The Kitáb-i-Aqdas
Notes
Notes
1.the sweet-smelling savour of My garment ¶4
This is an allusion to the story of Joseph in the Qur’án and the Old Testament, in which Joseph’s garment, brought by his brothers to Jacob, their father, enabled Jacob to identify his beloved long-lost son. The metaphor of the fragrant “garment” is frequently used in the Bahá’í Writings to refer to the recognition of the Manifestation of God and His Revelation.
Bahá’u’lláh, in one of His Tablets, describes Himself as the “Divine Joseph” Who has been “bartered away” by the heedless “for the most paltry of prices”. The Báb, in the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá, identifies Bahá’u’lláh as the “true Joseph” and forecasts the ordeals that He would endure at the hands of His treacherous brother (see note 190). Likewise, Shoghi Effendi draws a parallel between the intense jealousy which the preeminence of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had aroused in His half-brother, Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí, and the deadly envy “which the superior excellence of Joseph had kindled in the hearts of his brothers”.
2.We have unsealed the choice Wine with the fingers of might and power. ¶5
The consumption of wine and other intoxicants is prohibited in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas (see notes 144 and 170).
Reference to the use of “wine” in an allegorical sense—such as being the cause of spiritual ecstasy—is found, not only in the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, but in the Bible, in the Qur’án, and in ancient Hindu traditions.
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