Dear friends,
As the last announcement indicated, I'm presenting a paper at the
American Academy of Religion this weekend. I've not written the
conclusion yet, but I'd like to share with you what I have and get
your feedback.
warmest, Susan
The Covenant as Responsiveness
When Baha’is discuss the concept of covenant as it applies to their
teachings they usually describe the chain of authority designed to
maintain their unity. They typically focus on what is commonly called
the Lesser Covenant as embodied in such documents such as the Kitab-i
Ahd, Baha’u’llah’s will appointing Abdu’l-Baha as His successor and
the Will and Testament of Abdu’l-Baha which appointed Shoghi Effendi
as Guardian of the Baha’i Faith after Him and called for the election
of the Universal House of Justice. Hence, the Covenant is seen as
that which obliges individual Bahá'ís to accept the leadership of
Bahá'u'lláh's appointed successors and the administrative institutions
of the Faith.
But there is another Covenant upon which this lesser Covenant is
predicated. Frequently this is called the ‘greater Covenant’, namely
the Covenant which God has made with all humanity, wherein He promises
us continuing guidance through His Messengers Manifestations as
Baha’is call them, while we are obligated to recognize and obey them.
It is primarily this greater Covenant I wish to focus my attention on
today, for it is my contention that unless our understanding of the
Lesser Covenant is grounded in the greater one, the depth of its
significance will largely be missed.
If we look at this greater Covenant as it has been described
and understood throughout much of history we will find that this
obligation to recognize and obey has been articulated in terms of
responsiveness and remembrance. It is this theme of responsiveness and
remembrance that will be examined in this paper.
The Baha’i Faith concept of covenant, was not born in a vacuum.
It sees itself as a continuation of the Abrahamic line of religions
and its concept of covenant is ultimately linked to those traditions.
Christians divide their Bible into two sections, the Old and New
Testament, the term testament signifying covenant. In Judaism the
term covenant in relationship to God appears first in the Torah in
connection with the story of Noah wherein God assured Noah that the
judgment would not again come to men in the form of a flood; and that
the recurrence of the seasons and day and night should not cease. The
Adamic exhortation to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ is reaffirmed. Noah
and his sons are encouraged to eat all manner of meat, but a taboo is
placed on the consumption of animal blood and the shedding of human
blood. The rainbow is presented as sign of this covenant.1 Another
covenant is made with Abraham when he is asked to leave his homeland
and journey to a land God ha
s promised to him and his descendents. It is promised that through Him
all the nations of the world will be blest.2 Abraham was told to
circumcise all the male members of his family as a sign of this
Covenant.3 They key covenant of the Torah, however is the one God made
with Israel on Mt. Sinai. This Sinai event forms the basis of later
depictions of the establishment of the Greater Covenant that God makes
with all mankind.
While Israel was encamped here in front of the mountain,
Moses went up the mountain to God. Then the LORD called to him and
said, "Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob; tell the Israelites:
You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians and how I
bore you up on eagle wings and brought you here to myself.
Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall
be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people, though
all the earth is mine.
You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. That is what
you must tell the Israelites."
So Moses went and summoned the elders of the people. When he set
before them all that the LORD had ordered him to tell them, the people
all answered together, "Everything the LORD has said, we will do."
Then Moses brought back to the LORD the response of the people. 4
It is only after this response is received that Moses go back up
the Mountain and the 10 Commandments are revealed. Three days letter
this even takes place and is described with these words:
On the morning of the third day there were peals of thunder and
lightning, and a heavy cloud over the mountain, and a very loud
trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled.
But Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God, and they
stationed themselves at the foot of the mountain.
Mount Sinai was all wrapped in smoke, for the LORD came down upon it
in fire. The smoke rose from it as though from a furnace, and the
whole mountain trembled violently.
The trumpet blast grew louder and louder, while Moses was speaking and
God answering him with thunder. 5
After the revelation of the Ten Commandments, the Israelites again
affirm their Covenant with God and share a meal together, for
ceremonial meals were considered an integral part of treaty alliances
in the Near East, and the Covenant was conceived of as precisely
that. Also a part of such treaty alliances was the practice of
calling various deities as witnesses. In the case of the Covenant of
Sinai the heaven and earth are called as witnesses. (Deut. 4:26;
30:19; 31:28 As we will see, all these elements will likewise appear
as tropes in both Islamic and Baha’i descriptions of the Covenant.
The Sinai event is recalled in the Qur’an with these words:
“When We shook the Mount over them, as if it had been a canopy,
and they thought it was going to fall on them (We said): "Hold firmly
to what We have given you, and bring (ever) to remembrance what is
therein; perchance ye may fear Allah." (7:171)
But the Qur’an then goes on to place the Sinai event before and
outside of time:
And (remember) when thy Lord brought forth from the Children of
Adam, from their reins, their seed, and made them testify of
themselves, (saying): Am I not your Lord? They said: Yea, verily. We
testify. (That was) lest ye should say at the Day of Resurrection: Lo!
of this we were unaware; Or you should say: Only our fathers
associated others (with Allah) before, and we were an offspring after
them: Wilt Thou then destroy us for what the vain doers did?”
This event that establishes the primordial Covenant is known in
Islam as the Day of Alast, mamed after the question God asks, “Am I
not your Lord?” alastu bi-rabbikam
A couple of things might be noted about this passage. First it
is an event that happens in the pre-existence, an event in which we
are all said to be present. Because we all give answer to this
question, we all become partners to the Covenant thus created. That
Covenant consists of an acknowledgement of God’s lordship, and of our
willingness to submit to it. In that primordial response, human
responsibility is born. Thus the Day of Alast is intimately tied to
the Day of Resurrection. If we fail to subsequently live our lives
continuing to acknowledge His Lordship we can neither claim ignorance
or that we were merely doing as our forefathers had taught us. The
Covenant, thus conceived, is not so much about what we think or
believe, it is rather a matter of the directionality of our will. Does
it acknowledge God’s Lordship or seek to do its own will?
Annemarie Shimmel describes the significance of this event in
Islamic mysticism:
“The idea of this primordial covenant (mithaq) between God and
humanity has impressed the religious conscience of the Muslims, and
especially the Muslim mystics, more than any other idea. Here is the
starting point for their understanding of free will and
predestination, of election and acceptance, of God's eternal power and
man's loving response and promise. The goal of the mystic is to return
to the experience of the "Day of Alastu," when only God existed,
before He led future creatures out of the abyss of not-being and
endowed them with life, love, and understanding so that they might
face Him again at the end of time."6
The problem, of course, is that we don’t remember that Covenant, we
are forgetful. Forgetfulness in Islam is regarded as the basis of all
evil, an evil that can only be overcome by bringing our relationship
to God constantly to mind in acts of remembrance.
A major goal of Sufism has been to “remember” the ecstasy of God’s
primordial presence and of our response to Him, one that only a true
adept is deemed able to attain. Sufis declare they are mast-e Alast,
drunken because God asked men's souls before Creation, "Am I not
(alastu) your Lord?" and they affirmed it. This covenant before time
itself between lover and Beloved is a source of such joy that its
recollection instantly intoxicates anyone who understands it. There is
a similar story in Jewish tradition: There was a man in a rural
village who knew neither reading nor writing, but who was famed for
his pure and holy faith. Still, knowing the dictum that an ignorant
man cannot be truly pious, he decided to learn the Torah and went to a
teacher. They got as far in the book of Genesis as the words Vayomer
Elohim, "And God said..." The holy man jumped up from his chair. "God
spoke? God spoke! God spoke to us!" he cried in ecstasy, dancing out
of the schoolroom and back to th
e forest. And that was the end of his lessons.
Baha’u’llah alludes to this in His mystical poem, the Mathavi Mubarak:
Once someone posted this question to a Gnostic:
You, who’ve grasped the mysteries of God
You, by bounty’s wine intoxicate,
Do you recall the day of “Am I not?”
He said: I do recall that sound, those words
As if it were but yesterday, no less
It linters in my ears, His call
That sweet soul-vivifying voice of His
But in the next passage Baha’u’llah takes this traditional trope much
further:
Another Gnostic, who had climbed beyond
Had bored the mystic pearls divine, replied:
That day of God has never ended nor
Has fallen short we're living in that day!
His day's unending, not pursued by night-
That we're alive in such a day's not strange
Had Time's Soul ceased its yearning for this day
then Heaven's court and throne would fall to dust
For through God's power this eternal day
was made unending by His Majesty."7
The Day of Alast then becomes, not something which happened before
time began, but something that is happening even now and is most
especially present with Baha’u’llah’s Manifestation.
One of the Hidden Words especially ties the Day of Alast with
both the Bab and Baha’u’llah’s own Manifestation:
Have ye forgotten that true and radiant morn, when in those hallowed
and blessed surroundings ye were all gathered in My presence beneath
the shade of the tree of life, which is planted in the all-glorious
paradise? Awe-struck ye listened as I gave utterance to these three
most holy words: O friends! Prefer not your will to Mine, never desire
that which I have not desired for you, and approach Me not with
lifeless hearts, defiled with worldly desires and cravings. Would ye
but sanctify your souls, ye would at this present hour recall that
place and those surroundings, and the truth of My utterance should be
made evident unto all of you.
Bahá'u'lláh, Hidden Words, Persian #19
Here Baha’u’llah’s own Covenant is associated with the Covenant of
Alast. According to Abdu’l-Baha, Baha’u’llah is not talking about a
physical gathering. The ‘true and radiant morn’ is an allusion to the
Bab, while the ‘tree of life’ is Baha’u’llah and His Covenant. The
call was raised within one’s own soul, but until the heart his
purified it can neither respond nor remember. And this purity of heart
consists of desiring only what God desires.
There is another place in the Writings where purity of heart and
Remembrance are intimately tied together:
“"Say: Deliver your souls, O people, from the bondage of self, and
purify them from all attachment to anything besides Me. Remembrance of
Me cleanseth all things from defilement, could ye but perceive it.
Say: Were all created things to be entirely divested of the veil of
worldly vanity and desire, the Hand of God would in this Day clothe
them, one and all, with the robe "He doeth
whatsoever He willeth in the kingdom of creation," that thereby the
sign of His sovereignty might be manifested in all things. Exalted
then be He, the Sovereign Lord of all, the Almighty, the Supreme
Protector, the All-G lorious, the Most Powerful." (Gleanings, 294)
This passage is followed by the more well-known one "Intone O My
servants the verses of God." In the Aqdas Baha’u’llah very directly
ties in reading the Writings every morning and evening with firmness
in the Covenant:
"Recite ye the verses of God every morn and eventide. Whoso faileth to
recite them hath not been faithful to the Covenant of God and His
Testament, and whoso turneth away from these holy verses in this Day
is of those who throughout eternity have turned away from God. Fear ye
God, O My servants, one and all."
According to the Iqan, the purpose of reading the scriptures is to
understand them and have them inform ones life.
"...the reading of the scriptures and holy books is for no other
purpose except to enable the reader to apprehend their meaning and
unravel their innermost mysteries. Otherwise reading, without
understanding, is of no abiding profit unto man."
(Baha'u'llah: The Kitab-i-Iqan, Page: 172)
There is another passage in the Hidden Words which alludes to the
Covenant:
“O My Friends! Call ye to mind that covenant ye have entered into with
Me upon Mount Paran, situate within the hallowed precincts of Zaman. I
have taken to witness the concourse on high and the dwellers in the
city of eternity, yet now none do I find faithful unto the covenant Of
a certainty pride and rebellion have effaced it from the hearts, in
such wise that no trace thereof remaineth. Yet knowing this, I waited
and disclosed it not.” (Baha'u'llah, The Persian Hidden Words)
Note, that as with the Covenant at Sinai, witnesses are called to
attest to it. Abdu’l-Baha interprets this passage as follows:
“As for the reference in The Hidden Words regarding the Covenant
entered into on Mount Paran, this signifieth that in the sight of God
the past, the present and the future are all one and the same --
whereas, relative to man, the past is gone and forgotten, the present
is fleeting, and the future is within the realm of hope. And it is a
basic principle of the Law of God that in every Prophetic Mission, He
entereth into a Covenant with all believers -- a Covenant that
endureth until the end of that Mission, until the promised day when
the Personage stipulated at the outset of the Mission is made
manifest. Consider Moses, He Who conversed with God. Verily, upon
Mount Sinai, Moses entered into a Covenant regarding the Messiah, with
all those souls who would live in the day of the Messiah. And those
souls, although they appeared many centuries after Moses, were
nevertheless -- so far as the Covenant, which is outside time, was
concerned -- present there with Moses. The Jews, how
ever, were heedless of this and remembered it not, and thus they
suffered a great and clear loss.” (Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the
Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 207)
Here Abdu’l-Baha explains rather specifically how the primordial
Covenant of Alast and the Sinai event are inter-related. According to
Abdu’l-Baha both Sinai and Alast happened ultimately outside of time
and involved generations not yet born who were obligated to ‘remember’
the promises made there.
Here is another passage from Baha’u’llah’s Long Healing Prayer that
refers to this Covenant:
I beseech Thee by Thy generosity, whereby the portals of Thy bounty
and grace were opened wide, whereby the Temple of Thy Holiness was
established upon the throne of eternity; and by Thy mercy whereby Thou
didst invite all created things unto the table of Thy bounties and
bestowals; and by Thy grace whereby Thou didst respond, in thine own
Self with Thy word "Yea!" on behalf of all in heaven and earth, at the
hour when Thy sovereignty and Thy grandeur stood revealed, at the dawn-
time when the might of Thy dominion was made manifest.
Note the illusion to the ceremonial meal which accompanied the
establishment of Covenants in antiquity. All creation is gathered here
as in the Islamic depiction of the Day of Alast and the meal becomes a
symbol of His Bounty. But even more so, here it is God Himself
(presumably through His Manifestation) who responds affirmatively on
our behalf to the words, “Am I not your Lord?”
Nowhere is the theme of responsiveness stronger than in the Persian
Bayan. Baha’is hold that the bulk of the laws in the Bayan were
specifically intended to prepare the Babis to receive He Whom God
Would Make Manifest. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the bab or
chapter wherein He enjoins people to respond to their correspondence.
For Him, as with others, responsiveness to God meant responsiveness to
His Manifestations whenever and wherever they appear. And the Bab was
acutely sensitive to the fact that our responsiveness to God and His
Manifestation were intimately linked to the manner in which we respond
to one another. Hence we have this chapter in the Bayan:
It is obligatory to answer each letter, question or request received.
The substance of this chapter [báb] is this. It hath been
ordained that in this Dispensation, should one write a letter to
another the recipient should give reply. And God doth not love
prolonged delays in answering. One must reply in one's own hand, or by
means of a scribe.
Likewise, should someone ask a question, the one thus questioned
must respond in a precise manner. Perchance on the Day of God's
Manifestation none will remain ignorant of that sublime Daystar; and
when He revealeth the divine word: "Am I not thy Lord?", all shall
respond with "Yea!".
In truth, the injunction to reply hath been ordained for none
other purpose except this, yet its obligations extend to the very last
atom of existence, and likewise as regards correspondence.
There can be no doubt that on the Day of His Manifestation His
books shall descend upon everyone; that none should remain ignorant on
account of the veils that envelop him, nor fail to answer Him,
inasmuch as the reality of one's being issueth forth from one's
response: in the world of the hearts, through the affirmation of His
Unity; in the world of the spirits, through the affirmation of His
Prophethood; in the world of the souls, through the affirmation of His
Successorship; in the physical world through the affirmation of His
Gatehood
In each Dispensation, those that respond are distinguished from
those that remain silent. . . .
He is a servant endowed with insight who answereth God in every
degree and in all circumstances, be it through his writings, or
through his utterance, or through his deeds, which is the most potent
way. In accordance with this duty, all are enjoined to answer one
another, to the extent that if a child be found crying, it is
obligatory to answer his cries in the usual manner.
It is the same for one whose very state conveyeth request,
though it be without words, and it is incumbent upon them that
understand to respond accordingly. Likewise, should one be found whose
situtation betokeneth asking, it is needful to answer. The same
applieth to all kindred situations, which the man of vision promptly
perceiveth.8
The principle, which the Bab appears to be articulating here is
that one, must respond and relate to each and every individual
cognizant of the fact than any one of them may possibly be God’s
Manifestation. Baha’u’llah echoes these same sentiments in the Hidden
Words:
O SON OF MAN!
Deny not My servant should he ask anything from thee, for his face is
My face; be then abashed before Me.
(Baha'u'llah, The Arabic Hidden Words)
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