art ~ spirit ~ transformation
e*lix*ir

e*lix*ir   #6
autumn 2017
 

TABLE OF CONTENTS


Editorial

  • His Pen

  • Translations

  • O Nightingales!
    by Nader Saiedi and Anthony A. Lee
  • Tablet addressed to Ali
    by Nader Saiedi
  • Arabic Devotional Writings
    by Stephen Lambden
  • Tablet of the Sun of Reality
    by Stephen Lambden

  • Essays

  • The Art of Translation
    by Brian Miller
  • Signs: Quranic Themes in the Writings of the Báb
    by Todd Lawson

  • Personal Reflections on Bahá’í Texts

  • O Pen!
    by Sandra Lynn Hutchison

  • Photo Narrative

  • Bahá’u’lláh in the Holy Land: Dwellings, Gardens, and Resting Place
    by Dean Wilkey

  • Voices of Iran

  • A Glimpse of the Glorious Landscape of Freedom
    by Rojin Ghavami

  • Art

  • Calligraphy
    by Dr. Muhammad Afnan

  • Looking Back on Books

  • Days of Remembrance: Selections from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh for Bahá’í Holy Days


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    Days of Remembrance

    Selections from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh for Bahá’í Holy Days
    Bahá’í World Center, 2017

    Published by the Bahá’í World Center in 2017, the year marking the Bicentenary of the Birth of Bahá’u’lláh, Days of Remembrance offers a treasure trove of 45 selections of Bahá’u’lláh’s Writings that bear upon the Bahá’í holy days. Among these selections are excerpts from various tablets, such as the Surih of Counsel, the Surih of the Kings, the Surih to Salman I, as well as entire tablets previously unavailable to the English reader. The Tablet of the Lover and the Beloved, the Surih of the Pen, the Tablet of the Bell, the Tablet of the Immortal Youth, and the Tablet to Maryam are some of the tablets revealed by Bahá’u’lláh that are now available for readers to peruse in the course of individual reflection and for communities to draw upon to enrich their observance of the Bahá’í holy days.

    These selections represent what the authors of the preface describe as “different revelatory modes.” Some are celebratory and retain, even in the English, the intensely poetic character of their parent texts, while others are epistolary tablets, addressed to individual believers in specific contexts. Eight of the selections were translated by Shoghi Effendi, and the reader will likely recognize some of these: for example, the well known Ridvan Tablet in which the advent of the Divine Springtime is joyfully announced. However, most of these tablets are available in English for the first time.

    The publication of a selection of authoritative translations of tablets revealed by Bahá’u’lláh that bear upon the Bahá’í holy days, seems a fitting way to commemorate the Bicentenary of the Birth of Bahá’u’lláh. And in the years to come, these eloquent translations will be appreciated by individuals and drawn upon by communities in honoring the sacred moments in time and religious history the Bahá’í holy days commemorate.