Sūrat al-Damm (The Surah of Blood). c. 1865-6?)
of Mirza Husayn `Ali Nuri, Baha'-Allah
Introduction
Stephen Lambden UCMerced.
The five or so page Edirne [Adrianople] period Arabic Sūrat al-Damm (The Surah of Blood) dates to around 1865-6 and was written for Mulla Muhammad Zarandi, Nabil-i A`zam. It opens as follows:
This is the Surat al-damm (The Surah of Blood)
It was indeed sprinkled down from the Ocean of the Unseen (bahr al-ghayb) to the end that it be a sign of My Manifestation [Theophany] (zuhuri) betwixt all the worlds.
He is the Eternal (al-baqa')
enthroned (fi'l-`arsh) by virtue of My Name, the Glorious, the All Glorious (al-bahiyy al-abha).
O Muhammad [Nabil-i Zarandi]
Hearken ye unto the Call of thy Lord! from this location (al-maqam) which the hands of all existing things (al-mumkinat) have never attained neither the inmost hearts within all the realms of existence (af'ida al-mawjudat)...
A fairly brief scriptural Tablet this Arabic text concludes as follows:
Mss. and printed texts :
- AQA IV:
Translations
Shoghi Effendi, Gleanings sect. XXXIX [39] = AQA IV: 64-5.
Juan Cole
- Internet posted trans of the Surat al-damm.
- See also Cole,`I am all the Prophets': The Poetics of Pluralism in Baha'i Texts by Juan R. I. Cole (Department of History, University of Michigan), in Poetics Today 14, no. 3 (Fall 1993):447-476. This article is largely based upon the Surat al-damm of Baha'-Allah.
