Muhammad-Taqi has been told what his ears were created for, and then given words to recite. Baha'u'llah has told him that God gave a voice to all things so that they might praise and glorify Him. And in the prayer we just looked at, Muhammad-Taqi was asked to say that any tongue deprived of the fragrance of God's praise was “unworthy of any mention, in word or yet in thought”.
Now Baha'u'llah returns to His own voice. But first He asks God to help Muhammad-Taqi to be able to do something.
Oh, before that, though, my usual reminder that these are just my own thoughts as I wander through this incredible book one more time. They’re nothing official. Just where my mind goes as I’m sipping coffee here on a beautiful late summer morning. Now, where were we? Oh yeah, I remember.
“We beseech God to aid thee to be just and fair-minded, and to acquaint thee with the things that were hidden from the eyes of men.”
Justice and sight are connected, and not in the usual sense of blind justice. There are things that have been hidden from people's eyes, and Muhammad-Taqi is being asked to become capable of seeing them. And once again Baha'u'llah doesn't simply tell him what conclusion to reach. He asks him to “reflect upon that which hath been revealed, and to be fair and just in thy speech”.
Hmm. Speech again.
And the hoped-for result is familiar, too. Baha'u'llah says, “that perchance the splendors of the daystar of truthfulness and sincerity may shine forth”.
Perchance.
We just had “haply”. Now we have “perchance”. Once again, Baha'u'llah can ask Muhammad-Taqi to reflect, to be fair and just in his speech. He can give him something to consider. But there is still room for Muhammad-Taqi himself. His free-will is never trampled upon. Perchance truthfulness and sincerity will begin to shine.
And what will that light do? It “may deliver thee from the darkness of ignorance, and illumine the world with the light of knowledge”.
That seems particularly pointed when addressed to a religious scholar. Muhammad-Taqi is presumably one of the people his society would regard as knowledgeable. Yet Baha'u'llah is still speaking to him about being delivered from “the darkness of ignorance”. Knowledge, apparently, is not simply a matter of how much you have learned.
Then Baha'u'llah gives him something to reflect upon.
“This Wronged One hath frequented no school, neither hath He attended the controversies of the learned.”
I love that He mentions both. He hasn't attended their schools, but neither has He taken part in their controversies. Given what we have already seen about cavils, that second part seems fairly directed at him, or at least those of his profession.
And then comes His explanation:
“By My life! Not of Mine own volition have I revealed Myself, but God, of His own choosing, hath manifested Me.”
This takes me right back to the voice. Only a few paragraphs ago Baha'u'llah said that He had “spoken not from mere impulse”, and that the One Who gave Him a voice is the One Who “hath given a voice unto all things”. Now He says much the same thing about His Revelation. This isn't something He decided to do. “Not of Mine own volition have I revealed Myself.”
He was called.
And to explain what He means, Baha'u'llah quotes from His Tablet to the Shah: “O King! I was but a man like others, asleep upon My couch, when lo, the breezes of the All-Glorious were wafted over Me, and taught Me the knowledge of all that hath been.”
There is so much in that image. He is asleep. The breezes come. He is taught. And then: “...He bade Me lift up My voice between earth and heaven.”
There is the voice again. But this time I find myself thinking of another voice.
According to the account of Muhammad's first Revelation, Gabriel appeared to him and commanded him, “Recite!”
We have already encountered that command more than once in this Epistle. Baha'u'llah has repeatedly told Muhammad-Taqi to recite words that He has given him. And now, only a couple of paragraphs later, Baha'u'llah tells him about the moment when He Himself was called and commanded to lift up His voice.
I'm not sure how far I want to take the parallel, but I find it difficult not to hear the echo. Muhammad was called and told to recite. Baha'u'llah was called and told to lift up His voice. And Muhammad-Taqi, who has rejected Baha'u'llah's claim, is now being told to recite the words that have flowed from Baha'u'llah's tongue.
Perhaps there is another parallel worth noticing. Muhammad-Taqi is being asked to lend his voice to words given to him by Baha'u'llah. Baha'u'llah, meanwhile, describes Himself as lending His voice to the One Who called Him. He even describes Himself as a leaf. “This is but a leaf which the winds of the will of thy Lord, the Almighty, the All-Praised, have stirred. Can it be still when the tempestuous winds are blowing?”
The wind blows and the leaf moves. And Baha'u'llah has already said much the same thing in another form: “Not of Mine own volition have I revealed Myself.” The movement does not originate with the leaf, nor does the voice originate with Baha'u'llah.
“His all-compelling summons hath reached Me, and caused Me to speak His praise amidst all people.”
Again, He is summoned. Again, He speaks. And once again we have praise, the very purpose for which we were told only a few paragraphs ago that God gave a voice to all things.
Then comes another remarkable description: “I was indeed as one dead when His behest was uttered. The hand of the will of thy Lord, the Compassionate, the Merciful, transformed Me.”
The images keep changing, but there seems to be a similar movement within them. The breezes come to the man asleep upon His couch. The wind stirs the leaf. The behest is uttered and the one “as dead” is transformed. The summons comes, and He speaks.
And perhaps that helps explain why Baha'u'llah began paragraph 11 by asking Muhammad-Taqi to reflect.
Muhammad-Taqi is being confronted with a claim that his education and position have apparently led him to reject. Baha'u'llah doesn't respond by trying to defeat him in one of those “controversies of the learned”. Instead, He asks him to be just and fair-minded, to reflect upon what has been revealed, and to be fair and just in his own speech.
Baha’u’llah tells him He was commanded by a voice. And perhaps Muhammad-Taqi is being asked a fairly simple question. Where does he think this voice comes from? He can continue to judge it by the learning “current amongst men”, by the schools Baha'u'llah never attended and the controversies in which He never participated. Or he can listen to the voice itself and ask whether what it is saying is true.
After all, Baha'u'llah has been preparing his ears for exactly that.
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