Yá 'Aliyyu'l-A'lá

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MEMORANDUM

Ya 'Aliyyu'l-A'la

The Research Department has located the invocation "Ya 'Aliyyu'l-A'la" in two places. It appears in a Tablet of 'Abdu'l-Baha on page 312 of "Selections from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Baha" (Haifa: Baha'i World Centre, 1982), and in a letter of the beloved Guardian found in "Messages to the Baha'i World, 1950-1957" (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1971), page 153. The spelling used by the Guardian is given above, and accords with the system of transliteration which he established (found in any volume of "The Baha'i World"). We note that the rendering printed in "Selections from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Baha" contains a misplaced inverted comma.

The translation of "Ya 'Aliyyu'l-A'la", as rendered by Shoghi Effendi in 1921 when he translated the above mentioned Tablet of 'Abdu'l-Baha, is "O Thou Most High".¹ We note that in his letter of 1953, also referenced above, he chose to leave "Ya 'Aliyyu'l-A'la" in the original language, as did the Universal House of Justice when they later published the Master's Tablet in "Selections from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Baha".

In Islamic tradition, al-'Ali, "The Most High One", is one of the names of God.² Thus, a· Muslim might use "Ya 'Aliyyu'l-A'la" to call upon God. However, in Babi and Baha'i tradition, especially as 'Ali was the Bab's name, "Ya 'Aliyyu'l•A'la" is understood to be an invocation to the Bab.

1. See "Star of the West", vol. 12, no. 13, 4 November 1921, p. 229.
2. See Robert Stade, "Ninety-Nine Names of God in Islam", a translation of the major portion of Al-Ghazali's "Al-Maqsad Al-Asna" (Ibadan, Nigeria: Daystar Press, 1970), pp. 72-75.

2. Scan of original document (name redacted, original on file)