I place my trust in our Lord, the God al-Ḥākim, exalted beyond what is called essence; and I seek His help through obedience to His Guardian, the Qāʾim who recompenses the nations.
From the acquired servant, the moderate and penitent one, the warner who summons people to worship the Lord of presentation and reckoning, the possession of the Master of recompense and punishment, weak in comparison with the higher ranks and doors who preceded him: to all those whom the land of Yemen gathers together, though their tongues, peoples, and ancestries differ; to everyone who knows his Guide, returns to him from his former sins and errors, submits with the submission of those certain of his wisdom and its perfectly ordered meaning, and receives light from his teaching and direction from his proofs and signs.
Now then: praise belongs to our Lord, the God al-Ḥākim, exalted above the worship expressed by tongues and the pictures formed by intellects, whose divinity is pure of the thoughts and fantasies mingled with the imaginings of men and their words. His majesty transcends finite existence, and His power is higher than nonexistent absence. The greatness of His divinity is free of the inventions of falsehood and denial.
He manifested His veil to establish justice among humankind, and established a binding proof over creation through the Call to tawḥīd that flows from the command of the lordly guiding Imam. He made that Imam, through the gift of his wisdom, the one who cuts through and dissolves the statutes of the Iblīses and who defeats the ornamented deceptions with which they have disguised themselves before the nations.
He brought forth His Proof before the people to excuse and to warn them, reminding corrupt souls of what they have acquired and revealing their stubbornness, denial, and unbelief. He recompenses pure souls through their acknowledgment of what physical sight has not encompassed, their explanation of the truth, their profession of unity and their confession; and he rewards obedient embodied beings with delights, gardens, and rivers. His peace rests on His lofty ranks, faithful friends, and followers who have endured the test in the path of His sovereignty.
Wake up, certain community and favored remnant! Take the greatest possible share of obedience to the Guardian of Truth, the Qāʾim and Imam. Reflect upon what has been placed before you and upon the admonitions specially entrusted to you from the pure shaykh Abū al-Fatḥ Manṣūr al-Khaṭīb. You already possess the beginnings of wise counsel and reminder, and indications through which you may be guided to certain recognition of the Qāʾim of Truth.
Know, you who are addressed and favored, that the conclusions of matters are contained in their beginnings. What comes first establishes what follows, the second and the third. Therefore listen with understanding to the sincere Caller of Truth. Abandon heedlessness and distinguish yourselves by obedience to the guiding Imam who stands for truth. The signs for the reckoning have been raised; the affairs of the lying Antichrist have reached the point at which punishment and vengeance await them. Across the regions his followers wander without direction and sink, struggling, in the sea of error.
The great Iblīs has enslaved them in ways they know and ways they do not know. They obey his commands and obey his prohibitions. May God defeat them in the error to which they are turned! He has kindled the fire of his falsehood to burn and has sent his deceivers throughout the horizons to attack the people of truth, sensing that his appointed time has nearly run its course. He has placed the poison of his pollution upon the fangs of his followers and sharpened the weapons of whoever befriends him.
These followers are like ravenous tigers and predatory beasts toward the friends of truth, or venomous serpents and vipers. They pursue ancient hatreds which their natures have carried across times and generations; with their own polluted dispositions they nourish what is already passing away and perishing. Blinded, they suppose that others are the deceived and ruined ones.
Deliverance, deliverance to the people of insight and understanding! Ruin, ruin to stubborn, negligent fools! The shells have opened to disclose the hidden pearl of the noble leaders of the peoples, and the spring of life flows with its preserved, pure water for those who drink. Through their auspicious manifestation the realities represented by the Corner and the Station appear. The obedient must submit and surrender. Allegories cease to hold their former place when those represented by them manifest themselves. The symbols and false analogies of deceivers are exposed by the appearance of the noble lords, and the structures of religious law are overthrown by the emergence of spiritual rulers.
Wake up! The steeds of the possessors of the Heights pull upon their reins for the race, led by their noble riders. The nūn of being, once distant from the kāf, has drawn close and bends to join it. The caller of Resurrection has cried out; the time has come for the rising of those in graves and tombs, and the trumpet has been blown for the third time.
Awake, people of Yemen, for you are the ones addressed as humankind. Remove the veil of confusion from your souls; respond to the Call of the Creator, return to your Maker, and slay the beliefs of associationism and despair. Do not intend to offer something foul, while you know what you are concealing; the Lord of Truth knows what is hidden. Follow, righteous company and excellent remnant, the obedience practiced by the pure Unitarians who came before you. The foundations of the praiseworthy religion belong to them, and they were the first to seek the sweet water and the refuge of the guided.
Take advantage, pure brethren, of what time and age have placed within your reach and of the opportunity and strength given to you before mouths are sealed, speech is cut off, scrolls are rolled up, and pens are dried. By the truth, the stars of the Antichrists have become dim, their heavens stripped away, and their earth folded up. The very event they denied has overtaken them, and they have drawn upon themselves the wrath of God because of their disobedience toward His Guardian and their aggression against the truth.
Then the winds of ruin and disorder will blow over them, earthquakes and convulsions will crush them, and time will meet them with trials and calamities prepared by their earlier works. Its terrors and marvels will emerge to confront them. When the seas of religion rise with the waves of insight, and justice passes from possibility into action by the movement of the command among the possessors of the regions, the veils will be lifted from the Guardian. Creation and the worlds will be exposed by the symbols of scripture explained to them from the beginning. Tyrants and idols will fall upon their faces and chins, and the solitary human being will be asked: “Where can you flee?” No, there is no refuge for the Iblīses!
When the sharp sword is drawn from its scabbard, the earth flashes with fire and sparks, and the sky becomes dusky with vapour and smoke; the horizons blacken from the greatness of that Day. The regions become dark as the offspring of Shayṣabān perish. The sun of the accursed Antichrist is eclipsed and sinks into the sea of opposition and error. The flood of the sword overwhelms the covenant-breakers and apostates, bringing down what this author calls the “distillery of unbelief”: Mecca, the house of injustice.
At that time the Antichrists throughout the world will perish, and their ruin will complete the decreed term. The deep darkness that concealed the morning of truth will be cleared away, and the sun of religion and full moon will rise. Justice will manifest at the appearance of the guiding Qāʾim and Imam, who stands for recompense over spirits and souls, while the power of our Lord, the holy God al-Ḥākim, remains transcendent.
Awaken, people of Yemen! By God, it is as though the promised event has already happened. Reflect, pure brethren, upon the signs and arguments made clear to you, and consider the truths and explanations placed within this written epistle. Through it the proof is established over you as it has been established over every religious community.
Renew obedience in place of altered and misleading doctrines. Do not blind yourselves to the realities of religion, lest your negligence cause you to associate with the Iblīses and devils, who will obstruct the truest and most trustworthy road and turn you back upon your heels. The truthful messenger has no duty except clear proclamation.
O Lord, Your generosity knows that I have advised all creation, and Your majesty witnesses that I have proclaimed the Call to unity in obedience to the Guardian of Truth. O Lord, fulfill the promise You made to Your Guardian for the sake of his friends who have endured their trial, and uproot the stars of those who have multiplied corruption and destruction, brought hidden hostility into the open, and declared their opposition to Your Guardian.
O Lord, You are the refuge in whom we seek deliverance. To You belong our complaint and our appeal, now and at the last. Through his rank with You, bring us the truth of Your promises of salvation, and grant us respite within Your mercy from the proud, naked Pharaohs of religion. You have power to do so, and You are worthy to answer this supplication.
Written in the last ten days of Shawwāl, in the seventeenth year of the Qāʾim of the Age, whose appearance is awaited for the destruction of the one-eyed Antichrist. Praise belongs to our Lord alone, and thanks to His Guardian, His servant.