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“SINCE that Day is a great Day it would be sorely trying …” |
SINCE that Day is a great Day it would be sorely trying
for thee to identify thyself with the believers. For the
believers of that Day are the inmates of Paradise, while the
unbelievers are the inmates of the fire. And know thou of a
certainty that by Paradise is meant recognition of and submission
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unto Him Whom God shall make manifest, and
by the fire the company of such souls as would fail to
submit unto Him or to be resigned to His good-pleasure.
On that Day thou wouldst regard thyself as the inmate of
Paradise and as a true believer in Him, whereas in reality
thou wouldst suffer thyself to be wrapt in veils and thy
habitation would be the nethermost fire, though thou thyself
wouldst not be cognizant thereof.
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Compare His manifestation with that of the Point of
the Qur’án. How vast the number of the Letters of the
Gospel who eagerly expected Him, yet from the time of
His declaration up to five years no one became an inmate of
Paradise, except the Commander of the Faithful [Imám
‘Alí], and those who secretly believed in Him. All the rest
were accounted as inmates of the fire, though they considered
themselves as dwellers in Paradise.
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Likewise behold this Revelation. The essences of the
people have, through divinely-conceived designs, been
set in motion and until the present day three hundred and
thirteen disciples have been chosen. In the land of Sád
[Iṣfahán], which to outward seeming is a great city, in
every corner of whose seminaries are vast numbers of
people regarded as divines and doctors, yet when the time
came for inmost essences to be drawn forth, only its sifter
of wheat donned the robe of discipleship. This is the
mystery of what was uttered by the kindred of the Prophet
Muḥammad—upon them be the peace of God—concerning this Revelation, saying that the abased shall be
exalted and the exalted shall be abased.
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Likewise is the Revelation of Him Whom God shall
make manifest. Among those to whom it will never occur
that they might merit the displeasure of God, and whose
pious deeds will be exemplary unto everyone, there will
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be many who will become the personification of the nethermost
fire itself, when they fail to embrace His Cause;
while among the lowly servants whom no one would
imagine to be of any merit, how great the number who
will be honoured with true faith and on whom the
Fountainhead of generosity will bestow the robe of authority.
For whatever is created in the Faith of God is created
through the potency of His Word. VIII, 14.
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