To Him Muhammad, the Apostle of God, had alluded in His Book
as the “Great Announcement,” and declared His Day to be the Day whereon “God”
will “come down” “overshadowed with clouds,” the Day whereon “thy Lord shall
come and the angels rank on rank,” and “The Spirit shall arise and the angels
shall be ranged in order.” His advent He, in that Book, in a súrih said to have
been termed by Him “the heart of the Qur’án,” had foreshadowed as that of the
“third” Messenger, sent down to “strengthen” the two who preceded Him. To His
Day He, in the pages of that same Book, had paid a glowing tribute, glorifying
it as the “Great Day,” the “Last Day,” the “Day of God,” the “Day of Judgment,”
the “Day of Reckoning,” the “Day of Mutual Deceit,” the “Day of Severing,” the
“Day of Sighing,” the “Day of Meeting,” the Day “when the Decree shall be
accomplished,” the Day whereon the second “Trumpet blast” will be sounded, the
“Day when mankind shall stand before the Lord of the world,” and “all shall
come to Him in humble guise,” the Day when “thou shalt see the mountains, which
thou thinkest so firm, pass away with the passing of a cloud,” the Day “wherein
account shall be taken,” “the approaching Day, when men’s hearts shall rise up,
choking them, into their throats,” the Day when “all that are in the heavens
and all that are on the earth shall be terror-stricken, save him whom God
pleaseth to deliver,” the Day whereon “every suckling woman shall forsake her
sucking babe, and every woman that hath a burden in her womb shall cast her
burden,” the Day “when the earth shall shine with the light of her Lord, and
the Book shall be set, and the Prophets shall be brought up, and the witnesses;
and judgment shall be given between them with equity; and none shall be
wronged.”
- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
