” is Bahá’u’lláh’s confirmatory testimony to the inconceivable greatness and preeminent character of His own Revelation. 
  • “If all who are in heaven and on earth,” He moreover affirms, “be invested in this day with the powers and attributes destined for the Letters of the Bayán, whose station is ten thousand times more glorious than that of the Letters of the Qur’ánic Dispensation, and if they one and all should, swift as the twinkling of an eye, hesitate to recognize My Revelation, they shall be accounted, in the sight of God, of those that have gone astray, and regarded as ‘Letters of Negation.’” 
  • “Powerful is He, the King of Divine might,” He, alluding to Himself in the Kitáb-i-Íqán, asserts, “to extinguish with one letter of His wondrous words, the breath of life in the whole of the Bayán and the people thereof, and with one letter bestow upon them a new and everlasting life, and cause them to arise and speed out of the sepulchers of their vain and selfish desires.” 
  • “This,” He furthermore declares,
    • “is the king of days,” 
    • the “Day of God Himself,” 
    • the “Day which shall never be followed by night,” 
    • the “Springtime which autumn will never overtake,” 
    • “the eye to past ages and centuries,” 
    • for which “the soul of every Prophet of God, of every Divine Messenger, hath thirsted,” 
    • for which “all the divers kindreds of the earth have yearned,” 
    • through which “God hath proved the hearts of the entire company of His Messengers and Prophets, and beyond them those that stand guard over His sacred and inviolable Sanctuary, the inmates of the Celestial Pavilion and dwellers of the Tabernacle of Glory.” 
  • “In this most mighty Revelation,” He moreover, states, “all the Dispensations of the past have attained their highest, their final consummation.” 
  • And again: “None among the Manifestations of old, except to a prescribed degree, hath ever completely apprehended the nature of this Revelation.” 
  • Referring to His own station He declares: “But for Him no Divine Messenger would have been invested with the Robe of Prophethood, nor would any of the sacred Scriptures have been revealed.” 

- Shoghi Effendi  ('God Passes By', chapter 6)

11/18/24

References from the Báb about Bahá’u’lláh

The Báb had no less significantly extolled Him [Bahá’u’lláh] 

  • as the “Essence of Being,” 
  • as the “Remnant of God,” 
  • as the “Omnipotent Master,” 
  • as the “Crimson, all-encompassing Light,” 
  • as “Lord of the visible and invisible,” 
  • as the “sole Object of all previous Revelations, including The Revelation of the Qá’im Himself.” 
  • He had formally designated Him 
    • as “He Whom God shall make manifest,” had alluded to Him 
    • as the “Abhá Horizon” wherein He Himself lived and dwelt, 
    • had specifically recorded His title, and eulogized His “Order” in His best-known work, the Persian Bayán, 
    • had disclosed His name through His allusion to the “Son of ‘Alí, a true and undoubted Leader of men,” 
    • had, repeatedly, orally and in writing, fixed, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the time of His Revelation, and warned His followers lest “the Bayán and all that hath been revealed therein” should “shut them out as by a veil” from Him. 
  • He had, moreover, declared that 
    • He was the “first servant to believe in Him,” 
    • that He bore Him allegiance “before all things were created,” 
    • that “no allusion” of His “could allude unto Him,” 
    • that “the year-old germ that holdeth within itself the potentialities of the Revelation that is to come is endowed with a potency superior to the combined forces of the whole of the Bayán.” 
  • He had, moreover, clearly asserted that He had “covenanted with all created things” concerning Him Whom God shall make manifest ere the covenant concerning His own mission had been established. 
  • He had readily acknowledged that 
    • He was but “a letter” of that “Most Mighty Book,” 
    • “a dew-drop” from that “Limitless Ocean,” 
    • that His Revelation was “only a leaf amongst the leaves of His Paradise,” 
    • that “all that hath been exalted in the Bayán” was but “a ring” upon His own hand, and He Himself “a ring upon the hand of Him Whom God shall make manifest,” Who, “turneth it as He pleaseth, for whatsoever He pleaseth, and through whatsoever He pleaseth.” 
  • He had unmistakably declared that He had “sacrificed” Himself “wholly” for Him, that He had “consented to be cursed” for His sake, and to have “yearned for naught but martyrdom” in the path of His love. 
  • Finally, He had unequivocally prophesied: 
    • “Today the Bayán is in the stage of seed; at the beginning of the manifestation of Him Whom God shall make manifest its ultimate perfection will become apparent.” 
    • “Ere nine will have elapsed from the inception of this Cause the realities of the created things will not be made manifest. All that thou hast as yet seen is but the stage from the moist-germ until We clothed it with flesh. Be patient until thou beholdest a new creation. Say: Blessed, therefore, be God, the Most Excellent of Makers!”

- Shoghi Effendi  ('God Passes By', chapter 6)

11/11/24

References to Bahá’u’lláh and His Revelation from Siyyid Kázim-i-Rashtí, Shaykh Ahmad’s disciple and successor

Siyyid Kázim-i-Rashtí, Shaykh Ahmad’s disciple and successor, had likewise written: “The Qá’im must needs be put to death. After He has been slain the world will have attained the age of eighteen.” In his Sharh-i-Qasídiy-i-Lámíyyih he had even alluded to the name “Bahá.” Furthermore, to his disciples, as his days drew to a close, he had significantly declared: “Verily, I say, after the Qá’im the Qayyúm will be made manifest. For when the star of the former has set the sun of the beauty of Husayn will rise and illuminate the whole world. Then will be unfolded in all its glory the ‘Mystery’ and the ‘Secret’ spoken of by Shaykh Ahmad.… To have attained unto that Day of Days is to have attained unto the crowning glory of past generations, and one goodly deed performed in that age is equal to the pious worship of countless centuries.” 

- Shoghi Effendi  (God Passes By, chapter 6)

11/5/24

References to Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation from Shaykh Ahmad-i-Ahsá’í, the herald of the Bábí Dispensation

About Him [Bahá’u’lláh] Shaykh Ahmad-i-Ahsá’í, the herald of the Bábí Dispensation, who had foreshadowed the “strange happenings” that would transpire “between the years sixty and sixty-seven,” and had categorically affirmed the inevitability of His Revelation had, as previously mentioned, written the following: “The Mystery of this Cause must needs be made manifest, and the Secret of this Message must needs be divulged. I can say no more, I can appoint no time. His Cause will be made known after Ḥín (68)” (i.e., after a while). 

- Shoghi Effendi  ('God Passes By', chapter 6)