God Passes By Part 7

By the following day the Deputy-Governor had delivered to Baha'u'llah in a mosque, in the neighborhood of the governor's house, 'Ali Pa_sh_a's letter, addressed to Namiq Pa_sh_a, couched in courteous language, inviting Baha'u'llah to proceed, as a guest of the Ottoman government, to Constantinople, placing a sum of money at His disposal, and ordering a mounted escort to accompany Him for His protection. To this request Baha'u'llah gave His ready a.s.sent, but declined to accept the sum offered Him. On the urgent representations of the Deputy that such a refusal would offend the authorities, He reluctantly consented to receive the generous allowance set aside for His use, and distributed it, that same day, among the poor.

The effect upon the colony of exiles of this sudden intelligence was instantaneous and overwhelming. "That day," wrote an eyewitness, describing the reaction of the community to the news of Baha'u'llah's approaching departure, "witnessed a commotion a.s.sociated with the turmoil of the Day of Resurrection. Methinks, the very gates and walls of the city wept aloud at their imminent separation from the Abha Beloved. The first night mention was made of His intended departure His loved ones, one and all, renounced both sleep and food.... Not a soul amongst them could be tranquillized. Many had resolved that in the event of their being deprived of the bounty of accompanying Him, they would, without hesitation, kill themselves.... Gradually, however, through the words which He addressed them, and through His exhortations and His loving-kindness, they were calmed and resigned themselves to His good-pleasure." For every one of them, whether Arab or Persian, man or woman, child or adult, who lived in Ba_gh_dad, He revealed during those days, in His own hand, a separate Tablet. In most of these Tablets He predicted the appearance of the "Calf"

and of the "Birds of the Night," allusions to those who, as antic.i.p.ated in the Tablet of the Holy Mariner, and foreshadowed in the dream quoted above, were to raise the standard of rebellion and precipitate the gravest crisis in the history of the Faith.

Twenty-seven days after that mournful Tablet had been so unexpectedly revealed by Baha'u'llah, and the fateful communication, presaging His departure to Constantinople had been delivered into His hands, on a Wednesday afternoon (April 22, 1863), thirty-one days after Naw-Ruz, on the third of _Dh_i'l-Qadih, 1279 A.H., He set forth on the first stage of His four months' journey to the capital of the Ottoman Empire. That historic day, forever after designated as the first day of the Ridvan Festival, the culmination of innumerable farewell visits which friends and acquaintances of every cla.s.s and denomination, had been paying him, was one the like of which the inhabitants of Ba_gh_dad had rarely beheld. A concourse of people of both s.e.xes and of every age, comprising friends and strangers Arabs, Kurds and Persians, notables and clerics, officials and merchants, as well as many of the lower cla.s.ses, the poor, the orphaned, the outcast, some surprised, others heartbroken, many tearful and apprehensive, a few impelled by curiosity or secret satisfaction, thronged the approaches of His house, eager to catch a final glimpse of One Who, for a decade, had, through precept and example, exercised so potent an influence on so large a number of the heterogeneous inhabitants of their city.

Leaving for the last time, amidst weeping and lamentation, His "Most Holy Habitation," out of which had "gone forth the breath of the All-Glorious,"

and from which had poured forth, in "ceaseless strains," the "melody of the All-Merciful," and dispensing on His way with a lavish hand a last alms to the poor He had so faithfully befriended, and uttering words of comfort to the disconsolate who besought Him on every side, He, at length, reached the banks of the river, and was ferried across, accompanied by His sons and amanuensis, to the Najibiyyih Garden, situated on the opposite sh.o.r.e. "O My companions," He thus addressed the faithful band that surrounded Him before He embarked, "I entrust to your keeping this city of Ba_gh_dad, in the state ye now behold it, when from the eyes of friends and strangers alike, crowding its housetops, its streets and markets, tears like the rain of spring are flowing down, and I depart. With you it now rests to watch lest your deeds and conduct dim the flame of love that gloweth within the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of its inhabitants."

The muezzin had just raised the afternoon call to prayer when Baha'u'llah entered the Najibiyyih Garden, where He tarried twelve days before His final departure from the city. There His friends and companions, arriving in successive waves, attained His presence and bade Him, with feelings of profound sorrow, their last farewell. Outstanding among them was the renowned alusi, the Mufti of Ba_gh_dad, who, with eyes dimmed with tears, execrated the name of Na?iri'd-Din _Sh_ah, whom he deemed to be primarily responsible for so unmerited a banishment. "I have ceased to regard him,"

he openly a.s.serted, "as Na?iri'd-Din (the helper of the Faith), but consider him rather to be its wrecker." Another distinguished visitor was the governor himself, Namiq Pa_sh_a, who, after expressing in the most respectful terms his regret at the developments which had precipitated Baha'u'llah's departure, and a.s.suring Him of his readiness to aid Him in any way he could, handed to the officer appointed to accompany Him a written order, commanding the governors of the provinces through which the exiles would be pa.s.sing to extend to them the utmost consideration.

"Whatever you require," he, after profuse apologies, informed Baha'u'llah, "you have but to command. We are ready to carry it out." "Extend thy consideration to Our loved ones," was the reply to his insistent and reiterated offers, "and deal with them with kindness"-a request to which he gave his warm and unhesitating a.s.sent.

Small wonder that, in the face of so many evidences of deep-seated devotion, sympathy and esteem, so strikingly manifested by high and low alike, from the time Baha'u'llah announced His contemplated journey to the day of His departure from the Najibiyyih Garden-small wonder that those who had so tirelessly sought to secure the order for His banishment, and had rejoiced at the success of their efforts, should now have bitterly regretted their act. "Such hath been the interposition of G.o.d,"

'Abdu'l-Baha, in a letter written by Him from that garden, with reference to these enemies, affirms, "that the joy evinced by them hath been turned to chagrin and sorrow, so much so that the Persian consul-general in Ba_gh_dad regrets exceedingly the plans and plots the schemers had devised. Namiq Pa_sh_a himself, on the day he called on Him (Baha'u'llah) stated: 'Formerly they insisted upon your departure. Now, however, they are even more insistent that you should remain.'"

Chapter IX: The Declaration of Baha'u'llah's Mission and His Journey to Constantinople

The arrival of Baha'u'llah in the Najibiyyih Garden, subsequently designated by His followers the Garden of Ridvan, signalizes the commencement of what has come to be recognized as the holiest and most significant of all Baha'i festivals, the festival commemorating the Declaration of His Mission to His companions. So momentous a Declaration may well be regarded both as the logical consummation of that revolutionizing process which was initiated by Himself upon His return from Sulaymaniyyih, and as a prelude to the final proclamation of that same Mission to the world and its rulers from Adrianople.

Through that solemn act the "delay," of no less than a decade, divinely interposed between the birth of Baha'u'llah's Revelation in the Siyah-_Ch_al and its announcement to the Bab's disciples, was at long last terminated. The "set time of concealment," during which as He Himself has borne witness, the "signs and tokens of a divinely-appointed Revelation"

were being showered upon Him, was fulfilled. The "myriad veils of light,"

within which His glory had been wrapped, were, at that historic hour, partially lifted, vouchsafing to mankind "an infinitesimal glimmer" of the effulgence of His "peerless, His most sacred and exalted Countenance." The "thousand two hundred and ninety days," fixed by Daniel in the last chapter of His Book, as the duration of the "abomination that maketh desolate" had now elapsed. The "hundred lunar years," destined to immediately precede that blissful consummation (1335 days), announced by Daniel in that same chapter, had commenced. The nineteen years, const.i.tuting the first "Vahid," preordained in the Persian Bayan by the pen of the Bab, had been completed. The Lord of the Kingdom, Jesus Christ returned in the glory of the Father, was about to ascend His throne, and a.s.sume the sceptre of a world-embracing, indestructible sovereignty. The community of the Most Great Name, the "companions of the Crimson Colored Ark," lauded in glowing terms in the Qayyumu'l-Asma, had visibly emerged.

The Bab's own prophecy regarding the "Ridvan," the scene of the unveiling of Baha'u'llah's transcendent glory, had been literally fulfilled.

Undaunted by the prospect of the appalling adversities which, as predicted by Himself, were soon to overtake Him; on the eve of a second banishment which would be fraught with many hazards and perils, and would bring Him still farther from His native land, the cradle of His Faith, to a country alien in race, in language and in culture; acutely conscious of the extension of the circle of His adversaries, among whom were soon to be numbered a monarch more despotic than Na?iri'd-Din _Sh_ah, and ministers no less unyielding in their hostility than either ?aji Mirza Aqasi or the Amir-Nizam; undeterred by the perpetual interruptions occasioned by the influx of a host of visitors who thronged His tent, Baha'u'llah chose in that critical and seemingly unpropitious hour to advance so challenging a claim, to lay bare the mystery surrounding His person, and to a.s.sume, in their plenitude, the power and the authority which were the exclusive privileges of the One Whose advent the Bab had prophesied.

Already the shadow of that great oncoming event had fallen upon the colony of exiles, who awaited expectantly its consummation. As the year "eighty"

steadily and inexorably approached, He Who had become the real leader of that community increasingly experienced, and progressively communicated to His future followers, the onrus.h.i.+ng influences of its informing force. The festive, the soul-entrancing odes which He revealed almost every day; the Tablets, replete with hints, which streamed from His pen; the allusions which, in private converse and public discourse, He made to the approaching hour; the exaltation which in moments of joy and sadness alike flooded His soul; the ecstasy which filled His lovers, already enraptured by the multiplying evidences of His rising greatness and glory; the perceptible change noted in His demeanor; and finally, His adoption of the taj (tall felt head-dress), on the day of His departure from His Most Holy House-all proclaimed unmistakably His imminent a.s.sumption of the prophetic office and of His open leaders.h.i.+p of the community of the Bab's followers.

"Many a night," writes Nabil, depicting the tumult that had seized the hearts of Baha'u'llah's companions, in the days prior to the declaration of His mission, "would Mirza aqa Jan gather them together in his room, close the door, light numerous camphorated candles, and chant aloud to them the newly revealed odes and Tablets in his possession. Wholly oblivious of this contingent world, completely immersed in the realms of the spirit, forgetful of the necessity for food, sleep or drink, they would suddenly discover that night had become day, and that the sun was approaching its zenith."

Of the exact circ.u.mstances attending that epoch-making Declaration we, alas, are but scantily informed. The words Baha'u'llah actually uttered on that occasion, the manner of His Declaration, the reaction it produced, its impact on Mirza Ya?ya, the ident.i.ty of those who were privileged to hear Him, are shrouded in an obscurity which future historians will find it difficult to penetrate. The fragmentary description left to posterity by His chronicler Nabil is one of the very few authentic records we possess of the memorable days He spent in that garden. "Every day," Nabil has related, "ere the hour of dawn, the gardeners would pick the roses which lined the four avenues of the garden, and would pile them in the center of the floor of His blessed tent. So great would be the heap that when His companions gathered to drink their morning tea in His presence, they would be unable to see each other across it. All these roses Baha'u'llah would, with His own hands, entrust to those whom He dismissed from His presence every morning to be delivered, on His behalf, to His Arab and Persian friends in the city." "One night," he continues, "the ninth night of the waxing moon, I happened to be one of those who watched beside His blessed tent. As the hour of midnight approached, I saw Him issue from His tent, pa.s.s by the places where some of His companions were sleeping, and begin to pace up and down the moonlit, flower-bordered avenues of the garden. So loud was the singing of the nightingales on every side that only those who were near Him could hear distinctly His voice. He continued to walk until, pausing in the midst of one of these avenues, He observed: 'Consider these nightingales. So great is their love for these roses, that sleepless from dusk till dawn, they warble their melodies and commune with burning pa.s.sion with the object of their adoration. How then can those who claim to be afire with the rose-like beauty of the Beloved choose to sleep?' For three successive nights I watched and circled round His blessed tent. Every time I pa.s.sed by the couch whereon He lay, I would find Him wakeful, and every day, from morn till eventide, I would see Him ceaselessly engaged in conversing with the stream of visitors who kept flowing in from Ba_gh_dad. Not once could I discover in the words He spoke any trace of dissimulation."

As to the significance of that Declaration let Baha'u'llah Himself reveal to us its import. Acclaiming that historic occasion as the "Most Great Festival," the "King of Festivals," the "Festival of G.o.d," He has, in His Kitab-i-Aqdas, characterized it as the Day whereon "all created things were immersed in the sea of purification," whilst in one of His specific Tablets, He has referred to it as the Day whereon "the breezes of forgiveness were wafted over the entire creation." "Rejoice, with exceeding gladness, O people of Baha!", He, in another Tablet, has written, "as ye call to remembrance the Day of supreme felicity, the Day whereon the Tongue of the Ancient of Days hath spoken, as He departed from His House proceeding to the Spot from which He shed upon the whole of creation the splendors of His Name, the All-Merciful... Were We to reveal the hidden secrets of that Day, all that dwell on earth and in the heavens would swoon away and die, except such as will be preserved by G.o.d, the Almighty, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise. Such is the inebriating effect of the words of G.o.d upon the Revealer of His undoubted proofs that His pen can move no longer." And again: "The Divine Springtime is come, O Most Exalted Pen, for the Festival of the All-Merciful is fast approaching....

The Day-Star of Blissfulness s.h.i.+neth above the horizon of Our Name, the Blissful, inasmuch as the Kingdom of the Name of G.o.d hath been adorned with the ornament of the Name of Thy Lord, the Creator of the heavens....

Take heed lest anything deter Thee from extolling the greatness of this Day-the Day whereon the Finger of Majesty and Power hath opened the seal of the Wine of Reunion, and called all who are in the heavens and all who are on earth.... This is the Day whereon the unseen world crieth out: 'Great is thy blessedness, O earth, for thou hast been made the footstool of thy G.o.d, and been chosen as the seat of His mighty throne' ...Say ...

He it is Who hath laid bare before you the hidden and treasured Gem, were ye to seek it. He it is who is the One Beloved of all things, whether of the past or of the future." And yet again: "Arise, and proclaim unto the entire creation the tidings that He who is the All-Merciful hath directed His steps towards the Ridvan and entered it. Guide, then, the people unto the Garden of Delight which G.o.d hath made the Throne of His Paradise...

Within this Paradise, and from the heights of its loftiest chambers, the Maids of Heaven have cried out and shouted: 'Rejoice, ye dwellers of the realms above, for the fingers of Him Who is the Ancient of Days are ringing, in the name of the All-Glorious, the Most Great Bell, in the midmost heart of the heavens. The hands of bounty have borne round the cups of everlasting life. Approach, and quaff your fill.'" And finally: "Forget the world of creation, O Pen, and turn Thou towards the face of Thy Lord, the Lord of all names. Adorn, then, the world with the ornament of the favors of Thy Lord, the King of everlasting days. For We perceive the fragrance of the Day whereon He Who is the Desire of all nations hath shed upon the kingdoms of the unseen and of the seen the splendors of the light of His most excellent names, and enveloped them with the radiance of the luminaries of His most gracious favors, favors which none can reckon except Him Who is the Omnipotent Protector of the entire creation."

The departure of Baha'u'llah from the Garden of Ridvan, at noon, on the 14th of _Dh_i'l-Qadih 1279 A.H. (May 3, 1863), witnessed scenes of tumultuous enthusiasm no less spectacular, and even more touching, than those which greeted Him when leaving His Most Great House in Ba_gh_dad.

"The great tumult," wrote an eyewitness, "a.s.sociated in our minds with the Day of Gathering, the Day of Judgment, we beheld on that occasion.

Believers and unbelievers alike sobbed and lamented. The chiefs and notables who had congregated were struck with wonder. Emotions were stirred to such depths as no tongue can describe, nor could any observer escape their contagion."

Mounted on His steed, a red roan stallion of the finest breed, the best His lovers could purchase for Him, and leaving behind Him a bowing mult.i.tude of fervent admirers, He rode forth on the first stage of a journey that was to carry Him to the city of Constantinople. "Numerous were the heads," Nabil himself a witness of that memorable scene, recounts, "which, on every side, bowed to the dust at the feet of His horse, and kissed its hoofs, and countless were those who pressed forward to embrace His stirrups." "How great the number of those embodiments of fidelity," testifies a fellow-traveler, "who, casting themselves before that charger, preferred death to separation from their Beloved! Methinks, that blessed steed trod upon the bodies of those pure-hearted souls." "He (G.o.d) it was," Baha'u'llah Himself declares, "Who enabled Me to depart out of the city (Ba_gh_dad), clothed with such majesty as none, except the denier and the malicious, can fail to acknowledge." These marks of homage and devotion continued to surround Him until He was installed in Constantinople. Mirza Ya?ya, while hurrying on foot, by his own choice, behind Baha'u'llah's carriage, on the day of His arrival in that city, was overheard by Nabil to remark to Siyyid Mu?ammad: "Had I not chosen to hide myself, had I revealed my ident.i.ty, the honor accorded Him (Baha'u'llah) on this day would have been mine too."

The same tokens of devotion shown Baha'u'llah at the time of His departure from His House, and later from the Garden of Ridvan, were repeated when, on the 20th of _Dh_i'l-Qadih (May 9, 1863), accompanied by members of His family and twenty-six of His disciples, He left Firayjat, His first stopping-place in the course of that journey. A caravan, consisting of fifty mules, a mounted guard of ten soldiers with their officer, and seven pairs of howdahs, each pair surmounted by four parasols, was formed, and wended its way, by easy stages, and in the s.p.a.ce of no less than a hundred and ten days, across the uplands, and through the defiles, the woods, valleys and pastures, comprising the picturesque scenery of eastern Anatolia, to the port of Samsun, on the Black Sea. At times on horseback, at times resting in the howdah reserved for His use, and which was oftentimes surrounded by His companions, most of whom were on foot, He, by virtue of the written order of Namiq Pa_sh_a, was accorded, as He traveled northward, in the path of spring, an enthusiastic reception by the valis, the mutisarrifs, the qa'im-maqams, the mudirs, the _sh_ay_kh_s, the muftis and qadis, the government officials and notables belonging to the districts through which He pa.s.sed. In Karkuk, in Irbil, in Mosul, where He tarried three days, in Nisibin, in Mardin, in Diyar-Bakr, where a halt of a couple of days was made, in _Kh_arput, in Sivas, as well as in other villages and hamlets, He would be met by a delegation immediately before His arrival, and would be accompanied, for some distance, by a similar delegation upon His departure. The festivities which, at some stations, were held in His honor, the food the villagers prepared and brought for His acceptance, the eagerness which time and again they exhibited in providing the means for His comfort, recalled the reverence which the people of Ba_gh_dad had shown Him on so many occasions.

"As we pa.s.sed that morning through the town of Mardin," that same fellow-traveler relates, "we were preceded by a mounted escort of government soldiers, carrying their banners, and beating their drums in welcome. The mutisarrif, together with officials and notables, accompanied us, while men, women and children, crowding the housetops and filling the streets, awaited our arrival. With dignity and pomp we traversed that town, and resumed our journey, the mutisarrif and those with him escorting us for a considerable distance." "According to the unanimous testimony of those we met in the course of that journey," Nabil has recorded in his narrative, "never before had they witnessed along this route, over which governors and mu_sh_irs continually pa.s.sed back and forth between Constantinople and Ba_gh_dad, any one travel in such state, dispense such hospitality to all, and accord to each so great a share of his bounty."

Sighting from His howdah the Black Sea, as He approached the port of Samsun, Baha'u'llah, at the request of Mirza aqa Jan, revealed a Tablet, designated Law?-i-Hawdaj (Tablet of the Howdah), which by such allusions as the "Divine Touchstone," "the grievous and tormenting Mischief,"

reaffirmed and supplemented the dire predictions recorded in the recently revealed Tablet of the Holy Mariner.

In Samsun the Chief Inspector of the entire province, extending from Ba_gh_dad to Constantinople, accompanied by several pa_sh_as, called on Him, showed Him the utmost respect, and was entertained by Him at luncheon. But seven days after His arrival, He, as foreshadowed in the Tablet of the Holy Mariner, was put on board a Turkish steamer and three days later was disembarked, at noon, together with His fellow-exiles, at the port of Constantinople, on the first of Rabi'u'l-Avval 1280 A.H.

(August 16, 1863). In two special carriages, which awaited Him at the landing-stage He and His family drove to the house of _Sh_amsi Big, the official who had been appointed by the government to entertain its guests, and who lived in the vicinity of the _Kh_irqiy-i-_Sh_arif mosque. Later they were transferred to the more commodious house of Visi Pa_sh_a, in the neighborhood of the mosque of Sul?an Mu?ammad.

With the arrival of Baha'u'llah at Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire and seat of the Caliphate (acclaimed by the Mu?ammadans as "the Dome of Islam," but stigmatized by Him as the spot whereon the "throne of tyranny" had been established) the grimmest and most calamitous and yet the most glorious chapter in the history of the first Baha'i century may be said to have opened. A period in which untold privations and unprecedented trials were mingled with the n.o.blest spiritual triumphs was now commencing. The day-star of Baha'u'llah's ministry was about to reach its zenith. The most momentous years of the Heroic Age of His Dispensation were at hand. The catastrophic process, foreshadowed as far back as the year sixty by His Forerunner in the Qayyumu'l-Asma, was beginning to be set in motion.

Exactly two decades earlier the Babi Revelation had been born in darkest Persia, in the city of _Sh_iraz. Despite the cruel captivity to which its Author had been subjected, the stupendous claims He had voiced had been proclaimed by Him before a distinguished a.s.semblage in Tabriz, the capital of a_dh_irbayjan. In the hamlet of Bada_sh_t the Dispensation which His Faith had ushered in had been fearlessly inaugurated by the champions of His Cause. In the midst of the hopelessness and agony of the Siyah-_Ch_al of ?ihran, nine years later, that Revelation had, swiftly and mysteriously been brought to sudden fruition. The process of rapid deterioration in the fortunes of that Faith, which had gradually set in, and was alarmingly accelerated during the years of Baha'u'llah's withdrawal to Kurdistan, had, in a masterly fas.h.i.+on after His return from Sulaymaniyyih, been arrested and reversed. The ethical, the moral and doctrinal foundations of a nascent community had been subsequently, in the course of His sojourn in Ba_gh_dad, una.s.sailably established. And finally, in the Garden of Ridvan, on the eve of His banishment to Constantinople, the ten-year delay, ordained by an inscrutable Providence, had been terminated through the Declaration of His Mission and the visible emergence of what was to become the nucleus of a world-embracing Fellows.h.i.+p. What now remained to be achieved was the proclamation, in the city of Adrianople, of that same Mission to the world's secular and ecclesiastical leaders, to be followed, in successive decades, by a further unfoldment, in the prison-fortress of Akka, of the principles and precepts const.i.tuting the bedrock of that Faith, by the formulation of the laws and ordinances designed to safeguard its integrity, by the establishment, immediately after His ascension, of the Covenant designed to preserve its unity and perpetuate its influence, by the prodigious and world-wide extension of its activities, under the guidance of 'Abdu'l-Baha, the Center of that Covenant, and lastly, by the rise, in the Formative Age of that Faith, of its Administrative Order, the harbinger of its Golden Age and future glory.

This historic Proclamation was made at a time when the Faith was in the throes of a crisis of extreme violence, and it was in the main addressed to the kings of the earth, and to the Christian and Muslim ecclesiastical leaders who, by virtue of their immense prestige, ascendancy and authority, a.s.sumed an appalling and inescapable responsibility for the immediate destinies of their subjects and followers.

The initial phase of that Proclamation may be said to have opened in Constantinople with the communication (the text of which we, alas, do not possess) addressed by Baha'u'llah to Sul?an 'Abdu'l-'Aziz himself, the self-styled vicar of the Prophet of Islam and the absolute ruler of a mighty empire. So potent, so august a personage was the first among the sovereigns of the world to receive the Divine Summons, and the first among Oriental monarchs to sustain the impact of G.o.d's retributive justice. The occasion for this communication was provided by the infamous edict the Sul?an had promulgated, less than four months after the arrival of the exiles in his capital, banis.h.i.+ng them, suddenly and without any justification whatsoever, in the depth of winter, and in the most humiliating circ.u.mstances, to Adrianople, situated on the extremities of his empire.

That fateful and ignominious decision, arrived at by the Sul?an and his chief ministers, 'Ali Pa_sh_a and Fu'ad Pa_sh_a, was in no small degree attributable to the persistent intrigues of the Mu_sh_iru'd-Dawlih, Mirza ?usayn _Kh_an, the Persian Amba.s.sador to the Sublime Porte, denounced by Baha'u'llah as His "calumniator," who awaited the first opportunity to strike at Him and the Cause of which He was now the avowed and recognized leader. This Amba.s.sador was pressed continually by his government to persist in the policy of arousing against Baha'u'llah the hostility of the Turkish authorities. He was encouraged by the refusal of Baha'u'llah to follow the invariable practice of government guests, however highly placed, of calling in person, upon their arrival at the capital, on the _Sh_ay_kh_u'l-Islam, on the Sadr-i-'A?am, and on the Foreign Minister-Baha'u'llah did not even return the calls paid Him by several ministers, by Kamal Pa_sh_a and by a former Turkish envoy to the court of Persia. He was not deterred by Baha'u'llah's upright and independent att.i.tude which contrasted so sharply with the mercenariness of the Persian princes who were wont, on their arrival, to "solicit at every door such allowances and gifts as they might obtain." He resented Baha'u'llah's unwillingness to present Himself at the Persian Emba.s.sy, and to repay the visit of its representative; and, being seconded, in his efforts, by his accomplice, ?aji Mirza ?asan-i-Safa, whom he instructed to circulate unfounded reports about Him, he succeeded through his official influence, as well as through his private intercourse with ecclesiastics, notables and government officials, in representing Baha'u'llah as a proud and arrogant person, Who regarded Himself as subject to no law, Who entertained designs inimical to all established authority, and Whose forwardness had precipitated the grave differences that had arisen between Himself and the Persian Government. Nor was he the only one who indulged in these nefarious schemes. Others, according to 'Abdu'l-Baha, "condemned and vilified" the exiles, as "a mischief to all the world," as "destructive of treaties and covenants," as "baleful to all lands" and as "deserving of every chastis.e.m.e.nt and punishment."

No less a personage than the highly-respected brother-in-law of the Sadr-i-'A?am was commissioned to apprize the Captive of the edict p.r.o.nounced against Him-an edict which evinced a virtual coalition of the Turkish and Persian imperial governments against a common adversary, and which in the end brought such tragic consequences upon the Sultanate, the Caliphate and the Qajar dynasty. Refused an audience by Baha'u'llah that envoy had to content himself with a presentation of his puerile observations and trivial arguments to 'Abdu'l-Baha and aqay-i-Kalim, who were delegated to see him, and whom he informed that, after three days, he would return to receive the answer to the order he had been bidden to transmit.

That same day a Tablet, severely condemnatory in tone, was revealed by Baha'u'llah, was entrusted by Him, in a sealed envelope, on the following morning, to _Sh_amsi Big, who was instructed to deliver it into the hands of 'Ali Pa_sh_a, and to say that it was sent down from G.o.d. "I know not what that letter contained," _Sh_amsi Big subsequently informed aqay-i-Kalim, "for no sooner had the Grand Vizir perused it than he turned the color of a corpse, and remarked: 'It is as if the King of Kings were issuing his behest to his humblest va.s.sal king and regulating his conduct.' So grievous was his condition that I backed out of his presence." "Whatever action," Baha'u'llah, commenting on the effect that Tablet had produced, is reported to have stated, "the ministers of the Sul?an took against Us, after having become acquainted with its contents, cannot be regarded as unjustifiable. The acts they committed before its perusal, however, can have no justification."

That Tablet, according to Nabil, was of considerable length, opened with words directed to the sovereign himself, severely censured his ministers, exposed their immaturity and incompetence, and included pa.s.sages in which the ministers themselves were addressed, in which they were boldly challenged, and sternly admonished not to pride themselves on their worldly possessions, nor foolishly seek the riches of which time would inexorably rob them.

Baha'u'llah was on the eve of His departure, which followed almost immediately upon the promulgation of the edict of His banishment, when, in a last and memorable interview with the aforementioned ?aji Mirza ?asan-i-Safa, He sent the following message to the Persian Amba.s.sador: "What did it profit thee, and such as are like thee, to slay, year after year, so many of the oppressed, and to inflict upon them manifold afflictions, when they have increased a hundredfold, and ye find yourselves in complete bewilderment, knowing not how to relieve your minds of this oppressive thought. ...His Cause transcends any and every plan ye devise. Know this much: Were all the governments on earth to unite and take My life and the lives of all who bear this Name, this Divine Fire would never be quenched. His Cause will rather encompa.s.s all the kings of the earth, nay all that hath been created from water and clay.... Whatever may yet befall Us, great shall be our gain, and manifest the loss wherewith they shall be afflicted."

Pursuant to the peremptory orders issued for the immediate departure of the already twice banished exiles, Baha'u'llah, His family, and His companions, some riding in wagons, others mounted on pack animals, with their belongings piled in carts drawn by oxen, set out, accompanied by Turkish officers, on a cold December morning, amidst the weeping of the friends they were leaving behind, on their twelve-day journey, across a bleak and windswept country, to a city characterized by Baha'u'llah as "the place which none entereth except such as have rebelled against the authority of the sovereign." "They expelled Us," is His own testimony in the Suriy-i-Muluk, "from thy city (Constantinople) with an abas.e.m.e.nt with which no abas.e.m.e.nt on earth can compare." "Neither My family, nor those who accompanied Me," He further states, "had the necessary raiment to protect them from the cold in that freezing weather." And again: "The eyes of Our enemies wept over Us, and beyond them those of every discerning person." "A banishment," laments Nabil, "endured with such meekness that the pen sheddeth tears when recounting it, and the page is ashamed to bear its description." "A cold of such intensity," that same chronicler records, "prevailed that year, that nonagenarians could not recall its like. In some regions, in both Turkey and Persia, animals succ.u.mbed to its severity and perished in the snows. The upper reaches of the Euphrates, in Ma'dan-Nuqrih, were covered with ice for several days-an unprecedented phenomenon-while in Diyar-Bakr the river froze over for no less than forty days." "To obtain water from the springs," one of the exiles of Adrianople recounts, "a great fire had to be lighted in their immediate neighborhood, and kept burning for a couple of hours before they thawed out."

Traveling through rain and storm, at times even making night marches, the weary travelers, after brief halts at Ku_ch_ik-_Ch_akma_ch_ih, Buyuk-_Ch_akma_ch_ih, Salvari, Birkas, and Baba-Iski, arrived at their destination, on the first of Rajab 1280 A.H. (December 12, 1863), and were lodged in the _Kh_an-i-'Arab, a two-story caravanserai, near the house of 'Izzat-aqa. Three days later, Baha'u'llah and His family were consigned to a house suitable only for summer habitation, in the Muradiyyih quarter, near the Takyiy-i-Mawlavi, and were moved again, after a week, to another house, in the vicinity of a mosque in that same neighborhood. About six months later they transferred to more commodious quarters, known as the house of Amru'llah (House of G.o.d's command) situated on the northern side of the mosque of Sul?an Salim.

Thus closes the opening scene of one of the most dramatic episodes in the ministry of Baha'u'llah. The curtain now rises on what is admittedly the most turbulent and critical period of the first Baha'i century-a period that was destined to precede the most glorious phase of that ministry, the proclamation of His Message to the world and its rulers.

Chapter X: The Rebellion of Mirza Ya?ya and the Proclamation of Baha'u'llah's Mission in Adrianople

A twenty-year-old Faith had just begun to recover from a series of successive blows when a crisis of the first magnitude overtook it and shook it to its roots. Neither the tragic martyrdom of the Bab nor the ignominious attempt on the life of the sovereign, nor its b.l.o.o.d.y aftermath, nor Baha'u'llah's humiliating banishment from His native land, nor even His two-year withdrawal to Kurdistan, devastating though they were in their consequences, could compare in gravity with this first major internal convulsion which seized a newly rearisen community, and which threatened to cause an irreparable breach in the ranks of its members.

More odious than the unrelenting hostility which Abu-Jahl, the uncle of Mu?ammad, had exhibited, more shameful than the betrayal of Jesus Christ by His disciple, Judas Iscariot, more perfidious than the conduct of the sons of Jacob towards Joseph their brother, more abhorrent than the deed committed by one of the sons of Noah, more infamous than even the criminal act perpetrated by Cain against Abel, the monstrous behavior of Mirza Ya?ya, one of the half-brothers of Baha'u'llah, the nominee of the Bab, and recognized chief of the Babi community, brought in its wake a period of travail which left its mark on the fortunes of the Faith for no less than half a century. This supreme crisis Baha'u'llah Himself designated as the Ayyam-i-_Sh_idad (Days of Stress), during which "the most grievous veil" was torn asunder, and the "most great separation" was irrevocably effected. It immensely gratified and emboldened its external enemies, both civil and ecclesiastical, played into their hands, and evoked their unconcealed derision. It perplexed and confused the friends and supporters of Baha'u'llah, and seriously damaged the prestige of the Faith in the eyes of its western admirers. It had been brewing ever since the early days of Baha'u'llah's sojourn in Ba_gh_dad, was temporarily suppressed by the creative forces which, under His as yet unproclaimed leaders.h.i.+p, reanimated a disintegrating community, and finally broke out, in all its violence, in the years immediately preceding the proclamation of His Message. It brought incalculable sorrow to Baha'u'llah, visibly aged Him, and inflicted, through its repercussions, the heaviest blow ever sustained by Him in His lifetime. It was engineered throughout by the tortuous intrigues and incessant machinations of that same diabolical Siyyid Mu?ammad, that vile whisperer who, disregarding Baha'u'llah's advice, had insisted on accompanying Him to Constantinople and Adrianople, and was now redoubling his efforts, with unrelaxing vigilance, to bring it to a head.

Mirza Ya?ya had, ever since the return of Baha'u'llah from Sulaymaniyyih, either chosen to maintain himself in an inglorious seclusion in his own house, or had withdrawn, whenever danger threatened, to such places of safety as ?illih and Basra. To the latter town he had fled, disguised as a Ba_gh_dad Jew, and become a shoe merchant. So great was his terror that he is reported to have said on one occasion: "Whoever claims to have seen me, or to have heard my voice, I p.r.o.nounce an infidel." On being informed of Baha'u'llah's impending departure for Constantinople, he at first hid himself in the garden of Huvaydar, in the vicinity of Ba_gh_dad, meditating meanwhile on the advisability of fleeing either to Abyssinia, India or some other country. Refusing to heed Baha'u'llah's advice to proceed to Persia, and there disseminate the writings of the Bab, he sent a certain ?aji Mu?ammad Kazim, who resembled him, to the government-house to procure for him a pa.s.sport in the name of Mirza 'Aliy-i-Kirman_sh_ahi, and left Ba_gh_dad, abandoning the writings there, and proceeded in disguise, accompanied by an Arab Babi, named Zahir, to Mosul, where he joined the exiles who were on their way to Constantinople.

A constant witness of the ever deepening attachment of the exiles to Baha'u'llah and of their amazing veneration for Him; fully aware of the heights to which his Brother's popularity had risen in Ba_gh_dad, in the course of His journey to Constantinople, and later through His a.s.sociation with the notables and governors of Adrianople; incensed by the manifold evidences of the courage, the dignity, and independence which that Brother had demonstrated in His dealings with the authorities in the capital; provoked by the numerous Tablets which the Author of a newly-established Dispensation had been ceaselessly revealing; allowing himself to be duped by the enticing prospects of unfettered leaders.h.i.+p held out to him by Siyyid Mu?ammad, the Antichrist of the Baha'i Revelation, even as Mu?ammad _Sh_ah had been misled by the Antichrist of the Babi Revelation, ?aji Mirza Aqasi; refusing to be admonished by prominent members of the community who advised him, in writing, to exercise wisdom and restraint; forgetful of the kindness and counsels of Baha'u'llah, who, thirteen years his senior, had watched over his early youth and manhood; emboldened by the sin-covering eye of his Brother, Who, on so many occasions, had drawn a veil over his many crimes and follies, this arch-breaker of the Covenant of the Bab, spurred on by his mounting jealousy and impelled by his pa.s.sionate love of leaders.h.i.+p, was driven to perpetrate such acts as defied either concealment or toleration.

Irremediably corrupted through his constant a.s.sociation with Siyyid Mu?ammad, that living embodiment of wickedness, cupidity and deceit, he had already in the absence of Baha'u'llah from Ba_gh_dad, and even after His return from Sulaymaniyyih, stained the annals of the Faith with acts of indelible infamy. His corruption, in scores of instances, of the text of the Bab's writings; the blasphemous addition he made to the formula of the a_dh_an by the introduction of a pa.s.sage in which he identified himself with the G.o.dhead; his insertion of references in those writings to a succession in which he nominated himself and his descendants as heirs of the Bab; the vacillation and apathy he had betrayed when informed of the tragic death which his Master had suffered; his condemnation to death of all the Mirrors of the Babi Dispensation, though he himself was one of those Mirrors; his dastardly act in causing the murder of Dayyan, whom he feared and envied; his foul deed in bringing about, during the absence of Baha'u'llah from Ba_gh_dad, the a.s.sa.s.sination of Mirza 'Ali-Akbar, the Bab's cousin; and, most heinous of all, his unspeakably repugnant violation, during that same period, of the honor of the Bab Himself-all these, as attested by aqay-i-Kalim, and reported by Nabil in his Narrative, were to be thrown into a yet more lurid light by further acts the perpetration of which were to seal irretrievably his doom.