Translations

Tablet of the Holy Mariner - Arabic section

Baha'u'llah

Introduction to the Tablet of the Holy Mariner - Arabic section (Lawh Mallah al-Quds)

The Tablet of the Holy Mariner is an allegorical work consisting of two independent sections, the first in Arabic verse and the second in Persian prose. Both sections contain different accounts of the story of the holy mariner and the divine ark or ship, which carries the believers to paradise. This introduction relates to the first section of the tablet.

The Tablet of the Holy Mariner was written by Baha’u’llah on 26 March 1863. At the time, Baha’u’llah and his fellow believers were camping at a farm (Mazra`at al-Washshash) outside Baghdad, not far from Baha’u’llah’s home. They were celebrating the festival of Naw Ruz, the Iranian new year, which lasts for 13 days. The tablet was written on the fifth day of Naw Ruz; that is, five days after new year’s day, which is 21 March on the solar calendar.

The stories told in both sections of the tablet are not happy ones and the Arabic section in particular has a tragic ending. When the believers heard it chanted to them, they expected something dreadful to happen. And it did. Immediately after the tablet was read out, Baha’u’llah ordered the tents to be taken down and for everyone to return to Baghdad. A messenger from the Governor of Baghdad, Namiq Pasha, arrived as they were preparing to go and asked Baha’u’llah to visit the Governor the next day. Baha’u’llah met with the Governor’s deputy and was asked to shift his residence from Baghdad to the Ottoman capital, Istanbul (Constantinople). This was tragic news indeed for the believers. They faced being separated from Baha’u’llah, who they loved to distraction. Shoghi Effendi quotes an eye witness as saying: “That day … witnessed a commotion associated with the turmoil of the Day of Resurrection. Methinks, the very gates and walls of the city wept aloud at their imminent separation from the Abha Beloved.”*

The imagery used in the tablet is complex and difficult to interpret. It is generally accepted that the themes of the holy mariner and the ark are drawn from the biblical story of Noah’s ark and how it carried the faithful to safety and salvation. Baha’is believe that the ark refers to the Cause of God or the Covenant and the holy mariner to Baha’u’llah. It is generally supposed that the tragedy of the stories refers to those who have opposed the central figures of the faith and the spread of the Baha’i religion. However, it is also widely believed that the tablet predicts future events in the fortunes of the Baha’i revelation. This belief is based on the following statement from Abdu’l-Baha: “Study the Tablet of the Holy Mariner that ye may know the truth and consider that the Blessed Beauty hath fully foretold future events. Let them who perceive take warning. Verily in this is a bounty for the sincere!”**

Another theme that Baha’u’llah appears to be drawing on in the tablet is that of the messenger and the voyage, a theme that is important in Persian mysticism.*** The voyage refers to the journey of the soul to God, and the messenger is the spiritual guide that leads the soul there. These motifs of the journey and guide are used throughout Baha’u’llah’s writings. They are central to mystical works such as The Seven Valleys and the Gems of the Mysteries.

The Arabic section of the tablet begins with God telling the holy mariner to bring the ship to the realm of spiritual being and launch it on the ocean of pre-existence in God’s new name – presumably, the All-Glorious. The mariner is to take aboard the souls of believers and bring them near to God in the realms of eternity. The holy mariner is to let the passengers off the ship in a special spiritual station, the place where the burning bush appeared to Moses. Like Moses before them, the passengers take off their sandals, because this is the place where God appears from behind the veil of grandeur. It’s a place that never changes, even though the names of God reflected there may change.

God then tells the holy mariner to teach the passengers what God taught him “behind the cloud of unknowability” so that they can fly to an exalted spiritual station, and live within the realms of nearness to God and learn the mysteries hidden in light. The passengers pass the limitations of the physical world and arrive at the station of divine unity and guidance, but then get above themselves and are expelled from God’s presence. God orders the guardian angels to send them back to “the realm of humanity” because they “desired to fly into that heaven to which the wings of the dove never attained”. The ‘dove’ is a reference to the Holy Spirit or the prophet, who brings the message from God to humanity. Baha’u’llah is saying that the passengers tried to claim a station that even the dove could never reach. In effect, he seems to be saying that the passengers tried to become God.

The houri appears. She is the woman who symbolises the spirit of the Baha'i revelation. She looks around and floods the earth and sky with her light and beauty. Her presence causes the bodies in the graves – that is, the souls that have not woken up spiritually – to burst forth from the realm of non-existence. She explains that the people on earth are to be judged in the following way: those whose hearts do not contain the love of Baha’u’llah cannot attain the exalted spiritual stations near to God.

The Houri orders one of her maidservants to descend to earth like a sun and examine the hearts of the people for the scent of Baha’u’llah. The maidservant appears as a dawn from the chambers of paradise. Baha’u’llah indicates that this action symbolises the dawn of his own appearance on earth. The handmaiden descends and illumines the earth like a full sun at the centre of creation. She inhales the scent of the people “at a time when there was neither beginning nor end”. The implication here is that this examination process is continuous and eternal. The maidservant does not find the fragrance of Baha’u’llah in the hearts of the people on earth. She shrieks and wails in grief and retreats to her heavenly home. She tells the celestial concourse that she did not find the scent of Baha’u’llah on earth; instead, she discovered that Baha’u’llah had been exiled by the ungodly and was alone. She is consumed with grief and collapses and dies. Other houris come out to see what has happened. When they see her terrible state and find out the news she brought, they also begin to wail and lament, tearing at their faces and clothes.

Baha’u’llah ends the tablet by stating that this story is one of “the secret and most hidden calamities”.

* Shoghi Effendi: God Passes By (Wilmette, Illinois: Baha’i Publishing Trust, 1970) p 148

** Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha (Haifa, Israel: Baha’i World Centre, 1978) p 314

*** Henry Corbin: The Voyage and the Messenger. Iran and Philosophy, translated by Joseph Rowe (Berkley, California: North Atlantic Books, 1998)

For further discussion about the Tablet of the Holy Mariner, see:

Christopher Buck: Paradise and Paradigm (Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1999) pp 114-117, 198-200
Shoghi Effendi: God Passes By (Wilmette, Illinois: Baha’i Publishing Trust, 1970) pp 147-8
Adib Taherzadeh: The Revelation of Baha’u’llah. Baghdad, 1853-63 (Oxford: George Ronald, 1974) pp 228-243
John Walbridge, Sacred Acts. Sacred Space. Sacred Time (Oxford: George Ronald, 1996) pp 163-165, 234.