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The Kitab-i-Iqan
(The Book of Certitude)
Revealed by Baha'u'llah
Translated by Shoghi Effendi
Copyright (c) 1931, 1950 by the
National Spiritual Assembly of the
Baha'i's of the United States.All rights reserved
This translation by Shoghi Effendi was first published in 1931. A second edition with an introduction and index was published in 1950. This 1974 impression, without the introduction, is the sixth printing.
ISBN 0-87743-022-5
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 51-22838
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Introduction
(From cover notes of 1974 printing)
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Kitab-i-Iqan is Persian for The Book of Certitude. As the title implies, this book is the creative Word of God. It was revealed in 1862 in two days and two nights at the time when Baha'u'llah was an exile and prior to the time of the public declaration of His own mission. It was written in fulfillment of a prophecy of the Bab, Forerunner of Baha'u'llah. The work is, in essence, a completion of the Bab's work, The Bayan, and a proof of the divine station of that youthful Herald of the Baha'i Faith Who was martyred in Tabriz in 1850, and event that stirred the East and many thoughtful people throughout Europe in the decades that followed.
The book verifies the stations and missions of the Founders of all the revealed religions of the world and affirms the oneness of Their teachings -- Abraham, Moses, Christ, Muhammad are some of the Revealers of divine law of past Dispensations, and to Them was entrusted the moral education of the human race. Their succession is a cosmic drama which unfolds the design of the universe. Their Messages have told progressively the pattern of society, its true history and destiny. They have released the collective spirit which from age to age, or Dispensation to Dispensation, reanimated the souls of men, giving meaning and purpose to daily life. Through these Manifestations of God, civilization moved forward to new heights, bringing a whole people into an awareness in harmony with the time in which they lived.
In the springtime and lingering summer of the brilliant seasons of these past Dispensations -- for Israel, Christendom, or in Islam's halcyon days -- religion pervaded the atmosphere and engaged the temperments or talents of men. The common denominator and most persistent feature of these distinctive cultures has been the sense of dependence upon God -- the Mover of all things.
The seeker for truth is further aided by Baha'u'llah's explanations of many of the allegorical and abstruse passages of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures which have long confused and distorted the progressive and evolutionary character of Revelation.
Today the Words of Baha'u'llah are a universal call to once again recognize a new Spiritual Springtime. It implies the abandonment of all prejudice and limitations based upon ancestral patterns, pride in race, militant nationhood, hereditary warfare, religious sectarianism, and all else that prevents humanity from building that long-promised Kingdom of God on earch -- a peaceful world order with justice for all people.
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Advance to Part I