A Day not followed by Night

Being a brief over-view of Baha’i teachings concerning the “Break of the Morn of Divine Guidance” and the “Day not followed by Night”.                                        

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Scriptures and histories of all faiths demonstrate a contrast between darkness and light, between ignorance and enlightenment, and between the violators and the righteous. For instance in the 24th Chapter of the Gospel of Matthew we read a warning concerning the disappearance of the Light and the consequential descent of night.

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken …” (verse 29)

In the Kitab’i’Iqan, the Glory of God – Baha’u’llah, the Blessed Beauty, explains that this verse has numerous meanings describing several of them in some depth. This text is easily found and so it isn’t necessary to go into those meanings here but rather to quote just one line:

“… [T]he break of the morn of divine guidance must needs follow the darkness of the night of error.” Iqan p. 31

That morn and its successive Day is the main concern of this essay.

This Day was foretold in the Book of Revelation as a City in which there shall be no night:

“And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the Glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light shall the nations walk; and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it, and its Gates shall never be shut by day — and there shall be no night there; they shall bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.” (Revelation 21:23-26)

Likewise in His Suriy-i-Haykal, the Glory of God declared:

“O thou Temple of Holiness! We have cleansed Your heart from the illusions of the creation so that the light of My countenance may shine therein, wherefrom that same light will reflect light to the mirrors of the world. Inasmuch as We have chosen You above all that was ordained in the Kingdom of Command and Creation, and created You especially for Myself; this is the grace of God unto You from this very day to a day that will never end in the Kingdom, but will rather continue by the continuance of God, the Protector, the Precious, the Omniscient. For the Day of God is He Himself, who has appeared with the truth. This Day will never be followed by night, nor shall it be limited to the Remembrance, were ye of those who know.”

Baha’i scholars wondering as to the meaning of this “day not followed by night” might consider Shoghi Effendi’s insight on pages 115-118 of his “World Order of Baha’u’llah” wherein he explores this question through quotation of passages from the writings of the Bab and Baha’u’llah.

So for instance, in connection with his translation and interpretation of a passage from Baha’i Scripture, Shoghi Effendi wrote that it was “an inexcusable departure” from one of the Faith’s “most cherished and fundamental principles” to believe:

“… that all revelation is ended, that the portals of Divine mercy are closed, that from the daysprings of eternal holiness no sun shall rise again, that the ocean of everlasting bounty is forever stilled, and that out of the tabernacle of ancient glory the Messengers of God have ceased to be made manifest . . .”.

Shoghi Effendi further clarified the reality of this “fundamental principle which constitutes the bedrock of Bahá’í belief” set forth in that verse from Baha’u’llah stating:

“. . . religious truth is not absolute but relative … Divine Revelation is orderly, continuous and progressive and not spasmodic or final.”

After citing several quotes from Baha’i scripture mainly in regard to the theme of progressive Revelation, Shoghi Effendi then alludes to an unappreciated meaning with the statement:

“We might well ponder in our hearts the following passages from a prayer revealed by Bahá’u’lláh which strikingly affirm, and are a further evidence of, the reality of the great and essential truth lying at the very core of His Message to mankind…”

Thus upon reading Shoghi Effendi’s beloved translation of that prayer, we see:

“Thou didst decree that I be beheaded by the sword of the infidel.”

The informed will understand that the meaning of this statement is firstly in reference to John the Baptist. Those with eyes to see may also perceive another meaning.

Baha’u’llah further declares, concerning what has been suffered by this never-ending continuous Light at the hands of the infidels that:

“How bitter the humiliations heaped upon me, in a subsequent age, on the plain of Karbilá! How lonely did I feel amidst Thy people; to what state of helplessness I was reduced in that land! Unsatisfied with such indignities, my persecutors decapitated me and carrying aloft my head from land to land paraded it before the gaze of the unbelieving multitude and deposited it on the seats of the perverse and faithless.”

Which the informed reader will perceive as, firstly, a reference to Husayn (Hasan ibn Ali’s brother and successor in the Imamate) who was killed and beheaded in the Battle of Karbilá on the 10th of Muharram in the year 61 AH. Those who are both informed and possessed of vision may again perceive a further meaning.

It may be that those who have been dispossessed of such sight and vision are merely deprived of information, but perhaps they can nevertheless perceive that this event marked the descent of the Night of Yazid upon Sunni Islam while at the same time revealing the continuance of the Day of Muhammad through Ali and his descendents in the Imamate, the Guiding Lights of Shia Islam – for after Hasan and Husayn, Husayn’s son Ali (Imam al-Sajjad) succeeded, and he in turn was succeeded by his son Muhammad (Baqir), and so on to Ja’far (Sadiq), then Musa (Kazim), then Ali (Rida), then Muhammad (Taqi), then Ali (Hadi) and then Hasan (Askari). The Shia branch of Islam established itself in Persia as an independent state from Sunni Islam. Eventually the Sun of the Bab dawned in that land and after Him the Sun of Baha’u’llah.

Perhaps the appreciative ones will perceive that, in choosing to include this prayer in the explanation of this “fundamental principle which constitutes the bedrock of Bahá’í belief” Shoghi Effendi established what he himself meant by “continuous” and “not spasmodic”.

This then points the way to a true understanding of “The Day that will not be followed by Night.”

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“Verily, the Word of God has never ceased to descend upon the world.” Baha’u’llah (Baha’i Scriptures, p. 192)