Kitáb-i-Íqán

Now that this subject has been clearly elucidated, we will submit that the present state of progress in the world necessitates the most great manifestation.

While His Holiness Bahá'u'lláh resided in Baghdad, the first book revealed by him was Kitáb-i-Íqán, which is the key to unlock the seals of the heavenly books.

It comprehends the realities revealed in Holy Writ.

By it, the doors of the understanding of prophetic words were opened to the faces of the people of Bahá.

From 1869 to 1892, through periods of alternative kindness and severity on the part of the local authorities and according to the often interested instructions of the Wali of Beirut or the orders from Constantinople, Bahá'u'lláh employed all his time in writing the greater part of his doctrinal works.

Up to this point, except the Book of Iqan, written by him at Baghdad, he had only spread his teaching by means of letters to his distant disciples and to those who applied to him for the solution of metaphysical or ethical problems.

Now, under the form of short treatises dictated to those around him, especially to his sons, he brought to light the principles of morals and of sociology which were to be the rules of the future city and to lead man towards a new stage of progress.

Amongst these are to be found the Most Holy Book, the Book of the Testament, etc., and many other writings.