a doubt. Therefore these sayings which We have quoted in support of Our
argument must be attentively considered, that the divergent utterances of
the Manifestations of the Unseen and Day Springs of Holiness may cease to
agitate the soul and perplex the mind.





XXIII: CONSIDER THE FORMER GENERATIONS. WITNESS...


Consider the former generations. Witness how every time the Day Star of
Divine bounty hath shed the light of His Revelation upon the world, the
people of His Day have arisen against Him, and repudiated His truth. They
who were regarded as the leaders of men have invariably striven to hinder
their followers from turning unto Him Who is the Ocean of God’s limitless
bounty.

Behold how the people, as a result of the verdict pronounced by the
divines of His age, have cast Abraham, the Friend of God, into fire; how
Moses, He Who held converse with the Almighty, was denounced as liar and
slanderer. Reflect how Jesus, the Spirit of God, was, notwithstanding His
extreme meekness and perfect tender-heartedness, treated by His enemies.
So fierce was the opposition which He, the Essence of Being and Lord of
the visible and invisible, had to face, that He had nowhere to lay His
head. He wandered continually from place to place, deprived of a permanent
abode. Ponder that which befell Muḥammad, the Seal of the Prophets, may
the life of all else be a sacrifice unto Him. How severe the afflictions
which the leaders of the Jewish people and of the idol-worshipers caused