All praise and honor be to the Dayspring of Divine wisdom, the
Dawning Point of Revelation (Muhammad), and to the holy line of His
descendants, since, by the widespread rays of His consummate wisdom, His
universal knowledge, those savage denizens of Yathrib (Medina) and Bathá
(Mecca), miraculously, and in so brief a time, were drawn out of the depths of
their ignorance, rose up to the pinnacles of learning, and became centers of
arts and sciences and human perfections, and stars of felicity and true
civilization, shining across the horizons of the world.
(‘Abdu’l-Baha, ‘The
Secret of Divine Civilization’)
