This verse is divided into 6 parts.
The Haddad translation of Part 2 is as follows:
Some of them who claim inward knowledge and pretend to understand divine mysteries, say to them: “O liars, by God, what ye have is indeed naught save husks which we have abandoned to you, as bones are abandoned to the dogs.”
Critique : This verse degrades the Almighty God as it portrays an extremely haughty picture of the merciful God. God can censure and punish someone who misuses His bounties, but definitely He is too High to degrade and insult someone. Undoubtedly all honour belongs to God but it is an extremely unhonourable thing to grant and also bad mouth the receiver. Such verses which compare the grants of God to humans to as bones left to Dogs, prove without doubt that these are the words of a mortal haughty man. The Divine and honourable God can never insult the recipients of his bounties in such a debased manner.
The Part 3 and 4 is as follows:
By God, the truth, should anyone wash the feet of the people of the world and worship God in thickets and narrow foot-paths, and upon the summits and tops of mountains and hills, and in the neighborhood of every stone, clod or tree – all the scent of My good pleasure does not emanate from him. This is what hath been decreed by the Lord of mankind.
How many servants secluded themselves on the Indian Isles, and deprived themselves of that which God hath sanctioned, and underwent mortifications and hardships and yet were not accepted by God, the revealer of the signs.
Critique 1: These parts mention about those who worship God by depriving themselves of that which is sanctioned by God. It states that all that hardship in worship does not make a person emanate the scent of divine pleasure. Thus, the path of the Christian Priests, the Muslim Sufis and the Indian Saints are all rejected in one go. In fact, the Indian Saints receive a special negative remembrance in this so-called Holy book. If the path of leaving the worldly pleasures for the sake of worship is indeed wrong then shouldn’t the Baha’is strongly keep on condemning it? But we see that the Baha’is never highlight their opposition to the approaches found in the Christian, Muslim and Hindu cultures. They on the contrary, invite the Christian priests, the Muslim Sufis as well as the Hindu saints to their all religion conferences and try to project an image of a faith which tolerates all differing views. Like hypocrites they never use this verse to propagate against the practices of those who follow the path of leaving the worldly pleasures.
Critique 2: While this verse talks against leaving the sanctioned worldly pleasures, verse 3 of this misguided book says: Were any man to taste the sweetness of the words which the lips of the All- Merciful have willed to utter, he would, though the treasures of the earth be in his possession, renounce them one and all, that he might vindicate the truth of even one of His commandments. The common Baha’is are now confused whether to get divine pleasure by leaving the treasures of the earth as commanded in verse 3, or to get divine pleasure by not leaving the treasures as commanded in verse 36. Those who tread the path of falsehood always end up in contradiction and confusion!
