منشور الغيبة
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, through the ranks of the Qāʾim of the Religion.
To the people of contentment and submission, people of purity, reverence and peace, who recognize the Guardian of the Religion, the Qāʾim of the Resurrection: peace upon whoever accepts and submits to his Imam, watches for his standards and banners, and considers with sincerity what has reached him of the explanations of his Wisdom.
Brethren of the religion, preserve the signs of divine unity and keep what has been set forth for you in the prohibitions against forbidden things in The Realities, The Crushing, The Distinction, and the book of the pure martyr Abū al-Yaqẓān.
For I, the weak servant, am innocent of the shameful things invented by those who fabricated them and attributed them to religion and faith. The Creator bears witness to what I made known in forbidding the prohibited practices introduced by Lāḥiq, Sakīn, Muṣʿab and their like. That was my first act when I was ordered to establish the Call by the exalted Command, the Guardian of the Age and Lord of Manifestations.
Whoever among you preserves the Wisdom, purifies his soul of involvement with the people of apostasy, shameful acts and licentious practices, awaits what will arrive on the Day of Recompense and the appointed Hour, safeguards his brethren in religion, and patiently bears the great events to come, may hope to be delivered from all sins and disasters on the day when each soul finds before it the deeds it has performed, good and bad.
Know, brethren, that you are living through the greatest of intervals of concealment. We have announced and conveyed to every land, region and distant district so much that, even if the swelling seas were its ink, they would not suffice to express a tenth part of it. By it the proof has been established against all religious communities and nations, proclaimed to them publicly and in secret. Yet this advising servant has found not one of you, nor among all the nations, who turns inwardly toward the Creator free of the plots of opponents and evildoers.
This submissive servant has established the proof before the religious communities and nations; he has surrendered himself to his Lord and is departing into absence and concealment.
He entrusts all the people of truth, those near and those far away, to the command of the Lord, the Divine Ruler, the transcendent Compeller.
And whoever among you is subjected to an ordeal and is required to revile this servant, let him disavow this servant; and if required to curse him, let him curse him. This is in circumstances of necessity. God knows what you show and what you conceal.
New testimonies of falsehood and fabrication have arisen. The Creator is bringing near the recompense of whoever committed the act to which he testified, whoever bore witness falsely, and whoever accepted what the liars invented and disguised. He will bring near the recompense of the doer, the speaker and the one who receives it. Soon He will place this testimony before their eyes, and they will find no mercy in the injury they have done to truth and the lies they have invented.
Praise be to God, who is beyond all descriptions, who graciously helps the guardians of His truth by establishing the proof and the excuse, and consoles them amid the assaults of enemies and the devils of this interval, in exile and desolate lands, although those who would draw near to Him have been deprived of the means leading to manifestation, honor, and victory.†8
Peace upon the Guardian of the Resurrection, the Qāʾim who brings about the raising and gathering of the dead.
He suffices His weak servant, who hopes for His mercy on the day when family ties are severed and the knots of excuses are undone.
The proclamation is complete. Praise belongs to our Lord alone, and thanks to His Guardian, His servant.
TEXTUAL ENDNOTES — EPISTLE 111
†8. Printed p. 806 has a syntactically dense final clause (كما أحرمهم من يتقرب إليه بأبواب سببها أيسا من الظهور والعز والنصر). The English follows the most coherent printed reading; another witness is needed to settle the pronouns and agency.