The Lawh-i Muhammad Ibrahim Khalil, Muballigh-i Shirazi (XXXX)
of Mirza Husayn `ali Nuri, Baha'-Allah (1817-1892).
Introduction, biography and Translation.
Stephen Lambden
In progress -last updated 19-10-2015
Mss. and printed texts :
- Tehran Baha'i Archives (TBA) Ms. 3003C, pp.1-30. Arabic and Persian. The PDf. uploaded here is copied from a copy made by Denis MacEoin (probably in the 1970s) which I made on the 25th July 1986. Unfortunately there are two pages (Ms. pp. 7-8) missing in this copy of the ms, that was available to me in decades past.
Translation of scriptural Tablets of Baha-Allah (or someone with a similar name and titles) can be found in Gleanings (GWB). I have derived some details from the 1997, Sources of Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah by Vahid Rafati, Denis MacEoin, and Faruq Izadinia (Available at : http://bahai-library.com/rafati_maceoin_sources_gleanings ).
- GWB XX.
- GWB XXXIII (text in Ma'ida-yi Asmani, VIII:172-73).
- GWB XXXVIII (text in Ma'ida-yi Asmani, VIII: 173).
- GWB LXI (text in Amr va khalq IV: 472-73).
- GWB LXXVII; CXXVII; CXXVIII (AQA IV:112-114).
- GWB CXLV (= Surat al-Bayan, extract in AQA IV:114-115).
The Lawh-i Muhammad Ibrahim Khalil, Muballigh-i Shirazi
Contents.
The opening or commencement of this important scriptural Tablet of Baha-Allah is indicated in the images above. It opens with a Baha'i neo-basmala which reads in translation "In the Name of God, the Knowleageable, the All-Knowing (al-`alam al-`alim). The Tablet spans some thirty pages and concludes with a few pages written in responce to a question about the post fasting month of `A`la (the Transcendent) ayyam al-ha' ("the days of five") or the [Babi-] Baha'i intercalary days (19 x19 = 361 + [4] 5 = 361= the days of the solar year) and which highlight the importance of their joyful celebration following the fasting period :
"Now as for what thou enquired about regarding the days (al-ayyam) which We made to be a manifestation of al-ha' ("H" abjad = 5) in the kingdom of origination (malakut al-insha') .... (p.29)"
The final lines of this Tablet constitute a beatitude upon the learned ones (al-`amilin) who magnify the ....
Within this complex revelation there is a great deal of often abstruse alphabetical or numerological meditations expository of the genesis of the letters of the alphabet and associated haykals or talismanic, pentadic, star-shaped humanoid temples (sing. haykal, pl. hayakil) such as are spoken about by the Bab in certain of his sometimes complex Arabic writings including, for example, sections of his late Kitab-i panj shja'n (Book of the Five Grades). Some of this is further related to issues surrounding the time of the manifestation of man yuzhiru-hu Allah, the messianic figure of the Babi religion, relative to the numerological implications of the abjad values of al-ghiyath (abjad 1511) and al-mustaghath (abjad 2001) mentioned in the writings of the Bab.
