# Baha'u'llah's Epistle to the Son of the Wolf

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-19 — 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: Marzieh Gail, Baha'u'llah's Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> Bahá'u'lláh's Epistle to the Son of the Wolf
> 
> Marzieh Gail
> 
> published in World Order12:2, pp. 33-39
> 
> Wilmette, IL: National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States, 1946-05
> 
> THIS IS THE LAST OUTSTANDING Tablet of Bahá'u'lláh. The last He
> wrote before He left us; before that happened of which the Báb has
> written, "all sorrow is but the shadow of that sorrow." This is the last of the
> hundred books He revealed for us.
> 
> It was written to a priest in Isfáhán, a priest called the "Son
> of the Wolf". His father had spoken the words that sent the "twin shining
> lights," -- the King of Martyrs and the Beloved of Martyrs -- to their death.
> They were laid in two sandy graves near Isfáhán. (Years
> afterward, an American woman named Keith Ransom Kehler knelt there and wept and
> brought them flowers; then in a few days she was stricken and died, and the
> friends carried her back to these same graves and buried her beside them.)
> 
> This priest, Áqá Najafi, had committed the unforgivable sin: he
> had violated the Covenant and blasphemed against the Holy Spirit; that is, he
> had hated, not the lamp, not the Prophet of God as an individual -- from
> ignorance, or because he did not recognize Him -- but the light itself, the
> perfections of God which the Prophet reflects; he had hated the light in the
> lamp -- and "this detestation of the light has no remedy . . . "
> 
> This priest was, then, the most hopeless of sinners. His evil found expression
> in many ways, and among them was this, that with his pupils, he kicked at and
> trampled the martyred body of Mírzá Ashraf, in
> Isfáhán (not the Ashraf of whom we read in Gleanings,
> Siyyid Ashraf, whose head was cut off in Zanján).
> 
> And yet, Bahá'u'lláh begins this Tablet with a prayer of
> repentance for Áqá Najafi to recite. He offers this breaker of
> the Covenant forgiveness; just as, in His Most Holy Book, He offers forgiveness
> to Mírzá Yahyá, the treacherous half-brother who tried to
> destroy him. This offering is a demonstration of 'Badá' -- of the
> principle of the free operation of the Will of God, Who doeth whatsoever He
> willeth and shall not be asked of His doings. It proves how mistaken is that
> large group of human beings who believe that everything is on a mechanical
> basis -- that this much sin brings this much punishment, and so much good buys
> so much reward. To them, God is a blind force, operating mechanically --
> something like the third rail in the subway. They themselves, however, would
> greatly resent being called a blind force. (The Báb develops this
> principle of 'Badá' in the Persian Bayán.)
> 
> Thou beholdest, O my God, him who is as one dead fallen at
> the door of Thy favour, ashamed to seek from the hand of Thy loving-kindness
> the living waters of Thy pardon.
> 
> Thou hast ordained that every pulpit be set apart for Thy mention . . . but
> I have ascended it to proclaim the violation of Thy Covenant . . .
> 
> O Lord, my Lord! and again, O Lord, my Lord! and yet again, O Lord, my
> Lord!
> 
> Throughout the Tablet, he is several times directed to pray; is addressed as
> would be one of Bahá'u'lláh's own sons; is told to arise and
> serve the Faith; to believe, serve and trust; to enter the presence of
> Bahá'u'lláh (Whom he had never seen); to save men from the "mire
> of self," to "seek the Most Great Ocean" and that "thereupon, will the doors of
> the Kingdom be flung wide before thy face. . ." He is told: "O Shaykh! We have
> enabled thee to hear the melodies of the Nightingale of Paradise . . . that
> thine eye might be cheered. . ."
> 
> As Dr. Alí-Kuli Khan has pointed out, the varying titles by which
> Bahá'u'lláh addresses Áqá Najafí indicate
> that the Letter is intended for a much larger audience than he. It is "a
> presentation of the Faith to humanity'; many aspects of man are singled out and
> addressed. These titles include: "O Shaykh'; "O distinguished divine'; "O thou
> who has gone astray!'; "O thou who hast turned away from God!". Occasionally,
> too, others are specifically named: "O people of Bahá'; "O
> Hádí". Many aspects of man are singled out and addressed. You
> find here, not only the evil priests who in every dispensation hold men back
> from their Lord -- the "blind mouths" of Lycidas -- but the good
> divines, who are "as eyes to the nations," reminiscent of the "'Ulamá in
> Bahá" of the Most Holy Book. You find here the king and the scholar, the
> everyday believer, the saint, the sinner.
> 
> This Tablet, then, is much more than a letter to an individual. It is an
> important general presentation of the Faith. In this Work, as the Guardian
> tells us, Bahá'u'lláh "quotes some of the most characteristic and
> celebrated passages of His own writings, and adduces proofs establishing the
> validity of His cause."
> 
> Most books bring you closer to the author. But when you study the work of
> Bahá'u'lláh, He eludes you. As the Guardian has told us in The
> Dispensation of Bahá'u'lláh, He is "unapproachably
> glorious".
> 
> Goethe says, "Above all peaks there is rest." I have read this book three
> times and studied it over a long period; it seems to me more likely that above
> all peaks there is another peak.
> 
> You want, though it is almost impossible, to read this at one sitting. It
> comes rapidly, and the English translation by the Guardian is flawless. You
> want more and more of it and are too impatient to stop and think over this and
> this, as you are urged along, and you mark things to come back to. It contains
> sentences like these:
> 
> I belong to him that loveth Me . . .
> 
> . . . others had, at times, to nourish themselves with that Divine
> sustenance which is hunger.
> 
> In the treasuries of the knowledge of God there lieth concealed a knowledge
> which, when applied, will largely, though not wholly, eliminate fear.
> 
> Man's actions are acceptable after his having recognized [the
> Manifestation].
> 
> He is truly learned who hath acknowledged My Revelation, and drunk from the
> Ocean of My knowledge, and soared in the atmosphere of My love . . .
> 
> A just king enjoyeth nearer access unto God than anyone.
> 
> These, verily, are men who if they come to cities of pure gold will consider
> them not; and if they meet the fairest and most comely of women will turn
> aside.
> 
> It offers historical material which in future will stimulate the keenest
> research. We learn, for example, of the Master's first betrothal; of
> Bahá'u'lláh's arrest in Níyávarán and of the
> kind of chains He was bound with; of the machinations against Him by Persian
> officials in Constantinople and of the suicide there of Hájí
> Shaykh Muhammad-'Alí; the fact that Mírzá Yahyá was
> not exiled out of Persia; that he abandoned the writings of the Báb in
> Baghdád; that Hádí Dawlat-Abádí tried to
> destroy every copy of the Bayán; that the Azalís tried to claim
> Siyyid Javád-i-Karbilá'í as one of themselves, pasting his
> picture under that of Mírzá Yahyá; that
> Bahá'u'lláh had never read the Bayán; that in 1863 (this
> date is given in God Passes By) Bahá'u'lláh suggested to a
> Turkish official, Kamál Páshá, that his government convene
> a gathering to plan for a world language and script. (In this connection,
> Volaptik was invented by Johann Martin Schleyer of Konstanz, Baden, about 1879;
> Esperanto, by Dr. Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof, was first discussed in print by him
> in 1887.)
> 
> It gives us a moral code, including such precepts as:
> 
> If anyone revile you, or trouble touch you, in the path
> of God, be patient, and put your trust in Him Who heareth, Who seeth. He, in
> truth, witnesseth, and perceiveth, and doeth what He pleaseth, through the
> power of His sovereignty.
> 
> The sword of wisdom is hotter than summer heat, and sharper than blades of
> steel . . . withhold not from the poor the things given unto you by God through
> His grace. He, verily, will bestow upon you the double of what ye
> possess.
> 
> If ye become aware of a sin committed by another, conceal it, that God may
> conceal your own sin.
> 
> Be . . . thankful in adversity . . . Be fair in thy judgment and guarded in
> thy speech . . . Be a haven for the distressed, an upholder and defender of the
> victim of oppression . . . a home for the stranger . . .
> 
> The fear of God is continually stressed:
> 
> We enjoin the servants of God and His handmaidens to be
> pure and to fear God . . . The fear of God hath ever been a . . . safe
> stronghold . . . Their [the Bahá'ís] hearts are illumined with
> the light of the fear of God . . .
> 
> Students of the Qur'án will remember how strikingly the fear of God is
> likewise extolled in that Book: "God loveth those who fear Him," and "Whoso
> feareth God, his evil deeds will He cancel . . ."
> 
> Among many such precepts, Bahá'u'lláh states here: "Regard for
> the rank of sovereigns is divinely ordained . . ." and interprets "Render unto
> Caesar" far differently from the current meaning given this verse in
> Christendom, where it is made to imply that Caesar is a sort of reversal of
> God, a concept at variance with the Bahá'í teaching on
> kingship.
> 
> Bahá'u'lláh also answers, in this Work, a question often asked:
> Why a new religion? He says, by implication to the Muslims, that if they prefer
> what is ancient, why did they adopt the Qur'án in place of the Old and
> New Testaments? And He states that if bringing a new Faith be His crime, then
> Muhammad committed it before Him, and before Him Jesus, and still earlier,
> Moses. He adds:
> 
> And if My sin be this, that I have exalted the Word of
> God and revealed His Cause, then indeed am I the greatest of sinners! Such a
> sin I will not barter for the kingdoms of earth and
> heaven.
> 
> (Strange, how often the public asks this question, forgetting today's
> universal wretchedness; the mind's loneliness, that is crowding those brick
> buildings with the barred porches, that you see as you travel through the
> country; the enslavement of human beings by other human beings like themselves;
> the moral rottenness -- you have only to look at the sidewalks of any big city
> early in the morning, and the debris in its gutters, you do not even have to
> read the doctors' case histories, or the newspapers. And if you are one of
> those "nice people" so many persons claim to be, who do not drink to excess,
> nor harm anyone, and therefore do not need a God to obey -- or need only some
> sterile deity of their own choosing, a selection from whose precepts they will
> follow when they see fit, and whose synthetic thunder, listened to, or not
> listened to, once a week, does not fool them for a moment -- then you are
> empty, you are ineffective, you make no impact on society; and those discarded
> men sprawling in the streets are your glass of wine, and those piles of dead
> bodies you turn away from in the press, are your professed goodwill, and all
> that useless agony in so many men's and women's hearts, is your sexual
> sophistication.)
> 
> The Bahá'ís of the West are gradually learning more about the
> Báb; through The Dawn-Breakers, The Dispensation of
> Bahá'u'lláh, and this present Text, they are drawing closer
> to Him, and to the story of His life, which is the story of His love for
> Bahá'u'lláh. Among His utterances here is the striking plea to
> His followers that even should an impostor arise after Him, they should not
> protest against the man, nor sadden him. In time, twenty-five persons, most of
> whom later begged forgiveness of Bahá'u'lláh, claimed to be He
> Whom God Shall Manifest. This was because of His longing to protect the True
> One. He is His own proof, the Báb told His followers: ". . . who then
> can know Him through any one except Himself?" The breath of the Báb's
> despair is here, and His beautiful words, "I . . . am, verily, but a ring upon
> the hand of Him Whom God shall make Manifest . . ." Bahá'u'lláh
> links the Heraldship of the Báb with, that of John the Baptist, and
> shows how John's companions as well "were prevented from acknowledging Him Who
> is the Spirit (Jesus)."
> 
> Not only are we brought near to Him Who was the return of the Twelfth
> Imám, but to all the lmáms, and -- since the Guardian is as the
> lmám -- to the institution of Guardianship in our own Faith. The
> reference to the "snow-white" hand of the Qá'im goes back to Moses" sign
> in the Qur'án. By the 'Impost' is meant the tithe, payment of which is a
> religious duty, as are the Fast and the Pilgrimage: "We are the Way . . . and
> We are the Impost, and We are the Fast, and We are the Pilgrimage, and We are
> the Sacred Month, and We are the Sacred City . . ." says the Imám
> Ja'far-i-Sádiq. In connection with the Imámate, E. G. Browne's
> brief summary is valuable: "According to the Imámite view . . . the
> vice-regency is a matter altogether spiritual; an office conferred by God
> alone, first by His Prophet, and afterwards by those who so succeeded him . . .
> the Imám of the Shiites is the divinely-ordained successor of the
> Prophet, one endowed with all perfections and spiritual gifts, one whom all the
> faithful must obey, whose decision is absolute and final, whose wisdom is
> superhuman and whose words are authoritative."
> 
> Swiftly, in this Book, the scenes pass. There is the dungeon, and the dream
> there, and the promise:
> 
> Verily We shall render Thee victorious by Thyself and by
> Thy Pen . . . Erelong will God raise up the treasures of the earth -- men who
> will aid Thee . . .
> 
> There is the dramatic suicide in the mosque, of Hájí Shaykh
> Muhammad-'Alí. There is the "city, on the shores of the sea, white,
> whose whiteness is pleasing unto God . . ." The mood varies, the tempo shifts.
> You can hear these swift questions and answers in music, as a kind of
> spiritual:
> 
> Hath the Hour come? Nay, more; it hath passed . . . Seest
> thou men laid low? Yea, by my Lord . . . Blinded art thou . . . Paradise is
> decked with mystic roses . . . Hell hath been made to blaze.
> 
> There are the thought-inducing lines on the moan of the pulpits:
> 
> I was walking in the Land of Tá (Tihrán) --
> the dayspring of the signs of thy Lord -- when lo, I heard the lamentation of
> the pulpits and the voice of their supplication unto God, blessed and glorified
> be He. They cried out and said . . . Alas, alas! . . . Would that we had never
> been created and revealed by Thee!
> 
> This reminds us of the Qur'ánic verse, referred to earlier by
> Bahá'u'lláh: "God, Who giveth us a voice . . ." And then the
> earth-quaking apostrophe to the She-Serpent:
> 
> Judge thou equitably, O She-Serpent! For what crime didst
> thou sting the children of the Apostle of God . . .
> ?
> 
> This refers to the martyrdom of the "twin shining lights," descendants of
> Muhammad; you would need Michelangelo or Milton to comment here.
> 
> People who must choose often ask whether they should add this or that book to
> their private library. My reasons for owning this one are: Its beauty of text,
> translation, and format; its brevity; its richness from the academic point of
> view -- the materials it offers for study; its comprehensiveness -- for,
> although it is an independent creative work, having its own unity of form, its
> own personal spirit -- it is almost an anthology, and one selected by
> Bahá'u'lláh Himself. And then, there is the totality of its
> impact on the reader, and the eternal gift it holds out to him, of the mercy of
> God.
> 
> Yes, it helps us to enter His presence; it brings us to "Him Whom the world
> hath cast away and the nations abandoned . . ."
> 
> Where has Áqá Najafí gone now? Where has he gone in his
> enormous globular turban and his curled-up shoes? He was, as
> Bahá'u'lláh called his fellow, "the last trace of sunlight upon
> the mountain-top." Where has he taken all his hatred? In any event, it became
> the occasion of this Book, this last earthly gift to us from
> Bahá'u'lláh; His enemies brought Him poison, but He changed it
> into honey for His loved ones.
> 
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> — *Baha'u'llah's Epistle to the Son of the Wolf (Used by permission of the curator)*