od of
the Faith's history, and in the early years of His subsequent exile in
1868 to the fortress town of 'Akka, He summoned the monarchs of East and
West collectively, and some among them individually, to recognize the Day
of God and to acknowledge the One promised in the scriptures of the
religions professed by the recipients of His summons. "Never since the
beginning of the world", Baha'u'llah declares, "hath the Message been so
openly proclaimed."

The present volume brings together the first full, authorized English
translation of these major writings. Among them is the complete
Suriy-i-Haykal, the Surih of the Temple, one of Baha'u'llah's most
challenging works. It was originally revealed during His banishment to
Adrianople and later recast after His arrival in 'Akka. In this version He
incorporated His messages addressed to individual potentates--Pope Pius IX,
Napoleon III, Czar Alexander II, Queen Victoria, and Nasiri'd-Din Shah.

It was this composite work which, shortly after its completion,
Baha'u'llah instructed be written in the form of a pentacle, symbolizing
the human temple. To it He added, as a conclusion, what Shoghi Effendi has
described as "words which reveal the importance He attached to those
Messages, and indicate their direct association with the prophecies of the
Old Testament":

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.

During the last years of His ministry Baha'u'llah Himself arranged for the
publication for the first time of definitive versions of some of His
principal works, and the Suriy-i-Haykal was awarded a prominent position
among them.

Of the various writings that make up the Suriy-i-Haykal, one requires
particular mention. The Lawh-i-Sultan, the Tablet to Nasiri'd-Din Shah,
Baha'u'llah's lengthiest epistle to any single sovereign, was revealed in
the weeks immediately preceding His final banishment to 'Akka. It was
eventually delivered to the monarch by Badi', a youth of seventeen, who
had entreated Baha'u'llah for the honour of rendering some service. His
efforts won him th