Quddús, the Forever Youth laughs:
So along came they
to tear down My grave
and Me up along with it.
I wish I had a hundred such plots
so they could desecrate them all.
I’d say, ‘Look, there’s the hundred and first!’
and off they’d scurry to dig that one up too.
And then He laughs again.
But I know whereof He speaks.
It is a place of mystery
yet a spot of clarity,
the conundrum at the crux of a knot.
There the worldly are lost, the dead live on,
and the living, while living are yet dead.
It whispers: how do I empty the blood from my veins
so that His flows there, instead?
Quddús is one of the Letters of the Living, a group of 18 individuals who were the first to believe in the Báb, the Prophet-Herald of the Bahá’í Faith. Their role in the history of the Bahá’í Faith is somewhat analogous to the role of the Apostles of Jesus Christ in the history of Christianity.
Quddús was both the last and the youngest of the Letters of the Living, but not withstanding this is one of the most heralded because of His erudition, faith, leadership and courage. He was martyred at Shaykh Tabarsi, a small fort in the state of Mazandarin in Iran, where a small handful of untrained people—clerics and students for the most part—for over seven months held off and often routed several regiments of crack troops, all while under the most dire of situations, only to be betrayed at the end by lies of safety.
Special prayers of visitation are revealed by Bahá’u’lláh, the founder of the Bahá’í Faith, for recitation when visiting the Grave of Quddús. Unfortunately in 2004, this Site was desecrated and destroyed by the the twin forces of the Iranian government and orthodox religious leaders, an early step in the campaign that blossomed to further persecute the Bahá’í Faith in that sad state and fanatical country. While the Bahá’ís the world around were shocked and saddened by this sacrilegious and disgusting act, a small part of me was amazed that after 170 years Quddús still had the power to raise the government’s and entrenched ecclesiastic’s fears.
Thank you for reading The knowledge of graves. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed it and I humbly appreciate your visiting the Book of Pain. As always, I look forward to your comments.
john
© 2013 by John Etheridge; all rights reserved. This poem, either alone or with the notes that accompany it, may be printed and distributed—in part or amalgamated with other works—as long as the copyright notice and the address, https://bookofpain.wordpress.com, are also clearly printed with it and there is no fee charged.
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