A new video of Praised be my Lord, the Most High has been uploaded to the Windflower Readings YouTube channel. Praised be my Lord, the Most High is one of a group of Baha’u’llah’s works that centres on the activities of the houri, a celestial woman who symbolises the Divine and is the source of Baha’u’llah’s inspiration.
Praised be my Lord, the Most High is a 47-verse prose poem by Baha’u’llah. It has not been officially translated and is, therefore, largely unknown. It was first translated by Juan Cole in 1999, which was how I found out about it. Later on, when I was writing my book, I decided to use the phrase “paradise of presence,” which features in verse 43 of the poem, as the title for my book. I also decided to prepare my own translation of the poem and present it as the reading for chapter 17.
The Windflower Readings YouTube channel features readings of Baha’u’llah’s writings, English translations of which were done by private individuals. Many Baha’i channels feature only the official translations. This is a pity because many good translations by individuals are available, and they contribute much to our general understanding of the revelation. My Windflower Translations Library collection has over 40 of them, and has links to other collections as well.
Currently, the Windflower Readings channel features 35 videos of various readings. Now that my book is published, I plan to produce more videos for the channel. To this end, I have uploaded a video of me reading my translation of Praised be my Lord, the Most High. I have already recorded Juan’s translation of it, which means the channel now has two videos of the poem, with different translations. Unlike the earlier video, this new one has no background music. I have decided to move away from using background music because some listeners complained that it was distracting.
Praised be my Lord, the Most High is a houri tablet. This means that it is one of a group of Baha’u’llah’s works that centres on the activities of the houri, a celestial woman who symbolises the Divine and is the source of Baha’u’llah’s inspiration. In style and content, the poem is similar to Tablet of the Wondrous Maiden, which appears in the Ridvan section of Days of Remembrance. Tablet of the Wondrous Maiden is a poem about the houri making a grand entrance in paradise and overwhelming everyone with her striking beauty and power. It describes how she goes about destroying and then resurrecting creation in preparation for Baha’u’llah’s new and revolutionary revelation.
Praised be my Lord, the Most High is the same in all these respects. However, it is longer and therefore offers the reader even more dazzling images of the houri’s appearance and stunning accounts of her almighty abilities. The poem also contains an introductory section, verses 1-13, in which Baha’u’llah invites the reader to leave the physical world and accompany him up into paradise, where he takes the reader on a guided tour, pointing out its wondrous delights.
The rest of the poem describes what the houri gets up to. It emphasizes the houri’s unlimited powers and her authority and influence over creation. She does not restrict her behavior so as to conform to outdated laws; she establishes her own standards of what is acceptable. For example, she openly flouts Islamic conventions designed to control the appearance and conduct of women, such as by removing her veil and showing her hair, and she serves wine. All these actions symbolize how the new divine reality that she represents will challenge and ultimately tear down the world’s existing social norms and replace them with far better ones.
I have devoted an entire chapter of my book to a discussion of the houri and her importance to Baha’u’llah and his writings. The chapter is called The Story of the Divine Houri, and is available to read online.