BB00048: Du’a-yi Alif

In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate

Praise be to God, Who created the heavens and the earth by His command … O God, I now bear Thee witness … Thou indeed knowest that Thou hast created all things by Thy Will, and it is the First Word that believed in Thee … O God, make firm my heart in Thy love, for I have claimed in no matter aught save obedience unto Thee, nor do I hope for any but Thee … and I hold, in every matter, only to what Thou hast sent down in the Qur’an upon Thy beloved, Muhammad, the Messenger of God and the Seal of the Prophets: belief in the guardianship of the Imams of justice, to follow them, to take example from their traces, and to disown their enemies and those who dwell in their grace; and Thou indeed knowest, O my God, that Thy friends, in every matter, were guardians of Thy religion and vessels of Thy decree—Thy servants whose obedience and love Thou hast made incumbent .. and that Thou hast favoured … with the realities of knowledge, as is Thy wont in bestowal and in answering the believers concerning the verses and the supplications …

Nay, every truth that descendeth from Thee—Thou dost call it the word of revelation, as Thou hast sent down in the Qur’an, where Thou didst say—and Thy word is the truth—“And We revealed to Moses and to those with him all together,” and like unto what Thou didst reveal to the mother of Moses, then to the bee ..

I have not claimed a single word of revelation … They say, “He has laid claim to spiritual authority and its trappings.” May God kill them for that in which they lie! … I have neither made claims to nor spoken a word with regard to anything other than servitude … Those who ascribe to the Imams aught beyond servitude, and attribute the like to their followers—their recompense is the fire of hell …

Verily, some people have calumniated the word “Babiyyah,” [Gatehood] explicitly stated, and have alleged for myself a vision—may God curse them for what they have forged. The Remnant of God, the Lord of the Age, has, after the four gates, no designated gate and no specific deputy; and whoso claimeth the vision without proof, it is enjoined upon all that they belie him and slay him. O God, I bear Thee witness that I have not claimed the vision of Thy true Proof, nor the Gatehood of his very Self by any prior text … And if I ascribed to myself the word “Gatehood,” I intended naught but the mention of a word of goodness, for I read in the hadith of the Imams of justice that “the believer is not to be described” …

And I bear witness that He followed Thy revelation, conveyed Thy messages, and ascended with His body unto heaven, and strove in the path of Thy love until He attained Thy Countenance; and I bear witness that His lawful is lawful until the Day of Resurrection, that His law hath not been abrogated, nor His path altered; and whoso addeth a letter or taketh aught from His law goeth forth in that instant from obedience unto Thee; and that revelation from Thy presence, the like of which was sent down upon Muhammad, was closed and ended with him; and that His Book is guardian over all the Books … and that Thy living Proof—by whose existence all creation abideth and by whom all existents make mention—is that Thou shouldst guard His occultation and draw nigh His days …

They said that he claimed Lordship, and believed that ʿAli—Thy servant and the trustee of Thy Prophet—was the Creator of things and their Provider, and that he denied the bodily ascension and the resurrection of the body. Hallowed art Thou, hallowed art Thou! I am quit of those who hold to such false teachings…

And as for the mention of “another word,” he intended what Thy Proof, as-Sadiq, mentioned in his supplication, where he said—and his word is truth—“and his spirit ascended unto heaven” …

And I bear witness that in this day Thy Proof is Muhammad son of al-Hasan—Thy blessings be upon him and upon whoso followeth him …

And I bear witness that after the four Gates he hath no Gate, as hath come in the hadith .. and that, in the days of His occultation, he hath divines set to watch … And I bear witness that obedience unto them is incumbent, and love for them is justice; and whoso denieth any one of them hath disbelieved and is of the lost.