"O people of the Bayan! Would ye deny Him Whose presence is the very object of your creation, while ye rejoice idly upon your couches? Would ye laugh to scorn and contend with Him, a single hair of Whose head excelleth, in the sight of God, all that are in the heavens and all that are on the earth? O people of the Bayan! Produce, then, that which ye possess, that I may know by what proof ye believed aforetime in the Manifestations of His Cause, and by what reason ye now wax so disdainful!"
Comments:
· A reminder of how our attitude should be towards the Manifestations of God since They are:
· “the very object” of our creation;
· “in the sight of God” so exalted, compared to us mortal beings, that, for example, Their “single hair … excelleth … all that are in the heavens and all that are on the earth.”
· The “presence” of Baha’u’llah in the midst of the Babis understandably created a major spiritual test for each one of them to search their own souls with genuine humility so they could see with their inner eyes the Signs of God manifested in Him.
· Another interesting point in this paragraph is that the Manifestation of God poses a challenge, as a sign of His mercy, to those Babis that didn’t recognize Him. He asks them to “Produce” a document that would show by “what proof” they “believed” in the previous Manifestations of God and by “what proof” they now refuse His claims. This shows the spiritual principle that the proofs concerning the validity of a Manifestation of God remain the same every time These precious Beings appear in our midst. Our recognition of Them and the Message They bring depends, among other factors, on our “purity of heart, chastity of soul, and freedom of spirit.” (Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 211)
