nt
indispositions and maladies. That is why cleanly people have a marked
aversion for its use.

His Supreme Highness (the Bab)--may my soul be His sacrifice! --in the
beginning of His Cause, openly forbade it and all the friends abandoned
its use. But, as it was a time for caution and he who abstained from
smoking was ill treated, persecuted and even killed, therefore the friends
were obliged, as a matter of prudence, to smoke. later, the Kitab-el-Akdas
was revealed and as the prohibition of tobacco was not clearly stated in
it, the friends did not renounce it. But the Blessed Perfection had always
a marked aversion for its use. At the beginning of the Cause, for certain
reasons, he smoked a little, but later he abandoned it completely, and the
holy souls who obeyed him in all circumstances, also entirely gave up
smoking. I wish to say that, in the sight of God, the smoking of tobacco
is a thing which is blamed and condemned, very unclean, and of which the
result is by degrees injurious. Besides it is a cause of expense and of
loss of time and it is a harmful habit. So, for those who are firm in the
Covenant, it is a thing reprobated by the reason and by tradition, the
renouncement of which giveth gradual repose and tranquility, permitteth
one to have stainless hands and a clean mouth, and hair which is not
pervaded by a bad odor.

Without any doubt, the friends of God on receiving this epistle will
renounce this injurious by all means, even if it be necessary to do so by
degrees. This is my hope.

As to the question of opium, disgusting and execrated, I resign myself to
God for its punishment. The formal text of the Kitab-el-Akdas forbids and
reproves it and, according to reason, its use leads to madness. Experience
hath shown that he who giveth himself up to it is completely excluded from
the world of humanity. Let us take refuge in God against the perpetration
of so shameful a thing, which is the destruction of the foundations of
humanity and which causeth a perpetual unhappiness. It taketh possession
of the soul of man, killeth the reason, weakeneth the intelligence, maketh
a living man dead and extinguisheth the natural heat. It is impossible to
imagine anything more pernicious. Happy is he who never mentioneth the
word opium! But what is the fate of those who make use of it!

O friends of God! Force and violence, constraint and oppression are
condemned in this divine cycle, but to prevent the use of opium, all