An Arabic Tablet of the Bab to the Peoples of the World
Introduction text and Translation
PDf. Afnan text Bab-People of the world.pdf
Stephen N. Lambden UC Merced
In Progress - last updated 31-03-2021;
In his important Persian volume surveying and commenting upon aspects of the life of the Bab and his writings, the Babi community and Babi history, entitled `Ahd-i A`la : Zindigani-yi Hazrat-i Bab (The Transcendent Covenant...; Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1999; see image above) the late Abu'l-Qasim Afnan (one-time, for 30 years custodian of the house of the Bab in Shiraz, Iran, d. Swindon, England, 2 October 2004) included a facsimile of an Arabic `Tablet of the Bab to the Peoples of the World'. See the Afnan printed heading (No.8, `One of the Tablets of th Bab addressed to the people of the world'). This text printed in facsimilie has the prescript heading of the Bab which loosely translated, reads as follows :
O Creation!
He hath instructed all to the end that they might engage in scriptural recitation then come to faith [in Thee] ...
This prescript of the Bab is followed by the theological heading, "God is the Most Manifest" (Allah al-azhar). A closely related huwa ("He [ God] is") theological heading or phrase follows underlining His transcedence : 'huwa al-a`la ("He [ God] is the Most Transcendent". This is then followed by the new, neo-basmala of the Bab instituted in the Persian and Arabic Bayans (III:11) repalcing the Qur'anic "Bismillah al-rahman al-rahim (In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate") and reading with its double apophatic superlative, Bismillah al-amna` al-aqdas, "In the Name of God, the Inaccessible, the Most Holy", The first line of the Tablet proper then reads, "God testifieth that He, no God is there except Him. He made the Creation and the Command (al-khalq wa'l-amr) [ cf. Q. ]...
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An Arabic Tablet of the Bab to the Peoples of the World
Beta Translation, Stephen Lambden
In Progress - last updated 31-03-2021.
O Creation!
He hath instructed all to the end that they might engage in scriptural recitation then come to faith [in Thee] ...
God is the Most Manifest (Allah al-azhar).
He [God] is the Most Transcendent! (huwa al-a`la) .
In the Name of God, the Inaccessible, the Most Holy",
God testifieth that He, no God is there except Him. He made the Creation and the Command (al-khalq wa'l-amr) [cf. Q. XXXX]
