Khatamiyya (Q. 33:40) and Liqa' Allah (The Encounter with God)

The Bābī-Bahā’ī transcendence of khatam al-nabiyyīn (Qur’ān 33:40) as the `finality of prophethood’. ^[1]

Dr. Stephen N. Lambden, UC Merced.

BETA VERSION - IN PROGRESS (BELOW) -  Last updated, 20-05-2018.

The downloadable Pdf version overleaf  (downloadable on the main Islamo-Biblica webpage and the BBS or Babi-Baha'i Studies webpage) contains a much more recent recension and an updated and corrected version of this ongoing monograph.

 

Muhammad is not the father of any man among you but he is the rasūl-Allāh (Messenger of God) and the khatām al-nabbiyyīn, the `seal’  (`last’. `best’ `acme’) of the prophets (Qur’ān 33: 40).

Lost indeed are they that cried lies to the encounter with God (liqā’-Allāh) so that when the [escatological] Hour comes to them suddenly they shall say, 'Alas for us, that we neglected it!’ (Qur’ān 6: 31).

Then We gave Moses the Book, complete for him who does good, and distinguishing every thing, and as a guidance and a mercy; haply they would believe in encounter (liqā’) with their Lord (rabb) (Qur’ān 6:155).

Whoso looks to encounter God (liqā’-Allāh), God's term (ajal) is assuredly coming (Qur’ān 29: 5). ^[2]

 Perhaps echoing earlier claims of Manī (d. c. 277), the son of a Parthian prince and messianic claimant, ^[3] the probably Aramaic qur’ānic Arabic loanword khātam came, throughout most of the Muslim world, to indicate that the succession of pre-Islamic prophets was "sealed up" or "ended" in Muhammad just as it had previously been in Manī and in other pre-Islamic notables or claimants to prophethood. ^[4]It was thought that after Muhammad, sometimes even after the eschatological consummation, no future prophet would appear to found a new or renewed religion. Many commentators on Q. 33:40 have it that the Islamic belief in the second coming of Jesus indicates his reappearance as a nabī (a prophet and not a Divine figure) but in a role subservient to Muhammad and Islamic law on the Day of resurrection (Zamaksharī, al-Kashshāf, III: 544-5).

The alleged `finality of prophethood’ (khatm al-nubuwwa) after Muhammad became a firmly accepted Islamic dogma. One of the traditionally 313 (or more) `sent Messengers’ (al-rasūl / mursal), the Arabian prophet is said to have completed the chain of numerous, (traditionally 124,000 or more) pre-Christian (BCE) Israelite prophets.^[5] Muhammad was the “last-termination-finality" of the never to be succeeded prophets up until the Day of Resurrection. Such was variously affirmed in thousands of Sunnī and Shī`ī traditions or ḥadīth sources, as well as in numerous expository and secondary post-qur'anic literatures (see al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr on Q, 33:40).

Even though it is not at all clear that the absolute finality of prophethood was the original intention of Q. 33:40,  this finality is today something firmly entrenched in both Sunnī and Shī`ī orthodoxy (Friedmann, 1986; 1989: 49ff, 64). Any hint of another post-Islamic prophetic claim or a challenge to the i`jāz al-Qur’ān (the inimitability of the Qur’ān) has generally met with dire consequences, including theological castigation, the accusation of heresy, imprisonment, exile or execution. ^[6]  It is yet, indisputably the case, as several respected academics and others have maintained in the light of early Islamic traditions and philological commentary and analysis, that the post-qur’ānic Islamic doctrine of the `finality of prophethood’ was not originally so clearly implied in Q. 33:40. For some early champions of emergent Islam, as well as modern academics, prophethood need not have terminated or be seen to have ended for all time with the prophet Muhammad (refer, Goldziher, Muslim Studies vol. 2:103-4; Friedmann, 1989: 58ff, 70ff; Cecep Lukman Yasin, 2010:131ff).

^[5] On occasion Islamic tradition reckoned Moses the first of the “prophets of the children of Israel (anbiyā’ banī Isrā’īl), the “last” (ākhir) of them being Jesus! (so a tradition from Ibn `Abbās cited Majlisī, Bihar<sup>2</sup> 11:43; cf. 15:240’ cf. below on the Jesus related khatam speculations of Ibn al-`Arabi).

 This special figure, distinguished in the Sirat al-awliyā’ as the khātim al-walāya (“seal of Intimate Friendship with God”; sect 64.), was later referred to by some as al-ghawth ("the Helper, One who assists") and al-quṭb (“the Pole, Apex”). He is the supreme eschatological Ḥujjat Allāh (the “Proof of God”) and one especially intimate with God as the walī Allāh. This title Ḥujjat Allāh was sometimes applied to the expected Shī`ī messianic twelfth Imam and was often utilized by the Bāb himself in his Qayyūm al-asmā’ and many other writings. ^[1]

Maḥmūd ibn ʻAbd al-Karīm Shabistarī (b. Shahbistar [near Tabriz] c.  686/1287 - d. c. 720/1320).

Sufi insights surrounding the khātam al-nabiyyīn and associated matters touching upon finality and non-finality, cannot be comprehensively dealt with here. The following stanzas from the Persian Gulshan-i rāz (The Rose Garden of the Secrets) of the Ibn al-`Arabī influenced Maḥmūd ibn ʻAbd al-Karīm Shabistarī (d. 740/1340), must suffice to give an indication of deeply profound khātam (“seal”) related insights. They provide a glimpse into the fascinating universe of the mystical and messianic dimensions of doctrines inspired by the qur’ānic khātam (”seal”) motif:    

Prophethood (nubuwwat) came to be manifest in Adam, Its perfection (kamāl) was realized through the existence of the Khātam [Muhammad].

Wilāyat (“Intimate guidance”) lingers behind while it makes a journey,

As a [Prophetological] Point (nuqṭa) in the world, it scribes another cycle.

Its theophany in its fullness (ẓuhūr-i kull-i ū) [through Him] will [erelong] be realized through the Khātam (`Seal’)’.

For through him the cycle of Existence (`ālam-i wujūd) will be completed.  

His chosen ones (awliyā’) are even as his bodily organs (`aḍw).

While he Himself is the Pleroma (kull), they constitute segments thereof.

As one intimate with the Master (khwajah), his Providence complete,

Through him will Universal Mercy (raḥmat-i `āmm) find realization.

An Exemplar he shall be throughout both worlds, a Leader (khalīfa) for the progeny of Adam (Gulshan, 1978 : Per. 369-374 pp. 22-3, trans.Lambden), ^[8]

In summary, as I understand these lines: The first man Adam initiated primordial prophethood (nubuwwa) which came to be perfectly fulfilled or realized in Muhammad, its “seal” (khātam). The potent, supra-prophetological force of walāya (“Guidance”) as a “Point” or locus of Divine Reality, came to express itself through scribing, writing out, initiating or delineating, a new cycle or era. As a result the fullness of a Divine Theophany related to the Khātam (Seal) will come about. Through this evolution, by means of a future Exemplar and Leader, Universal Mercy (raḥmat-i `āmm) will find realization. Transcending finality, the “Seal” through its transcendent walāya (divine potentiality) becomes a future locus of universal, Divine Guidance.

Some commentators on Ibn al-`Arabī and his many writings, reckon that he himself  was or  claimed to be the khātam al-walāya (the Seal of Divine Intimacy). Many of his disciples certainly saw him in this light.

[8]  On Sufi aspects of the khātam al-nabiyyīn in Ibn al-`Arabī etc see further al-Futuhat and the Fusis al-Hikam (indexes) as well as Friedmann, 1989: 71ff + index.

The Commentary of Muhammad ibn Yaḥyá al-Lahījī on the Gulshan-i rāz (The Rose Garden of Secrets).

Twelver Shī`ī Imamology, Prophethood and the Walāya phenomenon.

Ḥaydar al-Āmulī (b. Āmul 719–787 / 1319–1385).

This learned twelver Shī`ī scholar and mystic was much influenced by Ibn al`Arabī upon whose seminal Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (The Bezels of Wisdom) he wrote a commentary entitled Naṣṣ al-nuṣūṣ (The Provision of Provisions). His position of the matters of interest here have been well summed up by Kohlberg  in his Encyclopedia Iranica article on al- Āmulī

In accordance with Āmolī’s system, the Mahdī must be a walī, not a prophet; indeed, Āmolī follows Saʿd-al-dīn Ḥammūya (d. 650/1252) (in his al-Maḥbūb) and ʿAbd-al-Razzāq Kāšānī (d. 730/1330) in maintaining that the seal of the universal (moṭlaq) walāya is ʿAlī and the seal of the particular (moqayyad, Mohammadan walāya is the Mahdī (who for Āmolī is identical with the Twelfth Imam). On this issue Āmolī differs from Ebn al-ʿArabī, who identified the ḵātam al-walāyat al-moṭlaqa with Jesus and who was himself regarded by some of his disciples as the ḵātam al-walāyat al-moqayyada (Jāmeʿ al-asrār, pp. 385, 395-448). (Kohlberg   EIr. Vol. 1: 983-985).

Muhammad Muhsin Fayḍ al-Kashānī (d. Isfahan 1091/1680),

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 In many Sufi circles and within streams of Twelver Shī`ism, the personified walāya expressed through the walī as Friend, Saint, Intimate or messianic Imam, all but exploded the constraints of the finality of the prophetological tradition. For some the Islamic universe came to embrace or expect a future supreme walī, Guide-Mahdī or `Perfect Human’ (al-insān al-kāmil). For many deep thinkers the finality of providential divine guidance failed to be utterly finalized.

The Islamic Vision of the “Lord” (al-rabb) on the Day of Resurrection.

“God is He who raised up the heavens without pillars you can see, then He sat Himself upon the Throne... He distinguishes the signs; haply you will have faith in the encounter with your Lord (liqā’ rabbika)” (Qur’ān 13: 2).

“No indeed! When the earth is ground to powder, and thy Lord comes forth (wa jā` rabbuka ), and the angels rank on rank” (Qur’ān 89: 21-22).

“Faces [of believers] shall shine brightly (nāḍira) on that Day [of Resurrection] gazing upon their Lord (rabb)” (Qur’ān 75: 22-3).

The Islamic implications of such qur’ānic verses as have been cited above, have been well summed up in the following succinct manner by Murata and Chittick:

 “We have seen that the Koran promises in no uncertain terms that people will encounter their Lord. One of the questions that theologians often debated was whether or not this encounter implied the vision of God. Most thought that it did, and they had Koranic verses and hadiths to support them. The general picture, in fact, is that the vision of God is the greatest possible bliss, and that all those taken to paradise will achieve it. However, those who remain in hell will be barred from this vision, and this will amount to the worst possible chastisement” (Murata and Chittick, 1994: 177). 

In line with those Qur’ānic passages which speak of the eschatological therophany, the encounter or meeting (liqā’) with the Lord (rabb) (see Q. 13:2) and of the eschatological vision of the Lord (rabb), there are traditions ascribed to Muhammad about a latter-day vision of God as the resplendent and luminous “Lord” (rabb). [1] One such frequently recorded Sunnī tradition, is registered in slightly variant forms in the Ṣaḥīḥ (the Reliable/Sound) of Muhammad ibn Ismā’īl al-Bukhharī (d.256/870), Within, for example, the Kitāb al-Tafsīr (Book of Qur’ān Commentary) the following   tradition narrated from Abū Sa'īd aI-Khudrī (c/ 65/584) is found:

 During the lifetime of the Prophet [Muhammad] it was said, `O Messenger of God! Shall we see our Lord (rabb) on the Day of Resurrection (yawm al-qiyāma)?’ The Prophet said, `Yes!’ (na`am); do you have any difficulty in seeing the sun (al-shams) at midday when it is bright (ḍaw’) and there is no cloud (al-saḥāb) [in the sky]?" They replied, "No." He said, "Do you have any difficulty in seeing the moon (al-qamar) on the night of the full moon (laylat al-badr) when it is bright (ḍaw’) and there is no cloud (al-saḥāb) [in the sky]?" They replied, "No." The Prophet said, Likewise will you have no difficulty in seeing God (Allāh) on the Day of Resurrection as you have no difficulty in seeing either of them [the sun or the moon]… (Lambden, trans. Arabic Bukharī, 1997, al-Sahih, vol. 6, Bk. 65 No. 4581, pp. 90-92).

^This above ḥadīth from the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukharī, further has it  that  “On the Day of Resurrection … the Lord of the worlds (rabb al-`ālamīn)” will come to various ummat (religious communities)” in a “form”, “shape” or mode closest (adnā sūrat) to the vision of Him expected or “generated by the people themselves”. It then adds that the true eschatological vision of God will be a universal, personal vision of the Qur’ānic God. 

Several Sunnī traditions about the vision of the Lord on the Day of Resurrection are also found in the Kitāb al-Tawḥīd (Book of the Divine Unity) within the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhharī where they are considered expository of Qur’ān 75:22-23 (cited above), including the following narration from a certain Jarīr ibn 'Abd-Allāh al-Bajalī (d. ca. 51/671),

 

We were sitting with the Prophet [Muhammad] and he looked at the moon (al-qamar) on the night of the full moon (laylat al-badr) and said, "You shall see your Lord (rabb) just as you see this [full] moon (al-qamar), and you will have no difficulty or trouble in observing Him (ru’yatihi)… (Lambden, trans Arabic Bukharī, 1997, al-Sahih, vol.9, Bk. 97 No. 7434. p. 318).

More categorically, Jarīr ibn `Abd-Allāh al-Bajalī is again cited by al-Bukharī as narrating that the Prophet said:

"You will indeed see your Lord (rabb) with your own eyes" (satrūna rabbakum `iyyān ^an) (Lambden, trans Arabic Bukharī, 1997, al-Sahih, vol. 9, Bk. 97 No. 7435. p. 318),  [2]

In certain of these and other early, related traditions, the expected normally formless Lord (rabb) is to appear on the Day of Resurrection in human-like (“anthropomorphic”) “form’ (ṣūrat).  In some texts this has messianic and theophan- ological implications. Within Islamic theological writings, it is admitted that God may manifest Himself in whatever manner he pleases; as, for example,  a human-like Deity (human beings are in “His image” Gen. 1:27) redolent of divine, supernatural beauty (al-jamāl). In some traditions God, the latter-day Lord, is pictured as taking on beautiful bodily forms, like that of the youthful prophet Jesus or Muhammad. Even the archangel Gabriel is said to have assumed the stunningly beautiful form of the merchant Diḥya al-Kalbī (d. c. 45/618; see Lammens and Pellat, “Diḥya”, in EI² ). According to Islamic sources, God, the Lord, may thus exhibit outstandly beautiful features, appearing at timesr as an adolescent “beardless youth” (al-shābb / amrad) [3] or as an “Ancient of Days old man or Shaykh. According to Anas ibn Mālik (d. 91-93 /708-10), Muhammad himself is said to have stated,

I saw my Lord (rabbi) in the most beautiful form (aḥsan sūrat) like a youth with abundant hair (ka'l-shābb al-mūfìri) on the throne of grace (kursī karāmat), with a golden rug (firāshun min dhahab) spread out around Him… (cited Ritter 2003: 459). ^[4]

Bābī and Bahā’ī sacred writings often underline the fact that God can never be directly seen or incarnated as a human being (Q. 6:103, Q. 112). Yet, He can be visioned or “seen” after the “image” of his divine Manifestation who is often pictured in human, super-human or in diverse symbolic and supernatural terms. Without incarnation, the formless, yet imaged divine “Beauty” according to Abrahamic religious sources, suffuses the whole of creation and may be visioned. Bahā’-Allāh and his successors taught that past prophets visioned the eschatological Lord  as the human-like “Glory” (kavod) or the divine Splendour of God (see Ezekiel 1:26f and 10; Revelation 1:12ff), as an archangelic being such as Michael (Heb. = “One like unto God”),  or as the Danielic “Ancient of Days” (Dan. 7 : 7, 9, 22; 1 Enoch 46:1; 71:10). The symbolic language of Abrahamic sacred scripture and numerous post-biblical Jewish writings, have the great Messenger founders and expected manifestation of Divinity, as being portrayed in elevated human and/or Divine terms. Though never to be taken literally, the sacred writings of the world’s religions, including Islamic ḥadīth texts, somethimes picture God in elevated “human” terms. Eschatological portraits of Divinity with messianic implications are sometimes viewed by Bahā’īs as glimpses of the “Glory-Beauty” (Bahā’) of the person of Bahā’-Allāh. The eschatological `coming of God’, the Lord, is demythologized in Bābī-Bahā’ī texts relative to messianic, prophetic fulfilment (see further below).  

The Persian Dalā’il-i sab`a (Seven Proofs).

The Bāb registers the theological centrality of the liqā’ Allāh (Encounter with God) in his Persian Dalā’il-i sab`a. After celebrating the exalted status of the Prophet Muhammad, he underlines the fact that all were created for the purpose of the eschatological liqā’ (Encounter/Meeting), though not for actualizing any direct relationship with God, the apophatic, Eternal Divine Essence (dhāt-i azal). Rather, it revolves around an interaction with His agent of communication, the Divine Manifestation of Reality (maẓhar-i ḥaqīqat). On this level nothing can establish the depth of His gnosis (`irfān) though this matter is known by virtue of His own Logos Self (bi-nafsihi). The rulers or kings of the Islamic domains during the Qajar period, in their wastefulness and self-centeredness, are said by the Bāb to have failed to appoint any agent to inform everybody about an immanent or actual fulfilment of the liqā’ (Encounter with God) for which all were created (Per. Dalā’il, 31ff).

The Futurity of Prophethood and Divine Guidance.

It is today a central Bābī-Bahā’ī teaching that future divine messengers (al-rusul) or maẓhar-i ilāhī (divine manifestations) will, for many thousands of years, found and progressively renew the eternal religion of God. The Bāb’s claim to be the Sunni-Shī`ī messiah, the Qā’im/Mahdī and one in whom the liqā’ Allāh (Encounter/Meeting with God) finds fulfilment, did not prevent or inhibit his also predicting numerous future messianic advents of the perhaps originally Sufī figure man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh (Him whom God shall make manifest), in all of which the liqā’ Allāh (Divine Encounter) would find successive fulfilments (Goldziher, 1921 tr. Lambden & Walker 1992). This is indicated in a passage from the Bāb’s late Kitāb-i panj sha’n (`Book of the Five Grades’, 1850 CE) where the following words could be taken to indicate an infinite number¹ of future theophanies of the Bābī theophanic messiah, man yuẓhiru-hu-Allāh:

.. And after the Bayān comes [the theophany of] man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh (He whom God will make manifest) [1]. And after man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh [1] man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh [2]. And after man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh [2] man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh [3]. And after man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh, [3] man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh [4]. And after man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh [4] man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh [5]. And after man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh [5] man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh [6]. And after man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh [6] man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh [7]. And after man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh [7] man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh [8]. And after man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh [8] man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh [9] … (K. Panj-Sha`n, 314-5, cf. 397).

There is a similar passage of the Bāb to the above in his earlier Arabic al-Dalā’il al-Sab`a (Seven Proofs, c. 1849). Commenting on the Qur’ānic statement of Muhammad about past prophets (al-nabiyyīn; cf. the khatam al-nabiyyīn of Q. 33:40), he emphasizes that this indicates their essential oneness in promoting a single religion or Cause of God (amr wāḥid).  This oneness continues from the Islamic era until that of the Bāb as the “Point of the Bayān. Thereafter from the Point of the Bayān it continues until the era of the first messianic man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh (Him whom God shall make manifest”) and subsequently to another man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh and yet another man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh. This messianic theophany, the Bāb then states, will continues on “unto the end (ākhir) which knoweth no end (ākhir)” (Ar. Dala’il, p. y = 10).

The position of the Bāb is thus the exact opposite of the Islamic proponents of the doctrine of the finality of prophethood. The mention of nine or of an endless succession of theophanies of man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh (He whom God will make manifest), most likely indicates their endless future realization. Towards the end of his life in his Haykal al-dīn (Temple of Religion, 1266/1850), the Bāb made increasing mention of "He whom God will make manifest". He variously indicated the time of his messianic advents at after nine (=1269/1852), nineteen (= 1279 =1862-3) or between 1511 (abjad of Ar. ghiyāth = `the Assistance’) and 2001 years (abjad of Ar. mustaghāth = `The One Invoked for help’) from 1260/1844. These latter figures were understood by Bahā’-Allāh as either numerically and/ or messianically suggestive Names of God, sometimes indicative of the nine (1844-1852-3 CE) or nineteen year period (1844-1863 CE), sometimes of non-chronological import. Certain of these diverse messianic datings are also viewed as allusions to the times of further future, post-Bābī-Bahā’ī era theophanies (see Bahā-Allāh, Lawḥ-i Khalīl Ibrahim Muballigh Shirazi, pp.1-30; `O Thou Creator’ Hebrew Univ. ms.).  

Khātamiyya and the Liqā’ Allāh in the writings of Bahā’-Allāh

“The mystery of this theme (khātamiyya, “the sealedness of the prophets”) hath in this Dispensation (ẓuhūr)… been a sore test (mumtaḥan) unto all mankind” (KI: ¶ 172-3, pp. 107-8 trans. 162). [1]

It has been indicated above that the Arabic word khātam in khātam al-nabiyyīn (Q. 33:40) need not signify "seal" implying "last" of prophets.  For Bahā’īs it more appropriately indicates Muhammad as the best, the supreme "acme of the prophets" during the era before the yawm al-qiyāma (Day of Resurrection) when the liqā’ Allāh, through a messianic maẓhar-i ilāhī (Manifestation of God), would be realized. Like the Bāb, Baha’-Allāh in his Kitāb-i īqān (`The Book of Certitude) specifically deals with the issue of the khatam al-nabiyyīn (seal of the prophets) in the light of the liqā’ Allāh (encounter with God).

The deep theological senses of the eschatological realization of the liqā’Allāh/al-Rabb and of the future vision of the Lord God, are central to the religion founded by Bahā’-Allāh. He proclaimed the depths of this subject in the light of his theophanological claims expressed in many of his major books and scriptural Tablets. He presented his Bahā’ī religion as being established on the Day of God, the era of the presence, meeting or encounter with God (liqā’ Allāh). Bahā’-Allāh many times states that the era of the liqā’ Allāh (Encounter with God) was and will be realized through the messianic Parousia (presence) of the theophanic maẓāhar-i ilāhī (Divine Manifestations) who renew religion from age to age. Today the liqā’ Allāh (Divine Encounter) is thought by Bahā’īs to have come about through the persons and religious teachings or missions of the Bāb and Bahā’-Allāh, They are both seen to represent the indirect theophany of the unknowable Godhead on the Day of God (yawm Allāh). Throughout the forty-year period of his prophetic mission (1852-1892), Bahā’-Allāh often referred to, and commented upon, the liqā’-Allāh, the Encounter-Meeting with God. Only a few scriptural texts dealing with this important subject can be surveyed here.

Rashḥ-i `amā’ (“The Sprinkling of the Theophanic Cloud”, 1852-3).

 In the fourth couplet of his early poem, the Rashḥ-i `amā’, there is reference to “a Wave of the Ocean of the Meeting with God’ (mawj-i liqā)” through which “the Sea of Purity (baḥr-i sifā)” cried out. This perhaps indicates the realization of the eschatological divine theophany through the liqā’ Allah (Encounter with God) in the Bab and/ or Bahā’-Allāh himself.

Lawḥ al-Ḥurūfāt al-muqaṭṭa`āt (Tablet on the Isolated Letters, c. 1858).

 Another early writing of Bahā’-Allāh dealing with the issue of the khātam al-nabiyyīn (Q. 33:40b) is his testimony to the theophanic mission of the Bāb in his Lawḥ al-Ḥurūfāt al-muqaṭṭa`āt. The Bāb, it is said, came with all manner of "dazzling proofs", though the people "waxed proud" in their denial. This despite the qur’ānic promise of the liqā’- Allāh (Meeting-Encounter with God). When God sealed prophethood (khatama al-nubuwwa) through Muhammad (Q. 33:40) "he gave the servants the glad-tidings of the encounter with Him [God]" and the matter was "definitively resolved" (khatama al-makhtūm). In the person of the Bāb, "God came [unto them] in the shadows of the clouds (fī ẓulal al-ghamām, Q.2:210), breathed into the Trumpet of the Cause (nafakha fī ṣūr al-amr; cf. Q.18:99; etc), split the Heaven asunder (inshaqqat al-samā' cf. Q.55:37; 69:16; 84:1) and crushed the mountains to dust (Q.56:5; 69:14, etc). At this, symbolically speaking, all “retreated back upon their heels” (cf. Q.3:144; 6:71) (Ma’ida, IV: 65). In the Lawḥ-i Ḥurūfāt, Bahā’-Allāh continues to argue that in spite of the theophany of the Bāb, the people acted like Jews and Christians.  They continued to await the realization of the promises and the eschatological liqā’ Allāh (Divine advent).

Tablet to `Alī Muhammad Sarrāj (c.1867 CE)

In his decade or so later and lengthy Persian Tablet to `Alī Muhammad Sarrāj (c.1867 CE), Bahā’-Allāh himself mentions the subject of the obscurity of eschatological prophecies in Abrahamic religious scripture. He highlights the supremely clear implications (aṣraḥ al-kalimāt) of finality in the khātam al-nabbiyyīn (Q. 33:40) but thinks it has become an unfortunate, unacceptable veil, inhibiting post-Islamic faith in another supreme agent of God. Despite its implications of finality, Baha’u’llah has it that pure-hearted persons still came to true faith in the Point of the Bayān (bi-irfān nuqṭa-yi bayān = the Bāb). Indeed, he adds, such pure-hearted persons so comprehended the matter of khātimiyyat ("sealedness") that they would happily acknowledge the appearance of a "prophet" (nabī) "from the beginning which has no beginning unto the end which has no end" (Lawḥ-i Sarrāj, Ma’ida, VII: 28ff).

For the Bāb and Bahā’-Allāh, the qur’ānic khātam al-nabiyyīn in no way rules out the theophany of divinity on the eschatological "Day of God" (yawm Allāh). Even if it is taken to outrule the finality of the appearance of a post-Muhammad nabī (prophet) or even rasūl (sent one), it does not negate an eschatological theophany. Both the Bāb and Bahā’-Allāh claimed to be fully human yet fully divine maẓhar-i ilāhī (Manifestations of God) in a way that transcends issues revolving around the various limiting meanings of the khātam al-nabiyyīn. In fact  Bahā’-Allāh so transcended these matters that in numerous theophanological passages he presents himself as the divine figure who commissioned or sent out the nabī (Prophets) and rasūl (Messengers) of the pre-Islamic era. In an important Arabic Tablet of the Acre period, Bahā’-Allāh defends himself against accusations that he has contradicted the Muslim understanding of Q. 33:40b by stating:

You have assuredly confirmed [the truth] by what you have announced [in citing Q. 33:40b]. We do indeed testify that through him [Muhammad] messengership and prophethood (al-risāla wa’l-nubuwwa) were sealed up. Whomsoever after him [Muhammad] makes claim to such an elevated station is indeed in manifest error.... The carpet of prophethood (bisāt al-nubuwwa) has been rolled up and there has appeared the one who sent them out (arsal) [Bahā’-Allāh] in manifest sovereignty… (Untitled Tablet to Ḥasan or `Lawḥ-i Khātam al-nabbiyīn’).

Jawahir al-asrār (“The Gems of the Mysteries” (c.1861). [2]

The Arabic Jawāhir al-asrār (Gems of the Mysteries) of Bahā’-Allāh was written in Baghdad in c. 1277/1860-61 in response to questions posed   by Sayyid Yūsuf Sidihi (Isfahanī), a pupil of the high-ranking Shī`ī cleric, the one-time marja` al-taqlīd (supreme Shī`ī authority), Shaykh Murtaḍā al-Anṣārī (d. Najaf 1864). It contains ten or eleven references to liqā’ (the encounter with God) and comments upon the theology of its end-time realization. The addressee is described as one “certain about the “Encounter with their Lord” (liqā’ rabbihim) at a time when the wayward failed to attain unto faith in the Bāb as “His Beauty” (jamāl) on the “Day of His Encounter” (yawm liqā’ihi) (Jawahir, 7, 25, cf. trans. Gems, 7, 40).  

Referring to Muhammad as the illustrious “Point of the Furqān [Qur’ān]” capable of enabling his followers to enter the jannat al-liqā, the “Paradise of the Divine Presence/ Encouter”, Bahā’-Allāh   describes the subsequent “Paradise on the Day of God” (jannat fī yawm Allāh) as supreme or “greater than every other Paradise” (a`ẓam min kull al-jinān).  This is indicated by the fact that, prior to it, God “sealed the station of prophethood” (khatama maqām al-nubuwwa) through Muhammad as indicated in Qur’ān 33:40.  After specifically citing this Qur’ānic verse, Bahā’-Allāh straightway reminds his readers that God promised in the Qur’ān that they would all attain the liqā’ (the Divine Encounter/Presence) on the Day of Resurrection” (yawm al-qiyāma). By this and by means of the Qur’ānic verses about liqā’, the greatness of renewed eschatological religion (`aẓimat ẓuhūr al-ba`d) as the supreme “Paradise” is indicated.  Having made this point, Bahā’-Allāh registers the following blissful clarificatory salutation:

“Blessed be he who knoweth of a certainty that he shall attain unto the presence of [encounter with] God (bi-liqā’ihi) on that Day when His Beauty (jamāl) shall be made manifest” (Jawahir, 36ff, trans. Gems, 42ff),

Holding back from citing all the numerous and elevated Qur’ānic references to the liqā’ Allāh/al-rabb, to which he assigns a tremendous importance, Bahā’-Allāh singles out Qur’ān 13:2 which he quotes in full. Finally, but not exhaustively in this connection, it should be noted that in the Jawāhir al-asrār Bahā’-Allāh several times associates the liqā’-Allāh with the coming “Day” of the “latter resurrection”   (qiyāmat al-ukhrā). As in the Bayān, he closely associated this with the messianic figure man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh (“Him whom God shall make manifest” (see Jawahir, 49, 62. trans. Gems, 37, 73). In this connection a beatitude is pronounced upon the person who experiences the liqā’-Allāh through this Bābī messiah:

 

“So Blessed be (ṭūba) the one who experiences his presence and attains unto the Encounter/Meeting with Him” (liqā’)!” (ibid).   

The Kitāb-i īqān (Book of Certitude)

The around 1862 CE Persian Kitāb-i īqān (Book of Certitude) of Bahā-Allāh, contains many paragraphs clarifying theological issues, especially those surrounding the khātam al-nabiyyīn and the expected qur’ānic liqā’ Allāh/al-Rabb, the encounter/meeting with God. Such as view  the eschatological liqā’ (Encounter) as naught but a  general or fully theophanic Divine tajallī (divine “Self-manifestation”, “effulgence”, “glorious theophany”, etc cf. Q. 7:143) are offered a messianic perspective. The Kitāb-i īqān was written in reply to questions posed by a maternal uncle of the Bāb named Ḥajjī Mīrzā Sayyid Muhammad (d. 1293/1876’) and known as Khāl-i Akbar (The Greatest Uncle). He had specifically enquired about the traditional Islamic “signs” of the eschatological manifestation or theophany (zuhūr). This in the light of the messianic claims of the Bāb, including a clarification of khātam al-nabiyyīn and of the Qur’ānic liqā’ Allāh (Encounter with God). [1]

This question of the theophany, the liqā’  with God on the Day of Ressurection, is mentioned around 37 times in the `Book of Certitude’.  Six or so of these references are found within cited qur’ānic verses, including  Qur’an 2:188; Q, 29:23; Q, 2:46, 239; Q. 18:110 and Q. 13:2 (see esp. KI: ¶ 148-9; pp. 92-3, trans. 136f). In the Kitāb-i īqān, Bahā-Allāh himself notes that there are references after Qur’ān 33:40b to the future promise of the liqā-Allāh and states that there is “nothing more exalted (a`ẓam) or more explicit (aṣraḥ)”  than  liqā’ (the encounter with God/ attainment unto the divine Presence) in the Qur’ān  (see esp. Q. 39:71; 40:15; 41:54, etc., Kassis Concordance, 743ff and refer KI: ¶ 181 p.112, trans. pp.169-70).

Numerous paragraphs in the Kitāb-i īqān deal directly or indirectly with the challenging subject of khātamiyya, the issue of the “seal of the prophets”. Bahā-Allāh states that people generally failed to understand the meaning of this subject. They were severely tested when this phrase obscured and challenged their understanding. This to the degree that many were deprived of the ever-unfolding providence of God through the coming of the Bāb. The exalted reality of the person of Muhammad, Bahā’-Allāh argues in the light of various Islamic traditions, was historically “timeless”, both “first” and “last” and not at all something “sealed”. The prophet is said to have declared his identity with all past prophets or messengers such as the first Adam, Noah, Moses and Jesus. Since Muhammad regarded himself as Adam, the “First of the Prophets”, it is not at all suprising that he legitimately saw himself as the “Seal of the Prophets”. This latter phrase was never meant to outrule the eternal succession of prophets who offered divine guidance. Like God Himself according to Qur’ān 57:3, the great Prophets are ever and always both the “First and the Last” (KI: ¶ 172ff., p.107ff., trans. p. 162ff).[2]

It is on these lines that Bahā’-Allāh in his Kitāb-i īqān and elsewhere, argues that khatām al-nabiyyīn was an important epithet of Muhammad. It underlines the elevated nature of the Arabian prophet but does not imply the absolute finality of prophethood. Understood with the sense of utter finality, Bahā’-Allāh states that khātam al-nabiyyīn degenerates into one of the hubristic subuḥāt al-jalāl ("veils of glory") which can severely hinder the realization of unfolding reality (KI: ¶ 175,p. 109, trans. 164-5).   

Introducing the person of the Messemgers or Manifestations of God and their ongoing rejection throughout history by their wayward contemporaries, Bahā’-Allāh refers to the eschatological liqā’ (“the Divine Encounter” / “Presence”) as “the very essence of the liqā’ Allāh of God Himself”. Clarifying the Persian text here, Shoghi Effendi had it that the Divine Messengers are “His Face (liqā’)” (liqā’-i ū), the very “the Face of God Himself” (`ayn liqā’ Allāh) (KI ¶ 3 p. 2, trans. p. 3). The person of the Manifestation of God is presented as the quintessential embodiment of the liqā’ Allāh (Encounter with God), the divine Theophany. The importance of this theological interface between God and his Messenger (traditionally between “Him/It” and the subordinate “Him/It”), is repeated throughout the Kitāb-i īqān as the following few notes much suffice to further illustrate.

 

Islamic and Pre-Islamic Liqā’ (The Divine Encounter/Presence).  

Observing the Jewish rejection of Jesus who is referred to as the “Beauty of Jesus” (jamāl-i `Isavi), Bahā’-Allāh states that the people failed to attain the liqā’-Allāh, the encounter with God, through this “youthful Nazarene” (javān-i nāṣiri). Worth noting in this connection, is the fact that various texts within the Gospels as well as many other New Testament writings and related apocryphal texts, apply prophecies of the Hebrew Bible about a Divine advent, the coming of  of God, the Lord (Gk, kyrios) himself, to Jesus. [3]  For Bahā’īs the liqā’ Allāh (encounter with God) was realized at the time of the advent of all pre-Bābī-Bahā’ī Manifestations of God including Moses, Jesus Muhammad and many others. They hold that the latter-Day liqā’ Allāh through the Bāb and Bahā’-Allāh, was echoed in the past though more fully fulfilled in recent times when the promised “Day” is believed to have come to pass (KI: ¶ 17 pp. 11-12, trans. 17-19).

Within the sacred books of the past, all were promised the liqā’ Allāh (Divine Encouter/Presence) and the ongoing receipt of deep knowledge `irfān (*gnosis”) through Him, through the recognition of Him (KI: ¶ 148 p. 91 p. 136-9).  Such has been fulfilled in the past and is expected again; like the first and the second advents of Jesus. Bahā’-Allāh explains that devout Muslims had attained the nobility of the encounter with God (liqā’ Allāh) through the reviving, “sanctified breaths” (nafaḥāt-i qudsiyya) of Muhammad. They may now anticipate the challenge of the eschatological liqā’ Allāh in the Babi-Bahā’ī era of the Day of Resurrection (KI: ¶ 170, p.106 trans. 159-60).

Though, from the Bābī-Bahā’ī point of view, most Muslims came to reject or misinterpret  meaning of the attainment  to the liqā’ Allāh (“encounter/ presence of God”), it is an encounter referred to in the `Book of Certitude’ as “the utmost degree of ever-abiding grace” (fayḍ-i fayyāḍ-i qidam), the very “fullness of His absolute bounty” (kamāl-i faḍl-i muṭlaq) bestowed upon humankind (KI: ¶ 148, p. 91 trans. 136-7). Having said this Bahā’-Allāh cites five confirmatory qur’ānic `Liqā’-Allāh verses’ (Q. 29:23; 2:46, 49; 18:111 and 13:2) some touching upon its past rejection and/or its future realization. He comments that “No theme hath been more emphatically asserted in the holy scriptures (kutub-i samāvī)” (KI: ¶ 148-9, p.92 trans. 138f).

Bahā’-Allāh rejected the interpretation of liqā’ Allāh as an eschatological tajallī Allāh (“the effulgence of God”) on the qiyāmat or `Day of Resurrection’. Such an understanding of Divine Self-revelation is in fact only a general divine disclosure, something already evident within everything as a “Universal Revelation” (tajallī-yi `āmm). God is actually ever-present.  On this level everything is actually a “locus” (maḥall) and manifestation (maẓhar) of the divine tajalli (Effulgence/ Theophany) of the “Sovereign of Reality” (sulṭān-i ḥaqīqi), expressing elements (āthār) deriving from the Sun of the divine Theophany, the “Source of all splendour” (shams-i mujalla). [4] On this general level these divine effulgences or reflections, originated with or are centered within the elevated Deity-reflecting Messenger or `Manifestation of God (maẓhar-i ilāhī) (KI: ¶ 149, p.92 trans. 139-141).

 To attempt to clarify this further, Bahā’-Allāh argues that the eschatological liqā’ Allāh (the Divine Encounter/ Presence) cannot, as some Sufis have maintained, merely be an expression of the “Most Holy Outpouring” (fayḍ-i aqdas), a specific or direct Divine Self-revelation (tajallī-yi khāṣṣ) of the unknowable Essence of God Himself. [5] If the liqā’-Allāh, on the other hand, were to be considered to be an indirect or secondary Divine revelation (tajallī-i thānī), a “Holy outpouring” (fayḍ-i muqaddas), this would not be expressive of the qur’ānic eschatological liqā’-Allāh (encounter with God) since it would be something that has long been realized within the realms of being, “in the realm of the primal and original manifestation of God (`ālam-i ẓuhūr avvaliyya)” through His Chosen Messengers.

This latter mode of tajallī (Divine effulgence) applies to the supremely elevated persons of the divinely inspired Manifestations of God, His Prophets (anbiyā’) and chosen ones (awliyā’) who reveal “the unchangeable attributes and names of God”. They most perfectly represent God for humanity. It is thus the case that attaining the presence of these holy Luminaries (liqā’-i anvār-i muqaddasa), the liqā’-Allāh, the encounter or “Presence of God” Himself is attained. In its fullness, however, the Divine “encounter” or “presence (liqā’) is possible only on the Day of Resurrection (qiyāmat), which is the Day of the rise of the Personal representative of God Himself (qiyām nafs Allāh) through His all-embracing Revelation”, His latest eschatological manifestation or theophany (KI: 150f, pp. 93-4 trans. 141f.). As the Bāb had frequently stated, the liqā’ of the Divine Manifestation is the essence of the liqā’ Allāh (KI: ¶ 170, p.106 trans, 159f.). The promise of the eschatological liqā’, the encounter/presence of God is, in reality, attainment unto the jamāl (“Beauty”) of the maẓhar-i ilāhī (Manifestation of God) in the person or temple of His theophanic Manifestation (dar haykal-i ẓuhūr-i ū) (KI: ¶ 182, p. 170,  trans. 106).  

Kitāb-i Aqdas (“The Most Holy Book”).

A centrally important reference to the liqā’ Allāh/al-Rabb is found in the c. 1873 `Most Holy Book’ of Bahā’-Allāh. This encounter, it is stated, is possible on the eschatological “Day of God” being the cause of great rejoicing.  We thus at one point read in this weighty Arabic text :

The Promised One (al-maw`ūd) hath appeared in this glorified Station, whereat all beings, both seen and unseen, have rejoiced. Take ye advantage of the Day of God (yawm Allāh). Verily, to meet Him (Iiqā’ihi) is better for you than all that whereon the sun shineth, could ye but know it” (Aqdas ¶ 88).

Lawḥ-i Jawhar-i Ḥamd (“Tablet of the Essence of Praise”),

In his late Acre period Lawḥ-i Jawhar-i Ḥamd (“Tablet of the Essence of Praise”), Baha’u’llah has much to say about Babi-Baha’i theology (see INBMC 35: 161-168). As in his Jawāhir al-asrār,  he quotes Q. 13:2 and comments in some detail about the liqā’ al-rabb (“encounter with the Lord”) as the meeting with the eschatological maẓhar-i ilāhi (“Manifestation of God”). The Pre-Existent Divine Essence (dhāt-i qidam) has never nor will ever be attainable through His Hidden and Sanctified Attributes  at the time of the liqā’ Allāh (Encounter with God). As in the Kitāb-i īqān, Bahā’-Allāh states that such as are unaware of deep truth (`irfān) in their tafsīr (commentary upon this qur’ānic verse), inappropriately view the liqā’ (Divine encounter) as being indicative of a general Divine Effulgence (tajallī-yi ū) on the Day of Resurrection. The Day of Resurrection (qiyāmat) is actually the time of the rising up of the Manifestation of the Logos-Self of God (qiyām-i maẓhar-i nafs Allāh) who is both the Qā’im (the `Supportive’ messianic Ariser) and the Qayyūm or subordinate deity Self-Subsisting (Jawhar, 18-19). [6]

The Lawḥ-i Shaykh or `Epistle to the Son of the Wolf’

In his c. 1890 Lawḥ-i Shaykh Muḥammad Taqī Mujtahid-i Iṣfahānī [Najafī] or  as Shoghi Effendi entitled this quite lengthy Persian work of Bahā’-Allāh, the `Epistle to the Son of the Wolf ‘, there is an important reference to  Muhammad as the “seal of the Prophets” (khatam al-nabiyyīm) and to his prediction of the eschatological vision of the Lord (see the Qur’ānic refs. cited above):

“What explanation can they give concerning that which the Seal of the Prophets (Muhammad) … hath said? : “Ye, verily, shall behold your Lord (rabb) as ye behold the full moon (al-badr) on its fourteenth night”  (ESW: 50/ trans. Shoghi Effendi, 41-2). [7]

In later paragraphs of this `Epistle to the Son of the Wolf’, Bahā’-Allāh cites and succinctly interprets a cluster of fifteen qur’ānic verses (in Persian termed the āyat-i liqā’, `the verses of the Encounter’) [8] most of which contain a reference to the liqā’ (“encounter”. etc) with God. They are seen as expressive of the latter-day promise of the divine theophany or “Presence” of God/the Lord”, [9] a presence actualized on earth and the realms beyond through the divine Manifestation of God. God Himself cannot be literally seen. He states that the proimse of the liqā’ (encounter / meeting / presence) of God, the Lord, is explicitly recorded in all past sacred scriptures or books. It has a personal, individualistic or Logos-centered interpretation (maqṣūd-i liqā’ liqā’ nafsī ast) closely related to the one who is the Qā’im-Maqām, the divine Messenger, His “Viceregent” amongst men (so Shoghi Effendi, see ESW: 139/ trans. 118). 

The Biblical and Post-Biblical `Coming of God’.

Perhaps informing the above-cited qur’ānic verses and traditions about an eschatological advent of Divinity, the Hebrew Bible and many post-biblical Jewish literatures contains texts indicative of an eschatological theophany (“coming of God”) of the person of the Divine or as “God”, the “Lord” in his “Glory” (Heb. kavod Ar., Bahā’). Praying in Aramaic that Jesus Christ as the “Lord” might soon return or come again as a divine figure, early Christians uttered the exclamatory μαράναθά, maranatha (“Come, Lord!”) prayer (Aramaic Mar = Greek Kyrios = Lord ; see 1 Cor. 16:22; cf. Zech 14:5; Jude   1 Enoch 1:9’ Didache 10:6).[10] Some such biblical texts are cited by Bahā’-Allāh in many of his alwāḥ (scriptural writings or `Tablets’) as being predictive of himself as a divine Manifestation (not the essence of God Himself): 

“Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined. 3 Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence” (Psalm 50:2-3).

“… the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints [holy ones] with thee. (Zech 14:5b).

“And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it… Behold, the Lord GOD will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him” (Isaiah 40: 5, 10 cf. Rev 22:20).

Like Jesus Christ in the Gospels and Christianity, the Bāb and Baha’-Allāh have been regarded in Bahā’ī sacred writings, as manifestations of the “Lord” or “Lord God”, [11] the latter as the master, owner or “Lord of the Vineyard” (refer Mark 12: 9; Matthew 21:40; Luke 20: 15b). [12]  These end-time theophanoloical predictions are of central interest providing important background to the Qur’ānic Liqā’ Allāh.

At this point it should be mentioned that there exists a theologically important, quite lengthy Arabic scriptural Tablet of the son and successor of Bahā’-Allāh entitled `Abd al-Bahā’ (1844-1921). It is a text which might be called the Lawḥ-i Liqā’ Allāh or `Tablet of the Divine Theophany’. It contains materials about the eschatological coming of God through his representative (as Baha’u’llah, the Manifestation of God), the fulfilment of the Qur’ānic liqā’ Allāh predictions, and related Islamic ḥadīth texts (see`Abdu’l-Bahā’ Makātib 1: 102-108). There are clear references within it to the widespread Abrahamic religious texts about the eschatological theophany or `Meeting with God’:

 Know that  the aforementioned beatific vision on the Day of God (ru’yat fī yawm Allāh) is mentioned in all the scriptural scrolls (al-ṣaḥā’if) and sacred writ (al-zubr);  in the tablets (al-alwāḥ) which have been sent down from heaven unto the prophets (al-anbiyā’) throughout ancient times (ghābir al-azām),  during bygone eras (al-`uṣūr al-khāliyya), and from the primordial centuries (al-qurūn al-awwaliyya). Every single prophet (nabīyy) among the prophets (al-anbiyā’) announced unto his people the glad-tidings of the Day of the Theophany [Meeting with God] (yawm al-liqā’). Consider then the specific references found in the Gospels (al-injīl), the Psalms (al-zubūr), the Torah [Pentateuch] (al-tawrat) and the Qur’ān.

God Himself says in the Qur’ān:”Know ye that thou shall indeed meet Him (mulqū-hu)!” (Q.2:223b) on the Day of Resurrection (yawm al-qiyāma)”.  And also He says [in the Qur’ān], “Lost indeed are such as cried lies to the Meeting (liqā’) with their Lord (rabb) [God]” (Q. 6:31; 10:45; 23:33; 30:8b; 32:10; 41:54, etc). And again He says [in the Qur’ān], ”Perchance thou might be assured about the Meeting (liqā’) with thy Lord (rabb)” (Q. 13:2b. cf. 6:154, etc). (`Abd al-Bahā’, Makatib 1:103-4). [1]

Having cited or paraphrased these Qur’ānic verses, `Abdu’l-Baha’ quotes a summary version of the above mentioned Prophetic ḥadīth about a future vision of God, the Lord, like the sight of the full moon in the middle of the month. He continues to cite several passages from writings attributed to Imam `Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d.40/661) expressive of the beatific or eschatological vision of God. They are understood to apply to the person of Bahā’-Allāh. Though details cannot be spelled out here, it must suffice to translate a few lines pertinent to the subject of liqā’, the meeting or encounter with God and its Baha’ī exegesis: 

Now as regards the essence of the enquiry [about the eschatological theophany] and the reality of the matter, it is that the Liqā’ (Meeting with God) is a matter clearly proven, firmly established and specifically set down in the sacred scrolls (al-ṣuḥuf) and the scriptural Tablets (alwāḥ) of the Living One (al-ḥayy), al-Qayyūm (the Deity Self-Subsisting) [Bahā’u’llāh]. This is assuredly the sealed wine (al-raḥīq al-makhtūm) whose seal is of musk …  The Paradise of the Encounter with God (jannat al-liqā’) is the Most Elevated [Bābī] Paradise and the All-Glorious [Bahā’ī] Kingdom (malakūt al-abhā)” (`Abd al-Bahā’, Makatib 1:104-6).

For the Arabic text and my full translation of this `Lawh-I Liqā’ (Tablet of the Divine Theophany) of `Abd al-Bahā’ see this Hurqalya Publications Website at :   

Arabic text from Makatib-i Hadrat-i `Abdu'l-Baha', Vol. 1:102-108. PDf. L-Liqa-Makatib-1-102f.pdf

• Lambden 2017 trans. PDf. The Lawḥ-i liqā’ (Tablet of the Divine Theophany) (In progress).

The Lawḥ-i Liqā’ (“Tablet of the Meeting with God”) of Bahā’-Allāh.

In a volume of scriptural Tablets (alwāḥ) of Bahā’-Allāh complied by the Persian Bahā’ī apologist `Abd al-Ḥamīid Ishrāq Khāvarī (d. 1972), there exists an Arabic text provisionally entitled Lawḥ-i Liqā’ (“Tablet of the Meeting with God”; see Mā’ida, VIII: 167-168). It opens with a prefixed “He is [God is] the Eternal (huwa al-baqī)” and continues:   

This is a communication [book] which We [Bahā’-Allāh] made to be the Meeting with Us (liqā’i-nā) for such as have drawn nigh unto God during these days in which countries (bilād)  have been revitalized through attainment unto that which was revealed in this Tablet (al-lawḥ) before the Divine Throne. It was revealed for such as find themselves in doubt about the Meeting with their Lord (liqā’ rabbihi). Such persons are among those who have turned away from God, exalted be He, the Cleaver of Dawns [Dawn-Breaker] (fā’iq al-aṣbāḥ).     

 There follows an address to Bahā’ī believers as “birds of Paradise” who, having heard “the Call of the Beloved One (nidā’ al-maḥbūb)”, travelled to attain his presence. Their proximity to the imprisioned Bahā’-Allāh in the Acre prison caused “the denizens of the Supreme Concourse” (ahl al-malā’ al-a`lā) to rejoice, despite their being debarred from attaining unto the Meeting with God (al-liqā’). Their inability to meet him directly also caused “lamentation” or “weeping” (huzn) from the celestial inmates of “the Cities of Eternity” (madā’in al-baqā’)”. Yet, Bahā’-Allāh comments :

How wonderful is this happiness (al-surūr) and this sadness (al-ḥuzn) for the both of them have been realized on the Day of God (yawm Allāh), the Powerful, the Mighty, the Chosen” (L-Liqā’, Ma’ida VIII:169; cf. Persian Bayān III:7).

Probably referring to the Azalī Bābīs who prevented the Bahā’īs from the union of liqā’ (the Encounter with Bahā’-Allāh), they are referred to as persons who “delude themselves before My Self at both eventide (al-`ashiyy) and in the early morning (al-ibkār)”. A comforting beatitude is uttered upon those that attain the Divine presence: “Blessed be unto thee in that thou hast entered into the city (al-madīna) [Acre] and have attained that which was intended by thy Lord, the Mighty, the Bestower.”

The Bahā’ī debarred ones Bahā;-Allāh adds, will yet experience a divine epiphany by virtue of their spiritual joy generated by “proximity”, their countenances manifesting “Glad-Tidings (al-bishārat) and Radiant-Joy (al-ibtihāj) (cf. Q, 75:22-3)”. This such that every person among them will have their proximity accepted or be saluted (al-taslim) resulting in their spiritual contentment (al-riḍā’). Not only have these Bahā’ī pilgrims attained their goal, but they themselves have been circumambulated from on high. Bahā’-Allāh informs them that :    

Thou art in the shadow of My Providence and the edifice of My Mercy (qibāb raḥmatī) since God hath circumambulated about thee! O ye possessors of insight!”

They did indeed, it is added, attain the liqā’, the Meeting with Him [Bahā’-Allāh] and circumambulated about the Ka`ba of His religious Cause. They spiritually attained unto “His Countenance”.

Bahā’-Allāh and Modes of the Eschatological Liqā’-Allāh

For 19^th century Bābīs and Bahā’īs, travelling to meet the Bāb and/or Bahā’-Allāh was the fulfilment of their eschatological liqā’ Allāh, their experience of the Divine Encounter/Presence. We may note here that the great British Persianist Edward G. Browne (d. 1926) was, to his astonishment, advised by certain of his Bābī-Bahā’ī contemporaries in Persia to “travel to `Akkā’ (Acre) and “see God”. [13]  After the execution or martyrdom of the Bāb (1850 CE) and the passing of Bahā’-Allāh in 1892 CE, it was obviously not possible to outwardly attain the liqā’-Allāh as the direct encounter with the founder prophets who claimed to be latter-day Manifestations of God.  Yet, there are statements of Bahā’-Allah about other modes of attaining or precipitating the Presence or `meeting with God’ (liqā’-Allāh).

We have seen above that within the massive corpus of his Persian and Arabic writings, Bahā’-Allāh variously interprets the Qur’ānic liqā’ (“encounter-meeting”). In his Lawḥ-i Liqā’ (“Tablet of the Meeting with God”) he at one time (perhaps late 1860s or early 1870s) interpreted the fulfilment of this eschatological hope in ways other than through a personal encounter or meeting with him in his current place of confinement. Indeed, it is alleged that the liqā’ Allāh promise can be fulfilled through experiencing the potency of inspired, revealed scriptural Tablets, and amongst other ways, through the individual receipt of such an item of revelation. There are likewise statements of Bahā’-Allah to the effect that his devotees should teach his religion and thereby precipitate the wider possibility of the liqā’-Allāh (Encounter with God) among humankind:

We decree in this Tablet that most of the [Babi-Baha'i] friends should write  Istidlaliyya ('apologetic testimonia') tracts (lit. `tablets' alwāḥ) in establishment of this Cause and send them unto the [various] countries perchance thereby none should be veiled from attaining the Encounter-Meeting with God (liqā’-Allāh [through Bahā'-Allāh], the Mighty, the Beauteous" (Arab. text AQA 4:195,  trans. Lambden).

In one of his lengthy and important untitled writings communicated through his one-time amamuensis Mirza Khadim-Allah, Mirza Āqa Jān (d. 1901) Bahā’-Allāh sums up key aspects of his 1863 Baghdad declaration. Supplementary to his interdicting (murtafi`)  jihād as “holy war”, his setting the minimal era of his religions dispensation (ẓuhūr)  as a millennium, and claiming to manifest (tajallī) all the Divine Names upon all things, he seems to refer to another mode of fulfilment of the anticipated liqā’-Allāh on the eschatological “Day of the Encounter” (yawn al-tilqā) when he adds a further equally important directive. This fourth directive has it that whenever the name of anyone (asami), living or dead, is mentioned before the Person or Countenance of Bahā’-Allāh (tilqā’-i wajh), they have thereby attained the Presence of God, [14] the pre-existent King (mālik al-qidam = Bahā'-Allāh) (refer trans. in `Days of Remembrance’, Sect. 9. p. 49). Attaining his presence, the tilqā’-i wajh (lit. encountering his face) could be fulfilled through an individual being mentioned by name in his presence. Many could not encounter, meet or approach the imprisioned founder of the Bahā’’ī religion, but individuals could (during his lifetime) have been mentioned before him.

Concluding Summary Notes

This paper has attempted to sum up and clarify a few aspects of fhe Bābī and Bahā’ī interpretations of Qur’ān 33:40 in the light of the expected Abrahamic eschatological theophany which, in the Qur’ān, is the liqā’ Allāh/ al-rabb on the Day of Resurrection. Muhammad ibn Jarīr al-Tabarī and thousands of other Muslim exegetes, have restricted the khatāmiyya, the sealed nature or (for some) “finality” or prophethood, to the era preceding the end-time Day of Resurrection :

“the messenger of God and  khatam al-nabiyyīn (“the seal of the prophets”)  [Q.33:40] was the one who sealed prophethood for he sealed up this matter. Thus, no one of you should open it up after him [Muhammad] until the [eschatological] onset of the “hour” (qiyām al-sa`at)” (Al-Tabarī, Tafsir on 33:40, initial exegetical paraphrase).

The Bāb and Bahā’u’llāh claimed that with their prophetic commissions, activities and declarations in the mid 19^th century (1844-50 and 1863-92 CE), the long-awaited “Hour” of the Day of Resurrection and Judgement had been set in motion or come to pass, and that the era of Israelite-type prophets / prophethood had ended. The encounter or meeting with God/ the Lord through His divine representatve was now possible in literal, allegorical and other senses. This initiated an age of fulfillmemt. Former notions of prophetological khātimiyya, or being “sealed up” in finality were bypassed or transcended. Muhammad was indeed the “last prophet” to come before the Bāb and Bahā’u’llāh who opened the long-rusting gates or renewal, thereby heralding millennial peace and justice. They proclaimed that many Abrahamic scriptural promises had been, or would erelong be fulfilled, in an ongoing era of judgement and beatitude. They announced that God had once again visited his creation through his human yet superhuman messengers capable of communicating divine revelations (waḥy) and mystical insights (`irfān).

Bahā’-Allāh interpreted the fulfilment of the `encounter with God’ (liqā’ Allāh) in at least three ways: (1) meeting him in his place of imprisionment or residence, (2) receiving a scriptural Tablet from him, and (3) being mentioned by name in his presence. The Bāb and Bahā’-Allāh proclaimed that God had, through their persons and prophetic missions, again passed indirectly by, lived among them and spoken anew to humankind (cf. Exodus 33:22). Yet, they never compromised the Biblical and Qur’ānic theological axiom, that God Himself, in His absolute, transcendent Essence (dhāt), can neither be directly seen, encountered, incarnated or comprehended. Today, experiencing the millennial liqā’Allāh (Divine Presence), means coming to faith in the Bāb, Bahā’-Allāh and such previous founder Prophets as Zoroaster, Moses, the Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad. This involves transcending notions of both a one time commencement and a subsequent cessation of divine guidance though Prophets and Messengers of God and such sages and saints as come under their shadow. It is the belief of Bahā’īs that the fanaticism generated by time-bound religious triumphalism and fixity, should give way to new visions of religious interdependence and unity.  

Though they have not been surveyed in detail here, Bahā’ī arguments against the `finality of prophethood’ usually operate on a somewhat more basic level than the elevated theophanological challenges set down in the writings of the Bāb and Baha’u’llāh. In modern Bahā’ī apologetics a distinction is often made between a possible future rasūl (`sent Messenger’) as a founding maẓhar-i ilāhī (Manifestation of God) and the role of the (lesser) nabī or secondary prophets. Diverse lexical and Islamic understandings of the implications of the Arabic root letters kh-t-m khātam/khātim, etc are frequently commented upon in the light of the possible non-finality of prophethood. The Islamic understandings of Q. 33:40b might, it is sometimes held, outrule the further appearance of Israelite type nabiyyīn (prophets) but this phrase does not negate future appearances of rasūl or mursalīn (sent messengers) the like of which is indirectly hinted at in the `liqā’ Allāh verses (understood messianically, see above) and, for example, more directly in the following qur’ānic verse:

O children of Adam! There shall come among you rusul (sent messengers, plural of rasul)  from among yourselves rehearsing my signs unto you... (Q. 7:35)

Many thousands of eschatological traditions were assiduously compiled into sometimes bulky Istidlāliyya tracts (prophetic testimonia) by 19th-20th century disciples of the Bāb and Bahā’-Allāh. Considerable attention was given to overcoming any finality implied by Q. 33:40b. [15] Some, at Bahā’-Allāh’s command, followed the lead of the Bāb’s Dalā’il-i sab`a (Persian Seven Proofs) and his own Kitāb-i īqān (Book of Certitude). This with a view to arguing that all manner of messianic predictions and apocalyptic "signs", had come to pass (cf. INBMC 80). Bābīs and Bahā’īs have claimed that for many thousands of years, divine messengers (rusul) or maẓhar-i ilāhī (divine Manifestations) founded and will progressively renew the eternal religion of God.

 

 

 

Select Bibliography,

Select bibliography and abbreviations.

• BPT = Bahā’ī Publishing Trust;
• BWC = The Bahā’ī World Centre (= BWC), Haifa, Israel.
• L = Lawḥ (pl. alwāḥ), a scriptural writing or sacred `Tablet’
• MMMA = Majmu`ah-yi millī-yi maṭbu’at-i amrī (Iranian BPT.).  
• INBMC = A privately published (in the mid. 1970s.) series of bound photocopies of mss. (in 100+ vols.) of the writings of the Bāb, Bahā’u’llāh and others.
• Q. = Qur’ān
• QA = Qayūm al-asmā’ (see Bāb below).

The Bāb, Sayyid `Alī Muhammad Shirazī (1819-1850).

Arabic and Persian Bayāns including Frech translations of Gobineau (see bib. below) and A. L. M. Nicholas (1864-1939):

• Ar- Bayan = al-Bayān al-`arabī in INBMC 43:1-68.
• al-Bayān al-`Arabī, in `Abd al-Razzaq al-Ḥasani, al-Bābiyyun wa al-Bahā'iyyun fī ḥadirihim wa hadihim.  Sidon: Matba`at al-`Irfan, 1962, pp. 81-107
• Ar. Bayan = French trans. in Gobineau 1865 [2<sup>nd</sup> ed. 1866 see bib. below] as an Appendix entitled `Ketab-É-Hukkam’ [sic.] (Le livre des préceptes), pp. 461-543.

• Ar-Béyan trans. Nicolas 1905 = Le Béyan Arabe, Le Livre Sacré Bábyse. Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1905.

• Per. Bayān = Bayān-i Farsī. Azali printed edition [Tehran nd.] 
• Kitab-i mustatab-i Bayan-i Farsī, INBMC vol. 24, dated 1954 as photocopy dated, 123 BE/ 1967.
• Persian Bayān. UCLA Library: Special Collections. Box 97, MSS 741.  
• Per. Béyan = Le Béyan Persan, trans. A. L. M. Nicolas, 4 vols. Paris: Librarie Paul Geuthner, 1911-14.
• Ar. Dala’il = in Dalā'il-i sab`ah. np.nd. [Azalī ed. Tehran, 196?] [pp.](alif-nūn);   
• Per. Dala’il = Dalā'il-i sab`a `Arabī va Farsī. n.p. n.d. (= Azalī edition [Tehran,196?]) 1-72.
• Per. Dalā’il = Dalā'il-i sab`ah. np.nd (Azali printing based on several mss.).
• S-Preuves = Le Livre des Sept Preuves de la mission du Bab. Paris: Maisonneuvre, 1902

• K- Haykal = Haykal al-dīn. (The Temple of Religion”) np.nd [Tehran, Azalī ed. 196?].
• `Letter to the Imam / ` People of the City of Medīna’) In INBMC 91: 23-25.
• `Letter to Salmān’ in INBMC 91: 52-56.  
• K-Panj-S = Kitāb-i panj sha'n. (“The Book of the Five Modes”), np.nd. [Tehran Azali ed. mid.1960s]
• Qayyūm al-asmā’ / Tafsīr Sūrat Yūsif (Qur’ān 12) = QA.  [1] QA. INBMC III. Pagination usually refers to this early ms. [2] QA = Qayyūm al-asmā’ Afnān Lib. ms.5 ( copy of ms. dated 1261/1845).
•  S-Haramayn = Ṣaḥīfa bayn al-ḥaramayn. CUL, Browne Or. Ms. F 7(9):1-125; TBA. ms. 6007C, 348-413.

Bahā’-Allāh, Mirza Ḥusayn `Ali Nūrī, (1817-1892).  

• AQA = Āthār-i qalam-i a`lā. Vol. IV. Tehran: MMMA: 125 B.E./1968.
• Aqdas = The Kitáb-i-Aqdas. The Most Holy Book. Haifa: BWC, 1992/5.
• Days of Remembrance: Selections From the Writings of Baha’u’llah for Baha’i Holy Days.  Haifa: Bahā’ī World Centre, 2017.
• ESW [Persian] = L-Shaykh = Lawḥ.-i Ibn-i Dhi’b (“Epistle to the son of the Wolff”) = Lawḥ-i Khiṭāb bi-Shaykh Muḥammad Taqíī Mujtahid-i Iṣfahānī ma`ruf bi Najafī. Cairo: nd. 1338/1919-20.
• ESW = Epistle to the Son of the Wolf (trans. Shoghi Effendi). Wilmette: BPT., rev. ed., 1971(76).

• Jawahir = Jawāhir al-asrār. Brazil: Bahā’ī Publishing Trust. 160 BE/2003.  See also Mss. [1] INBMC 46:1ff [2] INBMC 99. Printings, AQA 3:4-88.
• Jawahir trans. = Gems of the Divine Mysteries, Javāhiru’l-Asrār. Haifa : Baha’I World Centre, 2002.
• KI = Kitāb-i īqān, Hofheim-Langenhain: Bahā'ī-Verlag, 1998/ 155 BE (= rep. K. īqān, Egypt, 1934); trans. Kitáb-i-Iqán: The Book of Certitude (tr. Shoghi Effendi). Wilmette, Illinois: BPT.,1989.
• Lawḥ-i Khalīl, Mirza Ibrahīm Muballigh Shīrāzī ms in TBA ms. 3003C (photocopy in personal library), pp.1-30.
• L-Creator = `O Thou Creator!’ ms (trans. Hebrew University, Jerusalem).
• L-Hurufat = [Tafsīr] L- Ḥurūfāt al-muqaṭṭa`ah. Haifa ms. [2] INBMC 36:212-242; [3] Mā’idah-‘ āsmānī, IV:49-86.
• L-Jawhar-i Ḥamd (“Tablet of the Essence of Praise”) in INBMC 35:161-168.

• L-Khātam = Lawḥ-i Khātam al-nabiyyūn. (ms) = an untitled Tablet to a certain Ḥasan containing important statements touching upon the Qur’ānic `Lawḥ-i Khātam al-nabbiyīn’ and related matters.

• L-Liqā’ = Lawḥ-i Liqā’ (Tablet of the Meeting with God) in Mā’idah-‘ Āsmānī, 8: 69-70.
• L-Sarraj = Lawḥ.-i Sarrāj (Tablet to `Alī Muhammad Sarrāj), Ma’idih VII: 4-118; [2] INBA 73:198-231.
• Ma’idah = `Abd al-Ḥamīd, Ishraq Khāvarī (ed.) Mā'idah-yi āsmānī. vols. 1, 4, 7 and 8 (= writings of Bahā’u’llāh). Tehran: MMM., 128-9 BE/1971-2. .
• Rashḥ-i `amā’. Haifa typsescript in the hand of Zayn al-Muqarrabīn [2] INBMC 36:460-1; [3] Ma’idih 4:184-6. trans. + commentary Lambden. BSB 2/1 (1983): 4-114.

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Abrahamov, Binyamin.

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