those potent spiritual
forces which were to culminate in the declaration of His world-embracing
mission in 1863. In the course of these years, and from the city of
Ba_gh_dad, there radiated, Shoghi Effendi writes, "wave after wave, a
power, a radiance and a glory which insensibly reanimated a languishing
Faith, sorely-stricken, sinking into obscurity, threatened with oblivion.
From it were diffused, day and night, and with ever-increasing energy, the
first emanations of a Revelation which, in its scope, its copiousness, its
driving force and the volume and variety of its literature, was destined
to excel that of the Bab Himself."(1)

Among these early effusions of the Pen of Glory is a lengthy Arabic
epistle known as the Javahiru'l-Asrar, meaning literally the "gems" or
"essences" of mysteries. A number of themes it enunciates are also
elaborated in Persian--through different revelatory modes--in the Seven
Valleys and the Book of Certitude, those two immortal volumes which Shoghi
Effendi has characterized, respectively, as Baha'u'llah's greatest
mystical composition and His pre-eminent doctrinal work. Undoubtedly the
Gems of Divine Mysteries figures among those "Tablets revealed in the
Arabic tongue" which were referred to in the latter volume.(2)

One of the central themes of the book, Baha'u'llah indicates, is that of
"transformation", meaning here the return of the Promised One in a
different human guise. Indeed, in a prefatory note written above the
opening lines of the original manuscript, Baha'u'llah states:

This treatise was written in reply to a seeker who had asked how the
promised Mihdi could have become transformed into 'Ali-Muhammad (the Bab).
The opportunity provided by this question was seized to elaborate on a
number of subjects, all of which are of use and benefit both to them that
seek and to those who have attained, could ye perceive with the eye of
divine virtue.

The seeker alluded to in the above passage was Siyyid Yusuf-i-Sihdihi
Isfahani, who at the time was residing in Karbila. His questions were
presented to Baha'u'llah through an intermediary, and this Tablet was
revealed in response on the same day.

A number of other important themes are addressed in this work as well: the
cause of the rejection of the Prophets of the past; the danger of a
literal reading of scripture; the meaning of the signs and portents of the
Bible concerning the advent of the new Manifestation; the continuity of
d