O Thou Who art the apple of Mine eye! My glory, the ocean of My loving-kindness, the sun of My bounty, the heaven of My mercy rest upon Thee. We pray God to illumine the world through Thy knowledge and wisdom, to ordain for Thee that which will gladden Thine heart and impart consolation to Thine eyes.

Bahá’u’lláh

يَا بَصَرِي عَلَيْكَ بَهَائِي وَبَحْرُ عِنَايَتِي وَشَمْسُ فَضْلِي وَسَمَاءُ رَحْمَتِي نَسْئَلُ اللّهَ أَنْ يُنَوِّرَ الْعَالَمَ بِعِلْمِكَ وَحِكْمَتِكَ وَيُقَدِّرَ لَكَ مَا يَفْرَحُ بِهِ قَلْبُكَ وَتَقَرُّ عَيْنُكَ

حضرة بهاءالله

These touching words from a Tablet of Bahá’u’lláh to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá—a Writing by a Manifestation of God addressed to the Mystery of God—clearly shows the immensity of love that this divine Father felt for His superhuman Son. As a token of that profound affection, He addresses ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as baṣarí, literally “my eye,” which Shoghi Effendi has translated into idiomatic English as “the apple of Mine eye.”

A remarkably poetic feature of this excerpt is that it begins with an allusion to the eyes of Bahá’u’lláh (“O Thou Who art the apple of Mine eye!”) and ends with a reference to the eyes of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (“…and impart consolation to Thine eyes”).

Another thing to note about this selection is that it is the first one published by the Utterance Project that uses the word bahá’í (in this context, “my glory”) in precisely the same original and transliterated spelling by which Bahá’ís refer to themselves and their religion.

Original Sources

  • The complete original text of this Tablet in Arabic can be found at this link, beginning halfway down the page and continuing on to the subsequent one
  • A facsimile of this excerpt in Bahá’u’lláh’s handwriting, taken from page 162 of Ḥadíqiy-i-‘Irfán, is available here
  • An early rendering of the full Tablet into English, produced by Shoghi Effendi and published in Star of the West, is available here
  • The authorized English translation of the excerpt that was apparently revised for inclusion in The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh and used for this video can be found here

Further References