Some of you probably know that I've spent over twenty years studying the Iqan with a dear friend of mine. I've sure written enough about it. And only a few days ago I finished writing a book about some thoughts and insights on that incredible volume. Of course, Samuel and I are still finishing up our paragraph by paragraph look at the book, but that's another project.
So my question was, now that I've finished this book, my commentary, not my study of the Iqan, what next? And I thought why not go from the beginning of His Revelation to the end? Let's move from a book written for a sincere seeker to one that was revealed for an avowed enemy. Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, or ESW if I ever feel lazy about typing it all out, sure seemed to fit the bill.
So, taking a page from my Iqan studies, let's dive in and see what this later volume has to reveal, and how it differs from the earlier one. Whereas the Iqan was answering the questions of the uncle of the Bab, and helping remove the veils preventing him from recognizing, what is this volume trying to do?
That's my intro, so here is the actual article:
The Invocation
I've often written about the attributes of God, and particularly about the way they can sometimes work on two different levels. When Baha'u'llah describes God as the All-Knowing, for example, the capital letters remind us that God's knowledge is infinitely beyond anything we can possess. But knowledge, in the lower case, is also a quality we are encouraged to develop within ourselves. We can never be All-Knowing, but we can become more knowledgeable. We can never be All-Wise, but we can grow in wisdom. Or as I like to say, whatever God is in the capital, we are in the lower case. And as I also believe that nothing in the Writings is random, I have often found that the virtues named in a particular place are the exact ones we need to cultivate at that particular moment. They always seem to address, or relate to, the situation being discussed.
This is one of the things I love about reading the Writings. Within a tradition in which the Word of God is understood to possess layer upon layer of meaning, there seems little virtue in stopping after the first plausible interpretation. This doesn't mean that every interpretation is equally valid, of course. If an interpretation contradicts other teachings in the Writings, that's a pretty good indication that we've wandered off somewhere. But otherwise, why stop looking? There may always be another meaning waiting there.
All of which came to mind when I began re-reading the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf.
Baha'u'llah begins:
“In the name of God, the One, the Incomparable, the All-Powerful, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.”
It's easy to pass over an invocation like this. After all, invocations are fairly common in the Writings, and this one certainly seems straightforward enough. God is One. He is Incomparable. He is All-Powerful, All-Knowing and All-Wise. Nothing surprising there.
But this particular invocation is in a book addressed to a particular person.
Shaykh Muhammad-Taqi was a powerful Muslim cleric, the son of the man Baha'u'llah had named the Wolf. He was not some powerless individual sitting quietly on the sidelines of history. He possessed religious authority. His words carried weight. People listened to him. And as the Epistle will make painfully clear, Baha'u'llah was writing in a world in which religious power had already been used to terrible effect.
Given that, those first two attributes seem to establish something very important. God is the One. He is the Incomparable. Whatever Muhammad-Taqi may think of his own station, however much authority he may possess, there simply is no comparison. In one sense, it's a reminder of scale.
And then comes All-Powerful.
That seems particularly striking when addressed to someone who is himself powerful. Perhaps All-Powerful doesn't merely diminish Muhammad-Taqi's power by comparison with God's. Maybe it also provides a standard by which his own power can be examined.
What has he done with it?
After all, power itself isn't necessarily bad. We all possess some degree of power. Parents have power over their children. Teachers have power over their students. Employers have power over their employees. Religious leaders can have tremendous power over those who look to them for guidance. The question is what we do with it.
And then comes All-Knowing.
Power without knowledge is dangerous. Muhammad-Taqi has exercised judgement concerning the Cause of God, but has he actually known what he was judging? Has he investigated? Has he listened? Has he recognised the limits of his own knowledge?
Suddenly the invocation doesn't seem quite so simple.
God is All-Powerful. Muhammad-Taqi has power. God is All-Knowing. Muhammad-Taqi has knowledge. And then God is All-Wise.
Wisdom seems to take the other two a step further. Knowledge alone isn't enough. I can know a great many things and still make terrible decisions. Wisdom has something to do with what I do with that knowledge, how I apply it, when I speak and when I remain silent, when I act and when I wait.
And Muhammad-Taqi isn't merely knowledgeable. He is a religious scholar. Knowledge is part of the very basis upon which his authority rests. He has knowledge, and he has power. The question, then, is how wisely he has used them.
Power. Knowledge. Wisdom.
I don't think we need to choose between seeing these words as descriptions of God and seeing them as a reminder of what is within us. I believe they are both. In the upper case they remind Muhammad-Taqi of his own insignificance before God. His power is nothing beside the All-Powerful. His knowledge is nothing beside the All-Knowing. His wisdom is nothing beside the All-Wise.
But in the lower case they may also point towards qualities he possesses and capacities he is being called upon to develop. And that makes the invocation feel very different to me.
Baha'u'llah isn't merely addressing a man who needs to be humbled. He is addressing a man who needs to change. Humility may be necessary for that change, but so are knowledge and wisdom. Even power need not disappear. It can be used differently. It can be used to protect, rather than harm.
In fact, later in the Epistle, Baha'u'llah will call upon him to use “the power of wisdom and the force of thy utterance” to extinguish hatred and enmity. The man whose words have carried such destructive power is not being told to stop speaking. He is being shown another way in which that power might be used.
And all of this is there before we even reach the first paragraph.
The One. The Incomparable. The All-Powerful. The All-Knowing. The All-Wise.
Five attributes. The first two seem to place the reader before God, reminding him of the immeasurable distance between them. The next three can do that as well, but they also seem to turn our attention back towards the reader himself. His power. His knowledge. His wisdom.
Perhaps that's one of the things an invocation can do. Before we begin reading what Baha'u'llah says to Muhammad-Taqi, it can quietly suggest how we might look at the man who is about to hear it.
And, of course, how we might look at ourselves.
