ministry, are recounted, and the transitoriness of worldly pomp,
fame, riches, and sovereignty, repeatedly and categorically
asserted. Appeals for the application of the highest principles in
human and international relations are forcibly and insistently
made, and the abandonment of discreditable practices and
conventions, detrimental to the happiness, the growth, the
prosperity and the unity of the human race, enjoined. Kings are
censured, ecclesiastical dignitaries arraigned, ministers and
plenipotentiaries condemned, and the identification of His advent
with the coming of the Father Himself unequivocally admitted and
repeatedly announced. The violent downfall of a few of these kings
and emperors is prophesied, two of them are definitely challenged,
most are warned, all are appealed to and exhorted.


In a Tablet, the original of which has been lost, Bahá’u’lláh had already
condemned, in the severest terms, the misrule of the Ottoman Sulṭán
‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz. The present volume includes, however, three other Tablets
which address two ministers of the Sulṭán, whose selfish and unprincipled
influence played an important role in Bahá’u’lláh’s successive
banishments. The Súriy-i-Ra’ís, which addresses ‘Álí Páshá, the Ottoman
Prime Minister, was revealed in August 1868 as the exiles were being moved
from Adrianople to Gallipoli, and exposes unsparingly the abuse of civil
power the minister had perpetrated. The Lawḥ-i-Ra’ís, which also contains
passages directed to ‘Álí Páshá, was revealed shortly after Bahá’u’lláh’s
incarceration in the citadel of ‘Akká and includes a chilling denunciation
of the character of the Minister. The third Tablet, the Lawḥ-i-Fu’ád,
revealed in 1869 shortly after the death of Fu’ád Páshá, the Ottoman
Minister to whose machinations it refers, describes the spiritual
consequences of the abuse of power, and foretells the imminent downfall of