Immersing

“Immerse yourselves in the ocean of my words, that ye may unravel its secrets, and discover all the pearls of wisdom that lie hid in its depths.”

اغتمسوا في بحر بياني لعلّ تطّلعون بما فيه من لئالئ الهکمة و الاسرار

Immersing is the record of one individual Bahá’í’s exploration of the Writings in their original languages. It should be read and understood as such.

The author is a native English speaker with limited proficiency in Arabic and Persian. He is not a scholar and cannot be considered an expert in the Bahá’í writings. Any translations provided should be considered provisional in nature and are for informational purposes only. They are not meant to supplant or improve upon any other translations, authoritative or otherwise.

That said, the author is a student of translation, and recognizes that no translation, however faithful to the original, can capture all the nuances of meaning contained therein. Therefore, consulting the original texts, even in the presence of an authoritative English translation, can still be fruitful, and should not be seen as implying that the translations are deficient, but rather that translation itself is by nature limited.

This is why Shoghi Effendi refers to his translation of the Kitáb-i-Íqán as

one more attempt to introduce to the West, in language however inadequate, this book of unsurpassed pre-eminence among the writings of the Author of the Bahá’í Revelation…that it may assist others in their efforts to approach what must always be regarded as the unattainable goal – a befitting rendering of Bahá’u'lláh’s matchless utterance.