four pillars
Editorial introduction
Four stations: divinity, prophethood, sanctification, servitude. Four aspects of a single name. Four essences, directions, streams, and days. Four pillars of religion in the Báb’s early writing, unity, prophethood, guardianship, and the community of the faithful, each gate unsound without the last. The number keeps returning, and the temptation is to treat it as a master key. The Writings themselves ask for something slower: each fourfold pattern organises a different field, some are explained, one is openly debated among learned men, and one belongs to a mystical language of the Point and the letters that circle it. Held apart, the patterns become a real question about how sacred order helps memory and contemplation, and about what further study a symbol needs before it can be interpreted. The foursquare city of Revelation, measured with its twelve gates and foundations, shows another tradition giving holiness a numbered shape [1]. From here the path leads back into Islam, where the Báb’s pillars have their roots, into the person of Muḥammad, and into the degrees of divine unity that the first pillar, tawḥíd, names.
The first station is the station of Divinity; the second is the station of Prophethood or Manifestation; the third is the station of Sanctification and the fourth is the station of Servitude."
And to this refereth the words of Ali, who said: "Verily, the learned differ in their knowledge of that which is neither manifest nor hidden." The ways of expressing this matter differ according to the degrees, for in the first day it was the Word of Unity. Then, when the causes of the greater world had matured, God made it the Word of Prophethood. Then, when the station of religion was established thereby, God made it the station of Divine Authority. And verily it hath a station that shall be made manifest in the hidden pillar of the Word that was revealed in the tradition of its wisdom. And if thou wilt observe with the eye of reality the secret of existence, thou wilt witness the decree of the four pillars in the Perfect Word. Therefore did the Imam say, when asked by one of the Christians about the Most Great Name: "I shall tell thee of all four. As for the first, it is 'There is no God but God, alone with no partner, the Everlasting.' The second is 'Muhammad is the Messenger of God, the sincere one.' The third is 'We are the Family of the House.' And the fourth is 'Our followers are from us, and we are from the Messenger of God, and the Messenger of God is from God.'"
It can be read from four points - the same "Baha" - One is the station of Identity, - one of Qualities or Attributes - the third the Name, the fourth Deeds or Function, because everything contains Identity, Attributes, Qualities, Name or Function - it gives Light.
So, the four essences, four directions, four streams, four streets, four stations and four days are much mentioned in the words of the ancestors and those who lived in former times. When on the fourth day, the sun, the star of the fourth heaven, faces the fourth station, every one who is godly will return to God and every one who is ungodly will return to the Evil One.
Having understood this noble premise, know that this upright religion also has four pillars: The first pillar is Unity (Tawhid), the second is Prophethood, the third is Guardianship, and the fourth is the Shi'a.
Haji Murtada has written that however much we studied the books, we could not find the source of the Fourth Pillar except in the book of some Indian person who wrote "The Fourth Pillar is in the impurities..."
None hath ever attained to the true understanding of that Word as it truly is. From but a single point thereof hath appeared the knowledge of all the first and the last. He is the Dawning-Place of the divine Books, the Day-spring of the revelation of the Lord of Oneness, and the Source of divine laws and ordinances. His are the four pillars, in each pillar lie hidden mysteries and treasured bounties.
Know thou, that true knowledge cannot be attained save by means of four pillars. Say, after these words of the prayer: O my God, make me to know the Door of Thy Proof; for if Thou makest me not to know the Door of Thy Proof, I shall go astray from my religion. Glorified be God! Praise be unto God! There is no God but God! God is the Most Great! The Hidden Name hath now appeared, arrayed in a concealed vesture, upon the horizon of manifestation through the light of the unseen.
And verily religion is established upon four pillars: the unity of God [al-tawhid], the reality of prophethood [al-nubuwwa], the succession of authority [al-walaya], and the community of followers [al-shi'a]: four gates, the first of which cannot be sound without the last.
For We built the House upon four pillars - the four supports for the people of the quaternary. And for the people of Unity, the essence of Oneness. And for the people of the First, a corner in the form of glorification, dyed with the dye of Unity unto God, the Eternal, the Glorious, in the color of whiteness. And a corner upon the temple of magnification, dyed with the dye of Prophethood in the color of yellowness. And a corner upon the form of the declaration "There is no god but God," dyed with Guardianship upon the letters of that declaration, colored with the color of green. And a corner upon the image of "God is Most Great," dyed with the beauty of saturation for the family of God, bearing the declaration, reddened with the redness of crimson.
Praise be to God Who created the Point and appointed for it four pillars, and brought forth from the first pillar an Alif which spoke of its own self and circled round it, being the mirror reflecting it in the station of Oneness, wherein the believers profess His unity, the sincere ones glorify Him, and those nigh unto God proclaim that He is God, there is none other God but Him, the All-Knowing, the One. And from its second pillar He manifested that same Form in another station, and shed upon it the lights shining forth from His Most Great Horizon, whereupon it called out, turned towards Him, arose in the station of multiplicity, and proclaimed that verily there is none other God but Him, the Mighty, the Bestower. … And from its third pillar He brought forth another Alif and made it the Dawning-Place of His most exalted attributes, and it proclaimed that verily there is none other God but Him, the Mighty, the All-Knowing. And from its fourth pillar He manifested that which reflected the first, third and second pillars, and it proclaimed in this station that He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden, there is none other God but Him, the Mighty, the Peerless.
For thought and discussion