Kitab-i-Sultan/GPT4 24

They have so misrepresented matters before the royal presence that if ever any act of wrongdoing proceeds from anyone of this community, they impute it to the entire body of this community. I swear by God, besides Whom there is no other God, that this servant has deemed such actions to be unlawful and has never considered them as permissible, let alone what has been explicitly prohibited in the Book of God, who has prohibited the people from drinking wine and whose prohibition has been explicitly stated and recorded in the Book of God and whose prohibition has been acknowledged and accepted by the wise men of the time, who have forbidden the people from this abominable act; yet, some are still committing it.

Now, the punishment for this act is only incumbent upon those heedless souls, and those manifestations of exaltation and sanctity, to whom all existence bears witness, attest to their sanctity. Verily, these servants of God do as He pleases and judge as He wills, and they do not regard the manifestations of divine unity in the realms of the earthly kingdoms as impossible, and if a soul deems it impossible, what difference is there between him and those who have regarded the hand of God as tied up?

If they regard the Almighty as having free will, they must accept all that comes from the source of His command as the embodiment of that will, and no one can escape from it, and there is no refuge from it except in God. And the matter which requires proof and evidence is not dependent on the whims and ignorance of the people; the prophets, who are the pearls of the ocean of divine unity and the dawning place of divine revelation, have been subjected to the whims and opposition of the people, as He says, "And they exert all their efforts so that they can take hold of their messenger and argue with falsehood to refute him with the truth." And He also says, "No messenger has come to them but that they mocked him."

Consider [what happened] during the appearance of the Seal of the Prophets and the King of the Holy Ones, the soul of the worlds, when the sun of truth dawned on the horizon of Hijaz, how much injustice was inflicted on that manifestation of glory and majesty by the errant people. The heedless servants considered his affliction as the greatest of deeds and a means of attaining the exalted truth. The learned men of that time turned away from that supreme sun in its early days, along with the Jews and the Christians; and all the souls, both lowly and noble, tried to extinguish the light of that shining horizon. All their names are recorded in the books; among them were Wahb ibn Rahib, Ka'b ibn Ashraf, Abdullah Abyy, and others like them, until the matter reached the point where they plotted to shed the holy blood of that personage in a council of consultation, as God said, "And when those who disbelieve plot against you to kill you or to take you out, they plot, and God plots well."

And likewise He says, "And the turning away of them is grievous unto thee, if thou canst find a hole into the earth or a ladder to the sky, that thou mayst bring unto them a sign. And if God willed, He could have gathered them together in the way, so be not thou of the ignorant." By God, the hearts of the true believers burn with the contents of these two blessed verses, and they do not regard such matters as having been mentioned in the past. They do not consider what the cause of the people's aversion was during the appearance of the divine lights and before the Seal of the Prophets was revealed. In the case of Jesus the son of Mary, after his appearance, the scholars unanimously attributed the belief of the simple believers to disbelief and tyranny, until finally, with the permission of Hannan, the greatest scholar of that time, and likewise Caiaphas, the greatest of the judges, they committed against him deeds which the pen is ashamed to mention.

The earth became so strait for him that God ascended him to the heavens, and if I were to narrate the details of all the prophets, it would result in fatigue and weariness, and especially with the assistance of the scholars of the Torah, who do not believe in any prophet independent of the laws established by Moses. Some of the children of David will reappear and he will promote the laws of the Torah so that they will prevail among the people of the East and the West. Also, the people of the Gospel deem it impossible for a new cause to arise from the East following the will of God, and they base their arguments on this verse of the gospel that reads, "Verily, heaven and earth shall pass away, but the word of the Son of Man shall not pass away forever."

And they claim that whatever Jesus the son of Mary had commanded and ordered will not change; in one place in the gospel says, "I will go and come, and in the gospel of John gives glad tidings of the Comforter who will come after me, and in the gospel of Luke some signs are mentioned, but because some of the scholars of that religion have interpreted every statement according to their own desires, they have become veiled from the truth.

Would that, O King, I had permission to send to your presence that which would satisfy the eyes, comfort the souls, and every just person would know that He has the knowledge of the book. Some people, when they are defeated by their opponents, cling to the rope of the abrogation of the books, and now, if it were not for the opposition of the ignorant and the disregard of the learned, I would have said something which the hearts would have enjoyed and which would have flown to the air which hears of His existence, "there is no god but He."

But now, on account of the lack of time, the tongue is forbidden to speak and the seals of the explanations are closed until God opens them by His power; verily, He is the Mighty and the Powerful One.