Ocean of Lights

Reported Utterance

Words to the Master's entourage, spoken on 1912-03-27

80 words

چه قدر تفاوتست بین نفوس شخصی چنان خود را پست مینماید که پرستش جماد و اشکال

Question:

[An American came to ‘Abdu'l-Baha and brought with him some Chinese and Japanese idol figurines to show Him.]

Translation:

Provisional translation

What a great difference exists between men. One person degrades himself to such a degree that he idolizes and worships stones

Publications (1)Translations (4)

BDA. Zarqání, Maḥmúd. Kitáb-i Badáyi`u'l-Áthár (2 vols.). Bahá'í-Verlag, 1987. Vol. 1 (translated as MHMD1): https://bahai-library.com/bahailib/241.pdf, Vol. 2 (translated as MHMD2): https://bahai-library.com/bahailib/242.pdf

BDA1.013.17

http://reference.bahai.org/fa/t/o/KBAS1/kbas1-13.html

DAS. Diary notebooks and letters of Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, Dec. 1912 – Jun. 1915. English and Persian diary notebooks and letters held in the U.S. National Bahá’í Archives. Often quoted in other sources such as SW. Catalog entries are indexed by date and include only the English notebooks and letters. Letters from 1 Jul 1913 through 19 Oct. 1914 found here: https://bahai-library.com/sohrab_diary_letters_1913-1914

DAS.1913-07-19

https://bahai-library.com/pdf/s/sohrab_diary_letters_1913-1914_02.pdf#page=45

MHMD1. Sobhani, Mohi (trans). Mahmud's Diary: The Diary of Mírzá Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání Chronicling ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Journey to America. George Ronald, 1998. English Translation of BDA1. http://bluefin.live/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/MHMD.pdf, https://bahai-library.com/zarqani_mahmuds_diary (typescript)

MHMD1.020

http://bluefin.live/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/MHMD.pdf#page=45

ABIE. Sohrab, Ahmad. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Egypt. New History Foundation, 1929. Based on DAS. https://afnanlibrary.org/abdul-baha-in-egypt (scanned), https://bahai-library.com/sohrab_abdul-baha_egypt (typed)

ABIE.086

http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~bahai/diglib/books/P-T/S/sohrab/ABE/ABE.htm

BLO. Bahá’í Library Online (www.bahai-library.com). Private, independent repository of Bahá’í-related resources including provisional translations (BLO_PT) and pilgrims’ notes (BLO_PN). Numbering follows the 16 Nov 2019 snapshot available at https://web.archive.org/

BLO_PN#007

https://bahai-library.com/sohrab_abdul-baha_egypt