I place my trust in our Lord, the God al-Ḥākim, exalted above number, and seek His assistance through His Guardian, who stands over every soul according to what it has earned and believed. From the obedient, sincere and submissive servant, a reminder to the people of the Call in Cairo and Fusṭāṭ, who have broken with the precedents of truth and sunk into the degradation of making peace with Jews and Copts.
Peace upon whoever knows the Messiah of humankind, turns through him toward our Lord, the God al-Ḥākim, the Judge above judges, seeks approach to Him through obedience to His Guardian in the return and the final outcome, and takes advantage of the period of delay to store up the best provision for his soul through worthy deeds. Such a person declares our Lord al-Ḥākim transcendent through true transcendence and tawḥīd, and renounces for His sake all notions of generation, similarity, and embodiment. The Lord's mercy and good pleasure rest upon my brethren who bow and prostrate, inheritors of the land of realities in spite of the accursed and mutilated Antichrist.
Now then: praise belongs to our Lord, exalted beyond the hidden recesses of thought and the passing fancies of the mind, holy beyond what intellects and inner vision can approach, and higher than comparison with an original or its representation. Every intellect that attempts to imagine His power returns bewildered; every soul that tries to comprehend His exaltation by conjecture comes away weary and confined. He established the Word of transcendence as a Guide and beacon, and made its brilliant signs of tawḥīd into suns and moons. He appointed that Guide as a leader to the nations who sought salvation, and as a mirror and banner for whoever held fast to His wisdom. He openly declares the realities of unity, destroys the rising laws of falsehood through proof, and demolishes the structures of the Iblīses at their roots. He will avenge the people of tawḥīd upon Shayṣabān and the Calf, when those who have relied upon delusion lose hope and the appointed term reaches its conclusion.
When morning appears from the side of Mount Ṭūr and its light rises, and the star of religion flashes with good fortune, the masters of the nations will rise with the bonds of exaltation and glory, lifting them toward the completion of their virtues beneath the banner of praise. The sources of humanity will be transformed there, and truth and justice will appear from that station. The noble camel of truth will grind its jaws and stretch out its forelegs; the creature's neck and head stand in this image for Mecca, the very seat of disgraceful unbelief. Its sides are cut open and its jugular severed; the defender of the false cause falls to the sword of the Qāʾim, and his followers are humbled in wrath and scorching heat.
Then the furnace of realities will blaze with hidden lights. Its radiance will reach every horizon and region and become bright as the Qāʾim appears through the command of our Lord, the mighty God al-Ḥākim.
Awaken, bewildered and overturned bodies! Consider, you whose souls have been polluted and reversed! Did you not ascend by wisdom along the road of salvation and guidance? Had you not arrived, through tawḥīd, at the age of the unveiling of the highest ranks? Were you not purified by manifest proofs and granted through unity the widest field in which intellect might operate?
What miraculous event made you need to doubt the truth and apostatize? What justice did you discover in religion which could have driven you away from truth and fairness into oppression? Away with intellects inclining to error and ignorance! Woe to polluted souls turned by injustice away from reason! Iblīs has brought them into the harshest paths and left them on the mountain of destruction, near the appointed end. He has fixed them in bewilderment, foolishness, and stupidity, filling their vessels with passion, covenant-breaking, and error.
Give attentive ears, heedless ones, before mercy withdraws and the doors are closed; before the scrolls are spread open with the crimes of creation and the veil is removed; before the great earthquake comes and the trumpet sounds for the third and final time.
When the sea of realities surges from the side of the exalted Mount, its currents will shake the foundations of the lower earths. Its winds will sweep over rebellious peoples with punishment and displeasure, and the mill of destruction will turn in the homes of the impure. A flood of the sword will spread, flowing with blood as heavy rain flows from storm clouds.
Then lights will be disclosed to the insight of Unitarians. Their leader and chief, the one who directs the believers, will arise; his radiance will lift across the horizons and uncover what religion has concealed. His friends will enter the secure Sanctuary after the darkness of the Antichrists. Punishment and humiliation will seize those who have altered the truth and invented heresies, turning in lies and slanders toward the worship of the Calf and following its imitators, publicly calling the Messenger of the Creator and the Guardian of Truth liars, and disobeying the commands of the Wise One.
A layer of corruption has covered their intellects and prevented them from distinguishing the sound from the unsound. They have taken up the ways of spiritual theft and filled their bellies with the bitter tree of zaqqūm and scalding water. They openly opposed the Creator's command, exerted themselves in pride, rebellion, and wrongdoing, and rejected the opening of tawḥīd to all humanity after the age of concealment. They denied the favors conveyed by the Proofs of the guiding lordly Imam. Because they acquired unbelief and despaired of mercy, their own works have turned them toward bewilderment and delusive imaginations. In reality they have become the people of enmity, doubt, associationism, and reversal, turning from what was high into covenant-breaking, injustice, unbelief, and denial.
Will you not seek the straight road, heedless people, and turn away from perishing delusion? We owe you sincere counsel, must show you the paths of right guidance and establish the proofs of tawḥīd, patiently enduring injury and striving for your benefit. If you refuse, beware, treacherous covenant-breakers! Prepare for a calamity that will not delay. How near the promise is to the pure and certain; how swift the threatened punishment for those enemies who deny them!
One of its signs will be that all religious sects unite in an attempt to kill the people of tawḥīd and that nations everywhere join together in cursing, maligning, and driving them out. Then, evil nation, expect the cry of destruction and the disclosure of the treasure in the wall. When the Sun of suns rises and the gates of heaven open for the manifestation of the command of our Lord, the holy God al-Ḥākim, nursing mothers will forget their infants, the breast will burn with regret for neglected obedience, and faces will be humbled before our Lord, God of earth and heaven. Where can you go, rebellious sinners? The lean noble horses have been saddled to avenge the people of truth. The course is finished and the race has come.
When the keen sword of the eastern land becomes renowned and the hidden one comes out from behind the veils to purify the earth and change its religious communities, the Iblīses of religion and their political dominions shall fall. What a punishment this will be in the very place that had been favored, bringing destruction upon the peoples of the two Egyptian cities! What a general calamity upon the Pharaohs between the two seas!
When the one-eyed Antichrist of the Arabs stirs his strength and the failed, polluted one rises up—meaning the notorious mound at Aleppo—when he acquires one ground for injustice after another, our Lord will take vengeance upon the unjust through his own wrongdoing and his appointed term will run out together with the deniers. Then the eastern blade will become known, and the guiding Qāʾim and Imam will rise to judge the deniers by its edge.
When trustworthiness has become rare among you—as indeed it already has—when cursing and defaming the people of religion have spread, and religion becomes an object of mockery on the tongues of children of sharp-tongued women, it will be like a carcass thrown down. Then await the cry of annihilation, you dregs of the nations, you remnant of the servants of the Calf and the Idol.
Follow any road you find, and violate every sacred religious boundary you come upon! For the pens have been lifted from you, the matter has reached completion, discourse is finished, and the noble warners have delivered what was entrusted to them.
Praise belongs to our Lord al-Ḥākim, the possessor of generosity, favor, and blessing, and thanks to His Guardian. “Rebuke and Explanation” is complete through our Lord's favor and the gracious assistance of the Qāʾim of the Age.