# Tablets to the Rulers (Surat al-Muluk)

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-18 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Juan Cole, Tablets to the Rulers (Surat al-Muluk), bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Tablets to the Rulers (Surat al-Muluk)
> 
> Juan Cole
> 
> 1995
> 
> The Tablets to the Rulers were written by Bahá'u'lláh between 1867 and
> circa 1873. Bahá'u'lláh's declaration of his station to the monarchs and
> rulers of the world was self-consciously modelled on the similar
> declaration of Muhammad to the rulers of his own time. It constituted an
> important part of his self-revelation, coming on the whole after his
> declaration to the Babis, and before (or in a few instances
> contemporaneously with) his issuance of the Most Holy Book, which
> comprised the laws and ordinances of the new Bahá'í religion. In these
> epistles he not only declared his station as the promised one of all
> religions, but for the first time began elaborating on the social principles
> of his religion, founded in 1863. From late in 1863 to summer of 1868,
> Bahá'u'lláh was resident in Edirne (Adrianople), to which he was exiled by
> Ottoman Sultan Abdulaziz (r. 1861-1876).
> 
> In the Surat al-Muluk, Tablet of the Kings, written in Edirne in 1867, he
> collectively and apostrophically addressed the rulers of the world. He
> called upon monarchs to be just, and to reduce the size of their armies so
> as to allow for smaller budgets and greater prosperity, and pointed out
> that if they resolved their problems diplomatically they would need only
> the forces necessary to repel invaders from their borders. He thus
> implicitly invoked the strategic principle that an attack requires a three
> to one numerical superiority over the enemy, so that defensive armies can
> be much smaller than offensive ones. He complained that military budgets
> were increasing daily, resulting in oppressive taxes on the subjects: "O
> kings of the earth! We see you increasing every year your expenditures, and
> laying the burden thereof on your subjects. This, verily, is wholly and
> grossly unjust . . . do not rob them to rear palaces for yourselves" (POB, p.
> 12). He insisted that it was the state's responsibility to take care of the
> poor. To Christian rulers he said that he was the spiritual return of Christ
> whom they were awaiting. (Alvah-i Nazilih khitab bi Muluk, pp. 8, 9, 11).
> He castigated the French ambassador in Istanbul for colluding with the
> Iranian envoy against Bahá'u'lláh. He condemned the Ottoman authorities
> for substituting their own principles for those of God, for hypocrisy, and
> for unjustly banishing Bahá'u'lláh from Baghdad and then Istanbul and
> Edirne (Muluk, 18-20). He denied opposing the sultan, and urged him to
> gather around himself upright ministers with whom he should consult. He
> sternly criticized the great gap between the wealthy and the poor in the
> empire, and more especially in Istanbul, and urged the sultan to intervene
> to distribute wealth more equitably (Muluk, 34, 36, 40). He reproached the
> Iranian ambassador, Mirza Husayn Khan, the Mushiru'd-Dawlih, for
> intriguing against him. He ended by addressing the Muslim clergy and
> philosophers of Istanbul, urging them to recognize his authority as God's
> spokesman and to be humble before God (Muluk, 49-51, 65-70).
> 
> Bahá'u'lláh's next letters to monarchs were addressed to Napoleon III (r.
> 1853-1870) of France and to Nasiru'd-Din Shah of Iran, and written
> toward the end of his Edirne exile. The French empire was deeply involved
> in Middle Eastern affairs because of its North African colonies, and had in
> the 1860s intervened in what is now Lebanon and Syria to protect the
> interests of the minority Christian population. Bahá'u'lláh wrote to
> Napoleon III, reminding of him of his expressions of concern for the
> oppressed during the Crimean War of 1854-56, seeking recognition of the
> new Bahá'í religion and apparently soliciting French diplomatic pressure
> on the Ottomans to guarantee Bahá'ís their civil rights. He sent the letter
> via a French consular official, perhaps not until the party reached Akka. He
> received no reply (SAQ, pp. 32-33; PDC, pp. 51- 52).
> 
> In March-April, 1868, the Ottoman authorities began an investigation of
> the Babis and Bahá'ís residing in Edirne, as a result of the complaints
> made to them by the followers of Azal. Rumors began to fly that the exiles
> would be further banished, or perhaps turned over to the Iranian
> authorities. In the end, Bahá'u'lláh was sent with his companions to Akka
> on the coast of Ottoman Syria, but Iranian authorities were permitted to
> maintain a consular office in the city to keep watch on Bahá'í activities. It
> is possible that the prospect of being returned to Iran or of facing
> increased Iranian surveillance impelled Bahá'u'lláh to write his long letter
> to Iran's Nasiru'd-Din Shah (r. 1848-96), in spring or summer of 1868. He
> mentions toward the end of it his impending exile to Akka (Muluk, 195-
> 96). This Tablet made a point of Bahá'u'lláh's pacifist policies, which had
> ended the conflict between the Babis and the Iranian state. He said that in
> the new Bahá'í religion, it was better to be killed than to kill. He argued
> that a ruler had the responsibility to be just toward all his subjects, with
> no distinction among them, implying that discrimination on religious
> grounds is illegitimate (Muluk, 160-61, 164, 166). He pointed out that the
> Shah ruled over a number of recognized religious communities, and pleaded
> that the Bahá'ís be entered among their number, saying that the entire
> community should not continue to be punished for the sins of one person
> (the Babi assassin who fired on Nasiru'd-Din Shah in 1852) (Muluk, 178-
> 79). This letter was not sent until Bahá'u'lláh arrived in Akka, and the
> young courier who delivered it to Nasiru'd-Din Shah, Mirza Badi`, was
> arrested by the government, horribly tortured, and executed.
> 
> In the Arabic Lawhu'r-Ra'is, written in the summer of 1868 on his way to
> Gallipoli, Bahá'u'lláh vows to Ottoman first minister Mehmet Emin Ali
> Pasha (1815-71) that his exile will not extinguish the nascent Bahá'í
> faith, condemns him for plotting with the Iranian ambassador against him,
> and predicts that the Ottoman empire would be engulfed in turmoil and
> Edirne would pass out of the hands of the sultan (Muluk, 205-225). In the
> Lawh-i Fu'ad, written somewhat later concerning Ottoman Foreign
> Minister Fu'ad Pasha (d. 1869), he went so far as to predict that God would
> "take hold of" the sultan (Rosen, Collections, 6:231-32). Bahá'ís felt that
> these predictions were vindicated in 1876-78, when Sultan Abdulaziz was
> overthrown in a constitutional revolution and committed suicide,
> following which a Russo-Ottoman war broke out that led to the temporary
> occupation of Edirne by Russian forces. In the Lawhu'r-Ra'is, Bahá'u'lláh
> announced as his aim the unification of the peoples of the world. In the
> Persian Lawh-i Ra'is, written upon his arrival in Akka and also addressed
> to Ali Pasha, Bahá'u'lláh compares the ephemeral pomp and circumstance
> of the Ottoman court to the elaborate puppet shows he saw as a child at
> court in Tehran, at the end of which the royal puppets in all their finery
> were unceremoniously packed into a trunk. He asked Ali Pasha to convey
> his request to Sultan Abdulaziz for an audience of only ten minutes, during
> which he would be pleased to produce for the sultan any proof of his
> mission the latter deemed acceptable (Muluk, 228-67).
> 
> Of the remaining Tablets to monarchs and leaders, few are dated, but they
> appear to belong to the first four years of Bahá'u'lláh's exile in Akka. In
> his letter to Victoria (r. 1830-1901), Queen of Great Britain and Queen-
> Empress of India, Bahá'u'lláh proclaimed himself the spiritual return of
> Christ. He commended the Queen for abolishing slavery, saying it had also
> been forbidden in the Bahá'í faith (it was still practiced in the Middle
> East, but gradually being ended). He congratulated her on having entrusted
> the reins of counsel (by which he meant parliamentary governance) into
> the hands of the people, and called upon members of parliament in Britain
> and other countries to undertake the reform of world society so as to cure
> its ills. He recommended as a solution the unification of the world under a
> single religion. He repeated his earlier strictures, enunciated in the Tablet
> of the Kings (Surat al-Muluk), against ruinous arms races and overtaxation
> of the ordinary folk and the poor. He clearly enunciated for the first time
> here the need for a system of collective security whereby, should any
> nation attack another, all the others would join together to roll back and
> subdue the aggressor (Muluk, 131-41).
> 
> The second letter to Napoleon III was written in 1869 as part of the
> larger collection of Tablets to the Monarchs called the Tablet of the
> Temple (Surat al-Haykal). Bahá'u'lláh began by instructing the emperor to
> have his priests cease ringing the church bells in anticipation of Christ's
> second coming, since Bahá'u'lláh was himself that advent. In an aside, he
> addressed the monks of the Roman Catholic church, urging them to abandon
> their seclusion in monasteries and to take up useful work and to marry and
> produce offspring who would praise God after their deaths. He also urged
> holy men to forsake vegetarianism, saying he had allowed the eating of
> meat. Bahá'u'lláh complained to Napoleon III that while he claimed to have
> intervened in the Crimean War in order to save the innocent, he had
> declined to help the innocent Bahá'ís, and had haughtily cast Bahá'u'lláh's
> previous letter behind his back. "For what thou has done," he wrote, "thy
> kingdom shall be thrown into confusion, and thine empire shall pass from
> thy hands, as a punishment for what thou hast wrought." (POB, p. 31). He
> urged the emperor to be just to his subjects and to the poor. In another
> aside, he urged the Bahá'ís to spread the new religion, by first acquiring
> excellent moral qualities, by wisdom and and exposition, and by avoiding
> arguments. He called upon the rich to be humble before the poor, and to
> engage in philanthropy. He announced the establishment of four great holy
> days, commemorating the manifestation of God's names (at Ridvan), the
> sending of a messenger to announce Bahá'u'lláh's advent, and two others,
> which he said would be specified in a Book. (Bahá'u'lláh discussed the holy
> days of his religion more extensively later, in the Most Holy Book [al-Kitab
> al-Aqdas] of 1873). In concluding, he said that all the people of the world
> should be seen as one. This letter was smuggled out of the Akka prison and
> delivered to Cesar Ketaphakou, son of the French consul in Akka, who
> translated it into French and sent it on to Paris. Ketaphakou later became
> a Bahá'í on seeing the prophecy of Napoleon III's fall fulfilled when he was
> defeated at Sedan by the Prussians in 1870 (SAQ 33, PDC, 51).
> 
> Bahá'u'lláh announced himself to Tsar Alexander II (d. 1881), as well,
> warning him not to allow his base desires to veil him from turning toward
> the countenance of his Lord. He notes that a Russian official helped
> Bahá'u'lláh when he was imprisoned in the Siyah-Chal dungeon in Tehran,
> 1852-53, saying, "Whilst I lay chained and fettered in the prison, one of
> thy ministers extended Me his aid. Wherefore hath God ordained for thee a
> station which the knowledge of none can comprehend except His
> knowledge. Beware lest thou barter away this sublime station" (POB, p.
> 27). He declared himself the fulfillment of biblical messianic
> expectations mentioned in Isaiah, and in the Old and New Testaments,
> saying that the Father and the Son were come in the holy vale (Muluk, pp.
> 121-28).
> 
> In the letter to Pope Pius IX (r. 1846-1878), Bahá'u'lláh warned the
> pontiff not to allow a focus on Jesus's name to bar him from recognizing
> the reality of the Lord of the heavens and earth. He criticized the pope for
> living in palaces while the returned Messiah dwelt in the most desolate of
> abodes. He reminded Pope Pius that the most learned men of Jesus's own
> time rejected him, while a humble fisherman embraced his teachings. He
> lamented that while generations of pious monks had prayed day and night
> for the return of Christ, when he came they failed to recognize him. He
> said to the Pontiff to "Sell all the embellished ornaments thou dost
> possess, and expend them in the path of God . . . abandon thy kingdom unto
> the kings, and emerge from thy habitation, with thy face set towards the
> Kingdom, and, detached from the world, then speak forth the praises of thy
> Lord" (POB, p. 85). He thus counselled the Pope to relinquish the papal
> estates and concentrate on a spiritual ministry. He identified the Bab as
> the return of John the Baptist for Christians, heralding Bahá'u'lláh's own
> advent who speaks with the tongue of the Son (Muluk, pp. 73-90).
> 
> In addition, Bahá'u'lláh apostrophizes some rulers in his 1873 book of
> laws, al-Kitab al-Aqdas. He addressed Kaiser Wilhelm I of Prussia (r.
> 1871- 88), reminding him of how ephemeral was earthly glory, giving the
> example of his defeated enemy Napoleon III. Bahá'u'lláh foresaw that the
> banks of the Rhine would be "covered with gore" and heard "the
> lamentations of Berlin" (Muluk, pp. 250-51). The Prussian monarchy later
> perished in the defeat inflicted on it in World War I. He rebuked the
> emperor Franz Joseph of Austria for visiting Jerusalem but neglecting to
> inquire about Bahá'u'lláh while in the Holy Land. He collectively addressed
> the monarchs and rulers presiding over the territories of the Americas,
> urging them to recognize him, and to "bind ye the broken with the hands of
> justice, and crush the oppressor who flourisheth with the rod of the
> commandments of your Lord" (Muluk, 258; POB, 63). He also collectively
> addressed the rulers of the earth in the Most Holy Book, calling upon them
> to accept him as their spiritual sovereign (Muluk, pp. 262- 65).
> 
> Bahá'u'lláh took an increasingly dim view of absolute monarchy during
> this period. Whereas he began by urging something like cabinet
> consultation on Sultan Abdulaziz, he ended by predicting that in the future
> no one would accept the task of ruling as monarch alone, that monarchy
> would survive, if at all, only as constitutional monarchy. He wrote to
> Shaykh Salman soon after his exile in Akka, "One of the signs of the
> maturity of the world is that no one will accept to bear the weight of
> kingship. Kingship will remain with none willing to bear alone its weight.
> That day will be the day whereon wisdom [or Reason: `aql] will be
> manifested among mankind. Only in order to proclaim the Cause of God and
> spread abroad his faith will anyone be willing to bear this grievous
> weight" (Mujmu`ih-yi Mubarakih, Sabri ed., 125-26; PDC, 72).
> 
> Bibliography
> Most of the Tablets to the Monarchs were
> collected and published in a volume of the series, Athar-i Qalam-i A`la
> (Traces of the Supreme Pen), entitled Alvah-i Nazilih khitab bi Muluk va
> Ru'asa-yi Ard (Revealed Tablets addressing the Kings and Leaders of the
> Earth) (Tehran: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 124 B.E./1968). They were also
> published in Victor Rosen, ed., Collections scientifiques de l'Institut des
> langues orientales du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, 6 vols. (St.
> Petersburg, 1877-1891), vol. VI, pp. 141-233. Those passages from these
> Tablets translated at various points by Shoghi Effendi were collected and
> published as The Proclamation of Bahá'u'lláh to the Kings and Leaders of
> the World (Haifa: Bahá'í World Center, 1967). The chief theological
> exposition of their import for Bahá'í conceptions of sacred history is
> Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá'í Publishing
> Trust, 1967). Academic writing treating aspects of these tablets includes
> E.G. Browne, "The Babis of Persia," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 21
> (1889):953-72 and "Some Remarks on the Babi Texts Edited by Baron
> Victor Rosen," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 24 (1892):283-318;
> and Juan R.I. Cole, "Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the
> 19th Century," International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (1992): 1-
> 26.
> 
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> previous at archive.org.../cole_encyclopedia_tablets_rulers;
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> — *Tablets to the Rulers (Surat al-Muluk) (Used by permission of the curator)*