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Among these early effusions of the Pen of Glory is a lengthy epistle known as Javahiru'l-Asrar, meaning literally the "gems" or "essences" of mysteries. A number of themes it enunciates are also elaborated in Persian - through different revelatory modes - in the Seven Valleys and the Book of Certitude, those two immortal volumes which Shoghi Effendi has characterized, respectively, as Baha'u'llah's greatest mystical composition and His pre-eminent doctrinal work. Undoubtedly the Gems of Divine Mysteries figures among those "Tablets revealed in the Arabic tongue" which were referred to in the latter volume. [Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1994), p. 26] (1:3) One of the central themes of the book, Baha'u'llah indicates, is that of "transformation", meaning here the return of the Promised One in a different human guise. Indeed, in a prefatory note written above the opening lines of the original manuscript, Baha'u'llah states:
(1:4)
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