and its followers were accused of misbelief, when
the Companions of Muhammad were denounced as
repudiators of God and as followers of a lying sorcerer.
In its early days, when Islam was still to
outward seeming devoid of authority and power,
the friends of the Prophet, who had turned their
face toward God, wherever they went, were harassed,
persecuted, stoned and vilified. At such a
time this blessed verse was sent down from the
heaven of divine Revelation. It revealed an irrefutable
evidence, and brought the light of an unfailing
guidance. It instructed the companions of
&Muhammad to declare the following unto the infidels
and idolators: "Ye oppress and persecute us,
and yet, what else have we done except that we
have believed in God and in the verses sent down
unto us through the tongue of Muhammad, and
in those which descended upon the Prophets of
old?" By this is meant that their only guilt was
to have recognized that the new and wondrous
verses of God, which had descended upon Muhammad,
as well as those which had been revealed
unto the Prophets of old, were all of God, and to
have acknowledged and embraced their truth.
This is the testimony which the divine King hath
taught His servants.
