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| 'The formulation by Bahá'u'lláh, in His Kitáb-i-Aqdas, of the fundamental laws of His Dispensation was followed, as His Mission drew to a close, by the enunciation of certain precepts and principles which lie at the very core of His Faith, by the reaffirmation of truths He had previously proclaimed, by the elaboration and elucidation of some of the laws He had already laid down, by the revelation of further prophecies and warnings, and by the establishment of subsidiary ordinances designed to supplement the provisions of His Most Holy Book. These were recorded in unnumbered Tablets, which He continued to reveal until the last days of His earthly life, ... These Tablets—mighty and final effusions of His indefatigable pen—must rank among the choicest fruits which His mind has yielded, and mark the consummation of His forty-year-long ministry.' 1 | 1 Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By (Bahá'í Publishing Trust, Wilmette, Ill. 1944, page 216). | |
| Six of the Tablets referred to in the above passage and which are included in this volume, were, on the instructions of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, translated into English and published, in 1917, by Bahá'í Publishing Society, Chicago. That volume has long been out of print and its contents are now known to most Bahá'ís only through excerpts printed in compilations or quoted in other writings. Moreover, as Shoghi Effendi's translations of the Sacred Text increasingly flowed from his pen, it became apparent that the earlier translations could well be improved, both in accuracy and style. The Universal House of Justice therefore commissioned this volume, which it describes as yet one more attempt to render into adequate English Bahá'u'lláh's matchless utterance. Wherever any portion of the text had already been translated by the Guardian, that translation has been used. These passages are identified by the Notes at the end of the book. | vi |
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In footnotes referring to the Qur'án the súrihs have been numbered according to the original, whereas the verse numbers are those in Rodwell's translation which differ sometimes from those of the Arabic.
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