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March 14, 2018

Tablet of the Howdah (Lawh-i-Hawdaj/Samsun) – by Baha’u’llah

--provisional translation by Stephen N. Lambden

[Sighting from His howdah the Black Sea, as He approached the port of Samsun, Bahá'u'lláh, at the request of Mirza Aqa Jan, revealed a Tablet, designated Lawh-i-Hawdaj (Tablet of the Howdah), which by such allusions as the "Divine Touchstone," "the grievous and tormenting Mischief," reaffirmed and supplemented the dire predictions recorded in the recently revealed Tablet of the Holy Mariner. (Shoghi Effendi, ‘God Passes By’)]

These are verses which were disclosed in the Pavilion of Eternity and the Howdah of Holiness at the moment when the Greatest Name arrived at the precinct of majesty in the land of Sāmsūn, at the shore of a mighty ocean. Then did the hosts of the inspiration of God descend, so splendidly ornamented, that all who are in the heavens and on earth were thunderstruck thereat. Before them did the Sun of the Divine Beauty radiate forth in an holy, ethereal Temple and addressed the Ark with the like of that which had streamed forth from the Pen of God aforetime, in a Tablet in which We addressed the Holy Mariner with a secret, sorrowful Call. And this in accordance with what hath this moment been sent down in this Tablet from an holy, luminous Pen. And whomsoever desires to comprehend the mysteries of the Command on the part of One, Wise, All-Knowing, let such an one consider these two Tablets and thus become cognizant of the mysteries of God; eyes solaced thereby and one numbered among such as are possessed of certainty.

The times of reclining in the Howdah of Holiness hath been completed and the Beauty of the Divine Essence hath emerged unto a mighty, noble panorama. Say: 'The terrestrial journey hath found completion at the shore of a mighty ocean.' At this did the Howdah of Immortality weep and a luminous Ship of Holiness rejoice.