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Bahá'u'lláh’s The Hidden Words consists of 153 brief exhortations, 71 in Arabic and 82 in Persian. Each which begins with a salutation:
O son of spirit!O son of being!
O ye people that have minds to know and ears to hear!
O son of earth!
O my children!
Some of these appear only once, while others are repeated a number of times. Some appear only in the Arabic section, others only in the Persian section. Nine of the Persian exhortations, for example, refer to the reader as “friend”.
That’s an interesting statistic. In nine of 82, just over one-tenth of them, God calls us His friends. This relationship is not mentioned at all in the Arabic section but forms a significant part of the Persian, wherein God not only names us friend but challenges us to be as true a friend to Him as He is to us.
O My friend in word! Ponder awhile. Hast thou ever heard that friend and foe should abide in one heart? Cast out then the stranger, that the Friend may enter His home.
(Baha'u'llah, The Hidden Words, Persian 26)O children of negligence and passion! Ye have suffered My enemy to enter My house and have cast out My friend, for ye have enshrined the love of another than Me in your hearts. Give ear to the sayings of the Friend and turn towards His paradise. Worldly friends, seeking their own good, appear to love one the other, whereas the true Friend hath loved and doth love you for your own sakes; indeed He hath suffered for your guidance countless afflictions. Be not disloyal to such a Friend, nay rather hasten unto Him. Such is the daystar of the word of truth and faithfulness, that hath dawned above the horizon of the pen of the Lord of all names. Open your ears that ye may hearken unto the word of God, the Help in peril, the Self-existent.
(Baha'u'llah, The Hidden Words, Persian 52)
A special Friend is often mentioned in these passages, one whose love is pure and true, who has suffered for our sakes, and who gives us the best counsel. This is the Manifestation of God, and His portrayal as a true Friend is nothing new. Abraham is called “the Friend of God” in the Bible, the Qur’án, and the Bahá’í Holy Writings, while Jesus spoke of His followers as friends:
This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. (John 15:12-15, KJV)
Muhammad, too, spoke of the friendship between God, His Manifestation, and humanity:
Your (real) friends are (no less than) Allah, His Messenger, and the (fellowship of) believers, those who establish regular prayers and regular charity, and they bow down humbly (in worship).
(Qur'án 5:55, Yusuf Ali’s translation; some translations give “protector” instead of “friend”)
Finally, as we have seen, Bahá'u'lláh spoke frequently of these friendships, and they are powerful indeed. Friendship is one of the most fundamental of human relationships, a relationship with which everyone has at least some experience, no matter how imperfectly. We all at least know the spirit of true friendship and recognize true friends by their actions. Our friends are concerned for our well-being, are willing to lend a helping hand even when doing so calls for sacrifice. Selfish motives don’t interpose themselves between friends.
Now if we recognize all this from our human friendships, which after all have a tendency to be imperfect over the long haul, the infinite friendship of the Manifestations of God and of God Himself should be as clear as the noonday sun. Overwhelming, certainly, and unfathomable, but no less clear for that. For instance, Bahá'u'lláh wrote this of the sacrifices He had made on our behalf:
The Ancient Beauty hath consented to be bound with chains that mankind may be released from its bondage, and hath accepted to be made a prisoner within this most mighty Stronghold that the whole world may attain unto true liberty. He hath drained to its dregs the cup of sorrow, that all the peoples of the earth may attain unto abiding joy, and be filled with gladness. This is of the mercy of your Lord, the Compassionate, the Most Merciful. We have accepted to be abased, O believers in the Unity of God, that ye may be exalted, and have suffered manifold afflictions, that ye might prosper and flourish. He Who hath come to build anew the whole world, behold, how they that have joined partners with God have forced Him to dwell within the most desolate of cities!
(Bahá'u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, XLV, p. 99-100)
The events of His life—the loss of all material wealth; forty years of imprisonment and exile, the extreme hardships He faced when forced to move from place to place, repeated tortures and attempts on His life, and betrayal by members of His own family, to name the most significant—are accurately reflected in this passage. It would have been so easy for Him to avoid all that and remain what He had once been: a wealthy man liked and respected by high and low alike.
But when God’s summons came, He was God’s true Friend and ours. He gave up everything to bring God’s new Message to us, not so as to gain anything for Himself but solely to give us a chance to approach God and build a better world.
That’s true friendship, to a degree we can’t fully comprehend. But we surely know it when we see it. The question then becomes, having seen it what do we do about it?
Friendship, after all, is a two-way street.
Planet Bahá'í
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