n Us, through the things which
your lying mouths have uttered, as an infidel, how ye devise your devices
against Us! And when We manifest unto you what God hath, through His
bountiful favour, bestowed upon Us, ye say, "It is but plain magic." The
same words were spoken by the generations that were before you and were
what ye are, did ye but perceive it. Ye have thereby deprived yourselves
of the bounty of God and of His grace, and shall never obtain them till
the day when God will have judged between Us and you, and He, verily, is
the best of judges.

101 Certain ones among you have said: "He it is Who hath laid claim to be
God." By God! This is a gross calumny. I am but a servant of God Who hath
believed in Him and in His signs, and in His Prophets and in His angels.
My tongue, and My heart, and My inner and My outer being testify that
there is no God but Him, that all others have been created by His behest,
and been fashioned through the operation of His Will. There is none other
God but Him, the Creator, the Raiser from the dead, the Quickener, the
Slayer. I am He that telleth abroad the favours with which God hath,
through His bounty, favoured Me. If this be My transgression, then I am
truly the first of the transgressors. I and My kindred are at your mercy.
Do ye as ye please, and be not of them that hesitate, that I might return
to God My Lord, and reach the place where I can no longer behold your
faces. This, indeed, is My dearest wish, My most ardent desire. Of My
state God is, verily, sufficiently informed, observant.

102 Imagine thyself to be under the eye of God, O Minister! If thou seest
Him not, He, in truth, clearly seeth thee. Observe, and judge fairly Our
Cause. What is it that We have committed that could have induced thee to
rise up against Us, and to slander Us to the people, if thou be of them
who are just? We departed out of Tihran, at the bidding of the King,(105)
and, by his leave, transferred Our residence to 'Iraq. If I had
transgressed against him, why, then, did he release Me? And if I were
innocent of guilt, wherefore did ye afflict Us with such tribulation as
none among them that profess your faith hath suffered? Hath any of Mine
acts, after Mine arrival in 'Iraq, been such as to subvert the authority
of the government? Who is it that can be said to have detected anything
reprehensible in Our behaviour? Enquire for thyself of its people, that
thou mayest be of them who have discerned the tr