it.”  Whereupon, He enquired:  “Didst thou visit the cattle-market?” “Yea,” I answered.  He said:  “Hast thou seen the black mountain on the right hand side of the road?  The same is Zawra.  There shall eighty men, of the children of certain ones, be slain, all of whom are worthy to be called caliphs.”  “Who will slay them?” I asked.  He made reply:  “The children of Persia!”

Such is the condition and fate of His companions which in former days hath been foretold.  And now observe how, according to this tradition, Zawra is no other but the land of Rayy.  In that place His companions have been with great suffering put to death, and all these holy beings have suffered martyrdom at the hand of the Persians, as recorded in the tradition.  This thou hast heard, and unto it all testify.  Wherefore, then, do not these grovelling, worm-like men pause to meditate upon these traditions, all of which are manifest as the sun in its noon-tide glory?  For what reason do they refuse to embrace the Truth, and allow certain traditions, the significance of which they have failed to grasp, to withhold them from the recognition of the Revelation of God and His Beauty, and to cause them to dwell in the infernal abyss?  Such things are to be attributed to naught but the faithlessness of the divines and doctors of the age.  Of these, Sadiq, son of Muhammad, hath said:  “The religious doctors of that age shall be the most wicked of the divines beneath the shadow of heaven.  Out of them hath mischief proceeded, and unto them it shall return.”

We entreat the learned men of the Bayan not to follow in such ways, not to inflict, at the time of Mustaghath, upon Him Who is the divine Essence, the heavenly Light, the absolute Eternity, the Beginning and the End of the Manifestations of the Invisible, that which hath been inflicted in this day.  We beg them not to depend upon their intellect, their comprehension and learning, nor to contend with the Revealer of celestial and infinite knowledge.  And yet, notwithstanding all these admonitions, We perceive that a one-eyed man, who himself is the chief of the people, is arising with the utmost malevolence against Us.  We foresee that in every city people will arise to suppress the Blessed Beauty, that the companions of that Lord of being and ultimate Desire of all men will flee from the face of the oppressor and seek refuge from him in the wilderness, whilst others will resign themselves and, with absolute detachment, will sacrifice their lives in His path.  Methinks We can discern one who is reputed for such devoutness and piety that men deem it an obligation to obey him, and to whose command they consider it necessary to submit, who will arise to assail the very root of the divine Tree, and endeavour to the uttermost of his power to resist and oppose Him.  Such is the way of the people!