# Kitab-i-Íqan: Introduction to the 1950 Edition

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Helen Reed Bishop, Kitab-i-Íqan: Introduction to the 1950 Edition, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Kitáb-i-Íqán:
> 
> Introduction to the 1950 Edition
> 
> Helen Reed Bishop
> 
> 1950
> 
> Page iv
> 
> INTRODUCTION
> 
> A Bahá'í, whether of the Occident
> or the Orient, cannot be persuaded easily to venture into a preface befitting
> to the Kitáb-i-íqán. Every believer has
> been seized with amazement and love for a Book that is "...foremost
> among the priceless treasures cast forth from the billowing ocean of Bahá'u'lláh's
> Revelation...."
> With this metaphor
> The Íqán's
> rank
> is fixed by the Guardian of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi, in a passage from
> God
> Passes By. The latter is a historical study and tells the time
> and circumstance in which the Writing was revealed — earlier than the Prophet's
> declaration of His mission, closing the period of sequestration in 'Iráq.
> (Circa 1863 A.D.)
> Shoghi Effendi's translation into English recaptures
> for us the vision of divine truth. And, possessed though we be by
> the beauty of it, yet we shall not receive and then keep all in silence.
> The gift evokes some testimony of faith as a gesture of response out from
> a Community moved to boundless gratitude. Herewith a new edition
> is presented to all seekers after the central truth for a
> 
> Page v
> 
> New Age. The Introduction has been added in the hope of disarming
> the reluctance of Western students and their interest in the profundity
> of progressive Revelation from God.
> "Kitáb-i-íqán"
> is Persian for The Book of Certitude. As the title implies,
> this book is the creative Word of God: it takes the Logos to confer upon
> the soul of man a positive knowledge of things divine. By his unaided
> effort a man cannot become spiritual. Conversion changes the soul's
> misgivings into assurance through rebirth. For the soul this is a
> higher station — or residence in "The City of Absolute Certitude."
> Whoever dwells there has discovered that faith is not merely the mind's
> consent to take on wider beliefs, nor even to a radical change of doctrine:
> faith is an endowment from the Higher Kingdom and changes all beliefs into
> an aliveness in the spirit. The quickening of the soul renews the
> atoms of the body to the very marrow of the bone. "It bestoweth
> wealth without gold, and conferreth immortality without death."
> Thus transformed, the soul is thereafter and
> eternally established in the Kingdom of God. Around it there is an
> inimitable fragrance of attraction. Its advancement leads on through
> valleys of growth as it unfolds hidden virtues and exercises powers.
> The capacity for response to sorrows and joys, humility and exaltation
> has been heightened
> 
> Page vii
> 
> greatly. At given stages the awakened soul may be dominated by
> the Word as knowledge, at others by the Word as love. Although these
> qualities are bestowed upon every believer, the individuality of each soul
> is sustained throughout all stages of illumination and nearness.
> Nonetheless, the soul born again through the Word is forever beyond the
> unfaith that assails an uncommitted majority of mankind.
> No lesser station can reward the deathless
> quest for certainty within the soul of man. At mid-century the outcry
> is compelling. Inexorable conflicts long held in check have become
> spiritual crises. To be sure, there are multitudes which have not
> joined in searching for the meaning of existence. Among them are
> men and women madly in pursuit of happiness, but they betray the excitement
> of running away from themselves rather than towards the goal. And
> even if worldlings do find surcease in the enjoyment of the earth as their
> all in all, — fulfillment is something else. Inescapably, the years
> of maturity precipitate an inner crisis, which adolescence cannot know
> anything about. Let the pagans tell us if they are finding alegria — joy
> of the world — nowadays? For there is almost no serenity.
> The attainment of serenity in certain epochs
> of the past is more than a legendary golden age. Illustrious pages
> of history yet may be rewritten
> 
> Page viii
> 
> as a rhythm of seeking and finding the lost certainties. There
> have been centuries in which the most highly differentiated personalities
> were men of faith. Largemindedness embraced both the science and
> religion of the period and reconciled the facts of nature with the truths
> of religion. In so gentle a climate for the soul, artists thrived
> and painted wondrous pictures reflecting the joy of the world in the Madonna
> and Child in company with the saints.
> Amid the imposing cultures, the mutuality of
> the love of God was the underlying bond between important individuals and
> the masses which held to religion with unquestioning faith. In every
> unified society, the learned as well as the unlearned were assimilated
> under the only demonstrable yoke of any civilization — the religious law.
> The classes then had more serenity under a code of restraint than modern
> personalities are displaying without one.
> In the springtime and lingering summer of the
> brilliant seasons — for Israel, Christendom, or in Islám's halcyon
> days — religion pervaded the atmosphere and engaged the temperaments or talents
> of all types of men. The common denominator and most persistent feature
> of distinctive cultures has been the sense of dependence upon God — the Mover
> of all things. The certainty of a Higher Dominion over the world
> quieted the restlessness
> 
> Page ix
> 
> of man's instinctive nature as society struggled for a more human condition
> throughout the making and unmaking of states.
> By concern with the Will of God as well as
> the daily exigencies, the common man's life was conditioned to purpose
> and took on some meaning. He had submitted to a divine Plan and thereby
> was bound to others under it. Indeed, he was related to the whole
> world — or that small part he knew of it.
> By faith a whole people or union of peoples
> entered into a stage of peace, or at least an awareness in harmony with
> the time in which they were living. Rulers and artists, warriors,
> landlords and serfs worked within the frame of limitations, but they all
> rested in the certainty of the promised Kingdom of Heaven.
> Were not they — our ancestors — the same breed
> of men? Cannot modern men and women be cured of hypertension and
> begin through the Word once again to find the lost certainty? Through
> faith will come serenity and maturity.
> The Íqán
> claims that the
> renewal principle at work from age to age lies within the offices of the
> Holy Spirit. The Word is the Bearer of the Spirit that restores and
> redeems the soul. Man is dwarfed whenever he is deprived of its bestowals.
> And yet deprived man will be — if the clergy
> stands between the seeker and the divine light.
> 
> Page x
> 
> Therefore, in the first paragraph of The Íqán,
> Bahá'u'lláh
> proclaims that certainty can never be regained until man renounces his
> dependence upon self-appointed leaders — learned or ignorant — and turns for
> divine guidance only to the Messengers sent by God. The Prophets
> are Themselves the standard for man's knowledge of God: all religious truth
> has its root in Their Revelation. Theirs is the Voice proclaiming
> God's challenge: to Them alone man shall make his response. With
> this mighty theme and the explanation it deserves the succeeding pages
> of The Íqán are inscribed.
> This Book verifies the respective stations
> and missions of the Founders of religion. With none of the Prophets
> does the Author find fault: to Them He gives praise, and affirms the oneness
> of Their primary Teachings. Abraham, Moses, Christ, Muhammad, — and,
> in this Day, the Báb, — are the Names of the Revealers of divine Law.
> Unto Them God entrusted the moral education of the race. With Them
> is centered the Covenant made in heaven for man's redemption.
> Their Succession is a cosmic drama, which unfolds
> the architectural design of the universe. Their Messages tell progressively
> the pattern of society, its supernatural government, true history and destiny.
> They released the collective Spirit which recurrently animated the daily
> lives of men. They proclaimed the laws out of which came the
> 
> Page xi
> 
> ties of fraternity, marriage, family, and the larger community which
> is civilization. And Theirs is the luminous Message of the Kingdom
> of God eventually to rule the earth through the Coming of a World Redeemer.
> The Íqán proves the Báb's
> two-fold station as the Forerunner of the World Redeemer, besides, His
> rank in the Succession out of Abraham's lineage. In answer to a twentieth
> century poet's demand, "Where is that Prophet crying within my heart?",
> the Báb is the eternal — Here am I! For what the Báb
> says is that same utterance which brings to pass mediation between Heaven
> and earth. He is "The Gate" to "The City
> of Absolute Certitude." In His appearance the Prophet comes
> again to earth as "a flamelike Youth" — speaks — then dies a
> sacrifice under the relentless magic worked together by bad kings and priests.
> Admittedly the drama is traditional and its concatenation of events both
> touching and fearful. But for modern men, the Episode of the Báb
> is far more compelling because its enactment takes place at the beginning
> of their own age. (1844-1850)
> Implicit in The Íqán is
> the station of Bahá'u'lláh. His Coming is inherent
> in the destiny of mankind. By right of the Spirit, Bahá'u'lláh
> is the World Redeemer: its Effulgence through His Revelation is able to
> bestow the sense of certainty on the entire human race.
> 
> Page xii
> 
> The barriers of prejudice and tribal consciousness
> are dissolved by the waters of life flowing through His majestic verses.
> All the outmoded limitations based upon ancestral patterns, pride in race,
> militant nationhood, hereditary warfare, religious sectarianism or something
> else are ended by divine decree. The world of mankind in the sight
> of its maker stands revealed in the reality of oneness. Only the
> separateness of the human time-sense resists fulfilment
> of the Kingdom of Heaven in the world of actuality.
> And, therefore, Bahá'u'lláh is
> summoning all mankind to arise as an entity, gladly adopting His universal
> Principles and building the worldwide Commonwealth. Through the collaboration
> of nations, the unseen hosts now brooding over the earth will inform the
> reign of divine law and peace. The qualifications foretold by Isaiah
> have been met: The Mighty Counsellor" has taken "the
> government upon his shoulder." The superhuman ruler of the
> nascent civilization is a heavenly King: and yet to His followers in ninety-one
> countries, He is a Father, watching from Above over them one and all.
> Wisdom, majesty, love — such were among the qualities
> Bahá'u'lláh embodied while He lived on earth (1817-1892).
> From His native land of Írán He was banished by the judgment
> from authority vested in temporal and spiritual rulers. The Sultanate
> 
> Page xiii
> 
> and the Caliphate held Him as a Prisoner so that the old order might
> be preserved. But Bahá'u'lláh steadfastly proclaimed
> that the old order cannot be preserved. To external conditions that
> brought Him sorrow for forty years, He never capitulated because His Kingliness
> was divine.
> Finally, Bahá'u'lláh was exiled
> in company with His disciples to the grim fortress at 'Akka, Syria.
> By this decision His enemies carried out in their blindness and ignominiousness,
> the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy: "Carmel and Sharon — they
> shall see the Glory of the Lord." At long last The Bible
> is no longer a sealed Book, — for Daniel closed it only until "the
> time of the end," when its ultimate meaning and mystery were to
> be disclosed by that Promised One for Whom it was written.
> The Íqán is invincibly
> true because God does not make His Self-Revelation immanent within the
> creatures. The Oneness of God does not descend into the variety and
> multiplicity of His creation. The immemorial dogma of the Unknowableness
> of God's Essence is affirmed once again; moreover, as this is a mature
> age, The Íqán proclaims it with matchless clarity.
> The place, form, nature, and relations imagined by man as categories of
> his Maker are beyond intellection: God
> is — and yet is transcendent
> to the human mind and consequently exalted above all definitions.
> In the desert of contemporary bewilderment,
> 
> Page xiv
> 
> there are many puzzled seekers after God. Some of them have a
> ferocity for their own deification. Such engaging and speculative
> minds are instances of sophisticated credulity: men and women take on the
> fads of the day. The popularity of "new thought" has
> been gaining by the crumbling of orthodoxy. Many of the liveliest
> minds have turned away from ancestral beliefs to the substitution of mentalism
> for religion. And even within what remains of orthodoxy's citadel,
> there are mystics who claim to be directly in communion with the Godhead.
> Notwithstanding, both schools of thought are
> quoting the Scriptures to prove their souls are not dependent upon an Intermediary
> Power. By reciting chapter and verse of The Bible, it is made
> obvious to all save themselves how intimately dependent they are on its
> inspiration. Without the mediation of the Founders of religion, they
> would know nothing of their Maker nor of themselves. Should the cord
> of the revealed verses be severed man would have no spiritual consciousness
> at all.
> Bahá'u'lláh's followers view
> the mystic's path that lies beyond the Messenger as impassable, — and man's
> vain groping for it as an impertinence. Nor is a Bahá'í
> troubled by the inconceivability of God the Essence. For he is of "the
> people of adoration" — with dispassionate reasoning about Imponderableness
> the lovers have nothing to do.
> 
> Page xv
> 
> Allow rationalists to become metaphysical about
> God if they insist upon limiting their hearts to principles and categories
> of thought. Once again the people of faith are invulnerable to arguments:
> they have a Person. The believers belong to an all-knowing and all-loving
> Person. For them Bahá'u'lláh is that sovereign Personality
> because He is able to enform the soul's need for certainty and fulfilment.
> The Manifestation is the embodiment of the
> First Principle, which is the Effulgence of the Holy Spirit proceeding
> from the indivisible Essence of God. Clothed with a body, the divine
> Spirit is a Prophet, speaking the Eloquence of God in the midst of mortal
> men. The Manifestation is the Reflection of the Holy Spirit — the shining
> and moving Reality that can be known by all men. Nor is there anything
> anonymous about it. The Founders of religion are singled out among
> the nations: They can be named and Their stations differentiated in terms
> of Personality, time and rank; but in the essential unity of the divine
> Spirit the Many are become the One.
> Never can there be any Separatenesses from
> the Oneness and Unity of God. Theology mistakenly brings Christ to
> earth as a Uniqueness or Incarnation of the Godhead. Rather it is
> the personal Qualities of God — the radiance of the godly Attributes and
> only the Attributes — which are immanent
> 
> Page xvi
> 
> in the Manifestations past and present. Through the intermediary
> rays of the Holy Spirit, the divine and beloved Person — whenever He returns — makes
> the soul of man remember his Maker. The divine Person by His love
> wins the soul's response to the love of God and His knowledge lends to
> the human soul a little knowledge of what is eternal. The Word of
> the divine Person is uniquely the Word of God — spoken from age to age — and
> to it men must accommodate their lives.
> Bahá'u'lláh pleads with Israel
> as "the people of the Book" to become conscious of the meaning
> of its Words. "The time of the end," "Judgment," "Life," "Tomb,"
> "Resurrection," "Return" and other Biblical accents are not merely symbols
> and great poetry. (Although they are also that.) The Íqán
> proves the Scriptures are interwoven with prime symbols backed by reality:
> the key Words foretell the drama of redemption which recurs with every
> renewal of the Covenant made by God with Abraham. By intervention
> of the Prophet in human affairs, the unchangeable Attributes of God reenter
> history. For the relative truths and material laws are outmoded by
> the revolutions of time marking the progression from age to age.
> The grand adjustment to the Spirit should have
> been made by Israel when Christ the Saviour appeared. For He abrogated
> the material law of
> 
> Page xvii
> 
> Moses as the secondary truth, which is relative to the absolute truth
> of religion.
> Israel is precious to Bahá'u'lláh
> because of its kinship with the Prophets through Whom is our salvation.
> Jewish history gives the plainest lesson on the rhythm of a Prophet's challenge
> and a people's response to the Light. The divine Truth-telling is
> forever the rally to greatness. Israel was rightly named "God's
> Champion" — the transmitter of monotheism and preserver from idolatry
> amid the nations. But when Israel turned away from the renewal principle
> to take up man-made goals, then between her people and the Light there
> fell the shadow. (After all, it is the earth's turning from the sun
> that brings on darkness — with the sun there is always light.)
> The Bahá'ís are gladdened by
> Israel's statehood and fulfilment of her traditional hope of homecoming.
> But the ten thousand square miles of earth in which "a remnant"
> can live and build is less important that her recognition of Him by Whom
> the victory is won. For the Jews there can be no homecoming more
> glorious than meeting with the Father of mankind and fraternity in the
> worldwide Community of the Most Great Name.
> The World Faith and World Community founded by the
> World Redeemer, Bahá'u'lláh, is the magnificent finale of
> the homelessness of the Jews. Besides, it is the culmination of Israel's
> 
> Page xviii
> 
> higher mission: the non-nationalistic ideal of world salvation that
> reached its apogee in Isaiah.
> Nothing smaller than the redemption of all
> mankind would bring to a close the long Day of Atonement. Once in
> the calendar year, for a day lasting twenty-four hours, Jewish Temples
> hold commemoration of the past. There is the grandeur of the verses
> of repentance and praise and the haunting beauty of Israel's genius.
> The Rabbi lifts high the gleaming scrolls of the torah, whilst its little
> silver bells ring, and in a golden voice he implores in sonorous Hebrew — then
> in English:
> "Lift up your heads, O ye Gates!
> 
> And be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors,
> 
> That the King of Glory may come in.
> 
> Who is the King of Glory?
> 
> The Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory!"
> The plight of Christendom parallels Israel's tragedy.
> As the Jewish people have been out of touch with the Prophetic guidance
> and bereft of mediation by Christ their Messiah, so has Christendom's denial
> of Muhammad cheated her of the direct bestowals of the Holy Spirit.
> Wanting the renewal principle, the unity and wholeness of Christendom began
> to break away.
> In His Day, Christ was the perfect Mediator.
> Through Him the Kingdom of the Holy Ghost
> 
> Page xix
> 
> entered history. The alchemy of His Cause wrought the transmutation
> of souls: The unity of the Gospels called into existence the world Christian
> community of the Middle Ages. Its central Authority then had power
> to cut off kings who broke the peace. (Leaders of Christendom no
> longer have power to make binding pronouncements for peace, — or even family
> relations and other inevitable crises of daily life. For the Christian
> vitality spent itself many centuries ago.)
> Enthralling pages of The Íqán
> tell how the eyes of Christendom were blinded by Muhammad's Sun.
> When the winter of the Dark Ages was ended by divine decree, the Sun of
> religion arose in Arabia. "No Prophet of God hath suffered
> such harm as I have suffered," lamented Muhammad under the
> prevailing resistance to His Cause.
> Even in this century of analytical thought,
> Muhammad is judged under the standards of men, whereas He is — in
> the Succession of the Founders of religion — the Standard by which to measure
> all other things. For He was the Fountainhead of a brilliant civilization.
> Ignorance of Muhammad is ignorance of the pattern of the theocratic
> state. The Qur'án reveals the civil and religious code
> that integrated a higher nationhood. Islám was the far-reaching
> culture that grew like a plant out of the seed of truth and unity.
> Importantly, Islám was an Empire, which aimed to rule over a vast
> 
> Page xx
> 
> geographical area under a constitution of laws set forth in a Book from
> God.
> Travellers to the ancient cities of the East
> have had intimations — if ever they were awakened at dawn by the mysterious
> and loving Call to Prayer — that Islám is an intensely beautiful religion.
> It has a powerful Eros principle sublimated as the soul's approach unto
> God. The Mu'adhdhin is the heart-beat of a nation for a moment
> becoming ecstatic in surrender to the divine Will. With the discrimination
> cultivated by The Íqán, Westerners can now realize
> how vital was Islám's part in the unity of religion.
> The concept of finality is the cardinal weakness
> of Islám. That was the stumbling-block of the Muslims to recognition
> of the Báb. Hence, The Íqán proclaims
> the infinitude of truth from God:
> "Thou are surely aware of their idle contention, that
> all Revelation is ended, that the portals of divine mercy are closed, that
> from the day-springs of eternal holiness no sun shall rise again, that
> the Ocean of everlasting bounty is forever stilled, and that out of the
> Tabernacle of ancient glory the Messengers of God have ceased to be made
> manifest."
> For Christendom a new orientation is imperative.
> And it will be reached in the simple way: by turning to the light from
> the horizon of this new day. (The efficacy of the Gospels cannot
> be recaptured by exegesis, nor vitality by struggling for
> 
> Page xxi
> 
> survival in the preaching of fragmentary truths. Renewal does
> not come out of changing forms of church organization.)
> What about the "Second Coming"
> in the Glory of the Father? The Íqán defines
> "the clouds" in which the Father has come as the obscuring notions
> or superstitions, which are interposed by Christians between their own
> true vision and the rising Sun of Truth. For "the new earth"
> of knowledge is already here in the accomplishments of science; and
> "the stars" of ecclesiastical authority have fallen from the
> heaven of ancestral religion. (The hour is later than the Old Churches
> realize.)
> The challenge of The Íqán
> at this compelling hour is for man to recognize the Source of the Light.
> The Glory of the Father (Bahá) is the Attribute most becoming
> to the Lord as He takes an empire over the wavering hearts. By "union
> with God" is not meant partnership, but, rather, becoming supremely
> conscious of Him. The wholeness of spiritual experience lies in response
> to Bahá'u'lláh. With the eyes of the spirit opened
> by The Íqán, it can be seen that the dead have drawn
> the breath of renewed life and been raised from "the tomb of self"
> and separateness: abandoning the superstitions of the nations, the confident
> souls are moving in the stream of universality. And they are united
> in binding the invisible tie that yet shall
> 
> Page xx
> 
> link each soul with every other soul throughout the planet.
> "In the soil of whose heart will these
> holy seeds germinate?"
> 
> REFERENCES
> 
> "Foremost among the priceless treasures cast forth from the billowing
> Ocean of Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation."
> God Passes
> By, pp. 138-9.
> "It bestoweth wealth without gold, and immortality without death."
> Kitáb-I-Iqán,
> p. 198.
> "Thou are surely aware of their idle contention...."
> Ibid.,
> p. 137.
> "In the soil of whose heart will these holy seeds germinate?"
> Ibid., p. 61.
> 
> HELEN REED BISHOP
> 
> Source: Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-íqán:
> The Book of Certitude, translated by Shoghi Effendi (Wilmette,
> Ill.: Bahá'í Publishing Committee, 1950).
> 
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> — *Kitab-i-Íqan: Introduction to the 1950 Edition (Used by permission of the curator)*