# Tablet of the Sacred Night: Introduction

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-21 — 1 clipping.*

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> see translation
> 
> 	While it is customary for Bahá'ís to have community gatherings on the evening
>  of May22 to celebrate the declaration of the Bab, it is clear that another complex of
> individual and group means of celebrating that day was encouraged by Bahá'u'lláh. 
> Surprisingly, these practices are especially associated with Bahá'í Sufis or dervishes
> (daravish, `urafa'), and involve prayers specifically revealed for this occasion and
> the custom of staying up most of the night of the 22nd, praying and chanting
> remembrances (dhikr) of God.
> 	`Abdu'l-Hamid Ishraq-Khavari tells us in his survey of Bahá'u'lláh's Tablets,
> Ganj-i Shayigan (Tehran: BPT, 124 B.E.), pp. 209-210, that the "Tablets of the
> Sacred Night (Alwah Laylat al-Quds)" were revealed in `Akka by Bahá'u'lláh with
> the intention that Bahá'í dervishes or Sufis should treat that night as a festival and
> read these Tablets.  
> 	In his encyclopaedic work, Rahiq-i Makhtum, 2 vols. (Tehran: BPT,  ),
> 2:296, Ishraq-Khavari identifies the "Sacred Night" as none other than the night of
> the Bab's declaration (bi`that), and reaffirms that Bahá'u'lláh said it was good to
> stay up that night.	
> 	Of the Tablets of the Sacred Night, only one has, to my knowledge, been
> printed,  (Bahá'u'lláh, "Lawh Laylat al-Quds," in A.H. Ishraq-Khavari, ed., Risalih-
> 'i Tasbih va Tahlil [New Delhi: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1982], pp. 174-181).  The
> affinities of this short Tablet (which is really an extended supplication to God) with
> Sufi thought and practice, are evident.  The first paragraph refers to the sufferings
> of the prophets, evoking the Egyptian Sufi mystic `Umar Ibn al-Farid's "Poem of
> the Way," which likewise details the tribulations of God's messengers.  Human
> beings are characterized as "poor," the word the Sufis humbly used to describe
> themselves.  Attaining nearness (qurb) to God and even the divine Presence (liqa')
> are mentioned as goals, and the language here is shared between Sufism and
> Babism.  
> 	The Sufi practice of staying up late praying is referred to when Bahá'u'lláh
> says, "I beseech Thee to look, O my Beloved, with Thy generous gaze,  upon these
> persons, who are sleepless during this Night that Thou hast designated a festival
> for Thy creatures, wherein Thou shonest forth by Thy Name, the All-Merciful,
> upon the entire contingent world, and wherein the Beauty of Thy Divinity mounted
> the Throne of Forgiveness."  In Sufism, such ceremonies were held on the "Laylat
> al-Qadr," the Night of Power upon which Muhammad was believed to have
> received the Qur'an from the angel Gabriel.  Bahá'u'lláh has moved such
> observances to the equivalent night in the Babi-Bahá'í religion, the "Laylat al-
> Quds" or Night of Holiness, when the Bab is believed to have revealed himself to
> Mulla Husayn Bushru'i.
> 	The mystical path in Sufism is characterized by a strong emotional
> component in worship.  Bahá'u'lláh evokes this aspect of that path when he calls
> upon God to "endue their yearning with ardent passion."  Another goal of Sufism
> is to attain a mystical knowledge (`irfan) of God.  Bahá'u'lláh in the beginning of
> the Most Holy Book makes attainment of such mystical knowledge of God one of
> two prerequisites for salvation.  In the Tablet of the Sacred Night, however, he
> reminds the Sufis that God singled out His Messengers for the mystical knowledge
> (`irfan) of His Self, a reference to the Bahá'í doctrine that the Manifestation of
> God stands in the place of the Self of God in the lower realms of being.
> 	Sufis lay stress on achieving a powerful understanding of God's Unity
> (tawhid), which is, again, a repeated theme of this Tablet.  Moreover, they employ
> sometimes scandalous metaphors for the spiritual drunkenness they seek, and
> Bahá'u'lláh here also evokes these literary themes when he says, "Yes, my Beloved: 
> give them to drink of the cup of life from the hand of this Youth in this garden,"
> representing himself as the wine-server or "saqi."  He speaks of the supererogatory
> worship of the Sufis, urging that they "may make mention of Thee at eventide and
> sunrise," though such practices are also urged of all Bahá'ís in the Most Holy
> Book.
> 	Sufis tended to seek to focus all their concentration upon God, finding Him
> in all things and using breathing and other meditation techniques to heighten their
> awareness of the divine.  These practices are probably alluded to in the phrases,
> "that they might not speak save with love for Thee nor draw a breath save with
> devotion to Thee nor turn their faces toward any direction save the realm of Thy
> compassion and  generosity, nor raise their hands save toward the heaven of Thy
> glory and nobility, nor open their eyes save to the marvels of the effulgence of the
> lights of Thy joy."  Continual awareness of God, in every word one speaks, in
> every breath one takes, in every sight one sees, is an aspiration of mystics in many
> traditions, not only Sufis but also the Greek hesychasts, for instance.
> 	Finally, Bahá'u'lláh refers toward the end of this Tablet to the Bahá'í ideals
> of unity,  asking God to remove from the Bahá'í mystics gathered on the Sacred
> Night every vestige of "contention" (ikhtilaf).  Their words, he says, should be
> such as to guide others to the court of God's love.  The mystics in their devotions
> should become "as one soul."  This mystical unity of worshippers mirrors the divine
> Oneness (tawhid), reflecting in the sublunar realm an attribute of God Himself.  In
> the translation I offer below of this Tablet, I have presented it visually as a prose 
> poem or psalm,which I think comes closer to conveying the lyrical quality and 
> resort to rhymedprose that characterizes much of it, and underlines that this is a text
>  meant to bechanted.
> 	`Abdu'l-Bahá mentions a similar but distinct custom in Memorials of the
>  Faithful (Wilmette: BPT, 1971), pp. 36-38, in his biography of Darvish Sidq-`Ali,
> the Bahá'í Sufi and companion of Bahá'u'lláh.
> While in the barracks, Bahá'u'lláh set apart a special night
> and He dedicated it to Darvish Sidq-`Ali.  He wrote that
> every year on that night the dervishes should bedeck a
> meeting place, which should be in a flower garden, and
> gather there to make mention of God.  He went on to say
> that "dervish" does not denote those persons who wander
> about, spending their nights and days in fighting and folly;
> rather, He said, the term designates those who are
> completely severed from all but God, who cleave to His
> laws, are firm in His Faith, loyal to His Covenant, and
> constant in worship (p. 38).
> The date of this commemoration according to Fadil Mazandarani, Amr va Khalq is
> 2 Rajab of the Muslim calendar.
> 	The nineteenth century Iranian Bahá'í community was divided into orders,
> as was Qajar society as a whole.  There were Bahá'ís of high civil rank associated
> with the government, as officials and even provincial governors, known as the
> *nawkar* class.  There were Bahá'í `ulama or Learned, who had a seminary
> training and often continued to wear the robes and turban of the clergy.  There
> were Bahá'í tujjar or great merchants, Bahá'í artisans, and Bahá'í peasants.  Among
> these orders were the Bahá'í `urafa' or mystics.  These included eminent believers
> such as Darvish Sidq-`Ali, Ahmad Yazdi (the recipient of the Tablet of Ahmad),
> and Mishkin-Qalam (a member of the Ni`matu'llahi Sufi order).  The Tablets of the
> Sacred Night and the practice of staying up that night and chanting prayers appear
> to have concerned this order in particular, though obviously they were available to
> all Bahá'ís.  Mystics in the Middle East were known for performing extra acts of
> worship, such as "nawafil" or additional obligatory prayers beyond the five, and
> the late-night observance of the Declaration of the Bab appears to fall into this
> category of supererogatory acts of worship.
> 	These customs, ordained by Bahá'u'lláh, appear to have ceased in the
> twentieth century Iranian community, but it is unclear upon what basis.  Certainly,
> if Bahá'u'lláh ordained them, they cannot be abrogated.  Ishraq-Khavari in Ganj,
> cited above, says that the practice of staying up all night to chant the Tablet of the
> Sacred Night on the anniversary of the Declaration of the Bab was "discontinued."  He
> does not, however, say who discontinued it or by what authority. Sociologically, one could
> point to the decline of an order-based society and the rise of a class society in
> Pahlavi Iran, such that statuses like Bahá'í  learned and mystics ceased to exist as
> separate categories with distinctive customs and dress.  Sufism itself declined in
> the Middle East as an organized movement, though some groups, such as the
> upper-class Ni`matu'llahis, remained as a vigorous minority.  The process in the
> 1920s and 1930s whereby Shoghi Effendi attempted to wean Bahá'ís away from
> dual membership in other religious bodies led to the end of any membership by
> Bahá'ís in Sufi orders.  Nor do there appear to have been any special-interest
> societies with a mystical tendency within the Bahá'í community, though individuals
> with a strong orientation toward `Attar, Rumi, and Bahá'u'lláh's *Seven Valleys*
> and other mystical works continued to exist.  (Such a special-interest society could
> in principle be formed.)  There is to my knowledge no bar to Bahá'ís informally
> gathering together to stay up late the night of 22 May in order to say this and other
> prayers.
>
> — *Tablet of the Sacred Night: Introduction (Used by permission of the curator)*