n these days, they
would have circled around Me, and would not have separated themselves from
Me, whether at eventide or at morn. Ye, however, did not turn your faces
towards My face, for even less than a moment, and waxed proud, and were
careless of this Wronged One, Who hath been so afflicted by men that they
dealt with Him as they pleased. Ye failed to inquire about My condition,
nor did ye inform yourselves of the things which befell Me. Thereby have
ye withheld from yourselves the winds of holiness, and the breezes of
bounty, that blow from this luminous and perspicuous Spot. Methinks ye
have clung to outward things, and forgotten the inner things, and say that
which ye do not. Ye are lovers of names, and appear to have given
yourselves up to them. For this reason make ye mention of the names of
your leaders. And should anyone like them, or superior unto them, come
unto you, ye would flee him. Through their names ye have exalted
yourselves, and have secured your positions, and live and prosper. And
were your leaders to reappear, ye would not renounce your leadership, nor
would ye turn in their direction, nor set your faces towards them. We
found you, as We found most men, worshiping names which they mention
during the days of their life, and with which they occupy themselves. No
sooner do the Bearers of these names appear, however, than they repudiate
them, and turn upon their heels.... Know ye that God will not, in this
day, accept your thoughts, nor your remembrance of Him, nor your turning
towards Him, nor your devotions, nor your vigilance, unless ye be made new
in the estimation of this Servant, could be but perceive it."

The voice of 'Abdu'l-Baha, the Center of the Covenant of God, has,
likewise, been raised, announcing the dire misfortunes which were to
overtake, soon after His passing, the ecclesiastical hierarchies of both
Sunni and _Sh_i'ih Islam. "This glory," He has written, "shall be turned
into the most abject abasement, and this pomp and might converted into the
most complete subjugation. Their palaces will be transformed into prisons,
and the course of their ascendant star terminate in the depths of the pit.
Laughter and merriment will vanish, nay more, the voice of their weeping
will be raised." "Even as the snow," He moreover has written, "they will
melt away in the July sun."

The dissolution of the institution of the Caliphate, the complete
secularization of the state which had enshrined the mo