رسالة البنات الصغيرة
I have placed my trust in our Lord, God al-Ḥākim, transcendent and worshipped, and have thanked His servant, the Qāʾim of the promised Day.
O heedless daughters, who have forgotten the rights owed to the women who summon others to the Truth! For a long time I have admonished you with the striking proofs of conclusive arguments. I have warned you of the arrival of the appointed Day, when every soul shall be questioned about what it has done and about what awaits it. By God, the pure souls have become distinguishable through obedience from the turbid souls in impure bodily forms. The time granted to those who have wandered into error, misguidance, and turning away has run out.
Awaken from this slumber, you who are subject to reckoning! The breaking of the fast has come to bring fasting to an end. You have been as ignorant of what lay before yesterday as you are of what lies beyond today. You have denied the obligations of tawḥīd. Reproof, promise, and threat did not succeed with you; gentleness, counsel, and guidance did not benefit you. At last the command of the Creator came, and the gates were closed against every obstinate opponent.
Therefore, before the Creator and His Guardian, I renounce everyone who undertook the covenant of Truth and then broke it. There shall be separation and estrangement from every soul among you that swore by the Creator and then denied its oath and committed perjury.
Woe to you! Was the covenant of the Guardian of the Age not taken from you? Did you not disavow the devils and the powers of tyranny? Were you not commanded to speak truthfully and to protect your sisters and brothers? Yet you violated all this and imitated the abominations of the False Messiah. You adopted the unbelief and vile practices of those who opposed the truth and hoped, after your disobedience, to escape the fate that is coming upon you.
The Creator witnesses that I repudiate every one of you who has approved this state of affairs for herself, and everyone who has befriended dissenters, whether from her own family or another, taking them as sisters and brothers, women or men. May the Creator's curse follow anyone who hears this declaration and rejects or denies it; and may His anger fall upon whoever violates the truth entrusted to this and the other instructions.
This is a separation between the people of Truth and the profligate pretenders; it distinguishes the stations of those who obey from those who rebel and calls down condemnation upon those who deny and break their covenants. By my life, kindness, gentleness, affection, and compassion toward all creation, as well as patience and fairness, are more fitting and appropriate for the friends of the Guardian of Truth.
Now, whoever acknowledges her offense and repents may do so: the gate of repentance remains open until seven nights of the month of Ṣafar have passed. Whoever hangs back, breaks her covenant, and denies the truth shall be cursed by the tongues of the friends of Truth, rejected and disgraced.
Let everyone among you who hears these words pass them to those who were absent, so that the proof may be established against deniers and hypocrites and punishment and divine displeasure may fall upon covenant-breakers and slanderers. The truthful messenger is responsible only for making the message clear.
Praise belongs to the God of the worlds, and thanks to His Guardian, who upholds the reality of religion and takes vengeance, with the sword of Truth, on deniers, covenant-breakers, and apostates.
The epistle is complete. Praise belongs to our Lord alone, and thanks to His Guardian and servant.