…in His interpretation of the letter “Há,” He [the Báb]
craved martyrdom, saying: “Methinks I heard a Voice calling in my inmost being:
‘Do thou sacrifice the thing which Thou lovest most in the path of God, even as
Husayn, peace be upon him, hath offered up his life for My sake.’ And were I
not regardful of this inevitable mystery, by Him, Who hath my being between His
hands even if all the kings of the earth were to be leagued together they would
be powerless to take from me a single letter, how much less can these servants
who are worthy of no attention, and who verily are of the outcast... That all
may know the degree of My patience, My resignation, and self-sacrifice in the
path of God.”
Could the Revealer of such utterance be regarded as walking
any way but the way of God, and as having yearned for aught else except His
good-pleasure? In this very verse there lieth concealed a breath of detachment,
which if it were to be breathed full upon the world, all beings would renounce
their lives, and sacrifice their souls.
- Baha’u’llah (‘The Kitab-i-Iqan’,
quoted by Shoghi Effendi in the Introduction to Dawn-Breakers)
