the earth! He Who is the sovereign Lord of all is come. The
Kingdom is God's, the omnipotent Protector, the Self-Subsisting.... This
is a Revelation to which whatever ye possess can never be compared, could
ye but know it.

Take heed lest pride deter you from recognizing the Source of Revelation,
lest the things of this world shut you out as by a veil from Him Who is
the Creator of heaven.... By the righteousness of God! It is not Our wish
to lay hands on your kingdoms. Our mission is to seize and possess the
hearts of men....(72)

Know ye that the poor are the trust of God in your midst. Watch that ye
betray not His trust, that ye deal not unjustly with them and that ye walk
not in the ways of the treacherous. Ye will most certainly be called upon
to answer for His trust on the day when the Balance of Justice shall be
set, the day when unto every one shall be rendered his due, when the
doings of all men, be they rich or poor, shall be weighed.

...

Examine Our Cause, inquire into the things that have befallen Us, and
decide justly between Us and Our enemies, and be ye of them that act
equitably towards their neighbor. If ye stay not the hand of the
oppressor, if ye fail to safeguard the rights of the downtrodden, what
right have ye then to vaunt yourselves among men?(73)

If ye pay no heed unto the counsels which ... We have revealed in this
Tablet, Divine chastisement shall assail you from every direction, and the
sentence of His justice shall be pronounced against you. On that day ye
shall have no power to resist Him, and shall recognize your own
impotence....(74)

The vision of the "Most Great Peace" evoked no response from the rulers of
the nineteenth century. Nationalistic aggrandizement and imperial
expansion recruited not only kings but parliamentarians, academics,
artists, newspapers, and the major religious establishments as eager
propagandists of Western triumphalism. Proposals for social change,
however disinterested and idealistic, quickly fell captive to a swarm of
new ideologies thrown up by the rising tide of dogmatic materialism. In
the Orient, mesmerized by its own claims to represent all that humanity
ever could or would know of God and truth, the Islamic world sank steadily
deeper into ignorance, lethargy, and a sullen hostility to a human race
which failed to acknowledge this spiritual preeminence.

ARRIVAL IN THE HOLY LAND

Given the earlier events in Baghdad, it seems surprisi