f-Subsisting.

276 Thus have We built the Temple with the hands of power and
might, could ye but know it. This is the Temple promised unto you
in the Book. Draw ye nigh unto it. This is that which profiteth
you, could ye but comprehend it. Be fair, O peoples of the earth!
Which is preferable, this, or a temple which is built of clay? Set
your faces towards it. Thus have ye been commanded by God, the
Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. Follow ye His bidding, and
praise ye God, your Lord, for that which He hath bestowed upon
you. He, verily, is the Truth. No God is there but He. He
revealeth what He pleaseth, through His words "Be and it is".

SURIY-I-RA'IS

In His name, the All-Glorious!

1 Hearken, O Chief,(61) to the voice of God, the Sovereign, the Help in
Peril, the Self-Subsisting. He, verily, calleth aloud between heaven and
earth, summoning all mankind unto the scene of transcendent glory. Neither
thy grunting, nor the barking of those around thee, nor the opposition of
the hosts of the world can withhold the Almighty from achieving His
purpose. The whole world hath been set ablaze by the Word of thy Lord, the
All-Glorious, a Word softer than the morning breeze. It hath been
manifested in the form of the human temple, and through it God hath
quickened the souls of the sincere among His servants. In its inner
essence, this Word is the living water by which God hath purified the
hearts of such as have turned unto Him and forgotten every other mention,
and through which He draweth them nigh unto the seat of His mighty Name.
We have sprinkled it upon the people of the graves, and lo, they have
risen up, with their gaze fixed upon the shining and resplendent Beauty of
their Lord.

2 Thou hast, O Chief, committed that which hath caused Muhammad, the
Apostle of God, to lament in the most sublime Paradise. The world hath
made thee proud, so much so that thou hast turned away from the Face
through whose brightness the Concourse on high hath been illumined. Soon
thou shalt find thyself in manifest loss! Thou didst conspire with the
Persian Ambassador to harm Me, though I had come unto you from the source
of majesty and grandeur with a Revelation that hath solaced the eyes of
the favoured ones of God.

3 By God! This is the Day wherein the undying Fire crieth out from within
all created things: "The Best-Beloved of the worlds is come!" And before