Tutti frutti

Where is the Ass of Antichrist? When will the appearance of the Sofyán be? Where are the signs which are in the traditions of the Holy Family? Where is that whereon the Victorious Church is agreed? The matter is not outside one of two alternatives:- either we must repudiate the traditions of the Holy Imáms, grow wearied of the Church of Ja'far, and account the clear indications of the Imám as disturbed dreams; or, in accordance with the primary and subsidiary doctrines of the Faith and the essential and explicit declarations of the most luminous Law, we must consider the repudiation, nay, the destruction of this person as our chief duty. If so be that we shut our eyes to these authentic traditions and obvious doctrines universally admitted, no remnant will endure of the fundamental basis of the Church of the immaculate Imám: we shall neither be Sunnites, nor shall we be of the prevalent sect1 to continue awaiting the promised Saint and believing in the begotten Mahdí. Otherwise we must regard as admissible the opening of the Gate of Saintship, and consider that He Who is to arise2 of the family of Muhammad possesses two signs:- the first condition, Holy Lineage; the second, [that he is divinely] fortified with brilliant verses. What can we do with these thousand-year-old beliefs of the delivered band of the Shi'ites, or what shall we say concerning their profound doctors and pre-eminent divines? Were all these in error? Did they journey in the vale of transgression? What an evidently false assertion is this! By God, this is a thing to break the back! O people, extinguish this fire and forget these words! Alas! woe to our Faith, woe to our Law!"

[Texto: `Abdu'l-Bahá (1891) – Browne E. G., tr., A Traveller's Narrative (Makála-I-Shakhsí Sayyáh) written to illustrate the episode of the Báb, composed A.D. 1886 by 'Abbás Efendí, son of Behá'u'lláh.]

[Ilustrações: Primeiro Conselho Bahá'í em Portugal e grupo de Bahá'ís em Lisboa (atual)]

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