157 The Qiblih Is Indeed He Whom God Will Make Manifest; Whenever He Moveth It Moveth Until He Shall Come To Rest #137

Categories: NOTES
Sources: The Kitab-i-aqdas

For a discussion of this verse see notes 7 and 8.









158. It is unlawful to enter into marriage save with a believer in the Bayan.



Should only one party to a marriage embrace this Cause, his or her

possessions will become unlawful to the other 139





The passage of the Bayan which Baha'u'llah here quotes draws the attention

of the believers to the imminence of the coming of Him Whom God will make

manifest. Its prohibition of marriage with a non-Babi and its provision

that the property of a husband or wife who embraced the Faith could not

lawfully pass to the non-Babi spouse were explicitly held in abeyance by

the Bab, and were subsequently annulled by Baha'u'llah before they could

come into effect. Baha'u'llah, in quoting this law, points to the fact

that, in revealing it, the Bab had clearly anticipated the possibility

that the Cause of Baha'u'llah would rise to prominence before that of the

Bab Himself.



In God Passes By Shoghi Effendi points out that the Bayan should be

regarded primarily as a eulogy of the Promised One rather than a code of

laws and ordinances designed to be a permanent guide to future

generations. Designedly severe in the rules and regulations it imposed,

he continues, revolutionizing in the principles it instilled, calculated

to awaken from their age-long torpor the clergy and the people, and to

administer a sudden and fatal blow to obsolete and corrupt institutions,

it proclaimed, through its drastic provisions, the advent of the

anticipated Day, the Day when 'the Summoner shall summon to a stern

business', when He will 'demolish whatever hath been before Him, even as

the Apostle of God demolished the ways of those that preceded Him' (see

also note 109).