# The Prisoner and the Kings

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: William Sears, The Prisoner and the Kings, Toronto, ON: General Publishing Company, Ltd., 1971, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> The
> Prisoner
> and the
> Kings
> OTHER WORKS BY WILLIAM SEARS
> 
> BOOKS
> Release the Sun
> God Loves Laughter
> Thief in the Night
> The Wine of Astonishment
> The Flame (with Robert Quigley)
> A Cry From the Heart
> All Flags Flying
> Prince of Peace
> Run to Glory
> Tokoloshe
> In Grandfather’s Barn
> Reminiscences I
> The Half-Inch Prophecy
> Reminiscences II
> 
> PLAYS
> The Black Harvest
> Dad Cashes In
> The Undoing of Albert O’Donnell
> The Turning of the Worm
> 
> TELEPLAYS
> Dilemma in Donegal (with Robert Quigley)
> Kid Gloves
> In the Park (with Paul Ritts)
> The
> Prisoner
> and the
> Kings
> 
> How One Man
> Changed the Course of History
> 
> by
> William Sears
> Wilmette, Illinois
> Copyright © 2007 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. All rights
> reserved.
> 
> The first edition of The Prisoner and the Kings was issued in 1971 by General Publishing Company
> Limited, Toronto. The revised second edition was published in 2007 by Bahá’í Publishing, 415 Linden
> Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois 60091-2844.
> 
> Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper ∞
> 
> 10 09 08 07 4 3 2 1
> ISBN 10: 1-931847-41-X
> ISBN 13: 978-1-931847-41-4
> 
> Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
> Sears, William.
> The prisoner and the kings: how one man changed the course of history / by William Sears.
> — Rev. 2nd ed.
> p. cm.
> Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
> ISBN-13: 978-1-931847-41-4 (alk. paper)
> ISBN-10: 1-931847-41-X (alk. paper)
> ISBN: 978-1-618510-62-4 (ebook)
> 1. Bahá’u’lláh, 1817–1892.2. Prophecies. I. Title.
> 
> BP392.S35 2007
> 297.9’3092—dc22
> 2006051749
> 
> Cover and book design by Suni D. Hannan
> CONTENTS
> 
> PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
> 
> PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
> 
> PROLOGUE
> 
> 1    THE ASSASSINS
> 
> 2    THE PRISONER
> 
> 3    THE FIRST KINGDOM FALLS
> 
> 4    THE SECOND KINGDOM FALLS
> 
> 5    THE THIRD KINGDOM FALLS
> 
> 6    THE FOURTH KINGDOM FALLS
> 
> 7    A KINGDOM STANDS
> 
> 8    THE EXILE
> 
> 9    THE FIFTH KINGDOM FALLS
> 
> 10   ‘AKKÁ
> 
> 11   THE SIXTH KINGDOM FALLS
> 
> 12   THE PRISON OPENS
> 13   FALLING KINGDOMS EVERYWHERE
> 
> 14   AND ALL THE KING’S MEN
> 
> 15   THE HEART OF THE WORLD AFIRE
> 
> APPENDIX
> 
> NOTES
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
> I have no doubt that someday soon talented and trained historians will record
> everything associated with the unique story told in these pages. The present
> author is not a historian. He makes no pretense of having set down a detailed
> or definitive historical picture of this turbulent period.
> Yet, so powerful was the impact of these events upon me when I first
> encountered them that I felt impelled to share as much as lay within my
> power, however inadequate the attempt. I have outlined only a few of the
> more arresting themes running through the whole remarkable drama.
> Future historians will properly evaluate these events, and will undoubtedly
> recognize in this story some of the chief motivations for many of the
> revolutionary changes that have taken place in the world since the middle of
> the nineteenth century.
> 
> William Sears
> “Cherokee Smoke”
> Palm Springs, California
> November 12, 1969
> PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
> The Prisoner and the Kings offers a compelling look at the collapse of
> kingdoms and empires by juxtaposing commonly known history against the
> lesser-known story of the life of Bahá’u’lláh and His addresses to those kings
> and rulers that warned of their undoing. Bahá’u’lláh, the Prophet-Founder of
> the Bahá’í Faith, was a prisoner of the Ottoman Empire for most of His life.
> His bold pronouncements to the leaders of some of the world’s mightiest
> nations might be surprising considering his status as a prisoner, but there is
> no doubt that the fates of these rulers followed the course that Bahá’u’lláh
> predicted for them.
> The author, William Sears, was renowned during his life as a storyteller,
> and this book is written in his distinct, informal style. He did not intend it as a
> scholarly investigation of history, but rather as a brief and exciting glimpse
> into the dramatic parallels between the fate of monarchs and that of one
> whose life and teachings would come to change the world.
> As Mr. Sears explained, future “trained historians” will shed more light on
> the events related in this book, but it was his excitement and enthusiasm for
> this epic story that compelled him. In composing this narrative, he drew on a
> variety of historical sources, including primary texts and Bahá’u’lláh’s own
> writings. Endnotes are included for many of the references, though in some
> cases Mr. Sears included quotations ascribed to individuals that are meant to
> represent an impression of their thoughts and sayings, but are not direct
> quotes.
> Thirty-five years after its initial publication in 1971, the story of The
> Prisoner and the Kings remains engaging and relevant. In preparation for this
> new edition, the book has undergone some additional editing, and chapter 15
> has been updated to reflect changes and growth in the Bahá’í community.
> Of particular interest is the fact that many of the translations of
> Bahá’u’lláh’s writings that are included in this book were available only as
> extracts at the time of the book’s initial publication. However, the recently
> published compilation The Summons of the Lord of Hosts contains not only
> full translations of Bahá’u’lláh’s direct addresses to rulers such as Napoleon
> III and Pope Pius IX, but also the Súriy-i-Mulúk (Tablet to the Kings), which
> deals with Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings on the necessities of kingship and the
> requirements of just rule. The Prisoner and the Kings serves as a complement
> to those original texts, and certainly anyone interested in the history that this
> book recounts will want to look to those writings, in addition to the available
> historical accounts.
> A short note on the system of transliteration of Persian and Arabic names
> is also due, since the system used in this book differs from some others in its
> use of accents (“á” and “í”) instead of overline (“ā” and “ī”), along with a few
> other differences. The names of individuals and some locations were
> transliterated following this style, for example “Ṭihrán” and “Náṣiri’iri’d-Dín
> Sháh” are used in place of the perhaps more familiar “Tehran” and
> “Nasiruddin Shah.”
> Mr. Sears’s widow, Marguerite Reimer Sears, oversaw the preparation of
> this new edition, but sadly passed away shortly before work completed. She
> wished to express her gratitude to those who assisted her: Enayat Rohani for
> arranging the scan of the original book so it could be revised; Bill Barnes and
> Shirley Macias, who offered additional editing and revision; and Lorana
> Kerfoot, who proofread the revised book before it was passed to Bahá’í
> Publishing for publication.
> PROLOGUE
> The Prisoner and the Kings tells the story of the greatest mystery of modern
> times. Between 1867 and 1873 a solitary prisoner in a Turkish penal colony
> wrote a series of letters to the kings and emperors of the day that predicted
> with amazing accuracy the course of modern history: the fall of nations, the
> overthrow of individual monarchs, the decline of religious institutions, the
> rise of world communism, the birth of the State of Israel, and the threat of
> nuclear contamination.
> The Prisoner was Bahá’u’lláh, one of the most remarkable figures in this or
> any age. What was the secret behind this handful of amazing
> communications? What was the source of the Prisoner’s knowledge? And
> what did the letters have to say about us and our future?
> The
> Prisoner
> and the
> Kings
> 1 THE ASSASSINS
> Panic in the streets!
> 
> The Assassins
> The uniform of Kaiser William I was splendor itself. His shining helmet
> glistened like a second sun as the royal carriage rolled majestically along the
> tree-lined avenues of Berlin.
> The king smiled to himself. Where was there another monarch to rival
> him? He had humiliated France beyond his wildest dreams of vengeance. He
> had become the first Prussian king to rule the united German states as
> emperor.
> Yes, there was reason to be pleased.
> Suddenly the tranquil scene was shattered by the blast of a gun! A bullet
> plunged into the metal headgear of the kaiser, who slumped back onto the
> seat of his carriage, dangerously wounded. Panic ran through the streets of
> Berlin.
> “Assassin! Assassin!”
> William I would recover. The shot that had nearly ended his life, however,
> marked the opening of a series of disasters that struck his fellow monarchs in
> both Europe and the Orient. Most of the latter were not so fortunate as
> William.
> Far away in Constantinople, a second king sat proudly on his throne. He,
> too, was both pleased with himself and totally unaware of a strange web of
> death that was gathering about the kings of the earth.
> Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-Azíz, ruler of the vast Ottoman Empire, had surrounded
> himself with a protective network of spies. They reported everything that
> might arouse the slightest suspicion of opposition to the crown. The sultan’s
> enemies, however, were equally thorough.
> Suddenly and without warning, the palace corridors were alive with
> hurrying feet: “Revolution!”
> Color drained from the king’s face. ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz’s cries for help echoed,
> unanswered, along the corridors. There was no place to hide.
> The leaders of the revolt laid violent hands on him and imprisoned him
> within his own palace. There the fate that was pursuing the kings of the world
> overtook him. Early one morning, the “slayer” appeared.
> With a thrill of horror word ran through the streets of Constantinople:
> “Assassin!”
> A third king was marked for the same fate.
> Alexander II Nicolaevitch, czar of Russia, was not pleased with himself.
> He lived in daily fear for his life. Guards patrolled outside his door. Even
> they were suspect, and were changed constantly. Every dish of food was
> tasted first by servants. The imperial bedchamber was searched each night
> before the czar would retire.
> Stories of the king’s obsession with fear circulated among his subjects.
> Alexander tried to disprove such damaging rumors by riding openly through
> the streets. In his heart, though, he dreaded these journeys and was constantly
> on the alert, watching for the unseen enemy.
> The inevitable day came. There was a threatening movement in the crowd,
> and suddenly a bomb exploded in the path of the royal carriage. Guards
> seized the suspected assassin, and Alexander dismounted from his carriage to
> interview the prisoner. Before he could protect himself, the assassin’s
> accomplice threw a second bomb, which exploded at the czar’s feet. The
> crowd, appalled, fled in panic. Mortally wounded, Alexander II was carried
> back to his palace.
> Before the afternoon was out, the whisper ran from one end of St.
> Petersburg to the other: “Assassin!”
> A fourth king, on another continent, was caught up in the same whirlwind.
> Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh, king of Persia, went blissfully on his way to offer prayers
> on the eve of his great Jubilee Festival. The shah* had carefully planned each
> step of this great celebration. It was to glorify his name and would be his
> eternal monument in history.
> Suddenly, without warning, while the king was at prayers, a pistol shot
> echoed through the sacred shrine where the king prayed. Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh
> fell to the floor. The chanting hushed. The royal tragedy of Berlin, St.
> Petersburg, and Constantinople had been reenacted in Ṭihrán. Another king
> lay dead.
> Cries of panic rang out among the royal party. Courtiers ran to and fro, not
> knowing what to do. The prime minister, who had accompanied the shah, was
> devastated by the unexpected turn of events.
> “The news must be concealed, at least until after the Festival,” he ordered.
> “No one must know!”
> The shah’s body was carried secretly back to his carriage. The grand vizir
> climbed in behind the king, supporting the dead weight. He held the shah’s
> body erect. Frozen in the silence of death, indifferent to the revelry around
> him, the king of all the Persians was driven back to his palace on the eve of
> his great Jubilee.
> Bonfires lighted the night skies. Banners waved everywhere. Trumpets
> flourished, cymbals crashed, the crowd cheered; all proclaimed the might and
> majesty of Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh, who had described himself as the “king of
> kings.” Gay festive band music blared out noisily as the carriage rolled on
> noiseless wheels through the streets.
> Once within the palace gates, the shah’s terror-stricken ministers passed
> along the dread words: “Assassin! Assassin!”
> 
> * Persian term for king.
> 2 THE PRISONER
> Summon … the nations unto God.
> 
> The Prisoner
> What fate bound together the tragic kings of Germany, Russia, Turkey, and
> Persia? Why had violence struck them down in almost the same hour?
> Their story is one of the great dramas of our generation. Why haven’t we
> heard more about it? These were not mythical kings. Their overthrow and
> destruction was not part of a historical novel. It was not a suspense story
> taken from the pages of popular fiction.
> These were ruling monachs. They, and later their thrones, were swept
> away in a titanic upheaval that engulfed and swamped no less than twenty
> kingdoms in half a century. Indeed, the fate that overtook them has since
> seemed to pursue their elected successors in the republics that took the place
> of their fallen thrones.
> The link binding together the four kings and their associates was a
> Prisoner, a solitary condemned figure in a cell in a Turkish fortress on the
> coast of Palestine. It would have been hard to find a candidate less likely to
> challenge the rulers of the world, or anyone more helpless, than the Prisoner
> Who arose to challenge them all.
> Two of these same kings had already brutally persecuted and humiliated
> Him. Although determined to silence Him, they had been totally
> unsuccessful. Attempts to kill Him developed into almost a comedy of errors.
> Every stroke the kings devised to eliminate the Prisoner seems, in retrospect,
> to have raised Him and lowered themselves. Gradually, it was they who
> became prisoners and He who became, as one British historian has said, “The
> object of a love that kings might envy and emperors sigh for in vain.”1
> There has never been a story like it. The Prisoner was stoned three times.
> He was scourged until His skin was broken and the blood flowed from His
> body. He was weighted down with chains; a one-hundred-pound iron yoke
> lacerated His shoulders and scarred Him for life. His feet were locked in
> stocks. He was chained to His companions and to the floor of His prison. He
> was poisoned three times. The edicts of kings stripped Him of His wealth and
> position. He was torn away from his relatives and friends and banished from
> His native land forever. On four separate occasions He was exiled, each exile
> more cruel than the previous one. At last the kings banished the Prisoner to
> the most dreaded penal colony in the Near East, a place in which they felt
> certain He would perish. The final imprisonment locked Him up in a fortress
> surrounded by moats and battlements. He was encircled by enemies in an
> inhospitable climate, an area rampant with disease.
> The kings were confident that the Prisoner would die and be heard of no
> more. That should have been the end of the story.
> In fact, it was only the beginning. In the midst of death and suffering, the
> Prisoner foretold the coming collapse of the dynasties of each one of these
> kings. He described the inevitable extinction of their empires. His prophecies
> had a precision that was frightening. One solitary condemned exile, writing
> from prison in the historic “Holy Land,” warned the kings of coming doom.
> One mysterious figure reached out His hand into both Europe and Asia and
> “shook the kingdoms” until the structure trembled and fell.
> Yet, in spite of all that He had suffered at the hands of these rulers, the
> Prisoner offered to help them prevent the coming calamity. Had the rulers
> heeded His words, they could have avoided their fate. Instead, a flock of
> monarchs has vanished, one by one, from the contemporary scene.
> Who was the Prisoner? And what did a condemned exile have to do with
> four of the mightiest monarchs of his day? The Prisoner declared that He had
> everything to do with both kings and governments. He told them plainly that
> His mission in life was to awaken the rulers of the earth to their social and
> spiritual responsibilities in a new age. The Prisoner said He was an
> instrument sent to protect the rights of the downtrodden and underprivileged.
> He challenged the kings in these words: “If ye stay not the hand of the
> oppressor, if ye fail to safeguard the rights of the downtrodden, what right
> have ye then to vaunt yourselves among men?”2
> The Prisoner called upon the kings and leaders of men to unite in an
> energetic, worldwide effort so that the peoples of the earth might attain social
> justice and peace: “Arise thou amongst men in the name of this all-
> compelling Cause, and summon, then, the nations unto God.”3
> Why should any king pay attention to such ravings? Who would believe a
> madman who announced publicly the collapse of the world’s greatest
> kingdoms? If He couldn’t even save Himself from prison, how would He be
> able to control the destinies of kings?
> Yet that is precisely what He did.
> Kings were shut up in prison and the Prisoner was released. Monarchies
> were overthrown and vanished while the Prisoner’s ideals have permeated the
> thinking of all humankind. It happened exactly as foretold in the letters from
> the prison cell in Palestine, and it happened with frightening precision, step-
> by-step, until each despot was dethroned, each king was shorn of his power,
> and the dynasty of each monarch was forever extinguished!
> It is one of the most remarkable stories of our times.
> 
> Give me a chance to fling my stone in His face!
> 
> The Drama of the Báb
> The story begins in Persia, in 1844. Despite the country’s long history of
> cultural achievement, Persia in the nineteenth century was a land of almost
> unequaled corruption and decadence. The shah was a despot, his government
> conducted by an equal mixture of graft, flattery, and brutality. Day-to-day
> control of affairs was in the hands of venal politicians and fanatical
> clergymen.
> Suddenly, at this lowest ebb in the country’s history, a spiritual revolution
> broke out. No other nation in modern history has experienced anything like
> the nine years that followed. A radiant young man called the Báb (Arabic for
> “door” or “gate”) arose to declare that the “Day of God” had dawned.
> All over Persia, tens of thousands of people flocked to the new cause. The
> most ardent of them were students from the colleges and seminaries. For a
> moment in history, it looked as though the entire nation would accept the
> Báb’s teachings of social justice and spiritual regeneration.
> The clergy and the courtiers prevented this from happening. Realizing that
> their own privileges were endangered, they persuaded the shah that the Báb
> was a threat to the state. Although the Báb had shown every respect for civil
> authority, the shah chose the side of his advisers and launched a campaign of
> terror. Thousands of the Báb’s followers were hounded throughout the
> country, betrayed, tortured, and massacred. Finally, on July 9, 1850, the Báb
> was executed.
> One of the Báb’s leading supporters was a young nobleman Who took the
> title “Bahá’u’lláh” (Arabic for “glory of God”). Because of the prominence of
> His family and the respect that His own life had won Him at the Persian
> court, Bahá’u’lláh was not killed in the general massacres. His leadership of
> the persecuted “Bábís” (as the Báb’s followers were called), however, made
> Him a marked man.
> Highly placed opponents of the Báb appeared determined to put
> Bahá’u’lláh to death. He was widely admired, however, and there was no
> believable pretext on which so prominent a personality could be condemned.
> The needed pretext came in 1853, when two ignorant youths fired a shot at
> the king as he emerged on horseback from his palace. Immediately the
> responsibility was placed on all the followers of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh.
> Implacable hostility swept the nation. All attempts to inquire into what had
> really happened were cast aside.
> The shah, his ministers, the clergy, and the people united in relentless hate,
> delighted to have at last an excuse for annihilating the One Whom they had
> come to fear as a danger to the state.
> Many who were merely thought to be friendly or sympathetic to the new
> faith were arrested and slain, unless they were wealthy and could fill the
> coffers of their persecutors. In Bahá’u’lláh’s case, the authorities knew that
> the sentence of death and His execution must be done with cunning.
> Bahá’u’lláh and His family were still highly respected in the land. His father
> had been a highly esteemed and honored minister of state.
> During those hectic days when one of the waves of persecution reached its
> peak, Bahá’u’lláh was a guest of the new prime minister, Mírzá Áqá Khán.
> He should have been safe there. This same prime minister was understood to
> have promised the Báb that he would protect the innocent victims of the
> king’s wrath if the Báb would help the minister. The Báb had done so. Now
> Mírzá Áqá Khán faced the crisis of having to redeem that pledge.
> No one knew better than the prime minister that Bahá’u’lláh was innocent
> of any crime. Unhappily for the soul of this troubled minister, his loyalties
> constantly fluctuated back and forth throughout his career. One moment he
> would be inspired to try and help the mistreated followers of the Báb, the
> next he would cringe in fear, dreading the loss of his position. He would then
> begin attacking them. In the end, fear pushed out courage and decency. It also
> precipitated the downfall and disgrace of the prime minister.
> At first, Mírzá Áqá Khán tried to effect a reconciliation between the shah
> and Bahá’u’lláh. He sent a warm letter to Bahá’u’lláh in Karbilá, Iraq—
> where Bahá’u’lláh had been exiled briefly by the previous prime minister—
> telling Him of these plans and inviting Bahá’u’lláh to return to the capital.
> For a month Bahá’u’lláh was the honored guest of Mírzá Áqá Khán. During
> this time a great number of notables and dignitaries from Ṭihrán flocked to
> meet Bahá’u’lláh. So much attention and honor was paid to Him that it
> aroused the envy and fury of His enemies.
> Bahá’u’lláh was a guest in the village of Afchih when news came of the
> attempt made on the life of the shah.
> He condemned the act in the strongest terms, but He also refused to listen
> to the pleadings of the prime minister’s brother, who urged Him to flee into
> hiding in the neighborhood. Instead, Bahá’u’lláh set out on foot for the shah’s
> residence, the headquarters of the Imperial Army in Níyávarán, to prove His
> innocence. He refused even the offer of an armed escort.
> When Bahá’u’lláh reached the village of Zarkandih He was met and
> conducted to the home of the acting secretary of the Russian minister, Prince
> Dolgorukov. The news of Bahá’u’lláh’s arrival was conveyed at once to
> Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh. The king was greatly amazed at Bahá’u’lláh’s boldness in
> coming directly to his encampment.
> Prince Dolgorukov proposed to Mírzá Áqá Khán that he protect
> Bahá’u’lláh in his own residence from the enemies who sought His
> destruction. The prime minister was afraid to extend any further
> consideration to Bahá’u’lláh for fear he might permanently lose his own
> position and prestige. Bahá’u’lláh was therefore delivered into the hands of a
> group of His enemies among the military.
> They stripped Him of His headgear. Barefoot, bareheaded, and in chains,
> Bahá’u’lláh was marched the full distance from Shimírán to Ṭihrán under the
> blazing sun. Several times along the way, His outer garments were torn from
> His body by the soldiers and the mob. He was struck by the officers
> accompanying Him, overwhelmed with abuse and ridicule, and pelted with
> stones and refuse.
> As Bahá’u’lláh was approaching the capital, a fanatical old woman rushed
> from the crowd with a stone in her hand. Her whole frame shook with rage as
> she raised the stone, but the procession was moving too rapidly for her to
> keep pace. She tried to overtake them, shouting, “I entreat you! Give me a
> chance to fling my stone in his face!”
> Bahá’u’lláh saw her hastening after Him. He halted the guard long enough
> to give the old lady her chance, saying: “Deny her not what she regards as a
> meritorious act in the sight of God.”4
> 
> He bringeth out those which are bound with chains.
> 
> The Black Pit
> Bahá’u’lláh was thrown into a subterranean dungeon called the Síyáh-Chál,
> the “Black Pit.” There He was to spend four months.
> The dungeon was pitch black. Bahá’u’lláh was led along a gloomy dark
> corridor, then down three flights of stairs to the underground pit.
> His body was bent so that He could be chained to the floor. His captors
> also chained Him to His companions, and His feet were placed in stocks.
> Bahá’u’lláh’s fellow prisoners numbered about 140. Among them were
> thieves, highwaymen, and assassins. There was no outlet from the pit other
> than the one door they had entered. It was alive with rats, and a hotbed of
> disease. Chill, damp, and fever-ridden, the dungeon stank abominably from
> the constantly accumulating filth.
> For three days and three nights Bahá’u’lláh received no food or drink. Two
> chains, each weighing nearly one hundred pounds, which were famously used
> only for punishing the most notorious criminals, were in turn fastened around
> His neck. An iron yoke lacerated His flesh. Sleep was impossible for Him.
> Shortly after Bahá’u’lláh entered the prison, it became evident that there
> was no basis for the suspicions against Him. Still, He was kept chained in
> that loathsome place. Each day, the jailer would open the door, sending a
> shaft of light to penetrate the gloom, and would call out the names of those
> who were to be executed that day in the public square. The misery and
> suffering that befell these innocent victims of the wrath of their sovereign can
> hardly be imagined.
> It was in that pestilential prison that the mission of Bahá’u’lláh began. Just
> as the dove had descended upon Christ in the river Jordan, heralding the
> beginning of His ministry, so did that same Holy Spirit touch Bahá’u’lláh in
> that odious pit, into which He had been cast by the king of Persia.
> Bahá’u’lláh wrote of that occasion, saying, “One night, in a dream, these
> exalted words were heard on every side: ‘Verily, We shall render Thee
> victorious by Thyself and by Thy Pen. Grieve Thou not for that which hath
> befallen Thee, neither be Thou afraid, for Thou art in safety. Erelong will
> God raise up the treasures of the earth—men who will aid Thee through
> Thyself and through Thy Name, wherewith God hath revived the hearts of
> such as have recognized Him.”5
> Long afterward, Bahá’u’lláh, in a letter to Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh, spoke of the
> days which He had spent in that dark prison. He recalled the twenty long
> years during which He had borne in patience further imprisonments and
> banishments.
> In spite of all this, Bahá’u’lláh still addressed the shah with patience,
> forgiveness, and loving-kindness, saying, “O King, … Of a verity, God hath
> made thee His shadow amongst men, and the sign of His power unto all that
> dwell on earth. Judge thou between Us and them that have wronged Us
> without proof…. They that surround thee love thee for their own sakes,
> whereas this Youth loveth thee for thine own sake, and hath had no desire
> except to draw thee nigh unto the seat of grace, and to turn thee toward the
> right hand of justice. Thy Lord beareth witness unto that which I declare.”6
> Bahá’u’lláh’s words warned Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh that if he did not withdraw
> his hand from injustice, all his pomp would vanish. His wealth would be
> turned into poverty, and his glory into abasement. Bahá’u’lláh made it plain
> that the Word of God could not be restrained by the walls of prisons, and that
> He would come forth from prison to claim His kingdom, which was in the
> hearts of men. There could only be sorrow and despair, Bahá’u’lláh said, for
> a king who would not be warned. He wrote: “No doubt is there whatever that
> these tribulations will be followed by the outpourings of a supreme mercy,
> and these dire adversities be succeeded by an overflowing prosperity. We
> fain would hope, however, that His Majesty the Sháh will himself examine
> these matters, and bring hope to the hearts. That which We have submitted to
> thy Majesty is indeed for thine highest good. And God, verily, is a sufficient
> witness unto Me.”7
> The shah’s only interest, from the beginning, was that he should hear no
> more about Bahá’u’lláh. The shah’s mother was far more inflamed with anger
> against Him. She branded Bahá’u’lláh as the would-be murderer of her son
> and was determined to put Him to death. One of the strangest features of the
> story is that she and all her fellow conspirators were unable to convince the
> shah to give the order for Bahá’u’lláh’s death. They broke their spears against
> a seemingly invisible armor of the spirit surrounding Him.
> By coming “out of prison” and through “exile,” Bahá’u’lláh would fulfill
> promises from the scriptures of all religions, just as He had fulfilled them by
> being cast into prison. Bahá’u’lláh would be freed and would proclaim His
> mission to the kings of the world. His followers would publicize His fame in
> every corner of the planet, sharing His letters to the kings with the heads of
> state in all parts of the world.
> In the light of these events, the words from the world’s scriptures of the
> past become even more striking.
> There is no description of these events in all of the Old Testament that is
> more fascinating than that in Job and the Psalms. They tell of Bahá’u’lláh’s
> imprisonment in the “pit,” His “sufferings,” His “deliverance,” and the
> worldwide proclamation of His Faith.
> The book of Job, in one single chapter, describes a prisoner who will be
> cast into a “pit,” who will have His feet placed “in stocks,” who will undergo
> great suffering and “pain,” who will be “innocent,” who will be touched by
> the “breath of God” and “utter” a message of “knowledge” and “wisdom” for
> mankind, who will be “delivered from the dungeon,” from the plots of His
> “enemy,” whose newfound knowledge will come “in the night” in a “vision,”
> and who will “speak” to man not “once” but “twice.”
> This incredible account is matched by a similar description of the prisoner
> in the Psalms. He will be delivered from a “horrible pit,” in His mouth God
> will put “a new song,” His coming will be mentioned “in the volume of the
> book,” He will not “conceal” His message, but will proclaim it to “the great
> congregation” of the world.
> Job also said, “I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at
> the latter day upon the earth.” Job promised that this great One would “break
> in pieces mighty men” and “lead princes away spoiled.” This same Job
> prophesied that the “lightnings” of the Lord would come in the last days and
> say: “Here I am!”
> On May 24, 1844, the day following the birth of the Bahá’í Faith, Samuel
> F. B. Morse sent his first formal telegraph message flashing from Washington
> to Baltimore: “What hath God wrought!” The press of that day spoke of it as
> the “lightnings of Job.”
> Explorers have found Mycenae, Troy, and Cuzco with far fewer clues to
> go on than we have been given in our search for the Promised One,
> Bahá’u’lláh. The gold to be found in the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh outvalues
> them all.
> 
> I do not know Him.
> 
> Sounds in the Night
> During His four months’ imprisonment in the darkness of that dungeon-
> prison, Bahá’u’lláh constantly cheered the hearts of His companions. He
> encouraged them to remain confident. He assured them that nothing could
> prevent the future triumph of God’s faith.
> Bahá’u’lláh, recalling those hours in the Black Pit, wrote: “We were all
> huddled together in one cell, our feet in stocks, and around our necks fastened
> the most galling of chains…. No ray of light was allowed to penetrate that
> pestilential dungeon or to warm its icy coldness. We were placed in two
> rows, each facing the other. We* had taught them to repeat certain verses
> which, every night, they chanted with extreme fervor.”8
> Bahá’u’lláh taught His fellow prisoners to chant the praises of God.
> One row would chant, “God is sufficient unto me: He, verily, is the All-
> Sufficing!”
> The second row would reply, “In Him let the trusting trust!”
> The sound of their voices pealed out in the early hours of dawn. The echo
> of their singing was so loud that it resounded up from the depths of that
> dungeon and rang out across the square to the royal residence.
> The sound awakened Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh. It alarmed him. He could not
> determine what the noise was, nor from where it came. The shah sent a
> courtier and inquired:
> “What is the meaning of this sound in the night?”
> Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh was told that it was the chanting of Bahá’u’lláh and His
> companions in the Black Pit prison.
> “In spite of their sufferings,” the shah was informed, “these mad ones sing
> the praises of God.”
> The king turned away in silence. He could not understand such enthusiasm
> in the face of the horrors and the threat of death with which he knew they
> were surrounded. He felt uneasy.
> It would have unsettled him entirely had the shah been able to read the
> future. On the very site where he now listened to the God-intoxicated voices
> of Bahá’u’lláh’s companions, a pen would soon set down the signature that
> would wipe away forever the dynasty of Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh and all the Qájár
> kings.
> Kings of Persia would live to see the shattering fulfillment of the
> prophecies pronounced against them by Bahá’u’lláh, Whom they had
> condemned to imprisonment and exile.
> In spite of the plots to destroy Him, no evidence whatsoever could be
> found implicating Bahá’u’lláh in the crime of which He was accused.
> This forced His enemies to devise fresh schemes in order to assure
> Bahá’u’lláh’s death. They sent for a young man named ‘Abbás. He had been
> assisting them by pointing out the followers of the Báb on the streets of
> Ṭihrán, and they decided to use him to implicate Bahá’u’lláh in the attempt
> on the shah’s life.
> ‘Abbás had met Bahá’u’lláh many times in the past. The authorities
> promised ‘Abbás a generous share of the money that they would be able to
> confiscate from Bahá’u’lláh’s possessions, if only ‘Abbás would point to
> Bahá’u’lláh and say, “Yes, he too is guilty.”
> “We need only one such witness,” they told him.
> The mother of the shah was particularly insistent. “What a humiliation for
> me!” she deplored. “That the mother of the shah should not be able to inflict
> on a prisoner the punishment which he deserves.”
> The old queen promised ‘Abbás a rich reward if he would betray
> Bahá’u’lláh into her hands. She ordered the young man to go into the pit and
> look into Bahá’u’lláh’s face. She told him that he would see in that face the
> would-be murderer of her son.
> ‘Abbás was led into the presence of Bahá’u’lláh, not once, but several
> times. Each time the young man met Bahá’u’lláh, he stood transfixed, gazing
> upon the Prisoner’s face, but then said, “I do not know Him.”
> And then he would turn away and leave.
> No threat or promise of riches could persuade him.
> 
> Pain and suffering were written on His face.
> 
> The Weight of Chains
> Bahá’u’lláh’s enemies failed in all their attempts to destroy Him. Yet the
> publicity that the charges had received among both the public and foreign
> embassies required some action. When they realized they would be unable to
> execute Him publicly, they resorted to cunning, deciding upon poison.
> A few of those in authority, hoping to curry favor with the shah’s mother
> and perhaps receive a generous and grateful gift of money, hatched a plot to
> kill Bahá’u’lláh secretly before He was released from prison. They
> intercepted the food that was being sent to Bahá’u’lláh and mixed it with
> what they felt would be a fatal dose of poison.
> Even this attempt failed.
> Bahá’u’lláh became desperately ill, and His agonies in that dungeon were
> greatly increased. He suffered from severe ill-health for years because of this
> poisoning attempt, but to the frustration of His enemies He did not succumb
> to it.
> Bahá’u’lláh’s eight-year-old son, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, visited His father while
> Bahá’u’lláh was a prisoner in the Síyáh-Chál. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s account of that
> meeting tells how terribly altered Bahá’u’lláh appeared. Pain and suffering
> were written on His face.
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá recalled that sad and moving scene: “His hair and beard
> [were] unkempt, His neck galled and swollen from the pressure of a heavy
> steel collar, His body bent by the weight of His chains.” The sight made a
> never-to-be-forgotten impression on the mind of a sensitive boy.9
> This was but the beginning of nearly half a century of such persecution and
> suffering.
> What seems incredible about the story to us today is that at no time did
> Bahá’u’lláh’s persecutors lay any formal charges against Him. At no time
> was He given the opportunity of a proper trial. None of the sufferings
> inflicted on Him resulted from a conviction for any crime. A lifetime of
> banishment, abuse, and imprisonment was inflicted on Him solely on the
> personal authority of two royal dictators.
> The demand that Bahá’u’lláh’s story makes on us goes far beyond one of
> mere human sympathy. The life of the Manifestation of God is as prophetic
> as His teachings are. In Jesus’s sufferings were prefigured those of the
> peoples of the Mediterranean world who had rejected His message of peace
> and brotherhood.
> Were millions of men in the twentieth century to follow Bahá’u’lláh down
> the path of exile, humiliation, imprisonment, and suffering to which the
> leaders of men had condemned Him?
> The answer lay with the rulers who held the real power in the world of the
> nineteenth century—the kings and leaders of the great nations of Europe:
> France, Britain, Russia, and Germany.
> To these men the Prisoner addressed Himself.
> 
> * Bahá’u’lláh refers to Himself here with the royal “we.”
> 3 THE FIRST KINGDOM FALLS
> Not liberty, equality, and fraternity,
> but cavalry, infantry, and artillery.
> 
> The Mighty Bell
> “O King of Paris! Tell the priest to ring the bells no longer…. The Most
> Mighty Bell hath appeared.”1 These were the opening words of a letter that
> Bahá’u’lláh addressed to Napoleon III, the emperor of France and nephew of
> Napoleon I. The Prisoner told the emperor that this “Mighty Bell” was
> Himself and that He had come so that the “world might be quickened, and all
> its peoples united”!2
> A remarkable sequence of events brought Bahá’u’lláh from the Black Pit
> of Ṭihrán to the Turkish fortress of ‘Akká on the coast of the Mediterranean,
> from which He wrote this letter. Not the least remarkable feature of the story
> is the precision with which these events had been foretold in the scriptures of
> three world religions.
> We will want to return to those events when we consider the fate of
> Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh and the Persian monarchy. The shah was not, however, the
> first ruler to receive a specific summons from the Prisoner. That ruler was
> Napoleon III, the most powerful monarch of his day. It may help, therefore, if
> we jump ahead a few years in time to the story of this king’s historic
> encounter with the Prisoner.
> Bahá’u’lláh wrote not once but twice to Napoleon. It is reported that he
> cast the first letter aside angrily and ridiculed its contents. Napoleon was the
> first Western ruler to whom the Prisoner sent one of His history-making
> letters. He was also the first ruler to be caught up in the rushing winds about
> which the letters spoke.
> In the very year when the Báb first announced the advent of the Prisoner,
> 1844, Louis Napoleon was inspired to write a treatise on the elimination of
> poverty. The king appeared to be in tune with the spirit of the teachings of the
> Prisoner. The abolition of extremes of poverty and wealth was one of the
> basic principles that the Prisoner urged the kings of the earth to bring about.
> “March at the head of the ideas of your century,” Napoleon III reportedly
> declared, “and these ideas follow and support you. March against them and
> they overthrow you.”
> In sixteen years the emperor led his nation into three wars that ruined
> France economically. Louis Napoleon was given the opportunity to become
> an instrument to advance the welfare of mankind but was unable to put aside
> his own desires. His fate intertwined with that of the Prisoner time and again.
> In the year of Louis Napoleon’s death, 1873, the Prisoner wrote His
> greatest book, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas,3 which contained yet other appeals to the
> kings and rulers of the earth, including a special message to the presidents
> and rulers of the republics of the West. He also laid down the fundamentals
> for a peaceful and ordered society and described the institutions by which this
> goal could be accomplished. Napoleon III professed to be a leader dedicated
> to such aims for social justice.
> Throughout his career Louis Napoleon was motivated, he said, by “a
> social, industrial, commercial, humanitarian idea.” When Napoleon III turned
> away from those principles, his downfall began.
> The Prisoner wrote from the fortress-city of ‘Akká: “O King of Paris …
> We tested thee, and found thee wanting…. Hadst thou been sincere in thy
> words, thou wouldst not have cast behind thy back the Book of God…. We
> have proved thee through it, and found thee other than that which thou didst
> profess.”4
> There is no place here for a detailed study of the relationship between the
> Second Empire and the rise of the worldwide following of the Prisoner. This
> story can do no more than give a few brief kaleidoscopic glimpses into those
> events that should have shaken and awakened the world.
> It is our great loss that the world remained asleep.
> The scratchings of a Pen.
> 
> The Hidden Scroll
> If anyone had suggested that Louis Napoleon’s predecessor, the great
> Napoleon I, would be turned back from his first conquests by a “pimple,” the
> fortress of ‘Akká, he would have been considered unbalanced. Yet Napoleon
> I himself admitted that he had been beaten, not by the British or the Turks,
> but by a “grain of sand” known as ‘Akká.
> When, half a century later, a contemptible Prisoner of the Turks sent out a
> message from that same city predicting collapse of the entire Napoleonic
> dynasty, the world was equally unimpressed.
> Bahá’u’lláh, it was said, enchanted those who came to visit Him in that
> prison-city. The Turkish officials at first found this amusing. Especially so
> when a respected French agent of Louis Napoleon’s government became a
> devoted friend of this condemned Prisoner.
> The influence that the Prisoner gradually began to exert over all those who
> came to see Him became so great, however, that the guards grew suspicious
> of every visitor. Each one was kept under careful scrutiny. None was allowed
> to carry messages either to or from the Prisoner.
> In spite of this close surveillance, it was not possible to prevent the
> Prisoner’s second historic letter to Napoleon III from leaving the prison-city.
> The letter was carried by a visitor. Though the guards searched him
> thoroughly, still they found nothing concealed on his person. The visitor must
> have smiled to himself as he hurried away, confident that the guards would
> never think to search beneath his hat. He walked nonchalantly through the
> streets of ‘Akká, carrying in that hiding place Bahá’u’lláh’s letter.
> The letter was delivered to the French agent in ‘Akká, who made the
> necessary translation and arranged to put the letter into the hands of the
> emperor.
> The fate of a king, a nation, an empire, and a dynasty were all foretold on
> that scroll of paper hidden beneath the head-dress of a visitor to a condemned
> Prisoner in the fortress of ‘Akká.
> Thine empire shall pass from thine hands,
> as a punishment for that which thou hast wrought.
> 
> The Day of Reckoning
> The court of Napoleon III was the talk of all Europe. It was no make-believe
> king whose dramatic fall the Prisoner had predicted.
> The ceremony and pageantry of Napoleon’s court had become the envy of
> his neighbors. His contemporaries were overwhelmed by his lavish display.
> His ship rode on the crest of the waves. He himself could hardly believe his
> own good fortune. It surpassed even his fondest dreams. Napoleon III would
> make of his kingdom what he wished. Every golden door was opening—the
> world was his!
> The Prisoner addressed Napoleon, “It beseemeth the king of the age to
> inquire into the condition of such as have been wronged, and it behooveth
> him to extend his care to the weak.”5
> Napoleon III was interested in the strong, not the weak, in the rich, not the
> poor. Least of all was he interested in the denizens of Turkish prisons. He
> was in fact the ally of those same Turks against the czar of Russia. The
> Crimean War had been his chance to avenge his uncle, the great Napoleon I,
> and the emperor had no desire to incur the disfavor of his Turkish allies.
> Louis Napoleon’s actions said plainly: “Don’t bother me with trifles! The
> world is at stake!”
> It was Napoleon’s own world that was at stake. And he had already lost it.
> Following the initial contempt shown by Louis Napoleon, the Prisoner wrote
> in his second letter to the French emperor, “O King!… Arise, and make
> amends for that which hath escaped thee. Ere long the world and all that thou
> possessest will perish, and the kingdom will remain unto God, thy Lord and
> the Lord of thy fathers of old. It behooveth thee not to conduct thine affairs
> according to the dictates of thy desires.”6
> The Prisoner warned the emperor that unless his misdeeds were
> immediately corrected he would pay a terrible penalty: “For what thou hast
> done, thy kingdom shall be thrown into confusion, and thine empire shall
> pass from thine hands as a punishment for that which thou hast wrought.”7
> The day of reckoning was on its way.
> 
> We see abasement hastening after thee.
> 
> The Swift Decline
> It was the beginning of the end for the Napoleonic dynasty. Napoleon III had
> provoked the Crimean War in order to satisfy his inner anger against the
> Russian emperor. He had longed to rip up the treaty of 1815 and avenge his
> uncle’s disaster at Moscow.
> Another great inspiration of Napoleon III’s reign had been to establish an
> empire in Mexico. He had conceived the grandiose idea before becoming
> emperor. Napoleon envisioned for himself a “new Constantinople” on the
> Isthmus of Panama. He would be a monarch in both the East and the West
> and would establish his influence in the center of America.
> Oddly enough, Bahá’u’lláh had promised Napoleon III almost that exact
> reward if the king would devote himself to the cause of unity and justice for
> all mankind. The Prisoner wrote, “O King of Paris! … Arise thou to serve
> God and help His Cause. He, verily, will assist thee with the hosts of the seen
> and unseen, and will set thee king over all that whereon the sun riseth.”8
> Napoleon III made no attempt to assist the Prisoner or listen to his words.
> Napoleon III’s American venture came to a dismal failure, and all of his
> subsequent attempts at expansion were overtaken by the same fate.
> Suddenly, the old days of glory were gone. Earlier he had defeated both
> Russia and Austria in the Crimean and Italian wars. He had surpassed two of
> the most feared military powers in all Europe and had astonished the entire
> world. When Prussia and Austria went to war with one another in 1866,
> Napoleon III sat on the sidelines. He planned to intervene on the “proper”
> side at the “proper” time—that is, on whichever side would bestow upon him
> the greater benefit.
> He guessed wrong and placed his fortunes with Austria, which Prussia
> overwhelmed swiftly and decisively. Napoleon’s error was the first of a host
> that were to multiply and haunt him as his prestige declined.
> It is written in the Bible that God punishes the kings and the nations. Louis
> Napoleon is almost a classic example of this principle at work. In reality,
> kings and nations punish themselves. They bring on their own sufferings by
> their wrong decisions.
> In this Day of God, whenever a ruler acts unjustly in order to assure his
> own advancement or prestige, or that of his country or people, at the expense
> of others, the decisions made to achieve that ignoble end plant the seeds of
> disaster. The more opposed these decisions are to the fundamental Laws of
> God concerning justice, the greater will be the disasters and the more certain
> the downfall of all those who make such decisions. However long the
> process, the end is always the same.
> The Prisoner tried to explain this basic principle to the leaders of the
> world. His mission was to call their attention to the Laws of God. If they
> disobeyed them, the resulting punishment would be brought on by their own
> wrong decisions. That is how God “punishes” the kings and the nations: they
> punish themselves.
> Kaiser William I, ruler of Austria, later declared that this war of 1866,
> during which Napoleon III sat on the sidelines, was the ruin of France.
> The kaiser remarked that Napoleon should have attacked from the rear.
> It was too late. The “shining hour” had passed, and Napoleon III had no
> refuge now except in war. Already he was risking an imminent revolution at
> home. In July 1870, Napoleon III led his nation into war against Prussia.
> The French minister of war proudly declared that France expected a great
> and total victory. History shows how pathetic this decision was—wrong
> decisions on all sides became the trademark of Napoleon III.
> Chaos reigned unchecked: “Frequently soldiers and even generals went
> astray, not able to find their places. ‘Have arrived at Belfort,’ telegraphed
> General Michel on July 21st. ‘Can’t find my brigade; can’t find the general of
> the division. What shall I do? Don’t know where my regiments are.’ It has
> been observed that this document is probably unique in military records.”9
> The fulfillment of the promise made to Napoleon III by the Prisoner of the
> Holy Land had begun: “For what thou hast done, thy kingdom shall be
> thrown into confusion….”10
> In an attempt to prevent mutiny, Napoleon joined the army personally,
> along with his young son. Exhausted by the pressures on him, and with his
> health undermined by agonizing attacks of kidney stones, the emperor was
> barely able to stay on his horse during parade. It is said that he rouged his
> cheeks to disguise his pallor from the troops.
> Napoleon III advanced with his army into oblivion.
> The French agent in ‘Akká became a follower of the Prisoner when he saw
> the devastating fruition of those very prophecies that he himself had
> translated into French and forwarded to Napoleon III.
> 
> They … made Us, with glaring injustice, enter the Most
> Great Prison.
> 
> The Tide Turns
> When we contrast the life and position of Bahá’u’lláh with that of Napoleon
> III at the beginning of the emperor’s reign, then witness how their positions
> were completely reversed at the end, we begin to understand the true
> significance of the warning that the Prisoner sent to the king: “Hath thy pomp
> made thee proud? By My Life! It shall not endure; nay, it shall soon pass
> away, unless thou holdest fast by this firm Cord. We see abasement hastening
> after thee, while thou art of the heedless.”11
> Words that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá used in another connection seem to apply with a
> special aptness to Napoleon III of France: “This glory shall be turned into the
> most abject abasement, and this pomp and might converted into the most
> complete subjugation.”12
> It would be difficult to imagine a contrast greater than that between
> Napoleon III and the Prisoner. In the year 1852, Louis Napoleon had been
> raised up to become emperor of France. In that same year, Bahá’u’lláh was
> arrested in far-off Persia and was marched for miles, bareheaded and barefoot
> in the blazing sun. He was led through a screaming mob of enemies. He was
> without food or drink during those hours when Napoleon III dined
> sumptuously in the capital of a brilliant empire.
> In January 1853, Napoleon III married the Spanish Countess Eugenie de
> Montijo. The emperor’s life was just becoming settled and his family
> established securely on the throne of France. In that same month, the Prisoner
> was uprooted from his home, robbed of His position and wealth, and
> banished forever from His native land.
> The higher the tide of Napoleon III’s power, the lower had seemed to ebb
> the fortunes of the Prisoner of the Holy Land.
> Bahá’u’lláh was exiled like Abraham, stoned like Moses, scourged like
> Christ. He was imprisoned, chained, poisoned, and persecuted from city to
> city. At last He had arrived at that most dreaded of all Turkish prisons, the
> fortress of ‘Akká, standing in the shadow of Mount Carmel, a Hebrew name
> meaning the “Vineyard of God.” From that prison-city, He had sent His
> second letter to the emperor of France.
> From that point on, with swift strokes from the hand of destiny, the
> Prisoner was raised up, and His teachings spread into every corner of the
> planet, while the emperor was toppled from the heights and his grandeur
> entirely eclipsed.
> We shall never know what thoughts went through Louis Napoleon’s mind
> as he was taken prisoner by a foreign king, following his defeat at the battle
> of Sedan. Did he recall those words once directed to him by the Prisoner of
> ‘Akká? It is unlikely that Napoleon III grasped any part of the spiritual
> revolution that was already agitating the face of society. He was blind even to
> the part he, himself, was playing in this unfolding drama.
> 
> God shall, assuredly, judge with truth.
> The First Kingdom Falls
> The letters to Napoleon III from the prison-city of ‘Akká contained several
> ominous prophecies.
> The Prisoner prophesied that He would soon change fortunes and fates
> with all tyrant monarchs. Their positions in life, He said, would be reversed
> through the power of Almighty God. There was no king whose fate fitted
> those words better than Napoleon III of France: “Hearken, O King, to the
> speech of Him that speaketh the truth…. The tribulations that have touched
> Us, the destitution from which We suffer, the various troubles with which We
> are encompassed, shall all pass away, as shall pass away the pleasures in
> which they [the King’s Ministers] delight and the affluence they enjoy.”13
> The Prisoner described the great reversal that would take place: “The days
> in which We have been compelled to dwell in the dust will soon be ended, as
> will the days in which they occupied the seats of honor. God shall, assuredly,
> judge with truth between Us and them, and He, verily, is the best of
> judges.”14
> Louis Napoleon lived to see these words come true.
> The Prisoner had written: “O King … For what thou hast done, thy
> kingdom shall be thrown into confusion…. Commotions shall seize all the
> people in that land.”15
> Paris was besieged by the Germans. All resistance melted and the city
> capitulated. The French people were shocked by the cardboard collapse of
> their military might—they blamed the emperor. The Franco-Prussian War
> was followed by civil war, a period called the “terrible years” that exceeded
> in ferocity the war itself and left scars on the French mind, which affect
> France to this day. Confusion seized the entire nation, and suffering from
> famine, revolution, and disease took thousands of lives in Paris, Napoleon’s
> “City of Light.”
> The Prisoner had told Napoleon: “We see abasement hastening after thee
> … a punishment for that which thou hast wrought.”16
> The emperor became the most thoroughly hated man in all of France.
> Mobs in Paris cried out for revenge against him and blamed him for the
> humiliation of France. Empress Eugenie barely escaped with her life, and the
> monarchy was extinguished.
> Napoleon had one son, Prince Eugene Louis Jean Joseph, who had been
> educated in England. Even after his own fall, Napoleon III hoped for a future
> restoration of the Napoleonic throne with his son as emperor. Mercifully, he
> did not live to see the prince killed in the far-off Zulu war fought between the
> blacks and whites in South Africa.
> The Prisoner’s prophecies had indeed been “terrible” to one of “the kings
> of the earth” as the Bible had centuries earlier warned. The prophet Isaiah, in
> a single chapter, declared that a day would come when the kings would be
> punished. The Lord, Isaiah warned, would turn the earth “upside down” in
> that day, and He would “scatter” the inhabitants. The “haughty” and proud
> ones would “languish” away because of their wickedness.17
> In order that there might be no mistake about whom Isaiah was speaking,
> the Prisoner Himself had written: “I am the One Whom the tongue of Isaiah
> hath extolled…. Blessed be the king whose sovereignty hath withheld him
> not from his Sovereign, and who hath turned unto God with his heart.”18
> Napoleon III had failed to meet the test of God and “went down to dust.”
> He suffered the fate foretold for such kings by Isaiah so long, long ago: “And
> it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish the host of the
> high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.”19
> The first kingdom had fallen.
> 4 THE SECOND KINGDOM FALLS
> He went down to dust in great loss.
> 
> The God of Battles
> On June 18, 1871, Kaiser William I, emperor of Germany, entered Berlin at
> the head of his victorious troops. It was a day of great rejoicing. Napoleon
> III’s armies had been crushed. William I was a national hero in Germany—he
> was becoming legendary. As the clattering hoofbeats of victory rang through
> the streets of Berlin, the emperor was the cynosure of all eyes.
> He had achieved almost every dream. He had become, in turn, prince, king,
> and now emperor of a united Germany. There was no one to challenge him.
> And then one voice was raised in warning. From His far-off prison cell,
> Bahá’u’lláh reminded the kaiser of what had befallen the emperor of France.
> He warned William that exactly the same fate awaited him if he did not
> follow the counsels that God was offering to the kings of the earth and devote
> himself to the service of unity and justice.
> The Prisoner addressed these words to William I: “O King of Berlin! …
> remember the one whose power transcended thy power [Napoleon III], and
> whose station excelled thy station. Where is he? Whither are gone the things
> he possessed?”1
> The victor, like the vanquished, was given the opportunity to respond to
> the call of God. Kings were trustees of God and were responsible for that
> trust.
> The Prisoner warned Kaiser William I not to forget the lesson given to the
> world by the tragic fate of Napoleon III. “Think deeply, O King,” Bahá’u’lláh
> wrote, “concerning him [Napoleon III], and concerning them who, like unto
> thee, have conquered cities and ruled over men. The All-Merciful [God]
> brought them down from their palaces to their graves.”2
> The emperor, however, had always been convinced that Prussia was the
> rightful head of all Germany. He had always believed that only one thing
> would ever put her there: the force and power of a mighty army. History
> appeared to have proved him, not the Prisoner, to be right.
> But the Prisoner was not only counseling the kings of the world, He was
> also warning them. Kaiser William I of Germany was no exception to the
> following warning of God: “O Oppressors on earth! Withdraw your hands
> from tyranny, for I have pledged Myself to never forgive any man’s
> injustice.”3
> Up to the time of his accession to the throne, William had spent his entire
> time in the army. He has been described as militaristic and autocratic to the
> very extreme. He admitted that he believed only in the “God of battles.”
> The Prisoner warned the emperor: “O King of Berlin…. Take warning, and
> be not of them that are fast asleep. He [Napoleon III] it was who cast the
> Tablet [letter] of God behind him…. Wherefore, disgrace assailed him from
> all sides, and he went down to dust in great loss. Think deeply, O King…. Be
> warned, be of them who reflect.”4
> 
> Be united, O kings of the earth, for thereby will the
> tempest of discord be stilled amongst you.
> 
> The Sound of War
> William I did not listen to the warning from the Prisoner of ‘Akká. His death
> delivered Germany into the hands of his reckless and arrogant grandson, the
> young William II. The new kaiser embarked on a cause that was directly
> opposed to almost every one of the Prisoner’s counsels. Instead of bringing
> peace and tranquillity to his people and nation, he set in motion the forces of
> a military machine that was to engulf his nation in disaster. In the end, it was
> to shatter the peace of the world.
> In 1898 Kaiser William II visited the Holy Land. The king was within a
> few miles of the prison-city where the Prisoner had addressed the historic
> message to his grandfather that foreshadowed the downfall of the
> Hohenzollern dynasty.
> During that visit to the Holy Land, Kaiser William II allied himself with
> one of the Prisoner’s most notorious persecutors, the sultan of Turkey. When
> he arrived in the Holy Land, one of the gates of Jerusalem was torn down and
> widened so that proper respect and honor could be paid to this visiting
> monarch.
> Very different had been Bahá’u’lláh’s arrival in the Holy Land. His party
> of exiles had been crowded into a small boat, delayed for hours, and then
> transported across the bay to the fortress-city of ‘Akká. He was marched
> through the streets, humiliated by the mob, and finally cast into the fortress-
> prison.
> Seventy-eight persons were crowded into one room with Him. They were
> all deprived of food and water. Most of them fell ill with malaria or typhus,
> and some died. All of this came by the edict of a sultan of Turkey, a throne
> on which William II now lavished his praise.
> The kaiser on that occasion described himself as a friend of the caliph,
> ‘Abdu’l-Hamíd of Turkey, and published the news of his affiliation with
> Turkey while in Jerusalem. He was proud of this new partnership of kings:
> kaiser and sultan would stand against the world.
> But the kingdom of each of these friends was soon to collapse almost
> simultaneously, and their dynasties were to disappear forever in almost the
> same hour.
> How aptly the Prisoner’s words apply to William II during those days that
> the king spent in the holy city, Jerusalem. The kaiser made no effort to seek
> out the Prisoner or to inquire about Him. In fact, the kaiser ignored
> everything to do with the Prisoner and His teachings. If they had ever crossed
> the king’s mind, no doubt he dismissed them as nonsense. The ravings of a
> religious fanatic had nothing to do with him, an absolute monarch. William
> dealt in more important things—like war. His fellow rulers would have
> agreed heartily; they had better things to do than visit prisoners.
> Bahá’u’lláh’s words challenged these assumptions: “O kings of
> Christendom! … Ye welcomed Him* not, neither did ye seek His Presence,
> that ye might hear the verses of God from His own mouth, and partake of the
> manifold wisdom of the Almighty…. Ye have, by reason of your failure,
> hindered the breath of God from being wafted over you, and have withheld
> from your souls the sweetness of its fragrance…. Ye, and all ye possess, shall
> pass away…. Ye shall … be called to account for your doings.”5
> Powerful language. Very annoying to kings. Disturbing and upsetting to us
> as well, perhaps. Humanity as a whole has tended, as an initial reaction, to
> automatically reject anyone who claims to speak in the name of God. Yet our
> civilization, particularly its moral values, arose from the teachings of God.
> This was the authority with which Moses and Christ had spoken in the past.
> 
> The rights and privileges of all men must be protected.
> 
> The Unsheathed Sword
> The solution to the problems of the world as expressed by the Prisoner and by
> William II could not have been more directly opposed.
> The Prisoner wrote, “O kings of the earth! … Compose your differences,
> and reduce your armaments, that the burden of your expenditures may be
> lightened, and that your minds and hearts may be tranquilized.”6
> William II, on the other hand, agitated differences among his neighbors.
> He increased his armaments. He laid each day a heavier burden upon his
> peoples, unsettling a civilized nation with dreams of war and bloodshed.
> The Prisoner declared, “O kings of the earth! … Heal the dissensions that
> divide you, and ye will no longer be in need of any armaments except what
> the protection of your cities and territories demandeth.”7
> William II established war as the religion of his country. He loathed any
> suggestions concerning disarmament or peace. He scoffed at the conclusions
> arrived at by the Hague Peace Conference in 1898. Commenting on one of
> them, the kaiser frankly that admitted he despised all such peace conferences.
> He showed his contempt in these words: “I trust in God and in my
> unsheathed sword, and I—on all resolutions of international conferences.”
> The advice of the Prisoner was exactly opposite to such an attitude. He
> said the “peace and tranquillity of the world” depended upon the leaders of
> mankind coming together in a “vast assemblage.” They must consult in a
> spirit of good will upon this all-important matter, peace.
> The Prisoner wrote, “Such a peace demandeth that the Great Powers
> should resolve, for the sake of the tranquillity of the peoples of the earth, to
> be fully reconciled among themselves…. We fain would hope that the kings
> and rulers of the earth, the mirrors of the gracious and almighty name of God,
> may attain unto this station, and shield mankind from the onslaught of
> tyranny.”8
> A clash between the vision of the Prisoner and that of the Hohenzollern
> kings was inevitable.
> 
> We desire that the differences of race be annulled.
> 
> The king of kings and the “King of
> Kings”
> Kaiser William II lay with considerable elegance and diplomacy during the
> early days of his reign. He was particularly fond of invoking divine approval,
> and called upon Christ Himself when he assumed the kingship. Summoned to
> the throne of his fathers, it was with eyes raised to the King of Kings that he
> claimed to assume the scepter.
> Like his grandfather before him, William II ignored all advice. He scorned
> all warnings. He knew where his duty lay. He didn’t need the counsel of
> others to tell him that Germany must be supreme.
> The Prisoner had advised the rulers of men otherwise: “O kings … God
> hath committed into your hands the reins of the government of the people,
> that ye may rule with justice over them, safeguard the rights of the
> downtrodden, and punish the wrongdoers. If ye neglect the duty prescribed
> unto you by God in His Book, your names shall be numbered with those of
> the unjust in His sight. Grievous, indeed, will be your error.”9
> But Kaiser William II was unmoved by wise counsel and words of caution,
> from whatever source they might come. “I regard myself as an instrument of
> heaven,” Kaiser William told his people. “I go my way without regard to the
> events or opinions of the day.”
> He possessed a rage for personal power so great that he could no longer
> tolerate the annoyance of sharing decisions, even with his famous chancellor
> Otto von Bismarck. In March 1890, following a bitter crisis, William II
> forced Bismarck’s resignation. The king was overjoyed. He was at last sole
> ruler, “master of both big and little matters” (to quote his own words).
> In that very same year, 1890, in the valley of ‘Akká, in the Holy Land, the
> place described by Hosea as a “door of hope” for mankind, the Prisoner
> received a visit from a well-known British scholar, Professor Edward
> Granville Browne of Cambridge University.
> During that interview, the Prisoner spoke of just such “ruinous wars” as the
> kaiser was contemplating. He spoke of the “fruitless strifes” that plagued
> Europe and the world. The Prisoner said, “We see your kings and rulers
> lavishing their treasures more freely on means for the destruction of the
> human race than on that which would conduce to the happiness of
> mankind.”10
> No greater challenge to the views of Kaiser William II could be found than
> these words spoken by the Prisoner to Professor Browne on that occasion:
> “Let not a man glory in this that he loves his country; let him rather glory in
> this, that he loves his kind.”11
> While the kaiser was plotting the conquest of his neighbors by force, the
> Prisoner was reemphasizing His words of unity and peace. He told Professor
> Browne:
> 
> Thou hast come to see a prisoner and an exile…. We desire but the good
> of the world and the happiness of the nations; yet they deem us a stirrer-
> up of strife and sedition worthy of bondage and banishment…. That all
> nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers; that the
> bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be
> strengthened; that the diversity of religion should cease, and differences
> of race be annulled—what harm is there in this? … Yet so it shall be;
> these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the “Most
> Great Peace” shall come…. Do not you in Europe need this also?12
> 
> Meanwhile, in Europe, Kaiser William II of Germany rejoiced at the
> downfall of his chancellor, Bismarck.
> There were no longer any restraints upon the kaiser. He announced
> exultantly that the course remained as it was—full steam ahead!
> 
> The scourge of Europe.
> 
> Disaster Course
> It was a disaster course.
> The fate predicted by the Prisoner for all such unjust kings was soon to
> overtake the entire Hohenzollern dynasty. It struck initially at the emperor to
> whom the Prisoner had written his first dire warnings. Later, it engulfed his
> successor, Kaiser William II, and abolished their rule forever.
> William I sustained three attempts on his life. Although he recovered, he
> lived in constant fear of renewed attacks until his death. His peace of mind
> was gone.
> It was William II, however, who has to accept the guilt for ushering in the
> catastrophe that was to dethrone him and his dynasty. It would be naive, of
> course, to blame the kaiser alone for the advent of World War I. He was but
> one of many contributing causes. There is, however, no doubt that this was a
> war for which he longed. It was a war that he schemed to hasten in every way
> possible. Germany, under his goading, constantly demonstrated its military
> might to the world, until at last the first blow was struck.
> The might of the Kaiser’s armies was immediately victorious on almost
> every front. His early triumphs appeared to have overpowered his
> adversaries. There seemed little doubt that Germany would have a quick and
> conclusive victory.
> The news of these resounding triumphs flashed around the world. Stories
> of the German victories found a very welcome reception in certain quarters of
> Persia, the Prisoner’s homeland. These easy and astonishing successes of the
> advancing army of Kaiser William II led to the ridicule of the Prisoner and
> His Faith.
> The Prisoner had written, “O banks of the Rhine! We have seen you
> covered with gore, inasmuch as the swords of retribution were drawn against
> you; and you shall have another turn.”13
> The Prisoner warned the emperor of Germany of the fate that would
> overtake his nation and capital city if the king followed in the foolish
> footsteps of Napoleon III, who had already gone “down to dust.”
> Bahá’u’lláh had written, “Think deeply, O King…. Be warned, be of them
> who reflect…. We hear the lamentations of Berlin, though she be today in
> conspicuous glory.”14
> The kaiser and the world may have paid little attention to the Prisoner’s
> prophecies about Germany, but his enemies in Persia had not forgotten. This
> was their hour of delight.
> The news spread rapidly. It was too good to keep: “His great prophecy
> about Germany has proved to be false!”
> “Where are the lamentations of Berlin?”
> “Are the banks of the Rhine covered with blood?”
> “Has Germany had even one turn, let alone a second?”
> The devoted followers of the Prisoner remained silent as the German army
> advanced. What could they say? The Prisoner’s ominous words about
> Germany had remained unfulfilled. The Rhine had not been a scene of
> slaughter. Instead, Berlin was in “conspicuous glory.”
> Exactly the opposite of what the Prisoner had prophesied was taking place
> in Germany. The kaiser was sweeping all before him. In many quarters, the
> might of the kaiser’s armies was considered to be well-nigh invincible.
> The magnificently trained divisions of the German High Command
> became the scourge of Europe. Under the banner of “Gott mit uns!” (“God is
> with us”) they rolled over all opposition. They delighted their friends and
> terrified their enemies. They were making a laughingstock of the Prisoner’s
> predictions.
> God did indeed appear to be with the kaiser.
> 
> The teeth of the tiger are drawn, and he is banished
> forever.
> The Inglorious Exit
> The tragic events that succeeded these early triumphs proved that the
> Prisoner’s words had been no idle prediction.
> Every beholder with “eyes to see” was soon to gaze upon the awesome
> fulfillment of every one of His pronouncements. The consequences, long
> delayed, were all the more severe.
> The Prisoner had written, for all who doubted the potency of God to
> achieve His ends, “Dost thou believe thou hast the power to frustrate His
> Will, to hinder Him from executing His judgment, or to deter Him from
> exercising His sovereignty? Pretendest thou that aught in the heavens or in
> the earth can resist His Faith? No, by Him Who is the Eternal Truth! Nothing
> whatsoever in the whole of creation can thwart His Purpose.”15
> Those words soon came true.
> The war, which had begun so impressively for Germany, suddenly soured
> on every front. Unforeseen reverses, swift and fatal, overtook the kaiser and
> all his armies. Suddenly, the war was lost.
> The “terms of a treaty notorious in its severity” crushed the life out of the
> German people. It shrouded their hopes for the future. The “lamentations of
> Berlin” were heard on every side.
> The Prisoner’s enemies in Persia now bitterly regretted having called
> attention to those fate-laden words contained in His prophecies.
> Even more remarkable than the “lamentations of Berlin” was the promise
> that the Prisoner had directed to the banks of the Rhine. Because of its
> aggressive military policy, Germany suffered not once, but twice. She was
> crushed in both world wars.
> Two times the banks of the Rhine were “covered with gore.” Twice the
> “lamentations” were heard around the world. The German nation did have
> “another turn,” when not only the “swords of retribution” were raised against
> her a second time, but bombs as well. Nations shattered the Nazi empire of
> Adolph Hitler, leveling many parts of the capital city, Berlin.16
> On November 11, 1918, newspaper headlines in Berlin flashed the news:
> “Kaiser abdicates!”
> The dumbfounded and war-weary emperor had not yet even been
> informed. On Sunday, November 10, one day before the armistice, William II
> had fled ignominiously to Holland, his train slipping quietly away from the
> station at Spa into the early morning fog.
> The kaiser transferred to an automobile at the Dutch border. It must have
> been a humiliating experience. Not only had his armies surrendered, but
> there, at Dutch customs, the kaiser had to surrender his sword to the customs
> officer. The teeth of the tiger had been drawn, and he was banished from his
> homeland forever, exactly as the Prisoner had been banished.
> Taylor, in his history, states, “There have been more tragic and more
> disgraceful exits from the stage of history, but few more inglorious.”17
> 
> God promised to destroy the king and the princes.
> 
> The Second Kingdom Falls
> The Hohenzollern dynasty passed away. With it vanished many of their
> fellow kings and princes. Before November 15, 1918, the princes of all the
> German states had abdicated, and all other contemporary German thrones had
> fallen. The king, the crown prince, and all the lesser princes of Germany were
> removed completely and permanently from their places of honor.
> The empire of the Hohenzollerns toppled to the dust. Its official death-
> knell was sounded November 28, 1918, when William II signed a formal act
> of abdication, which ended his rule both as Prussian king and German
> emperor.
> This document brought to an end the 250-year reign of oppression by the
> powerful Hohenzollern dynasty. The constitution that followed swept away
> forever the German monarchy. It carried into oblivion with it all the imperial
> princes, and scattered forever all the lesser kings of German states, along with
> their attendant princes.
> Around the world, clergymen saw in these cataclysmic events the
> fulfillment of Biblical prophecies. But the truth is far greater than any of them
> grasped. The prophet Jeremiah, speaking of the latter days, said that God
> promised, “And I will set my throne in Elam [Persia], and will destroy from
> thence the king and the princes.”18
> The Prisoner had come from Persia, which Jeremiah called Elam, and He
> had already delivered the commands whose rejection had led to the
> destruction of the kings and princes of two great nations.
> The entire story of Bahá’u’lláh has its roots deep in the scriptures of all the
> great religions. In the fate of the other monarchs to whom Bahá’u’lláh
> directed His appeal was to be the fulfillment of even more remarkable
> promises and warnings.
> In Germany, the second kingdom had fallen.
> 
> * Jesus Christ
> 5 THE THIRD KINGDOM FALLS
> One of thy ministers extended Me his aid.
> 
> The Czar-Liberator
> No other chapter in the story of the Prisoner and the kings has such elements
> of classic tragedy as that concerning Russia and its unhappy monarch,
> Alexander II. It is difficult to feel much sympathy for the emperor of France,
> the vain and vulgar Louis Napoleon. It is nearly impossible to feel it for the
> Hohenzollern kaisers, whose arrogance played so great a role in dragging
> humankind into the horrors of World War I.
> It is not difficult to feel sympathy, on the other hand, for a man whose
> weakness and timidity led him into fatal errors. All of us on occasion feel
> weak and timid. Unhappily, however, those who accept positions of great
> trust and power, and who derive the benefits of such position, also must
> accept its obligations. The only alternative is to surrender the position and
> retire to a less demanding role in human affairs.
> Alexander II was in many respects a remarkable man. He was certainly a
> most unusual czar. With few exceptions his predecessors had been hard,
> brutal autocrats ruling their vast domain with an iron fist. One of the most
> famous, Peter the Great, had killed his own son. Another, the notorious “Ivan
> the Terrible,” had literally bricked his enemies up alive in the walls of the
> Kremlin.
> Alexander was repelled by this family history. He was essentially a good-
> natured and compassionate man who abhorred suffering. Further, unlike other
> members of the Romanov family, he had been educated by a French tutor. As
> a result, he had adopted a number of very liberal and progressive ideas.
> To many, his accession was hailed as the dawn of a new day. Russia’s
> greatest social problem was the serfdom of those who toiled in misery on the
> estates of the great lords. The second most urgent problem was the lack of
> anything like democratic government.
> Alexander was known to favor extensive reforms in both these areas.
> Relatively early in his reign he astonished the world and alarmed the
> aristocracy by abolishing serfdom throughout Russia. This was four years
> before the United States abolished the even worse institution of Negro
> slavery. Alexander followed this progressive act with others designed to
> begin a gradual and more equitable distribution of land, so that peasants
> could own their own farms and have a voice in government. The millennium
> appeared to be on its way in Russia. Alexander was hailed as the “czar-
> liberator.”
> It was to this remarkable emperor that Bahá’u’lláh addressed one of His
> most loving and moving appeals. The Russian government had already
> shown its potentiality for good some years earlier when its minister was the
> one major foreign figure in Ṭihrán to intervene directly on behalf of the
> persecuted Prisoner of Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh. The consul addressed the court
> openly, denouncing what he called “the absurd falsity” of the charges against
> Bahá’u’lláh.
> Subsequently, upon Bahá’u’lláh’s release and exile, a Russian official
> accompanied the party as far as the Turkish border. Without doubt, such
> intervention was both a comfort and an aid to the little band of exiles.
> Bahá’u’lláh foretold a great station for the czar if he would in like manner try
> to help humanity.
> Bahá’u’lláh directed these words to Alexander: “Whilst I lay, chained and
> fettered, in the prison … [in Persia], one of thy ministers extended Me his
> aid. Wherefore hath God ordained for thee a station which the knowledge of
> none can comprehend.”1
> The place of prestige would not be automatically conferred. The czar
> would have to labor industriously to attain it. He would have to be of service
> to his fellow man, and exert his efforts to bring the hearts of men back to
> God, and to acquaint the world with the message of unity and justice that
> Bahá’u’lláh brought.
> But God would help him—Bahá’u’lláh assured Alexander: “Thy Lord is,
> in truth, potent over all things. He giveth what He willeth to whomsoever He
> willeth.”2
> Would the czar-liberator listen?
> How great hath been My patience.
> 
> Hearken Unto the Voice
> Bahá’u’lláh called upon Alexander II to take the leadership in raising the
> moral and ethical standards of men: “O Czar of Russia…. Arise thou amongst
> men in the name of this all-compelling Cause, and summon, then, the nations
> unto God.”3
> Bahá’u’lláh told the czar that there was no refuge for any man in this day
> save in God. “He, verily, ordaineth what He pleaseth. Thy Lord truly
> preserveth whom He willeth, be he in the midst of the seas, or in the maw of
> the serpent, or beneath the sword of the oppressor.”4
> In that same letter, Bahá’u’lláh said that He had heard the wishes that the
> czar had spoken secretly in his heart in prayer. Bahá’u’lláh promised
> Alexander that God was willing to grant the king his desire if he in turn
> would be faithful to his trust as a true king. Bahá’u’lláh declared, “We,
> verily, have heard the thing for which thou didst supplicate thy Lord, whilst
> secretly communing with Him. Wherefore, the breeze of My loving-kindness
> wafted forth, and the sea of My mercy surged, and We answered thee in
> truth.”5
> It was as though the Emperor Tiberius Caesar received a promise from
> Christ that if he would accept His message and proclaim it, Caesar would be
> the envy of the past, present, and future. It was a promise similar to that
> which Bahá’u’lláh had offered to Napoleon III, who had refused it and had
> fallen from his high place.
> Thus, for a moment, Czar Alexander II Nicolaevich was at the threshold of
> a greatness unrivaled in the recorded history of royalty. He could have had
> the support and guidance of a Messenger of God in his actions. Alexander
> only needed to stretch forth his hand in help to the Promised One Whose
> coming had glorified the pages of the czar’s own sacred scriptures.
> Eager that the king should understand this and not miss his golden
> opportunity, Bahá’u’lláh repeated His entreaty: “Again I say, Hearken unto
> My Voice that calleth from My prison…. that thou mayest perceive how
> great hath been My patience.”6
> Bahá’u’lláh foresaw an unrivaled position for the czar. The king needed to
> take but one step to make it a reality.
> Bahá’u’lláh wrote, “O Czar of Russia…. By My Life! Couldst thou but
> know the things sent down by My Pen, and discover the treasures of My
> Cause … thou wouldst, in thy love for My name, and in thy longing for My
> glorious and sublime Kingdom, lay down thy life in My path…. Blessed be
> the king whose sovereignty hath withheld him not from his Sovereign, and
> who hath turned unto God with his heart.”7
> Certainly Alexander needed such reassurances, as his reforms had engulfed
> him in trouble. On the one hand, the nobility and clergy were violently
> opposed to his policies, which would cost them land and influence. They
> undermined the czar in every way they could. On the other, a new generation
> of revolutionaries who believed in nothing but terrorism had arisen. They felt
> confident that the czar would fail. They could see no way in which he could
> ever hope to mobilize the mass of the ignorant and superstitious peasantry
> behind his throne. The peasants loved the czar, but they understood nothing
> and were entirely disorganized. The terrorists waited expectantly for the
> moment they could launch a national revolution.
> Alexander became desperate. The one powerful group on whom he had
> relied were intellectuals in the government and the schools. These men,
> however, saw in the situation only a chance to make their personal
> reputations. They quarreled among themselves for position and influence.
> The czar realized that his program was built on shifting sands. Where
> could he find the moral and spiritual force that would enlist the mass of the
> Russian people in the cause of social change? The people were intensely
> religious, and social reform (he thought) had no religious content at all.
> Religion, the only power that could move Russia’s millions, seemed
> irrelevant. Certainly the religion of the Orthodox Church was little more than
> a mass of crusted superstitions and rituals.
> There is no more tragic and ironic story in history. At the very point in
> time that a spiritual authority for social change was desperately needed, that
> authority had been given. Christianity and the earlier religious revelations had
> been addressed to individuals. Now, through Bahá’u’lláh, God was speaking
> to nations, economic classes, racial groups, and institutions. And He was
> speaking on the very problems that were convulsing the world.
> It is impossible to imagine the effect that would have ensued in Russia had
> the czar, “the little father of the people,” the deeply trusted head of Russia’s
> vast family and of the church itself, announced the return of Christ and the
> inauguration of the kingdom of unity and justice. Nothing could have stood in
> his way.
> Alexander hesitated, vacillated, and then decided. He ignored the message
> of the Prisoner of ‘Akká and gave in to the pressures of his nobles. He had
> waded into the stream and now staggered fearfully back to the familiar shore.
> The words of Bahá’u’lláh to the czar ring in our ears: “Couldst thou …
> discover the treasures of My Cause … thou wouldst, in thy love for My
> Name, and in thy longing for My glorious and sublime Kingdom, lay down
> thy life in My path.”8
> 
> A great trembling seized and
> rocked the foundations of that country.
> 
> The Third Kingdom Falls
> The House of Romanov fell, as had the Houses of Napoleon and
> Hohenzollern. Its fortunes declined with progressive swiftness until World
> War I. Bolshevism arose during that fiery upheaval, shook the throne of the
> czars, and then abolished it.
> The last years of the reign of Alexander II were given over to terrorism and
> unexampled violence. Alexander reversed his liberal policies and inaugurated
> a program of repression that was taken up and expanded by his two autocratic
> successors. The czar lived in fear of his life. Living itself became a daily
> ordeal. Alexander would not leave the palace except under heavy guard. He
> preferred not to leave at all. He ordered his quarters to be searched carefully
> each night before retiring for fear of concealed assassins.
> On March 13, 1881, the czar was riding in his carriage along one of the
> central streets of St. Petersburg near the Winter Palace. The fatal day had
> arrived at last. A series of small bombs was exploded in his path. His vehicle
> overturned, and the blast shredded the king’s carriage. Alexander survived,
> and was questioning the would-be assassin when the latter’s accomplice
> threw another bomb directly in front of the czar’s feet. Alexander died a few
> hours later in his room at the royal palace.
> The next Romanov, Alexander III, was cut from a more tyrannical pattern,
> and his successor Nicholas II—the last of the czars—was equally rigid but,
> unhappily for him, far less able.
> What had been a general growing discontent among the masses now
> became an organized revolt. Both intellectuals and peasants arose against the
> czar. Their hatred finally erupted in the midst of World War I as the flame of
> revolution swept across the land—a revolution unparalleled in modern
> history. It challenged all age-old principles. It upended ancient and time-
> honored institutions and spread havoc, destruction and death on every side.
> The death-throes of the Romanov dynasty have been described in these
> words:
> 
> A great trembling seized and rocked the foundations of that country. The
> light of religion was dimmed. Ecclesiastical institutions of every
> denomination were swept away. The state religion was disendowed,
> persecuted and abolished. A far-flung empire was dismembered. A
> militant, triumphant proletariat exiled the intellectuals, and plundered
> and massacred the nobility. Civil war and disease decimated a
> population, already in the throes of agony and despair. And, finally, the
> Chief Magistrate of a mighty dominion, together with his consort, and
> his family, and his dynasty, were swept into the vortex of this great
> convulsion and perished.9
> 
> This brought to an end the line of kings that had ruled Russia for three
> hundred years. They, too, had turned a deaf ear to the words of the Messenger
> of God: “O ye rulers of the earth! … Hearken unto the counsel given you by
> the Pen of the Most High, that haply both ye and the poor may attain unto
> tranquility and peace. We beseech God to assist the kings of the earth to
> establish peace on earth…. Beware lest ye disregard the counsel of the All-
> Knowing, the Faithful.”10
> The House of Romanov collapsed, and the dynasty of which Alexander
> Nicolaevitch II had been so proud came to an end. The czars had not “stayed
> the hand of the oppressors,” nor had they “safeguarded the rights of the
> downtrodden.” In the wake of this disaster, every prophecy that Bahá’u’lláh,
> the “Glory of God,” had uttered concerning the fate of oppressive monarchs
> had been fulfilled.
> When we look back over this tragic history and the failure of faith that set
> it in motion, Bahá’u’lláh’s words to Alexander II and through him to the
> government of Russia seem among the most poignant that He wrote: “Beware
> lest thy desire deter thee from turning toward the face of thy Lord…. Beware
> lest thou barter away this sublime station…. Beware lest thy sovereignty
> withhold thee from the Supreme Sovereign.”11
> And how relevant to the Romanov tragedy and its unhappy inaugurator,
> Alexander, seem the words of the Old Testament prophet Haggai concerning
> this day: “I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come:
> and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts…. I will
> overthrow the throne of kingdoms … and I will overthrow the chariots, and
> those that ride in them.”12
> The third kingdom had fallen.
> 6 THE FOURTH KINGDOM FALLS
> We have found thee clinging to the Branch,
> and heedless of the Root.
> 
> The End of the Holy Roman Empire
> “The Empire of the Hapsburgs disintegrate and disappear from the face of the
> earth entirely? Never! There has always been an Empire as long as Europe
> itself has existed.”
> These might have been the words of any observer in Europe during those
> days in which Bahá’u’lláh addressed a special message to Franz Josef, the
> autocratic ruler of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.
> It would vanish as a mist before the rising sun.
> Who could believe such a thing about the Holy Roman Empire? The
> empire had suffered many vicissitudes; it had its problems, some of them
> very serious. But it held together the entire economic structure of central
> Europe. The Danube was Europe’s highway and marketplace, and the
> Hapsburg Empire was its protector. No matter how desperate conditions got,
> its subject peoples would not bite off their noses to spite their imperial faces.
> Yet the empire did vanish, “like a mist,” and it vanished overnight.
> Emperor Franz Josef journeyed to the Holy Land to pay tribute to Christ.
> He passed within a short distance of the prison in which Bahá’u’lláh was
> being held captive.
> The prison city of ‘Akká, called Acco in ancient times, is a site referred to
> by Hosea, who had prophesied that it would be a “door of hope” for mankind.
> Isaiah prophesied that this city would be a “place for the herds” of the flock
> of the Lord, “for my people that have sought me.”
> Franz Josef did not seek out Bahá’u’lláh nor inquire concerning Him,
> despite the reputation as a reformer and saint that Bahá’u’lláh’s life had won
> among European writers and diplomats.
> From that prison-city Bahá’u’lláh addressed His historic words to Franz
> Josef: “O Emperor of Austria! He Who is the Dayspring of God’s Light dwelt
> in the prison of ‘Akká, at the time when thou didst set forth to visit the Aqṣá
> Mosque [in Jerusalem]. Thou passed Him by, and inquired not about Him, by
> Whom every house is exalted, and every lofty gate unlocked. We, verily,
> made it a place whereunto the world should turn, that they might remember
> Me, and yet thou hast rejected Him Who is the Object of this remembrance.”1
> The first reaction of almost anyone who had not investigated Bahá’u’lláh’s
> Faith might be to say, “Who could blame the emperor? If I were king and
> anyone spoke such words as those to me, I would ignore them. Such a claim
> is preposterous.”
> Yet an answer like this is not possible for anyone who really believes in
> one of the world religions. Christians, Jews, Muslims are people who believe
> that God does speak through Messengers and that His Messengers have
> always made the same kind of announcement. These Messengers have always
> been persecuted, and God has promised to send One, in the fullness of time,
> who will be a “Prince of Peace.” The Christian church is based on exactly
> that same “preposterous” claim by a so-called madman Who was too “weak”
> to save Himself. Christ’s words were also branded as false in His day.
> Franz Joseph believed that. He heard Mass every day. Every day he
> listened to the familiar story of Jesus, Who had been rejected by Herod and
> Pilate. Every day, he appealed to God to keep His promise, “Thy will be
> done, on earth.”
> The problem with promises given us by God, as the Pharisees found two
> thousand years ago, is that, inevitably, God will keep them.
> To Franz Joseph, Bahá’u’lláh wrote, “We have … found thee clinging unto
> the Branch and heedless of the Root.”2
> 
> We have come to unite and weld together all who dwell
> on earth.
> Break in Pieces
> The royal visit of Emperor Franz Josef to the Holy Land was one of pomp
> and ceremony. The cost of such pageantry throughout his empire of drones
> and princes was sustained by the labor and sacrifices of the neglected people
> of his realm.
> Franz Josef, like his fellow monarchs, was heedless of Bahá’u’lláh’s
> words: “Know ye that the poor are the trust of God in your midst. Watch that
> ye betray not His trust, that ye deal not unjustly with them and that ye walk
> not in the ways of the treacherous.”3
> Bahá’u’lláh must have been sorrowed by the conduct of the emperor, who
> came so near the object of his keenest desire. Yet His sorrow was even
> greater for humanity.
> He comforted the downtrodden, saying that even if every ruler opposed the
> Revelation of God, this would sooner or later bind together all men in a
> common effort toward a common goal: peace and freedom. The leaders of
> men could either hasten or delay its fulfillment, but they would be powerless
> to stop it.
> From the prison-city of ‘Akká, Bahá’u’lláh wrote, “We, verily, have come
> to unite and weld together all that dwell on earth. Unto this beareth witness
> what the ocean of Mine utterance hath revealed amongst men, and yet most
> of the people have gone astray.”4
> He had “come to the Holy Land” from the “east” by “way of the gate” as
> foretold in those passages of scripture honored by the emperor of the Holy
> Roman Empire. Franz Josef, one of the most powerful monarchs of that era,
> brushed shoulders with the Prisoner of ‘Akká, yet was still oblivious of His
> words to the leaders of men: “It is incumbent upon thee to summon the
> people, under all conditions, to whatever will cause them to show forth
> spiritual characteristics and goodly deeds, so that all may become aware of
> that which is the cause of human upliftment.”5
> Bahá’u’lláh, a prisoner, could not visit Europe, but the emperor of Austria
> came to the Holy Land and passed under His shadow. They were not destined
> to meet. Bahá’u’lláh’s words to Franz Josef were to remain unheeded until
> history could look back upon their fulfillment.
> Bahá’u’lláh declared that the day was approaching when men would
> “behold the Daystar of justice shining in its full splendor” and no one could
> prevent its “shining.” He wrote, “Who is there that can put out the light
> which the snow-white Hand of God hath lit? Where is he to be found that
> hath the power to quench the fire which hath been kindled through the might
> of thy Lord?”6
> Certainly no king would be able to prevent the rise and spread of His Faith
> or to dim the light He had ignited in the hearts of His followers. Bahá’u’lláh
> Himself wrote, “The fierce gales and whirlwinds of the world and its peoples
> can never shake the foundation upon which the rock-like stability of My
> chosen ones is based.”7
> “Thus instructeth thee” the Messenger of God for this day from the
> “grievous Prison.” Neither kings nor peoples could hold back the rising sun
> of His teachings. They were God-directed for the betterment of all
> humankind. Bahá’u’lláh wrote, “Members of the human race! Hold ye fast by
> the Cord which no man can sever. This will, indeed, profit you all the days of
> your life, for its strength is of God, the Lord of all worlds…. Though
> encompassed with a myriad griefs and afflictions, We have, with mighty
> confidence, summoned the peoples of the earth…. This Holy Land hath been
> mentioned and extolled in all the sacred Scriptures…. Whatever hath come to
> pass in this Day hath been foretold in the Scriptures of old.”8
> Jeremiah, speaking of the great One Who would come from Persia in “that
> day” to destroy “the king and the princes” also foreshadowed the fate of those
> nations that opposed Him: “Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for
> with thee I will break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy
> kingdoms.”9
> The fall of the fourth kingdom was under way. No nation, no empire, was
> to “break in pieces” in such a dramatic and permanent fashion as that of the
> kingdom of the Hapsburgs.
> 
> Ye, and all ye possess, shall pass away.
> 
> The Fourth Kingdom Falls
> The rumblings of an internal disintegration heralded the earth-quake that
> threatened the kingdom of Franz Josef.
> Bahá’u’lláh’s counsel to the kings of the earth concerning the rights of
> their subjects was this: “Shouldst thou cause rivers of justice to spread their
> waters amongst thy subjects, God would surely aid thee with the hosts of the
> unseen and of the seen, and would strengthen thee in thine affairs.”10
> The actions of the emperor of Austria-Hungary were directly opposite.
> Rivers of justice did not “flow” through the land, and Franz Josef was neither
> “aided” nor “strengthened” in the deepening crises that began to engulf his
> rambling empire in the late nineteenth century.
> The fate that awaited such kings was described in these words by
> Bahá’u’lláh: “Ye continue roving with delight in the valley of your corrupt
> desires. Ye, and all ye possess, shall pass away.”11
> It has been said of the rule of Franz Josef that “repeated tragedies darkened
> his reign.”12 Calamitous events succeeded one another with alarming
> persistence.
> His brother, Maximilian, was defeated, imprisoned, and shot to death by a
> peasant revolution in Mexico. His son, Crown Prince Rudolph, disgraced the
> royal family and finally perished in a dishonorable affair. His wife, Empress
> Elizabeth, was assassinated in Geneva. The archduke Francis Ferdinand and
> his wife were struck down by assassins in Sarajevo. This very tragedy was
> the spark that ignited the great world war. Shortly after, Franz Josef himself
> succumbed to death.
> The death of the emperor brought to a close a reign “unsurpassed by any
> other reign in the disasters it brought to the nation.” Composed of
> conglomerate states, races, and languages, the Holy Roman Empire
> relentlessly began to disintegrate. “All that was left of the once formidable
> Holy Roman Empire was a shrunken republic that led a miserable
> existence.”13 The tiny Austrian republic was taken over by Hitler and
> restored in 1945 as the uneasy meeting ground of four armies of occupation.
> The words of Bahá’u’lláh echoed from His prison cell in the Holy Land
> out across the Mediterranean Sea. They found their dire fulfillment in the
> overthrow of the dynasty of the Hapsburgs, sweeping away both king and
> princes alike.
> The Hapsburgs, like their fellow monarchs, punished themselves by wrong
> decisions. The first error, the rejection of the Messenger of God, was
> spiritual. Moral errors followed in such areas of concern as peace and justice.
> Finally, very obvious political miscalculations completed the work. Forgetful
> of both God and man, men of power seek to exalt their own position, party or
> nation; and, as this is contrary to the spirit of justice and love, they bring
> about their own downfall—some rapidly, some slowly, all inevitably.
> The Messenger of God is the lawgiver for His day. Those who break the
> laws pay the penalty. In secular society, those who ignore or break the
> established laws suffer the consequences of their own neglect. These outer
> laws are a mirror of the realm of the moral, ethical, and spiritual Laws of God
> that are the foundation and basis of all life on earth. Therefore the punishment
> is more severe and is worldwide, as the offenders are both the leaders and the
> people of the earth.
> When the sun rises, all life on the planet must adjust itself to the new day.
> Flowers open their blossoms to the gradually warming sunlight. Should the
> blossoms neglect to open until the noonday sun beats down upon them, they
> would be destroyed.
> In like manner, kingdoms and peoples that have refused for over a century
> to open their hearts to the Sun of truth for this Day, Bahá’u’lláh, promised
> throughout their own holy books, now find themselves endangered through
> their refusal to adjust to the light and heat of a new Day.
> The new springtime came with the birth of the Bahá’í Faith in 1844. The
> spring has come and passed. The icy indifference and cold snows of
> opposition should have melted ages ago; now this glacial-like neglect is
> powerless to resist the summer-heat of the Sun of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings.
> Helpless before the blazing rays, it melts and floods, and sweeps away all
> before it.
> How startling and apt appear the words of the prophet Zephaniah when we
> consider the fate of Emperor Franz Josef and his family. Zephaniah
> prophesied the coming of “the great day of the Lord” when the Lord would
> be in His “holy mountain.”
> Franz Josef visited that mountain and, as we have seen, passed within the
> shadow of the prison of ‘Akká. In Bahá’u’lláh’s own words, the Emperor had
> not even “inquired” about Him.
> Now the king and the princes of the royal House of Hapsburg were no
> more. Such a time had been envisioned by the prophet Zephaniah, who said,
> “I will also stretch out mine hand upon … them that are turned back from the
> Lord; and those that have not sought the Lord, nor inquired for him…. And it
> shall come to pass in the day of the Lord’s sacrifice, that I will punish the
> princes, and the king’s children.”14
> The fourth kingdom had fallen.
> 7 A KINGDOM STANDS
> If this is of God, it will endure.
> 
> A Kingdom Stands
> “O Queen in London! Incline thine ear unto the voice of thy Lord…. All that
> hath been mentioned in the Gospel hath been fulfilled.”1
> Bahá’u’lláh addressed these words to Queen Victoria of Great Britain. In
> His letter to the queen, Bahá’u’lláh once again linked His Message with that
> of Christ. He said that the city of ‘Akká had been “honored by the footsteps”
> of the Promised One.2
> In this day, Bahá’u’lláh said, the people of the world had the opportunity to
> “inhale the fragrance” of the Revelation of God, and to become “inebriated
> with the wine of His [the Messenger’s] presence.”3
> Bahá’u’lláh praised Queen Victoria for two far-reaching reforms
> undertaken by the British government. He wrote, “We have been informed
> that thou hast forbidden the trading in slaves…. This, verily, is what God
> hath enjoined in this wondrous Revelation. God hath, truly, destined a reward
> for thee, because of this. He, verily, will pay the doer of good, whether man
> or woman, his due recompense.”4
> In yet another part of His letter to the queen, Bahá’u’lláh said, “Thou hast
> entrusted the reins of counsel into the hands of the representatives of the
> people. Thou, indeed, hast done well, for thereby the foundations of the
> edifice of thine affairs will be strengthened, and the hearts of all that are
> beneath thy shadow, whether high or low, will be tranquilized.”5
> Bahá’u’lláh deplored the state of the world. He longed to see mankind at
> peace, developing the creative talents of every heart. Bahá’u’lláh attributed
> much of man’s suffering to the insincerity and greed of political leaders.
> He wrote, “We behold it [the world], in this day, at the mercy of rulers so
> drunk with pride that they cannot discern clearly their own best advantage,
> much less recognize a Revelation so bewildering and challenging as this. And
> whenever any one of them [leaders] hath striven to improve its condition, his
> motive hath been his own gain, whether confessedly so or not; and the
> unworthiness of this motive hath limited his power to heal or cure.”6
> Bahá’u’lláh prescribed the remedy that could heal the ills of the world: “O
> Queen in London…. That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign
> remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union
> of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith. This can in no
> wise be achieved except through the power of a skilled, an all-powerful and
> inspired Physician.”7
> In what spirit did the queen receive Bahá’u’lláh’s letter? According to one
> written account: “Queen Victoria, it is said, upon reading the Tablet [letter]
> revealed for her, remarked: ‘If this is of God, it will endure.’”8
> Like Gamaliel, the leading rabbi who refused either to condemn Christ or
> to accept Him, the queen preferred to leave history to take its course.
> Of all the rulers to whom Bahá’u’lláh wrote, Victoria was the only one
> who responded in any manner, however limited. She is also the only one of
> those monarchs who did not undergo a series of afflictive dynasty-destroying
> disasters during her reign, and whose kingdom has survived.
> Queen Victoria died on January 22, 1901, during the South African Boer
> War. She had ruled her people for over sixty-three years, the longest reign
> known in British history. Victoria had indeed been blessed with a reign that
> was in sharp contrast with those of her fellow rulers.
> There was, however, to be a far more direct link between the queen and the
> Prisoner. An even greater “reward” was to come to one of Victoria’s
> descendants.
> The queen’s granddaughter, Queen Marie of Romania, subsequently
> became a devoted follower of the Prisoner of ‘Akká. Several testimonies to
> Bahá’u’lláh’s Faith have been left by the pen of this royal convert. Publicly
> the queen proclaimed, “If ever the name of Bahá’u’lláh … comes to your
> attention, do not put [His] writings from you…. Let their glorious, peace-
> bringing, love-creating lessons sink into your hearts as they have into
> mine…. Seek them and be the happier.”9
> She later wrote, “It is Christ’s message taken up anew, in the same words
> almost, but adapted to the thousand years and more difference that lies
> between the year one and today.”10
> Canadian Bahá’ís were delighted that it was in a letter to a Canadian
> newspaper, the Toronto Star, that the queen’s public declaration was first
> made.
> There is also a second link between Queen Marie, the first member of
> royalty to embrace the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, and the kings to whom
> Bahá’u’lláh directed specific letters. Queen Marie of Romania was the
> granddaughter of both Queen Victoria and Alexander II of Russia. Victoria
> was the sole monarch to make even the slightest response to Bahá’u’lláh’s
> message. Although Alexander II was himself indifferent, it was one of his
> ministers who made an effort, however futile, to rescue Bahá’u’lláh from His
> persecutors.
> The granddaughter of these two monarchs was the first of the line of kings
> to recognize and accept the mission of Bahá’u’lláh, a mission that its author
> stated would eventually secure the allegiance of most of the human race.
> What blessings would have come to the nation whose ruler had truly
> heeded the words that Bahá’u’lláh addressed to them? What blessings would
> have come to all humankind?
> Bahá’u’lláh Himself promised, “How great is the blessedness that awaiteth
> the king who will arise to aid My Cause in My Kingdom, who will detach
> himself from all else but Me!”11
> Bahá’u’lláh told one of the kings that if it had not been for the
> “repudiation” of the religious leaders and the conspiracy of the rulers, He
> would have given them guidance that would have “thrilled and carried away
> the hearts”—guidance that would “cheer the eyes” and “tranquilize the souls”
> of men.
> Bahá’u’lláh severely censured those kings who refused to make any effort
> to investigate the truth of His Faith. Their failure was reflected and repeated
> in their neglect of their responsibility to God for the welfare of their people
> and the peace of the world.
> We should not, however, make the mistake of thinking that this
> condemnation represented a criticism of kingship itself. Much less can it be
> regarded as an attack on established government.
> Bahá’u’lláh foretold the day when just kings and other rulers would arise
> and seize the opportunity that earlier leaders had so tragically missed.
> Bahá’u’lláh wrote, “Erelong will God make manifest on earth kings who will
> recline on the couches of justice, and will rule amongst men even as they rule
> their own selves. They, indeed, are among the choicest of My creatures in the
> entire creation.”12
> Bahá’u’lláh described the blessing that such leadership would bring to the
> entire planet:
> 
> O concourse of the rulers of the world! There is no force on earth that
> can equal in its conquering power the force of justice and wisdom …
> Blessed is the king who marcheth with the ensign of wisdom unfurled
> before him, and the battalions of justice massed in his rear. He verily is
> the ornament that adorneth the brow of peace and the countenance of
> security. There can be no doubt whatever that if the daystar of justice,
> which the clouds of tyranny have obscured, were to shed its light upon
> men, the face of the earth would be completely transformed.13
> 
> In Queen Victoria’s case, we are so familiar with the halo of respect
> surrounding her and her throne that we are in danger of overlooking an
> important historical fact, one that has far-ranging implications for our story.
> When Victoria ascended the throne in 1838, the British monarchy was at
> the lowest ebb in its history. Her grandfather George III had been insane. Her
> uncle George IV was a national disgrace, the inspiration for the vulgar
> nursery rhyme “Georgie Porgie.” Her immediate predecessor, her second
> uncle, William IV, was publicly mocked during his lifetime, and on the day
> of his funeral was described by the London Times as “only a common sort of
> person.”
> Victoria was a young, inexperienced woman, the last member of a junior
> branch of the family. She appeared to have little to commend her. It was
> common knowledge in London that she would be the last British monarch
> and that Britain would follow France, the United States and other
> “progressive” nations in establishing a republic.
> In fact, Victoria was to rule for sixty years and leave the monarchy more
> secure than it had ever been in its history!
> Bahá’u’lláh clearly indicated that even the slightest response to God’s call
> would bring very great blessings. The tiniest ray of light penetrating the
> camera lens can imprint upon the receptive film an entire picture. The mind is
> staggered at the potential that could be released by a mass response to the
> divine summons.
> Unlike Queen Victoria and her government, the other European monarchs
> had been far removed from the will of God. They had experienced the full
> effect of their neglect of their trust and the irrelevancy of their pursuits.
> The nineteenth-century monarchs who were the exact antithesis of
> Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings, however, were the kings of Persia and Turkey.
> They not only failed to make the slightest response to Bahá’u’lláh’s words,
> but actively joined forces repeatedly to persecute, imprison, and exile the
> Messenger of God. Within one of these two empires, over twenty thousand of
> the early followers of the Bahá’í Faith were slain in the most barbarous
> fashion.
> These next two kings were described by Bahá’u’lláh, one as “the Prince of
> Oppressors,” the other as occupying the “Throne of Tyranny.”
> He said that God would make them “an object lesson for the world.”14
> 8 THE EXILE
> A wholesale massacre!
> 
> The Ruined House
> In considering the encounter between the Messenger of God and the rulers of
> the leading Western nations, we have skipped ahead of events in the Near
> East. Before going on to the story of the fifth kingdom, let us glance quickly
> back at these events, which brought Bahá’u’lláh out of His native land and
> prepared the way for His announcement to the kings.
> Bahá’u’lláh was still imprisoned in Ṭihrán’s “Black Pit” when an event
> occurred that appeared certain to lead to His release. The would-be assassin
> of Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh had enlisted the help of a half-demented youth. During
> the course of the persecutions, these two persons were arrested, and the
> former finally confessed his guilt. He alone had been involved from the
> beginning, and his only helper had been his pathetic companion.
> As soon as the confession was obtained, a representative of the prime
> minister went immediately to take down the words of that confession. The
> Russian ministry seized the opportunity to send its translator along because of
> its interest in the Prisoner. The confession, therefore, received impressive
> authentication.
> Bahá’u’lláh’s enemies were enraged. The thought that Bahá’u’lláh might
> escape from the dungeon when He had been so close to the grave infuriated
> them.
> Before Bahá’u’lláh was released, these conspirators besieged the shah with
> the new plans that they had contrived. They assured the king that they would
> be able to involve Bahá’u’lláh in grave troubles. They were confident that
> these intrigues would ensure His death. The shah, pressed by his mother and
> accustomed to doing as he wished with those he feared, agreed to their
> schemes.
> He summoned the prime minister and told him to send several detachments
> of soldiers to Bahá’u’lláh’s home district of Núr. These soldiers were told
> that they were being sent to suppress dangerous “disturbers of the peace.” It
> was expected that this sudden assault would generate widespread confusion
> and perhaps incite opposition from the villagers. The plan was to blame
> Bahá’u’lláh for these fresh uprisings and then brand Him as an agitator of
> political revolt. Bahá’u’lláh’s summer home was in the village of Tákur, in
> the district of Núr.
> Although the prime minister, as soon as he heard the instructions, knew
> very well that the plan was directed against Bahá’u’lláh, he did nothing to
> prevent it.
> A detachment of soldiers was placed under the command of an officer
> named Mírzá Abú-Tálib. As soon as his troops reached the village of Tákur,
> Mírzá Abú-Tálib told them to prepare for an all-out attack.
> The surprised and defenseless people of the village, upon becoming aware
> of the soldiers’ approach, sent representatives to appeal to the officer. They
> asked him to give them some reason for such an onslaught. Mírzá Abú-Tálib
> refused to see them. Instead, he sent a curt message: “I am charged by my
> sovereign to order a wholesale massacre of the men of this village, to capture
> the women and to confiscate all property.”
> The soldiers attacked the house of Bahá’u’lláh as their initial act.
> Bahá’u’lláh had inherited the beautiful summer residence from His father, a
> minister of the crown, and the building was known to be furnished with
> objects of great value.
> Mírzá Abú-Tálib ordered his men to break open everything and take away
> the contents. He instructed that what could not be carried away should be
> burned or demolished. The walls of the rooms were disfigured beyond repair.
> The beams were torn down, the decorations destroyed, and the house was left
> in ruins.
> From this opening assault, the troops went on to demolish the homes of
> other people in the village, after which the entire town was set on fire.
> This deliberate provocation, premonitory of similar schemes that
> twentieth-century tyrants were to use on a large scale against peoples they
> wished to destroy, was expected to incite fierce opposition. It was assumed
> that Bahá’u’lláh and His supporters would attempt to arouse the district
> against the government. The uprising would then be crushed, and Bahá’u’lláh
> condemned for treason.
> It is Our purpose … to abolish … war, and bloodshed,
> from the face of the earth.
> 
> Out of the Pit
> The new conspiracy failed. Bahá’u’lláh and His family showed no inclination
> to incite opposition to the crown. And now that His innocence was at last
> made public, the opportunity to discredit and kill Him had passed. His
> enemies realized to their chagrin that it was no longer possible or wise to
> hold Bahá’u’lláh a prisoner.
> A minister of the crown was sent to summon Bahá’u’lláh from “the Pit.”
> He was ordered to appear before the authorities so that He might be informed
> of His freedom. The minister, Ḥájí ‘Alí, had once been a friend of
> Bahá’u’lláh. When he saw that foul prison where Bahá’u’lláh had been kept,
> with its filth and its vermin-infested floor, he was very distressed.
> “May Mírzá Áqá Khán be accursed!” he shouted, denouncing the prime
> minister. But when he looked upon Bahá’u’lláh, Whom he had loved and
> respected, he burst into tears. Bahá’u’lláh’s hair was matted and dirty. His
> clothes were torn. His shoulders were festered from the chains that had
> weighed down His neck.
> Hájí ‘Alí wept aloud. He turned to Bahá’u’lláh in great sorrow. “God is my
> witness,” he told Bahá’u’lláh. “I never realized you were being subjected to
> such treatment.”
> Ḥájí Alí could not bear to look upon the torn and soiled garments in which
> Bahá’u’lláh was clothed. He took off his own fine cloak and started to place
> it over Bahá’u’lláh’s shoulders, entreating Him to wear it. Since He was a
> member of one of Persia’s oldest noble families, it seemed wrong for
> Bahá’u’lláh to appear at court in the condition in which the minister had
> found Him.
> Bahá’u’lláh refused. He preferred, He said, to appear before them in the
> same clothes in which He had been cast into the dungeon. He would wear the
> garb of a prisoner, a garb that other innocent people still wore.
> He knew that the sufferings He and His friends had sustained in the Síyáh-
> Chál were but a prelude to far greater troubles yet to come. Once the shah and
> the clergy realized that He was not merely a prominent Bábí, but the One
> Whom the Báb had foretold, a veritable flood of tribulations would engulf
> Him from all sides.
> Bahá’u’lláh recalled those pregnant months in the Síyáh-Chál when later
> He sent His letter to Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh from the prison of ‘Akká. He wrote,
> “O King! I was but a man like others, asleep upon My couch, when lo, the
> breezes of the All-Glorious were wafted over Me, and taught Me the
> knowledge of all that hath been. This thing is not from Me, but from One
> Who is Almighty and All-Knowing [God]. And He bade Me lift up My voice
> between earth and heaven, and for this there befell Me what hath caused the
> tears of every man of understanding to flow.”1
> The guards conducted Bahá’u’lláh from the dungeon-prison to the seat of
> the imperial government, ushered into the presence of the prime minister,
> Mírzá Áqá Khán.
> The conscience of Mírzá Áqá Khán must have been stricken at the sight of
> Bahá’u’lláh, Whose treatment had been so severe that none who knew Him
> would now have recognized Him.
> The prime minister had failed to redeem his promise to the Báb. He had
> not protected and safeguarded the Báb’s followers. Instead, the leading
> minister in the land had himself conducted and masterminded a carnage that
> European historians would describe as “unparalleled.” The Austrian military
> attaché has written, “My pen shrinks in horror in attempting to describe what
> befell those valiant men and women.”2
> Mírzá Áqá Khán had proved false to his vows to both the Báb and
> Bahá’u’lláh, but he was still not prepared to face his conscience. Instead, he
> spoke harshly to Bahá’u’lláh to cover his own shame.
> “If you had taken my advice,” he told Bahá’u’lláh, “and cut yourself off
> from the Faith of the Báb, you wouldn’t have suffered this agony and
> indignity.”3
> Bahá’u’lláh looked into his eyes and replied simply, “Had you, in turn,
> followed My Counsels, the affairs of the government would not have reached
> so critical a stage.”4
> Who will ever know the thoughts that coursed through the mind of Mírzá
> Áqá Khán? Did he recall the earlier occasion when, stricken with illness, he
> had heard the doctors give up all hope of his recovery? Did he recall how his
> friend, Bahá’u’lláh, had visited and cared for him? Did he remember his
> statements that Bahá’u’lláh had restored him to health? Did he reflect upon
> those prophetic words that he himself had once spoken to his own son about
> Bahá’u’lláh? “My son, those who now honor us with their lips would
> condemn and slander us if we failed for a moment to promote their interests.
> It is not that way with Bahá’u’lláh. Unlike other great men around us, he
> attracts a genuine love and devotion that neither time nor enemies can
> destroy.”
> Was the prime minister thinking of those hours of agonizing choice when
> Bahá’u’lláh had been a guest in his home, and he had delivered Him to the
> Black Pit in order to protect his position as chief minister of the land? Was he
> still hearing the sounds of the joyful chanting of those martyrs who had been
> slain in the most fiendish manner conceivable in the public square of Ṭihrán?
> We shall never really know. We do know that the prime minister was
> deeply disturbed by Bahá’u’lláh when He came up out of that dungeon. He
> was shaken at the sight of what he had done to One from Whom he had
> received only kindnesses, on so many occasions. He could not remain
> antagonistic in that face-to-face encounter.
> Mírzá Áqá Khán made yet another of his pitiful periodic efforts to atone
> for the past. “The warning you gave,” he told Bahá’u’lláh, “has come true.
> What do you now advise me to do?”
> Bahá’u’lláh replied that the prime minister should order the provincial
> governors to end the persecution of the innocent, to cease plundering their
> property and dishonoring their women. The government should abandon its
> feeling that it had the right to persecute the Báb’s followers simply because
> of their religious beliefs.
> This time, Mírzá Áqá Khán did not hesitate. On that same day he issued an
> order to the governors of the realm instructing them to cease all their actions
> against the followers of the Báb.
> Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh was not reconciled to Bahá’u’lláh’s release from prison.
> He could no longer tolerate his victim’s presence in Persia. Accordingly, he
> issued an immediate edict for the banishment of Bahá’u’lláh. Within ten
> days, on January 12, 1853, Bahá’u’lláh began the exile that was to take Him
> forever out of His homeland and lead Him at last to the side of Mount
> Carmel, the “Vineyard of God,” in Israel.
> Stripped of all His possessions, Bahá’u’lláh was given inadequate
> provisions and clothing for the cold wintry journey over the snowbound
> mountains of western Persia into Iraq.
> The king and clergy were satisfied. At least they were rid of a hated
> enemy. The wings of death hovered about Bahá’u’lláh’s Faith. To every eye,
> both the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh had been defeated. The redeemer of men, the
> unifier of the world, Bahá’u’lláh, appeared to be a colossal failure.
> Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh was confident that he had wiped out the new Faith. In
> fact, the opposite proved true. By sending Bahá’u’lláh into exile, Náṣiri’d-
> Dín Sháh made certain that the bright light of history would be shed upon
> every event associated with Bahá’u’lláh’s exile. Future historians would
> study every word and action concerning that historic journey.
> By banishing Bahá’u’lláh to Iraq, once the ancient land of Babylon, the
> shah drove his Prisoner by enforced exile to the historic site near where
> Ezekiel had seen his “vision” of the “Glory of God” by the ancient river
> Chebar.5
> By his edict, Náṣiri’d-Din Sháh assured that Bahá’u’lláh would be exiled
> to the very spot where Ezekiel had made his prophecy concerning the One
> Who would come to the Holy Land from “the East,” by way of “the gate.”6
> Bahá’u’lláh was on His way!
> 9 THE FIFTH KINGDOM FALLS
> His hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?
> 
> Assassin! Assassin!
> The hour had now come for the king of Persia himself to experience the
> retribution that his actions had entailed. Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh was soon to be
> made, as promised by Bahá’u’lláh, “an object-lesson for the world.”1
> It happened on the occasion of the great jubilee celebration organized by
> the shah to honor his own station. The king looked forward to this occasion
> as his most glorious hour. He had elaborately planned to inaugurate a new
> era, one that he hoped would perpetuate his name in history.
> The shah was greatly impressed by European civilization. Unlike his
> predecessors, he had visited France and other Western nations and sought to
> be remembered as the ruler who modernized Persia.
> History had other plans.
> Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh went into the shrine of ‘Abdu’l-‘Azím, a venerated shah
> and a holy figure of Islam, to offer prayers on the eve of this historic
> occasion. Tomorrow, he told himself, he would campaign to woo back the
> affections of his subjects.
> Bonfires lighted the night skies. Banners proclaimed the titles of the king.
> Trumpets and cymbals and drums declared on all sides the might and majesty
> of Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh, the king of Persia.
> Suddenly and without warning, the hand of the assassin struck. The royal
> sovereign fell dead on the pavement of the shrine. His ministers and
> companions were thrown into a panic, paralyzed by what had happened.
> In order to delay the news of the shah’s slaying, they carried his body from
> the shrine, and propped it up in the royal carriage. The dead king was
> supported by the prime minister himself as the carriage rolled through the
> streets.
> The banners waved, the band struck up the music, the intimidated crowd
> shouted aloud its empty praise of a king it neither loved nor respected. The
> great jubilee festival was underway. It proclaimed a king who had become a
> propped-up corpse.
> The shah’s terror-stricken ministers, not knowing who might be next,
> passed along the dreaded words that were to become the signature of our
> modern political age: “Assassin! Assassin!”
> The assassination of Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh was at first blamed on the
> followers of the Báb. Like the Christians in ancient Rome or the Jews under
> Nazism, whenever any difficulty arose anywhere in the kingdom, the Bábís,
> and later the Bahá’ís, were the primary suspects, targets, and victims. The
> actual assassin was a certain Mírzá Riḍá, a follower of the notorious
> revolutionary Siyyid Jamálu’d-Dín-i-Afghání, who was a bitter and
> outspoken enemy of the Bahá’í Faith.
> The fiendish minds, which had slain more than twenty thousand of the
> followers of this Faith, could not believe that their victims did not spend their
> days and nights in hatred, plotting revenge against their slayers. It was what
> they themselves would do, why not the Bahá’ís?
> How little they knew of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings. He had denounced
> violence and had forbade the taking of life—“It is better to be killed than
> kill.”2 His teachings threw the integrity of His followers into sharp contrast
> with the cruelty and prejudice of Persia’s rulers. Shortly before Náṣiri’d-Dín
> Sháh’s death, a renowned teacher and poet called Varqá had been seized,
> along with his twelve-year-old son, Rúḥu’lláh. The two Bábís were held
> together in the prison of Ṭihrán.
> A brutal officer, the Ḥájibu’d-Dawlih, forced the son to stand and watch as
> he thrust a sword into the stomach of the boy’s father. Unable to make Varqá
> plead for mercy, the enraged officer began to hack the father to pieces before
> the eyes of his son. Then he turned to Rúḥu’lláh.
> “Now will you recant your faith?” he asked.
> The boy’s refusal was firm: “Never! Never!”
> Frustrated with anger, the Ḥájibu’d-Dawlih seized a rope and strangled the
> child.
> It is not surprising that Bahá’u’lláh included the people of Persia, who had
> so ruthlessly persecuted His Faith in His declaration that no one could dim
> God’s shining light in the hearts of men once it had been ignited. He said,
> “Give heed to My warning, ye people of Persia! … He [God] shall perfect
> His light, albeit ye abhor it in the secret of your hearts.”3
> The House of the Qájár dynasty began to collapse about its kings. All the
> efforts to buttress it and prevent its downfall ended in failure.
> The words of Isaiah the prophet seemed to echo from past centuries: “The
> Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked and the scepter of the rulers…. For
> the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is
> stretched out, and who shall turn it back?”4
> The dynasty of Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh was rapidly approaching extinction. The
> walls were caving in on all sides. Soon every last one of its mighty kings and
> princes would be buried beneath the avalanche.
> 
> This is the hour that no one can hold back!
> 
> Prince of Oppressors
> In one of His warnings, Bahá’u’lláh foreshadowed the fate that overtook the
> Persian dynasty: “Ye shall, erelong, discover the consequences of that which
> ye shall have done in this vain life, and shall be repaid for them…. This is the
> day that shall inevitably come upon you, the hour that none can put back.”5
> The rulers of the Qájár dynasty, more than any other kings, were
> responsible for trying to crush the Revelation of God. From the hour of its
> birth until their own downfall, the Qájár rulers never once softened their
> implacable hostility.
> Bahá’u’lláh did all in His power to awaken these rulers to their opportunity
> as emblems of justice, not of hatred: “If the rulers and kings of the earth, the
> symbols of the power of God, exalted be His glory, arise and resolve to
> dedicate themselves to whatever will promote the highest interests of the
> whole of humanity, the reign of justice will assuredly be established amongst
> the children of men, and the effulgence of its light will envelop the whole
> earth.”6
> Bahá’u’lláh had placed a grave responsibility upon the shoulders of
> Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh personally, describing the shah as a “Prince of
> Oppressors.” Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh had been personally responsible for the
> martyrdom of the Báb. He was equally responsible for the banishments and
> lifelong persecutions of Bahá’u’lláh. Finally, he had given approval to the
> unjust slaying over a long period of time of thousands of innocent followers
> of the new Revelation.
> Once again the Bible provides fascinating echoes of the events surrounding
> the story of Bahá’u’lláh. Is Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh the “king of fierce
> countenance” who Daniel said would appear “in the latter time,” the “king”
> who would “destroy” the “holy people?”
> Was he the king who Daniel said would “stand” against the “Prince of
> princes” of the Lord? Was this the “king” who would be “broken” by this
> Redeemer of men Who, in a “time of trouble” such as the world has never
> seen, would “stand up” and deliver the “children” of God?7
> One thing is certain, the day in which the king of Persia would be “broken”
> at last arrived.
> 
> Wait thou, therefore, for what hath been promised.
> 
> The Fifth Kingdom Falls
> Bahá’u’lláh wrote to one of the ministers of Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh a message
> that applied to the throne, the court, and the people of Persia. Although He
> had wished for them prosperity, security, and an everlasting sovereignty, they
> had rejected this heritage: “Erelong shall your days pass away, as shall pass
> away the days of those who now, with flagrant pride, vaunt themselves over
> their neighbor. Soon shall ye be gathered together in the presence of God, and
> shall be asked of your doings, and shall be repaid for what your hands have
> wrought, and wretched the abode of the wicked doers!”8
> To any sincere individual, Bahá’u’lláh said that such deeds could only
> bring remorse: “By God! Wert thou to realize what thou hast done, thou
> wouldst surely weep sore over thyself, and wouldst flee for refuge to God.”9
> When all His entreaties and admonitions were disregarded, Bahá’u’lláh
> wrote these ominous words: “Wait thou, therefore, for what hath been
> promised … for this is a promise from Him Who is the Almighty, the All-
> Wise—a promise that will not prove untrue.”10
> Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh’s assassination was the first sign of the revolution that
> was to depose his successors and extinguish the Qájár dynasty.
> Muẓaffari’d-Dín Sháh, the successor to Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh, was a weak and
> timid creature who was forced to sign the constitution that limited the royal
> powers. His successor, Muḥammad-‘Alí Sháh, precipitated a revolution that
> led to his deposition.
> Finally, Aḥmad Sháh, “a mere cipher and careless of his duties,”11
> ascended the throne. Anarchy increased, and the nation’s financial condition,
> which had long been deplorable, now approached bankruptcy. The king had
> practically abandoned the country. He preferred the life of the European
> capitals to the stern duties of kingship. While the shah was abroad on one of
> his visits, parliament deposed him and proclaimed the extinction of the Qájár
> dynasty.
> The House of Qájár had occupied the throne of Persia for 130 years.
> The document that ended the dynasty was signed in 1925. This final
> humiliation took place in the government buildings that stand but a stone’s
> throw from the site of that underground prison into which Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh
> had cast Bahá’u’lláh. From that prison the sound of the voices of Bahá’u’lláh
> and His fellow prisoners had been heard by Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh, the “Prince of
> Oppressors.” Their song rang out in the hours of dawn and disturbed the shah
> as they chanted their prayers in praise of God, assured of that future victory:
> “In Him let the trusting trust!”
> Bahá’u’lláh had kept His promise. The fifth kingdom had fallen.
> 10 ‘AKKÁ
> Great is the Cause, and great the Announcement!
> 
> The Announcement
> Bahá’u’lláh’s exile to Iraq in the Ottoman Turkish Empire did not leave
> Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh or the Persian clergy in peace. Iraq contained a number of
> Muslim shrines that Persians were accustomed to visiting. The Persian clergy
> became concerned that the little party of exiles would begin to attract large
> numbers of these pilgrims to the new Cause.
> The shah’s government therefore began to bring pressure to bear on the
> sultan’s ministers to move the Prisoner further away from the Persian
> borders. The Turkish and Persian empires had been antagonistic to one
> another, and the persecution of the exiles was one of the few points on which
> these two tyrannies agreed.
> Accordingly, on April 22, 1863, Bahá’u’lláh was advised that He was to
> leave at once and move with His companions to the imperial capital,
> Constantinople.
> Before this enforced departure, Bahá’u’lláh made the first formal
> declaration of His mission. The day of “one fold and one Shepherd” had
> arrived,1 He said, and He was the one awaited by the followers of all the
> world’s religions.
> This historic announcement took place in a garden outside the city of
> Baghdad. It was made during the twelve days between April 21 and May 2,
> 1863, and is celebrated by Bahá’ís today in every part of the world as the
> holiest and most joyful event in the entire Bahá’í calendar. It is called the
> Festival of Riḍván (Arabic for “paradise”).
> Visitors flowed constantly from Baghdad to that famous garden so that all
> might make their last farewell to the Visitor Whom they had come to love
> dearly. It was hard to believe that these were the people who such a short
> time before had readily believed the slander spread about the exiles by agents
> of Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh.
> A large concourse of people, men, women, and children, thronged the
> approaches to Bahá’u’lláh’s house in Baghdad on the day of His departure
> for the Garden of Riḍván outside the city. They came from all directions for
> one last glimpse of Him. City officials, clergymen, merchants and notables,
> as well as the poor and the orphaned, the beggars and the outcasts, all
> watched Bahá’u’lláh depart out of their city amidst weeping and lamentation.
> The huge crowds that surrounded Bahá’u’lláh on the day of His departure
> from the Garden of Riḍván were even more impressive. Mounted on a red
> roan stallion which His loved ones had purchased for His journey,
> Bahá’u’lláh rode through the weeping crowds. They pressed in on Him from
> all sides. Clothed in majesty and surrounded by love, Bahá’u’lláh began the
> first stage of His historic exile to Constantinople.
> Bahá’u’lláh left forever the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the
> spot where Ezekiel had seen the “Glory of God” in his vision. Bahá’u’lláh
> was now beginning His circuitous route westward to Israel.
> His fame as a saint and teacher preceded Him. The same tokens of respect
> and devotion that were showered upon Bahá’u’lláh in Baghdad now followed
> Him all along the route of His travels northward. The journey to the port city
> of Sámsún on the Black Sea took 110 days. As Bahá’u’lláh passed through
> the villages en route, a welcoming delegation would be waiting. They would
> rush out to meet Him immediately before His arrival, while another
> delegation would accompany Him for some distance as He departed out of
> their village.
> Bahá’u’lláh and His companions came at last to the Black Sea. Sighting
> the shores of the sea from His caravan, Bahá’u’lláh wrote a moving Tablet
> alluding to the “grievous and tormenting” sorrows that still awaited Him.2
> The group was put on board a Turkish steamer on which they crossed the
> Black Sea, and three days later they disembarked at the famous port of
> Constantinople. The great capital city of Turkey had once been called the
> “Dome of Islam.” Because of the injustices and cruelty of Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-
> Azíz, it was to be described by Bahá’u’lláh as “the throne of tyranny.”3
> Bahá’u’lláh knew that His brief hours of joy and rest were at an end and that
> His torments were to begin again: two further banishments were still to come,
> and renewed attempts would be made on His life. All of these attempted
> assassinations would be unsuccessful.
> Bahá’u’lláh, in the years ahead, would arrive at last in Israel and would
> walk on the side of the “Mountain of God.” He was traveling to the Holy
> Land, as promised by Isaiah, “by way of the sea.” In one single chapter of
> praise for the Promised One of the last days, Isaiah declares that this
> “chosen” Servant of the “seed of Abraham” was that “righteous man from the
> east” Whom God had raised up to “rule over kings” and Who would “pass
> safely” to His destination, Israel, “even by the way that he had not gone by
> his feet.”4 The Old Testament prophet Micah had also foreseen the journey
> “from sea to sea” on the way from the East to the Holy Land, where He
> would redeem mankind.5
> But who was there to read and understand and come to His aid?
> 
> The Grand Vizir turned the color of a corpse.
> 
> The Throne of Tyranny
> After the long and taxing journey to Constantinople, Bahá’u’lláh was
> permitted to remain in the capital less than four months. The sultan of Turkey
> could not tolerate in the capital city the kind of honor that had been paid to
> Bahá’u’lláh along the route of His journey from Baghdad. Only the person of
> the king was considered a suitable object for such attention.
> Bahá’u’lláh was summarily banished once again. This sudden and cruel
> further banishment represented “a virtual coalition between the Turkish and
> Persian imperial governments” against one man and His tiny band of
> companions, their wives and children—less than eighty persons in all. This
> time, Bahá’u’lláh did not accept the edict meekly. He replied with a forceful
> letter of His own.
> On that very same day, Bahá’u’lláh sent His reply by special messenger of
> ‘Alí Páshá, the prime minister of the sultan. This special messenger, Shamsí
> Big, delivered the letter personally into the hands of ‘Alí Páshá. He has left
> the following eyewitness account of that meeting:
> “I know not what that letter contained for no sooner had the Grand Vizír
> ‘Alí Páshá perused it that he turned the color of a corpse, and said: ‘It is as if
> the King of Kings were issuing his behest to his humblest vassal king and
> regulating his conduct.”
> Shamsí Big added, “So grievous was the condition that I backed out of his
> presence.”6
> The order for Bahá’u’lláh’s departure was executed at once. Bahá’u’lláh,
> His family and His companions unprepared, began their third successive
> banishment. Some rode in wagons, some on pack animals. Others sat silently
> among their few remaining possessions, atop of carts pulled by oxen.
> It was a bitter cold December morning when the Turkish officers pushed
> them along their way. Bahá’u’lláh Himself declared that the cruelty and
> abasement that were heaped upon Himself and His companions during that
> exile were unnecessary and unpardonable. He has testified that none of those
> who accompanied Him had the necessary clothing “to protect them from the
> cold in that freezing winter.”
> Nabíl, who accompanied Bahá’u’lláh on the journey, recalled, “A cold of
> such intensity prevailed that year, that nonagenarians could not recall its
> like.” Animals froze and perished in the snows. “To obtain water from the
> springs, a great fire had to be lighted in their immediate neighborhood, and
> kept burning for a couple of hours before they thawed out.”7
> It is not surprising therefore that Bahá’u’lláh addressed Sulṭán
> ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz in strong language: “Hearken, O King, to the speech of Him
> that speaketh the truth…. Bring thyself to account ere thou art summoned to a
> reckoning…. Thou art God’s shadow on earth. Strive, therefore, to act in
> such a manner as befitteth so eminent, so august a station…. Let thine ear be
> attentive, O King, to the words We have addressed to thee. Let the oppressor
> desist from His tyranny, and cut off the perpetrators of injustice from among
> them that profess thy faith…. Be not forgetful of the law of God in whatever
> thou desirest to achieve, now or in the days to come.”8
> On the eve of His departure from Constantinople, Bahá’u’lláh wrote to the
> Persian ambassador, who had incited the Turkish authorities to bring about
> His banishment by alarming their fears of the exiles. Bahá’u’lláh recalled to
> the ambassador’s mind the more than twenty thousand followers who had
> already given their lives for this Faith in Persia. He explained the futility of
> trying to stamp out the fire of the love of God in men’s hearts by persecution:
> “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…. [God’s] Cause transcends any and
> every plan ye devise.”9
> Then Bahá’u’lláh made a promise that time and history would soon bring
> to fulfillment: “Know this much: Were all the governments on earth to unite
> and take My life and the lives of all who bear this Name [Bahá’í], this Divine
> Fire would never be quenched. His Cause will rather encompass 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.”10
> Bahá’u’lláh and His companions traveled toward Adrianople through
> snow, rain, and storm. At times they were forced to make night marches, but
> at last they reached their destination. This was the furthest point in
> Bahá’u’lláh’s repeated exiles. He called it the “remote prison.”
> Bahá’u’lláh was the first of the founders of the great revealed religions to
> touch upon European soil. This was yet another way in which Bahá’u’lláh’s
> mission linked together both the East and the West. Bahá’u’lláh was the first
> of these Messengers of God to proclaim His Faith from the West as well as
> from the East.
> Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh had imprisoned Bahá’u’lláh in the Black Pit in Ṭihrán,
> His native city. There Bahá’u’lláh’s ministry had begun. Bahá’u’lláh had
> been banished to another land to silence His tongue and weaken His
> influence. In the famed valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Bahá’u’lláh
> had formally declared the purpose of His mission to His companions and to
> the world. Alarmed at the Prisoner’s growing prestige and power, Náṣiri’d-
> Dín Sháh had conspired with Sulṭan ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz to banish Him to
> Constantinople, farther yet from the circle of His relatives, friends, and
> followers. The kings sent Him to another continent, Europe. There, in the
> midst of the “throne of tyranny” Bahá’u’lláh, in the capital city of
> Constantinople, launched the first stage of the public proclamation of His
> mission to the world.
> Now Bahá’u’lláh was banished yet again, this time to a remote outpost
> where it was felt He would be powerless to influence anyone of importance.
> He would be cut off from the world. There in Adrianople, contrary to the
> schemes of kings, Bahá’u’lláh’s mission reached its high-point. He wrote His
> historic Tablet to the kings and rulers of the world. There He launched in its
> flood-tide the proclamation of His Faith to the world on a scale
> unprecedented in the religious history of mankind.
> Every persecution, every suppression designed by the kings to render
> Bahá’u’lláh impotent, however devastating in the physical sufferings He
> sustained, was followed by a greater outpouring of teaching and spirit.
> Sufferings the kings devised for their Prisoner proved only to be preludes to a
> greater unfolding of God’s purpose for mankind.
> The greatest suffering, and the full unfolding, lay ahead.
> 
> He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh.
> 
> The Final Banishment
> For nearly five years Bahá’u’lláh was a prisoner and exile in the remote
> provincial city of Adrianople. During those turbulent years Bahá’u’lláh
> survived three more attempts on His life. His enemies twice tried to poison
> Him and conspired to have Him slain in the public bath. All were
> unsuccessful.
> Bahá’u’lláh now turned to the task of revealing God’s guidance for the
> governments as well as the peoples of the world. Some of His most important
> and extensive writings date from this period. Nabíl, the Bábí historian, writes,
> “A number of secretaries were busy day and night, and yet they were unable
> to cope with the task [of transcribing the Revelation].”11
> Bahá’u’lláh during His lifetime wrote over one hundred volumes, which
> dealt with the various problems facing man and his society. One of the most
> fruitful periods of His entire mission was during His days in Adrianople.
> Bahá’u’lláh Himself affirms the copiousness of His writings during those
> months in Turkey, saying, “That which hath already been revealed in this
> land [Adrianople] secretaries are incapable of transcribing.”12
> On another occasion, Bahá’u’lláh declared, “In those days the equivalent
> of all that hath been sent down aforetime unto the Prophets hath been
> revealed.”13
> These writings were part of the historic worldwide proclamation of His
> Faith to the kings and rulers of the earth. This proclamation had its first
> beginnings in Constantinople, when Bahá’u’lláh sent His powerful letter to
> the prime minister of Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz following the king’s decree
> banishing Him to Adrianople. This proclamation reached its zenith in
> Adrianople.
> There Bahá’u’lláh wrote His most momentous letter to the crowned heads
> of the world. For “the first time He directed His words collectively to the
> entire company of the monarchs of East and West.”14 Bahá’u’lláh warned
> these rulers that “divine chastisement” would “assail” them “from every
> direction” if they failed in their responsibility to consider the new social and
> spiritual principles that God was revealing for a united world. Bahá’u’lláh
> prophesied the triumph of this Cause even if “no king be found who would
> turn his face towards [God].”
> Those who took the time to listen to His words and grasp the significance
> of His teachings were deeply moved. The essence of His message to the
> kings and rulers of the world, and to the peoples of the earth, can be found in
> those writings that streamed constantly from His pen during those years in
> Adrianople.
> Social justice was the basis of almost every instruction that Bahá’u’lláh
> issued to the leaders of men. He constantly urged those in authority to shield
> and shelter the needy ones. He encouraged them to protect the rights of the
> underprivileged and to uplift and instill hope in the downtrodden. In
> Bahá’u’lláh’s own words: “O Ye Rich Ones on Earth! The poor in your midst
> are My trust; guard ye My trust, and be not intent only on your own ease.”15
> And in another place, “Tell the rich of the midnight sighing of the poor….
> to be poor in all save God is a wondrous gift, belittle not the value thereof;
> for in the end it will make thee rich in God.”16
> This “most glorious phase” in Bahá’u’lláh’s mission is filled with His
> counsels for the protection of the peoples of the world. It will forever remain
> as the “zenith” of His ministry on earth. Bahá’u’lláh urged all the leaders of
> the world to unite in a program that would forever end the unjust extremes of
> wealth and poverty. This was more than a hundred years ago! He wrote, “O
> ye rulers of the earth! … Hearken unto the counsel given you … that haply
> both ye and the poor may attain unto tranquillity and peace. We beseech God
> to assist the kings of the earth to establish peace on earth.”17
> During these fateful days in Adrianople, Bahá’u’lláh “arose with matchless
> power” to proclaim the mission “with which He had been entrusted.”18 He
> broadcast it to the rulers of men in both the East and the West, those leaders
> who held the reins of temporal power in their grasp.
> Bahá’u’lláh was Himself “bent with sorrow” and still suffering from the
> effects of the last attempt on His life. He was well aware that a further
> banishment was impending. In spite of all these obstacles and perils, the Faith
> of Bahá’u’lláh during this period began to shine “in its meridian glory” and to
> demonstrate the power with which it was invested.19
> The Turkish government now yielded entirely to the pressure of the
> Persian ambassador and decided to send the exiles to a place that would both
> isolate them and assure their early deaths. A decree was issued commanding
> Bahá’u’lláh’s fourth banishment to the dreaded penal colony of ‘Akká.
> The companions of Bahá’u’lláh were seized by the authorities in their
> homes and on the streets of Adrianople in a surprise arrest. They were
> questioned, deprived of their papers, and flung into prison. Several times
> members of the group were summoned before the authorities and questioned
> concerning the exact number of Bahá’u’lláh’s family and friends. Rumors ran
> through the village that “they were to be dispersed to different places or
> secretly put to death.”20
> Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz had been assured by his ministers that neither
> Bahá’u’lláh nor His Faith could survive in the pestilential atmosphere of
> ‘Akká. This fortress-city was the most dreaded prison in all the Turkish
> empire. The sultan’s advisors felt confident that Bahá’u’lláh would soon
> perish in that vile place. In fact, they were taking part in a spiritual drama that
> the prophets of the past had foreseen and described.
> By banishing Bahá’u’lláh to ‘Akká, these enemies believed that they were
> carrying out the orders of their ruler, Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz. In reality, they
> were instruments for the fulfillment of promises made by God in sacred
> scripture long before.
> Although Bahá’u’lláh’s companions, until almost the last moment of their
> departure from Turkey, were uncertain where He would be sent, Bahá’u’lláh
> Himself, the “Ancient Beauty,” the object of so many wonderful and thrilling
> prophecies in the holy books of the past, was only too aware of His ultimate
> destination. He knew where He would ultimately be banished years before
> the event. As far back as the first years of His banishment to Adrianople,
> Bahá’u’lláh had already alluded to His future arrival at the fortress-city of
> ‘Akká.
> Bahá’u’lláh wrote about the worldwide triumph of His Faith that would
> follow that historic arrival. During those earliest years in Turkey, Bahá’u’lláh
> also hinted at the importance and significance of that future historic landing
> at ‘Akká. His words were, in reality, a prophecy. He wrote, “Upon Our
> arrival, We were welcomed with banners of light, whereupon the Voice of the
> Spirit cried out saying, ‘Soon will all that dwell on earth be enlisted under
> these banners.’”21
> 
> Tell the king that this territory will pass out of his
> hands.
> 
> The Journey by Sea
> On August 12, 1868, Bahá’u’lláh and His family began their four-day
> journey to Gallipoli, the first stage of their final banishment. They were
> escorted by a Turkish captain and a detachment of soldiers. The party stopped
> en route at several towns.
> At Káshánih, Bahá’u’lláh began one of His most famous letters to the
> kings of the earth. It was completed a short time later, at Gyawur-Kyuy.
> Before leaving Turkey, Bahá’u’lláh made it clear that He would never forget
> that land. He asserted that He had “deposited beneath every tree and every
> stone a trust, which God will erelong bring forth through the power of
> truth.”22
> The significance of these words was soon to become apparent.
> Bahá’u’lláh and His companions finally reached Gallipoli, where they
> spent three nights. This was to be their last stop in Turkey.
> Even at that late hour, Bahá’u’lláh gave ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz one final
> opportunity to repent of his past actions. Bahá’u’lláh sent a verbal message to
> the king through a Turkish officer named ‘Umar.
> Bahá’u’lláh requested that Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz grant Him a ten-minute
> interview during which the king could make any test he wished, so that he
> might determine for himself the truth or falsehood of Bahá’u’lláh’s Faith. The
> request was not granted.
> Not one of Bahá’u’lláh’s attempts at such a confrontation with the kings,
> their ministers, or the clergy had ever been accepted.
> Bahá’u’lláh prepared to depart for ‘Akká, a city that had once been part of
> the ancient land of Canaan. According to sacred scripture, Canaan was the
> land that would be inherited in the last days by one of the “seed” of Abraham.
> Bahá’u’lláh was descended from Abraham through His third wife,
> Katurah. How tender and beautiful is this story of Abraham and His seed,
> Bahá’u’lláh. How closely Their missions were bound together. How
> remarkably Their stories parallel each other.
> In the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Abraham proclaimed the
> oneness of God. In that same valley, Bahá’u’lláh proclaimed the oneness of
> all religions, races, and nations. Abraham was exiled from that valley to the
> land of Canaan. Bahá’u’lláh followed the same exile to that same land, where
> He completed His teachings and laws for the salvation of all humanity.
> In a Tablet revealed on the eve of His banishment to the penal colony of
> ‘Akká, Bahá’u’lláh declared, “Had Abraham attained it [this day], He too,
> falling prostrate on the ground … would have cried: ‘Mine heart is filled with
> peace, O Thou Lord of all that is in heaven and on earth! I testify that Thou
> hast unveiled before mine eyes all the glory of Thy power and the full
> majesty of Thy law!’”23
> The hour had come at last for Bahá’u’lláh to leave European soil and begin
> His journey to the Holy Land. When Ḥasan Effendi, the officer who had
> escorted Him from Adrianople, was taking his leave of Bahá’u’lláh, the
> Turkish captain was given yet another message for the sultan: “Tell the king
> that this territory will pass out of his hands, and that his affairs will be thrown
> into confusion.”24
> Bahá’u’lláh wanted Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz to know that on this occasion,
> He was speaking not as a prisoner and an exile, but as a Messenger of God.
> He was addressing the king with the same authority with which Moses,
> Christ, and Muḥammad had spoken of old. One of His followers, Áqá Riḍá,
> recorded that scene for posterity: “To this [statement] Bahá’u’lláh
> furthermore added: ‘Not I speak these words, but God speaketh them.’ In
> those moments He was uttering verses which we, who were downstairs, could
> overhear. They were spoken with such vehemence and power that, methinks,
> the foundations of the house itself trembled.”25
> Bahá’u’lláh embarked for ‘Akká via Egypt. The Persian ambassador
> promptly informed the Persian consul in Egypt that the Turkish government
> had withdrawn its protection over the followers of Bahá’u’lláh. “You are now
> free to treat them as you please,” was the essence of this information
> forwarded by that persistent enemy.
> The threats and trials that faced Bahá’u’lláh as He headed toward His final
> exile were so grievous that He warned His companions about the dangers and
> hardships that lay ahead.
> Bahá’u’lláh urged those who did not feel stout-hearted enough to face the
> sufferings yet to come to feel free to leave for any destination that they might
> desire. Those who chose to accompany Him, Bahá’u’lláh said, would find it
> impossible to leave in the future. Bahá’u’lláh warned them that “this journey
> will be unlike any of the previous journeys.”26
> 
> If a bird flies over ‘Akká, it dies!
> 
> The King of Glory Enters the Gate
> On August 21, 1868, Bahá’u’lláh and His companions were taken on board
> an Austrian-Lloyd steamer bound for the Holy Land. The ship touched first at
> Modelli and Smyrna. At Alexandria, Bahá’u’lláh was transferred to another
> ship that stopped at Port Said and Jaffa.
> On August 31, the vessel arrived at the port of Haifa. It anchored at sea
> below the foot of Mount Carmel, the “Nest of the Prophets” and the
> “Vineyard of God.”
> The “Glory of God” had come home at last!
> He had come “by way of the sea,” as promised in sacred scripture. He had
> crossed the Black Sea, and now the Mediterranean Sea to arrive in a land
> “sanctified by the Revelation of Moses, honored by the lives and labors of the
> Hebrew patriarchs, judges, kings, and prophets.” It was revered “as the cradle
> of Christianity”; honored as the place where Zoroaster conversed “with some
> of the prophets of Israel”; a land associated with the “night journey” of the
> Apostle of Islam, Muḥammad; a land linked with the Founders of Judaism,
> Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Islam, and now with both the Herald and
> Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh, Whose remains are
> entombed there.27
> David not only described ‘Akká as the Strong City in his Psalms, he also
> predicted that the “king of Glory” would come through the “gates” and “not
> keep silence.”
> And at last He had come!
> Hosea had described ‘Akká as “a door of hope.” Isaiah foretold that ‘Akká
> would be a refuge for the “herds” of God to lie down in with safety in the last
> days.
> By the action of His enemies, Bahá’u’lláh, the exile of Baghdad, of
> Constantinople, and Adrianople, was to spend the last third of His entire life,
> and over half of the duration of His earthly mission in that sacred land.
> Bahá’u’lláh’s son ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was also a prisoner on that historic
> occasion. He wrote of Bahá’u’lláh’s arrival in that land: “It is difficult to
> understand how Bahá’u’lláh could have been obliged to leave Persia, and to
> pitch His tent in this Holy Land, but for the persecution of His enemies, His
> banishment and exile.”28
> The shah of Persia and the sultan of Turkey, the two supreme temporal
> rulers of the destinies of both Sunni and Shia Islam, had imprisoned
> Bahá’u’lláh in what they considered the ultimate prison. They had shut Him
> up in a city so forlorn that it was described as “the metropolis of the owl.” So
> unsanitary and foul was the atmosphere of the fortress-city with its
> prevalence of malaria, typhoid, and dysentery that it was said in a proverb,
> “If a bird flies over ‘Akká, it dies!”
> In retrospect, these attempts on the part of the kings to destroy Bahá’u’lláh
> seem merely pathetic. The scriptures of the major religions make clear why
> every one of these efforts ended in disaster. In spite of the repeated and
> combined efforts of kings and clergy to prevent it, the Glory of God appeared
> at last on the side of God’s holy mountain, Carmel.
> These rulers of the world were foiled at every step. They added
> immeasurably to Bahá’u’lláh’s cup of sorrow, but they were powerless to
> prevent Him from fulfilling His destiny. That had been foretold. Every step
> along the way, Bahá’u’lláh fulfilled prophecy after prophecy from the holy
> books of those kings until, in spite of them, He came at last to God’s “holy
> hill.”
> This story itself, this tragedy of blind kings, had been clearly foreshadowed
> in the book of Psalms. The prophecy declared:
> 
> The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel
> together, against the Lord…. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh:
> the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall He speak unto them in
> His wrath…. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion…. thou
> shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Be wise now therefore, O
> ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth…. Blessed are all they that
> put their trust in Him.29
> 
> The king of Turkey had failed to put his trust in Bahá’u’lláh. No matter
> how often that assistance had been offered to him, the king had rejected it.
> The judges, ministers, and leaders of that land, following the lead of their
> sovereign, were not wise in their judgments. Their downfall and
> disappearance from living history was even then being fashioned by the Hand
> of God.
> 
> All of them shall be slain except one, who shall reach
> the plain of ‘Akká.
> 
> The Banquet-Hall of God
> The arrival of Bahá’u’lláh in ‘Akká began the final phase of His forty-year
> long ministry, a period of time itself repeatedly emphasized in sacred
> scripture. Bahá’u’lláh had come to the heart of Judaism and Christianity.
> Already His exile had taken Him to the “strongholds” of Islam.
> It is hard to understand the ignorance of these rulers of Islam, Sulṭán
> ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz and Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh, concerning the references so prevalent
> throughout their own sacred writings, to all these events. Unlike the kings of
> Christendom, these rulers of Islam, as many of their titles indicated, were an
> integral part of the religious system. Yet they were oblivious of the traditional
> prophecies recorded in their own holy books—prophecies that they had
> brought to a staggering fulfillment by their own cruel acts against
> Bahá’u’lláh. Their attitude speaks volumes about the sincerity of their belief
> in their own faith. For example:
> Muḥammad, the Prophet of Islam, had referred glowingly to this very
> prison-city of ‘Akká. He called it “A city to which God hath shown His
> special mercy.” And in another place He described it as a city “by the shore
> of the sea whose whiteness is pleasing unto God.”30
> From the traditional prophecies so highly honored in the sacred writings of
> both Turkey and Persia could be found these further astonishing words that
> ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz and Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh might have done well to ponder:
> 
> “Blessed the man that hath visited ‘Akká, and blessed he that hath
> visited the visitor of ‘Akká.”
> “He that raiseth therein the call to prayer, his voice will be lifted up
> unto Paradise.”
> “The poor of ‘Akká are the kings of Paradise and the princes thereof.”
> “A month in ‘Akká is better than a thousand years elsewhere.”31
> 
> Why? No one really understood the mystery until Bahá’u’lláh’s arrival.
> And finally, one of the most remarkable prophecies of all. It is especially
> significant when one studies the history of the martyrdom of the Herald of
> Bahá’u’lláh’s Faith, the Báb. Some twenty thousand of His followers were
> slain—a fate that Bahá’u’lláh Himself escaped time after time in Persia, Iraq,
> and Turkey. He was the only intimate of the Báb to escape Persia. The
> prophecies spoke repeatedly of the One Who would appear in the year 1260
> (AD 1844).32 He would be the first of two such Messengers. One of these
> traditional prophecies foretells the martyrdom of this holy Messenger and
> many of His followers, and declares, “All of them shall be slain except One
> Who shall reach the plain of ‘Akká, the Banquet-Hall of God.”33
> After reaching the “plain of ‘Akká” Bahá’u’lláh had written to the kings of
> the world concerning that mighty banquet-of-God that He had offered to
> them for the nourishment and unity of mankind. Bahá’u’lláh said, “He Who
> is the Unconditioned is come…. that He may quicken all created things …
> and unify the world, and gather all men around this Table that hath been sent
> down from heaven.”34
> The arrival of Bahá’u’lláh in the Holy Land fulfilled as well the
> astonishing prophecies from the book of Micah. Micah, as had Isaiah and
> Daniel, foretold both the first and second coming in the glory of the Father,
> Bahá’u’lláh. The prophecies fulfilled by Bahá’u’lláh seem almost a road-map
> of spiritual life. They describe His journeys from Persia to Mount Carmel.
> These prophecies alone should be evidence enough for all humankind.
> Micah prophesied that in the last days, when corruption and hatred have
> filled the earth, the Redeemer will come from Babylon to Israel. Bahá’u’lláh
> was exiled to Israel from Baghdad, near the site of ancient Babylon. Then in
> the course of one chapter Micah gives an amazing answer to those who
> ridiculed him, saying: “Where is the Lord thy God?”35
> “In that day also, he shall come even to thee from Assyria.” Bahá’u’lláh
> came from what was once in the midst of the Assyrian empire.
> “In that day also he shall come even to thee … from the fortified cities.”
> Bahá’u’lláh came from the fortified city of Constantinople to the fortified city
> of ‘Akká.
> “In that day also he shall come even to thee … from the fortress even to
> the river.” Bahá’u’lláh came to the ancient river Belus from the fortress of
> ‘Akká when He was released from prison.
> “In that day also he shall come even to thee … from sea to sea.”
> Bahá’u’lláh came across the Black Sea in exile to Constantinople, and across
> the Mediterranean Sea on His last exile to the Holy Land.
> “In that day also he shall come even to thee … from mountain to
> mountain.” Bahá’u’lláh came from a mountain in the valley of the Tigris and
> Euphrates rivers (from ancient Babylon) to Mount Carmel, in Israel.
> In the next verse, Micah says the “land shall be desolate” when the
> Redeemer arrives. ‘Akká was described as the “most desolate of cities” at this
> time. After Bahá’u’lláh’s coming that arid, “desolate” area began slowly to
> “blossom as the rose.”
> In the following verse, Micah says that this “Lord of Salvation” will “feed”
> his flock “in the midst of Carmel.” Bahá’u’lláh announced on the side of
> Mount Carmel that all the prophecies had been fulfilled. The World Center of
> His Faith has its headquarters “in the midst of Carmel,” from where
> Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings are now going out into all parts of the planet to
> “feed” the peoples and nations of the world.
> In the next verse, Micah says that God will “shew unto him,” the
> Redeemer, “marvellous things” for forty years. Bahá’u’lláh’s mission lasted
> exactly forty years, during which time He shared with the kings and leaders
> of men the “wonderful things” He had been “shewn” by God.
> Micah prophesied that in the last days the “house of the Lord” will be
> “established” in the mountain, many nations will “flow” unto it, and the
> “law” shall “go forth” and Israel shall become “a strong nation.” In
> Bahá’u’lláh’s own words, “These passages stand in need of no
> commentary.”36 Their truth is self-evident.
> Is there anywhere in history a more remarkable story? One would expect
> the banners to be flying and the bands to be playing and the hearts of men
> singing with joy at the arrival of the Promised One of all Ages on the side of
> God’s holy mountain. What really happened?
> Bahá’u’lláh has written about His arrival in that dreaded prison, saying,
> “None knoweth what befell Us, except God, the Almighty, the All-
> Knowing.”37
> So grave and critical were the first nine years of His imprisonment in that
> penal colony, that Bahá’u’lláh wrote, “Know thou, that upon Our arrival at
> this Spot, We chose to designate it as the ‘Most Great Prison.’ Though
> previously subjected in another land [Persia] to chains and fetters, We yet
> refused to call it by that name…. Ponder thereon, O ye endued with
> understanding!”38
> But He assured His followers that “Though afflicted with countless
> tribulations, which We have suffered at the hands of Our enemies, We have
> proclaimed unto all the rulers of the earth what God hath willed to proclaim,
> that all nations may know that no manner of affliction can deter the Pen of
> the Ancient of Days from achieving its purpose…. The hosts of the earth can
> never dismay Thee, nor can the dominion of all peoples and nations deter
> Thee from executing Thy purpose.”39
> The decree exiling Bahá’u’lláh to ‘Akká was dated July 26, 1868. The text
> was read publicly, soon after Bahá’u’lláh’s arrival, in the principal mosques
> of the city, as a warning to the population.
> The sultan feared that the people of ‘Akká might fall under the seemingly
> magic charm of Bahá’u’lláh’s spell as had the people in Baghdad and
> Adrianople. The king was determined that this time Bahá’u’lláh and His
> companions should be made objects of derision and hatred by the inhabitants
> of the city of ‘Akká. The sultan resolved to make no mistake this time.
> His decree condemned Bahá’u’lláh, His family, and His followers to
> perpetual banishment. It also “stipulated their strict incarceration and forbade
> them to associate either with each other or with the local inhabitants.”40 The
> townspeople of ‘Akká were encouraged to persecute and humiliate
> Bahá’u’lláh, His family, and His friends in every way possible. These
> captives were described to the people as enemies of both God and man.
> By these acts of hatred, the sultan set the final seal on the extinction of his
> own outward splendor. All these events led to the doom of imperial Turkey,
> the “throne of tyranny.”
> 11 THE SIXTH KINGDOM FALLS
> Abandon not the interests of thy people.
> 
> A Warning
> Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz, head of the Turkish House of ‘Uthmán, had conspired
> with the shah of Persia on three successive occasions against the Messenger
> of God, in Whose coming he claimed to believe. Every day the sultan, as
> caliph of Islam, read the Qur’án, in which the divine promise was made.
> Whenever information concerning Bahá’u’lláh and His companions
> reached the ministers of the sultan, it was immediately distorted and twisted
> into false accusations against Him. Bahá’u’lláh and His fellow-exiles were
> represented to the king as “a mischief to the world” and as “deserving of
> every chastisement and punishment.”1
> Bahá’u’lláh wrote to Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz, warning him against such
> deceit on the part of his advisors: “Beware, O King, that thou gather not
> around thee such ministers as follow the desires of a corrupt inclination …
> and manifestly betrayed their trust.”2
> Bahá’u’lláh was concerned more with the effect that such unjust ministers
> would have upon the welfare of the king’s subjects rather than upon Himself.
> Bahá’u’lláh wrote, “Abandon not the interests of thy people to the mercy of
> such ministers as these…. He that acteth treacherously towards God will,
> also, act treacherously towards his king. Nothing whatever can deter such a
> man from evil, nothing can hinder him from betraying his neighbor, nothing
> can induce him to walk uprightly.”3
> He understood only too well the graft with which the sultanic empire was
> riddled and knew how gravely the poor people suffered at the hands of these
> greedy and corrupt ministers of state. Bahá’u’lláh strongly emphasized this
> grave danger in His letter to Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz, saying, “Take heed that
> thou resign not the reins of the affairs of thy state into the hands of others,
> and repose not thy confidence in ministers unworthy of thy trust…. Beware
> that thou allow not the wolf to become the shepherd of God’s flock, and
> surrender not the fate of His loved ones to the mercy of the malicious …, and
> walk not in the paths of the oppressor.”4
> Bahá’u’lláh counseled the king to be personally responsible for the welfare
> of his people. He warned the sultan not to permit others to seize his power
> and to use it unjustly by persecuting those beneath them. “Seize thou, and
> hold firmly within the grasp of thy might, the reins of the affairs of thy
> people, and examine in person whatever pertaineth unto them. Let nothing
> escape thee, for therein lieth the highest good…. Thou canst best praise Him
> [God] if thou lovest His loved ones, and dost safeguard and protect His
> servants from the mischief of the treacherous, that none may any longer
> oppress them.”5
> These warnings went unheeded. ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz, enormously self-indulgent,
> surrendered all practical concerns into the hands of some of the most
> ambitious and amoral politicians in his domains. They could assure him
> stability and prosperity, he felt.
> In fact their greed and injustice were to pull the sultan and his throne down
> when they themselves fell.
> 
> “Leave it to God and history to judge between us.”
> 
> The Strong City
> The tempo of Bahá’u’lláh’s call to the rulers of the world was greatly
> increased and intensified during these “days of stress.” The greater His
> sufferings, the more forceful was Bahá’u’lláh’s call to the world to arise and
> eliminate all prejudice and injustice.
> He wrote, “O kings of the earth! We see you increasing every year your
> expenditures, and laying the burden thereof on your subjects. This, verily, is
> wholly and grossly unjust. Fear the sighs and tears of this Wronged One, and
> lay not excessive burdens on your peoples.”6
> And, in one of His most moving denunciations of such tyrant kings as
> Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz of Turkey, Bahá’u’lláh wrote, “Do not rob them [your
> people] to rear palaces for yourselves; nay rather choose for them that which
> ye choose for yourselves. Thus We unfold to your eyes that which profiteth
> you, if ye but perceive.”7
> He urged the leaders of men to look upon their subjects as their most
> important and valued asset. He said, “Your people are your treasures. Beware
> lest your rule violate the commandments of God, and ye deliver your wards
> to the hands of the robber. By them ye rule, by their means ye subsist, by
> their aid ye conquer. Yet, how disdainfully ye look upon them! How strange,
> how very strange!”8
> Bahá’u’lláh’s strong defense of the rights of the poor and downtrodden
> against the mighty rulers of earth was yet another of those remarkable events
> that had been foreseen so long ago in sacred scripture. The Old Testament
> had prophesied, “O give thanks unto the Lord…. To him which smote great
> kings … Who remembered us in our low estate … And hath redeemed us
> from our enemies.”9
> Bahá’u’lláh had done just that. The time for the redemption of all the
> peoples of the earth from such enemies had arrived. The hour for the
> “smiting” of great kings had come.
> Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz ignored Bahá’u’lláh’s counsels. In spite of all His
> warnings, the sultan permitted his ministers to continue their persecution of
> the Prisoner and His companions. Bahá’u’lláh then forecast the inevitable
> retribution that would soon overtake the king, reminding the sultan in these
> words, “Ye failed utterly to take heed … ye waxed more heedless…. Be
> expectant, however, for the wrath of God is ready to overtake you. Erelong
> will ye behold that which hath been sent down from the Pen of My
> command.”10
> Bahá’u’lláh’s words to the leaders of humanity made it un-mistakably
> clear that this grave worldwide struggle, in which entire kingdoms were
> involved, was not a conflict between Himself and those who were in
> authority. It was a planetary clash between those who loved the things of God
> and those who loved the things of men. It was an inevitable battle between
> physical and moral forces. It was a struggle between the material and the
> spiritual; between age-old inequities on the one hand and true justice on the
> other.
> All the tragedies now engulfing the world had come about because
> humankind had turned away from God and was drowning in purely
> materialistic concerns. Humanity’s animal nature was in ascendancy, and
> until people turned to God, they would continue to suffer greater tragedies
> and more violent calamities. For this reason, Bahá’u’lláh called upon the
> kings to assist Him in rescuing humanity from this threatening disaster. He
> could only point the way and give the guidance. The leadership must come
> from the temporal rulers.
> He challenged the sultan, his ministers, and his priests to examine the
> Bahá’í teachings with an open mind. He made it plain that if this Faith was
> true, there was no king who could prevent its rising. No man can hold back
> the sun of a new day.
> Bahá’u’lláh also pointed out that if this Faith was not the truth, then a
> sincere and thorough examination by the sultan, his ministers and priests
> would immediately reveal its fraudulent nature, and they would easily be able
> to vanquish it.
> What were they afraid of finding out by an open and sincere investigation?
> Bahá’u’lláh wrote, “If this Cause be of God, no man can prevail against it;
> and if it be not of God, the divines [religious leaders] amongst you … will
> surely suffice to overpower it.”11
> Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz was not interested in investigating anything
> Bahá’u’lláh might have to say. He was only interested in silencing Him. The
> sooner the better. The sultan had signed the edict banishing Bahá’u’lláh to the
> fortress of ‘Akká so that he might put an end to His memory.
> Even at that late date, Bahá’u’lláh was still trying to open the eyes of the
> king and the clergy by showing them the remarkable fulfillment of the
> promises from their own holy books. Bahá’u’lláh had been brought into the
> “Strong City” hailed by David by the edict of the sultan. Bahá’u’lláh pointed
> out that this was one of the least prophecies fulfilled by the acts of His
> enemies. Bahá’u’lláh said, simply and bluntly, to leave it to God and history
> to judge between them.
> 
> Soon will We … lay hold on the Chief who ruleth the
> land.
> A Roll of Drums
> Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz, the “self-styled vicar of the Prophet of Islám and the
> absolute ruler of a mighty empire” was “the first among the Oriental
> monarchs to sustain the impact of God’s retributive justice.”12
> Bahá’u’lláh was not content to send only a verbal warning to the king of
> Turkey and his ministers. He also put it in writing. In forceful, unmistakable
> language, for all men to see, Bahá’u’lláh foretold their imminent downfall.
> The prime minister, ‘Alí Páshá; the foreign minister, Fu’ád Páshá; and the
> Persian ambassador, Mírzá Ḥusayn Khán, had all conspired in securing
> Bahá’u’lláh’s successive banishments. Fu’ád Páshá was described by
> Bahá’u’lláh as the “instigator” of the fourth and final banishment to the
> prison of ‘Akká. Fu’ád Páshá, to satisfy his foreign policy aims with relation
> to Persia, encouraged his fellow conspirator, ‘Alí Páshá, to excite the fears
> and suspicions of Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz. The sultan needed little
> encouragement. There was nothing vague or ambiguous about the words
> Bahá’u’lláh addressed to these ministers. It was an open challenge.
> Bahá’u’lláh directed it specifically to the ministers of the Turkish state. He
> warned them, and through them all leaders in a similar position of authority,
> about what would happen to those who were unjust and un-scrupulous in
> their discharge of public trust: “It behoveth you, O Ministers of State, to keep
> the precepts of God … and to be of them who are guided aright…. Ye shall,
> erelong, discover the consequences of that which ye shall have done in this
> vain life, and shall be repaid for them.”13
> Bahá’u’lláh added the following words: “The days of your life shall roll
> away, and all the things with which ye are occupied and of which ye boast
> yourselves shall perish…. This is the day that shall inevitably come upon
> you, the hour that none can put back.”14
> Fu’ád Páshá was the first to feel the sting of requital. Within a year
> following Bahá’u’lláh’s arrival at the prison-city of ‘Akká, the foreign
> minister was struck down while on a trip to Paris, and he died at Nice, his
> plotting and ambitions perishing with him.
> Bahá’u’lláh directed a second letter to the Turkish prime minister, ‘Alí
> Páshá. He described that minister as the type of leader who in every age
> denounces and persecutes the Messengers of God. ‘Alí Páshá, like Náṣiri’d-
> Dín Sháh of Persia, regarded himself as the hope of Turkey. His
> modernization program was to make the ramshackle empire a powerful
> nation. Far from weakening the sultan’s dictatorship, this program would
> give the government still greater control.
> He foretold the ruin of the prime minister and warned ‘Alí Páshá not to be
> misled because of his present authority and high position, but to meditate on
> the significant premature death of his colleague. Bahá’u’lláh foreshadowed
> the calamities that would soon strike both the prime minister and the sultan
> himself. Bahá’u’lláh wrote openly of those forthcoming tragedies so that all
> the world might know that He had clearly predicted their downfall.
> Bahá’u’lláh wrote, “Soon will We dismiss the one [‘Alí Páshá] who was like
> unto him [Fu’ád Páshá] and will lay hold on their Chief [Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-
> Azíz] who ruleth the land.”15
> The prophecy was dramatically fulfilled. Without warning, ‘Alí Páshá was
> suddenly shorn of all his power. He was summarily dismissed from office
> and shortly afterward died in complete oblivion. The political career that was
> to be the “hope of Turkey” had been short-lived.
> Bahá’u’lláh also prophesied concerning the city of Adrianople. He
> described the tragedies that would befall the city and its peoples because of
> the neglect of justice not only by the king and his ministers, but by the people
> themselves.
> Bahá’u’lláh’s words now echo like a roll of drums: “The day is
> approaching when the Land of Mystery [Adrianople], and what is beside it
> shall be changed, and shall pass out of the hands of the king, and commotions
> shall appear, and the voice of lamentation shall be raised … by reason of that
> which hath befallen these captives at the hands of the hosts of oppression.”16
> Another of His prophecies foretold, “The course of things shall be altered,
> and conditions shall wax so grievous, that the very sands on the desolate hills
> will moan, and the trees on the mountain will weep, and blood will flow out
> of all things. Then wilt thou behold the people in sore distress.”17
> These words pointed out to ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz that he, like his fellow-rulers,
> had time and time again ignored the needs and requirements of this present
> day. But the ruler was unmoved by the sufferings of his people. He was
> totally uninterested in any suggestions for reform that came from the pen of
> the Prisoner.
> In order that the sultan should have no doubt whatsoever about the
> meaning of His words, Bahá’u’lláh stated, “Soon will He [God] seize you in
> His wrathful anger, and sedition will be stirred up in your midst, and your
> dominions will be disrupted. Then will ye bewail and lament, and will find no
> one to help or succor you.”18
> Like those of Napoleon III and other monarchs, this prophecy was fulfilled
> with terrifying swiftness. ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz’s misrule, of which his mistreatment
> of Bahá’u’lláh was a classic example, drove elements in the empire to
> desperation. They were not inclined, as Bahá’u’lláh was, to trust in God for
> redress.
> We noted earlier in this book the events that followed. Without warning a
> palace revolution overthrew the imperial government. The sultan, whose very
> person was regarded as sacred, was seized by rude hands and imprisoned.
> The revolutionaries deposed him in favor of his nephew, ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd,
> whom they believed they could rule.
> The one remaining problem was what to do with the fallen monarch. The
> once all-powerful head of church and state had become merely an
> embarrassment.
> The problem was solved in the same way that ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz had solved
> his own problems. Early one morning the wretched king heard footsteps enter
> the room in which he was held. They were the last thing he heard.
> 
> Fear God, inhabitants of the city.
> 
> The Sixth Kingdom Falls
> Through the reign of ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd II uprisings increased in both intensity
> and violence. Finally, in 1909, an army sent by the Young Turks of Salonika
> marched in revenge upon the capital. It punished all who had opposed its
> plans for reform and took steps to deal with the new sultan.
> ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd was deserted by his friends and condemned by his
> subjects. He was already hated by his fellow sovereigns of Europe. The
> sultan was forced to abdicate his throne and, like ‘Abdu’l-Azíz, was made a
> prisoner of the state before being sent into perpetual exile.
> Thus, ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd II, as had his uncle before him, suffered the same
> punishments that they had inflicted upon Bahá’u’lláh and His family. An
> even more terrible fate awaited the imperial ministers who had encouraged
> the kings in their injustice and had profited handsomely in the course of
> doing so.
> On one single day in 1909, no less than thirty-one leading ministers and
> officials were arrested and condemned to the gallows. Among the thirty-one
> were some of the most notorious enemies of Bahá’u’lláh’s Faith.
> Constantinople itself, which had been honored as the splendid metropolis
> of the Roman Empire, and which had been made the capital of the Ottoman
> government, was abandoned as a capital city by the revolution. The city was
> stripped of its pomp and glory. Even its ancient name was dropped in favor of
> the colloquial “Istanbul.” Ankara became the new capital.
> The fate of Constantinople brought sharply to mind Bahá’u’lláh’s words.
> He had spoken of the condition in which He found the city of Constantinople
> and its peoples when He arrived there as a Prisoner: “We found, upon Our
> arrival in the City, its governors and elders as children gathered about and
> disporting themselves with clay…. Our inner eye wept sore over them, and
> over their transgressions and their total disregard of the thing for which they
> were created.”19
> There was none to listen among the people of Constantinople. Bahá’u’lláh
> warned that the city would feel the fire of divine reprisal. “God, assuredly,
> dominateth the lives of them that wronged Us, and is well aware of their
> doings. He will, most certainly, lay hold on them for their sins. He, verily, is
> the fiercest of avengers.”20
> Constantinople lost in theory, as well as in fact, the position held well-nigh
> uninterruptedly for six centuries—that of the headship of a vast empire. The
> Ottoman Empire was ended. The revolutionaries were determined that the
> capital should be dishonored as well.
> “No longer,” they announced, “will Constantinople exact a tragic tribute of
> lives and treasure.”
> The mosques of the capital were deserted. The pride and joy of them all,
> the peerless St. Sophia, was converted into a museum. The Arabic tongue, the
> language of Muḥammad, was banished from the land.
> Bahá’u’lláh’s words ring clearly for those who have “ears to hear”:
> O Spot that art situate on the shores of the two seas [Constantinople]!
> The throne of tyranny hath, verily, been established upon thee, and the
> flame of hatred hath been kindled within thy bosom…. We behold in
> thee the foolish ruling over the wise, and darkness vaunting itself against
> the light. Thou art indeed filled with manifest pride. Hath thine outward
> splendor made thee vainglorious? By Him Who is the Lord of mankind!
> It shall soon perish, and thy daughters and thy widows and all the
> kindreds that dwell within thee shall lament. Thus informeth thee the
> All-Knowing, the All-Wise.21
> 
> How similar are Bahá’u’lláh’s words to those that the persecuted Christ
> pronounced against Jerusalem “because thou knowest not the time of thy
> visitation.”
> The break was final and complete. The new capital of Turkey was
> transferred to Ankara. Constantinople, the “Dome of Islám,” hailed by
> Constantine as the “New Rome,” high-ranking metropolis of both Rome and
> Christendom, “revered as the seat of the caliphs” of Islam, was relegated to
> the station of a provincial city, was stripped of all its pomp and glory, “its
> soaring and slender minarets standing sentinel at the grave of so much
> vanished splendor and power.”22
> The sixth kingdom had fallen.
> 12 THE PRISON OPENS
> No need to ask in Whose presence I stood.
> 
> Mount Carmel
> Long before the extinction of the Ottoman Empire, the Prisoner of ‘Akká had
> won the spiritual battle over His persecutors. The slander spread against Him
> by fearful or ambitious politicians in Constantinople had been able to
> prejudice the people and officials in ‘Akká against Bahá’u’lláh before His
> arrival. Now, however, these same people had several years of direct
> experience with their Visitor.
> His patience, His forbearance, and His wisdom had captivated the hardest
> hearts. Although few had even the dimmest conception of His mission, they
> regarded Bahá’u’lláh as a saint Whose presence was a blessing to the entire
> province.
> The decree of banishment had never been repealed, but it had become a
> dead letter. Bahá’u’lláh was still nominally a prisoner, but the doors of the
> prison-city had been opened to Him by the officials in ‘Akká who had come
> to know His true worth.
> Bahá’u’lláh was at last free to walk on Mount Carmel. There He chose the
> site for the future shrine of His Herald, the Báb. Bahá’u’lláh arranged for the
> sacred remains of the Báb to be brought from Persia to the Holy Land.
> Gradually, all elements of the population began to recognize Bahá’u’lláh’s
> innocence of the crimes imputed to Him. Slowly the true spirit of His
> teachings penetrated through the “hard crust of their indifference and
> bigotry.”1
> The leading clergyman of ‘Akká, Shaykh Maḥmúd, a man notorious for his
> bigotry, became converted to the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh. He was fired with
> enthusiasm to compile all the many traditional prophecies from the writings
> of Islam concerning the significance of the city of ‘Akká and its “Visitor.” In
> more recent years, clergymen of all faiths have followed his example.
> Men of letters, Christians and Jews as well as Muslims, sought His
> presence. Professor E. G. Browne of Cambridge University visited
> Bahá’u’lláh and was granted four successive interviews. He wrote of those
> hours, saying: “It was, in truth, a strange and moving experience, but one
> whereof I despair of conveying any save the feeblest impression.”2 Professor
> Browne declared that he underwent unparalleled spiritual joys. Perhaps men
> might disbelieve his words, Browne said, but if they ever came in contact
> with the spirit of Bahá’u’lláh, it would be an experience they would
> remember all the days of their lives.
> Browne described one of his interviews with Bahá’u’lláh in these words:
> “The face of Him on Whom I gazed I can never forget, though I cannot
> describe it…. No need to ask in Whose presence I stood, as I bowed myself
> before One Who is the object of a devotion and love which kings might envy
> and emperors sigh for in vain!”3
> 
> He will break the yoke from off the necks of men.
> 
> The Center of the Covenant
> Bahá’u’lláh passed from this world in His home outside the city of ‘Akká on
> May 29, 1892. His mission had been fulfilled. Although not even His
> followers were aware of its extent, He had laid the foundations of a
> worldwide community that would provide the pattern for the “new order in
> human relations” that the kings had so tragically rejected.
> The people of ‘Akká knew only that they had lost something from their
> midst that was irreplaceable. A huge crowd of people from all religions and
> all walks of life thronged the fields that surrounded Bahá’u’lláh’s dwelling.
> An eyewitness wrote, “a multitude of the inhabitants of ‘Akká and of the
> neighboring villages … could be seen weeping, beating upon their heads and
> crying aloud their grief.”
> Bahá’u’lláh, in His own written Will and Testament, appointed ‘Abdu’l-
> Bahá (a title meaning “Servant of Bahá’u’lláh”) as the interpreter of His
> teachings in a document called the Kitáb-i-‘Ahd (“The Book of My
> Covenant”). Bahá’u’lláh made ‘Abdu’l-Bahá the center of that Covenant.
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá took up Bahá’u’lláh’s appeal to the leaders and peoples of
> the world. He traveled extensively throughout Europe and America in 1911
> and 1912 trying to awaken humanity to the dangers threatening it.
> Upon arrival at the prison-city of ‘Akká, Bahá’u’lláh is reported to have
> said to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “Now I concentrate on My work writing commands
> and counsels for the world of the future; to thee I leave the province of
> talking with and ministering to the people.”4
> The book of Psalms spoke of such a “Covenant” that would be established
> for “all generations” by the Lord of Hosts in the day when God would
> “scatter thine enemies” and “beat down his foes.” Psalms declared of that
> day, “I have made a covenant with my chosen…. Also I will make him my
> first-born, higher than the kings of the earth … and my covenant shall stand
> fast with him…. It shall be established forever as the moon.”5
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was not a Messenger or “Manifestation” of God as were
> Bahá’u’lláh, Christ, and the other founders of the great religions. His role in
> spiritual history is, in an important sense, a mystery. On the one hand
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s life is the perfect example for those who have recognized
> Bahá’u’lláh. It is the proof that Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings are the sane and
> creative way for people to live in the new age.
> On the other hand, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is also the architect of the system of
> administrative institutions conceived and outlined by Bahá’u’lláh. ‘Abdu’l-
> Bahá superintended the formation of the first of these democratically elected
> bodies on the pattern designed by Bahá’u’lláh. For the first time in history, a
> Messenger of God has brought not only spiritual teachings and social
> principles, but also model institutions.
> It is because of this unique role conferred on ‘Abdu’l-Bahá by
> Bahá’u’lláh’s own pen that He is so revered and loved by Bahá’ís
> everywhere.
> The story of the arrival of Bahá’u’lláh, at Mount Carmel in the Holy Land,
> there to establish this covenant with humanity for all time, is so beautiful and
> powerful that it is impossible not to share also the echo of Isaiah to the words
> of the book of Psalms above.
> The greatest of the Hebrew prophets proclaimed,
> And the Redeemer shall come to Zion…. This is my covenant with
> them, saith the Lord…. Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory
> of the Lord [Bahá’u’lláh] is risen upon thee … darkness shall cover the
> earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee,
> and his glory shall be seen upon thee…. For the nation and kingdom that
> will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted
> … and thou shalt know that I the Lord am thy Savior and thy
> Redeemer.6
> 
> In ‘Akká, the persecutions that had begun under ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz reached
> their culmination under his successor, ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd II, before the fall of the
> Ottoman monarchy. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá refused to allow these new threats to
> interfere with His assistance to the ill and the destitute. Each day He visited
> the orphan, the sick, and the downtrodden. Throughout His life, He serenely
> refused to allow His troubles to prevent Him from visiting in person those
> souls who needed His help.
> One night early in the winter of 1907, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had a dream. He told
> His friends about it. He had seen a ship cast anchor off ‘Akká. From it flew a
> few birds. When they approached, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá saw that they resembled
> sticks of dynamite. The birds flew toward Him and circled above His head.
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was standing in the midst of a great multitude of the frightened
> people of ‘Akká. Suddenly, the “birds” returned to their ship without
> exploding.
> A few days later a ship appeared on the horizon and anchored in the Bay of
> Haifa. It had brought from Constantinople another imperial investigation
> commission. It consisted of four officers, headed by one, ‘Arif Bey. This
> commission was invested with plenary powers to summarily dispose of
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in any way they deemed fit. Among the commission’s
> members were outspoken enemies of Bahá’u’lláh and His Faith.
> All telegraph and postal services in Haifa were immediately seized. The
> commission dismissed any official suspected of being friendly with ‘Abdu’l-
> Bahá, including the governor of the city. They placed guards over ‘Abdu’l-
> Bahá’s house. Encouraged by this show of force, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s enemies
> flocked to the commission sessions to do their part in assuring His downfall.
> Even some of the poor, whom He had so long and so bountifully succored,
> now forsook Him because of their fear of reprisals.
> Once again wild reports about ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s fate spread through Haifa
> and ‘Akká: ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was to be taken on shipboard as a prisoner; He
> might be cast into the ocean at sea, or banished to the sands of Africa, or even
> nailed to the city gates of ‘Akká.
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, His tranquillity unshaken, told some of the Bahá’ís who still
> remained at ‘Akká: “The meaning of the dream I dreamt is now clear….
> Please God this dynamite will not explode.”7
> 
> I will work a wonder which ye will not believe even
> though it be told to you.
> 
> God’s Gun
> One evening, just before sunset, the ship, which had been lying off Haifa,
> weighed anchor. It headed for ‘Akká. The news spread rapidly. The
> commission had boarded the vessel. It was expected that they would stop at
> ‘Akká long enough to take ‘Abdu’l-Bahá on board.
> Anguish seized the family of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The few believers who were
> left in the city wept with grief at the thought of separation from Him.
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá could be seen at that tragic hour calmly walking alone and
> silent in the courtyard of His house.
> With the setting sun, the sky darkened and the lights of the ship could be
> seen clearly. Suddenly the ship changed her course. She swung about and
> was now obviously sailing directly for Constantinople!
> The dynamite had not exploded! Rather, dynamite of a different kind had
> been detonated. In the capital city, the Young Turks had revolted and swept
> aside all royal resistance. ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd II had been deposed, and a puppet-
> king was set up in his place. The ship that was to carry ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to
> certain death instead conveyed those who condemned ‘Abdu’l-Bahá back to
> Constantinople, to their own destruction.
> The gun that had touched off the Young Turk Rebellion not only removed
> the threat from over ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s head, but it also freed Him from an
> imprisonment that had lasted for over fifty years. The imprisonment had
> begun when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was but a child of nine. It ended when He was
> sixty-four.
> After gaining his freedom, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá carried the Faith of His father to
> Africa, Europe, and America. These apostolic journeys will remain forever
> unique in the annals of religious history. Imagine! The son of a Messenger of
> God visiting and speaking in cathedrals, churches, synagogues, schools,
> universities, addressing lord mayors, presidents, educators, philosophers,
> entering the homes of millionaires and the slum-dwellings of the poor!
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was entertained by princes, maharajas, and noblemen. He
> spoke to leading clergymen in both England and America, to Theosophists,
> agnostics, materialists, spiritualists, Christian Scientists, social reformers,
> Hindus, Sufis, Muslims, Buddhists, and Zoroastrians, as well as Catholics,
> Protestants, and Jews.
> Secretaries of state, ambassadors, congressmen, members of parliament,
> ministers of state, presidents of universities, famous scholars, military
> leaders, and socialites all met Him and heard His message of unity.
> For eight long months ‘Abdu’l-Bahá traveled coast to coast in the United
> States and Canada proclaiming His Father’s Faith from pulpit, platform, and
> press. Whatever the future may hold, it will never be possible for people to
> say they did not have the opportunity to hear about the Revelation of God to
> our age.
> Why did not millions instead of thousands listen and believe?
> Perhaps a clue can be found in the book of Habakkuk, who prophesied that
> the “knowledge of the Lord” (Bahá’u’lláh) would “cover the earth as the
> “waters cover the sea.” Habakkuk also declared, “Behold … regard, and
> wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days which ye will not
> believe, though it be told you.”8
> During the First World War, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote His history-making
> Tablets of the Divine Plan, which called on the followers of Bahá’u’lláh to
> carry the message of world unity and social justice to every corner of the
> globe, however remote. They responded by the thousands. The community of
> Bahá’u’lláh is now established in more than one hundred thousand centers in
> over 236 independent nations and major territories.
> It is little wonder that students of past scriptures should begin to become
> interested in words of Daniel, which have found remarkable fulfillment in the
> story of Bahá’u’lláh. Not only did Daniel predict the overthrow of kings, he
> also prophesied, “And in the days of these [wicked] kings shall the God of
> heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed … it shall stand
> forever.”9
> These things Daniel pictured as taking place in a period that many
> Christian Bible scholars have said must have begun in 1844, the year of the
> birth of the Bahá’í Faith.
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has said of the downfall of ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd: “God removed
> the chains from my neck and placed them around the neck of ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd.
> It was done suddenly—not in a long time—in a moment as it were. The same
> hour that the Young Turks declared liberty, the Committee of Union and
> Progress set me free. They lifted the chains from my neck and threw them
> around the neck of ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd. That which he did to me was inflicted on
> him.”10
> Of the weapon that had fired off the Young Turk revolt in such forceful
> terms, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, “That was God’s gun.”
> 
> The face of Him on Whom I gazed, I can never forget.
> 
> The Envy of Kings
> This was not, however, the end of the story.
> During World War I, the Turkish commander-in-chief of the military
> forces in the Holy Land was Jamál Páshá. This suspicious and ruthless officer
> established a harsh and complete military dictatorship. In such a regime there
> was no place for One Who taught that all men were one and that justice is the
> Will of God for our age.
> Jamál Páshá subjected ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to repeated insults and indignities and
> threatened to destroy the tomb of Bahá’u’lláh. He openly boasted that if the
> Turkish Army was forced to evacuate Haifa, he would “crucify ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
> on Mount Carmel.”
> The British followers of Bahá’u’lláh were alarmed when this news reached
> them. They enlisted the aid of some of the cabinet members, including Lord
> Curzon, who had written in 1892, the year of the death of Bahá’u’lláh,
> praising the “sublime” devotion of the early followers of His Faith.
> Through Lord Curzon’s intervention, Lord Lamington wrote to the Foreign
> Office explaining the importance of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s position. On the day of
> the receipt of this letter, Lord Balfour sent a message to General Allenby in
> Egypt. He instructed the general to “extend every protection and
> consideration to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, His family and His friends.”
> Allenby’s army entered Palestine and Jerusalem ahead of schedule. His
> surprise entry routed the Turkish forces.
> Christian Arabs, unaware of the significance of Bahá’u’lláh’s Faith or of
> His words to the rulers of Turkey, pointed proudly to the protection that God
> had given to them and to the Holy Land in that critical hour. It was the Hand
> of God raised up to save them, they said. It came through General Allenby,
> they explained, whose very name showed him to be an instrument of the
> Lord. The name “Allenby” was akin to “Al Nabi,” which in Arabic means
> “The Prophet.” For half a century these same people had remained unaware
> of the significance of the presence of Bahá’u’lláh and His Faith in their midst.
> General Allenby issued instructions to the officer in command at Haifa to
> insure ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s safety. After the capture of Haifa, Allenby sent a cable
> to London. He requested the authorities to “notify the world that ‘Abdu’l-
> Bahá is safe.”
> The plot of the Turkish commander, Jamál Páshá, was frustrated. Defeated
> in battle, he fled from the country. He was later slain while traveling as an
> exile in the Caucasus.
> The fate of Jamál Páshá was only a minor footnote in the turbulent history
> of the period. Even the collapse of the Turkish regime in the Holy Land
> seemed somewhat anticlimactic.
> Of far greater importance was the response of the world to the Message of
> God. That Message had been proclaimed in four continents as a result of the
> widely publicized travels and writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The most powerful
> of the despots who had stood between humankind and the Messenger of unity
> had been swept aside. New governments and new nations had come into
> existence.
> Many of the leading statesmen, reformers, and thinkers of this new world
> had met and talked with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Many of them had paid extravagant
> tribute to His wisdom and character, and to the vision in His father’s
> Revelation.
> Now the opportunity for action had come. Republican governments and
> constitutional monarchies held the power formerly held by the Hohenzollerns
> and Romanovs. What would they do with it?
> 13 FALLING KINGDOMS
> EVERYWHERE
> Twenty years have passed, O Kings!
> 
> Falling Kingdoms Everywhere
> The words of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá made it clear that it was not
> merely the recipients of specific letters who were summoned by God. All the
> kings and rulers were responsible for the trust that they had accepted. And the
> day had come when this trust must be answered by acts of justice.
> To no other group did this apply so specifically as it did to kings. The
> subsequent decline in the fortunes of royalty and the disappearance of so
> many thrones can be understood only in relationship to their neglect of the
> Message of God. Bahá’u’lláh warned them of the great loss they would
> sustain if they did not heed the counsel given them: “O Kings of the earth! …
> Ye examined not His Cause when to do so would have been better for you
> than all that the sun shineth upon, could you but perceive it.”1
> Bahá’u’lláh searched in vain for that great leader of men who would be
> willing to make any sacrifice necessary in order to uphold justice; not for the
> East or the West, the rich or the poor, the light or the dark, the Jew or the
> Gentile, but for all men who lived in this one homeland, the planet.
> Bahá’u’lláh extolled the greatness of such a leader of men: “How great is
> the blessedness that awaiteth the king who will arise to aid My Cause….
> Such a king is the very eye of mankind…. the fountainhead of blessings unto
> the whole world.”2
> Through half a lifetime Bahá’u’lláh waited patiently for such a king or
> leader to arise. He longed to witness in His own lifetime, if possible, the
> fruits of such heroic action. The world, He declared, could have become
> another world, and the people another people, if they had responded to His
> call.
> Instead of the “Most Great Peace,” humankind would now have to content
> himself with the “Lesser Peace.” Humanity, because of its lack of response
> would have to win its way to the goal of a united and peaceful world through
> suffering. No king, however, and no nation arose in answer to His call. At
> last Bahá’u’lláh was moved to declare, “Twenty years have passed, O kings
> … ye, nevertheless, have failed to stay the hand of the aggressor. For is it not
> your clear duty to restrain the tyranny of the oppressor, and to deal equitably
> with your subjects, that your high sense of justice may be fully demonstrated
> to all mankind?”3
> The leaders of men had permitted the “wolves” to inflict “injustice” upon
> their “sheep.” Therefore, the hour of retribution could be put off no longer.
> Bahá’u’lláh made a startling declaration. “Power,” He announced, had been
> “seized” by God from the kings, and the “winds of despair” would soon
> “assail” them from every direction. Bahá’u’lláh wrote of those tyrant kings,
> saying, “They have been seized by their forelock, and yet know it not.”4
> Only two years expired between the time that Bahá’u’lláh’s first letters to
> the kings were delivered and ignored and the time the first kingdom was
> overthrown. The French monarch, Napoleon III, who had twice repudiated
> Bahá’u’lláh’s counsel, and who had deliberately insulted Him, was the first to
> be toppled from his throne. He was followed by an endless line of his fellow
> monarchs during the subsequent decades.
> The following, in chronological order, is a partial list of significant events
> related to Bahá’u’lláh’s historic pronouncements to the crowned heads of the
> world and of the fate that overtook some of the major kingdoms of the world.
> 
> Fall of the French Monarchy (1870)
> Assassination of Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz (1876)
> Assassination of Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh (1896)
> Overthrow of Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd II (1909)
> Fall of the Portuguese Monarchy (1910)
> Fall of the Chinese Monarchy (1911)
> Fall of the Russian Monarchy (1917)
> Fall of the German Monarchy (1918)
> Fall of the Austrian Monarchy (1918)
> Fall of the Hungarian Monarchy (1918)
> Fall of the Turkish Monarchy (1922)
> Fall of the Qájár Dynasty (1925)
> Fall of the Spanish Monarchy (1931)
> Fall of the Albanian Monarchy (1938)
> Fall of the Serbian Monarchy (1941)
> Fall of the Italian Monarchy (1946)
> Fall of the Bulgarian Monarchy (1946)
> Fall of the Romanian Monarchy (1947)
> Fall of the Egyptian Monarchy (1952)
> Fall of the Iraqi Monarchy (1958)
> Fall of the Yemenite Monarchy (1962)
> 
> Vast and awesome is the spectacle that greets the eyes of those who survey
> the field over which the requiting wind of God has blown since the beginning
> of Bahá’u’lláh’s mission.
> Volumes have been written by historians and politicians on the subject of
> these falling empires. In vain, scholars have tried to explain this spectacle in
> terms political or historical forces alone.
> Magazines and syndicated news articles have celebrated the glories of the
> Victorian and Edwardian ages with their colorful kings and unrivaled
> pageantry, but they have searched unavailingly to uncover the fateful forces
> that drove them to their end.
> No one, when Bahá’u’lláh wrote His first letter from far-off Adrianople in
> 1867, could have foreseen the worldwide collapse of an institution that had
> been regarded as the central pillar of every civilization in history. The
> popular mind could not imagine a world without monarchies. No sane
> historian or political philosopher would have been prepared to make such a
> prediction.
> It was left to the Messenger of God to announce publicly, and around the
> world, the long, final curtain-call of the kings.
> 
> All the great houses shall have an end.
> From the Top of Carmel
> With the completion of Bahá’u’lláh’s announcement to the kings, the great
> and dreadful Day foretold by Jeremiah had dawned and was rising towards
> the fury of its noonday heat. Jeremiah prophesied concerning the Day of the
> Promised One. He told us what God would do to the tyrant and unjust kings
> of the earth:
> 
> Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations to
> whom I send thee, to drink it…. And all the kings of the north, far and
> near, one with another, and all the kingdoms of the world, which are
> upon the face of the earth…. Thou shalt say unto them, thus saith the
> Lord of hosts … drink ye, and be drunken, and spue, and fall and rise no
> more because of the sword which I will send among you…. Ye shall not
> be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the
> earth, saith the Lord of Hosts.5
> 
> The punishment was far advanced. Gone were the Houses of
> Hohenzollern, Hapsburg, Romanov, Bonaparte, ‘Uthmán, and Qájár. Gone
> were most of the lesser dynasties and kingdoms that once ruled the earth. The
> “whirlwind” that Isaiah had promised would come and blow away kings and
> princes had now swept across the entire face of the earth.
> Perhaps no Old Testament prophet had foreseen that coming royal disaster
> more clearly than Amos. It was this same Amos who had so accurately
> described the physical events that took place at the time the Báb, the Herald
> of the Bahá’í Faith, faced a death regiment of 750 muskets.6
> Amos prophesied, as had Isaiah before Him, that in the “day of the
> whirlwind,” the “king” and “his princes” would go into captivity. There
> would be a “famine” and a “thirst” for hearing the “words of the Lord.” A
> disillusioned mankind, godless and materialistic, would helplessly “run to
> and fro” in search of the “words” of God, never finding them.7
> In that day, Amos declared, the Lord would “roar” from Zion and the “top
> of Carmel” would “wither” at His presence.8 Bahá’u’lláh’s words now echo
> ominously through empty palaces: “O kings of the earth…. If ye pay no heed
> unto the counsels that, in peerless and unequivocal language, We have
> revealed in this Tablet, Divine chastisement shall assail you from every
> direction, and the sentence of His [God’s] justice shall be pronounced against
> you. On that day ye shall have no power to resist Him, and shall recognize
> your own impotence. Have mercy on yourselves and on those beneath you.”9
> It is the astonishing assertion of God’s Messenger to our age that the time
> for the punishment of all forms of aggression had come. No aggressor, no
> matter how powerful, can cope with the forces loose in the world: “God hath
> not blinked, nor will He ever blink His eyes at the tyranny of the oppressor.
> More particularly in this Revelation hath He visited each and every tyrant
> with His vengeance.”10
> From His captivity in ‘Akká, that “door of hope” promised by Hosea,
> Bahá’u’lláh, in the final years of His life, surveyed the world, its peoples, and
> their response to His summons. After many long years of continuous
> entreaty, Bahá’u’lláh was able to say with assurance, although no doubt with
> sadness: “We verily have not fallen short of Our duty to exhort men, and to
> deliver that whereunto I was bidden by God, the Almighty, the All-Praised.
> Had they hearkened unto Me, they would have beheld the earth another
> earth.”11
> The proofs had been delivered. The prophecies had been fulfilled. The
> seals were opened. The Promised One of every religion, nation, and people
> had discharged His God-given mission in a global proclamation, a worldwide
> announcement such as the eyes of mortal man had never before witnessed.
> Bahá’u’lláh, in the closing days of His earthly mission declared, “Is there
> any excuse left for anyone in this Revelation? No, by God, the Lord of the
> Mighty Throne! My signs have encompassed the earth, and My power
> enveloped all mankind.”12
> 14 AND ALL THE KING’S MEN
> Soon will the present-day order be rolled up.
> 
> The Legacy of the Kings
> The Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns are gone, but their legacy remains. And,
> alas, all humankind are their heirs.
> Tragically, it has not been only kings who have failed to respond to the
> needs of a new age and to its divine Spokesman. When the First World War
> ended, only one head of state arose to champion the kind of world that
> Bahá’u’lláh had envisioned.
> Years earlier, in His announcement to the kings, Bahá’u’lláh had called for
> the formation of an international tribunal to judge between the nations. In the
> middle of the nineteenth century the idea seemed revolutionary.
> Even more revolutionary were the features that He proposed: “The rulers
> and kings of the earth must needs attend it, and, participating in its
> deliberations, must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations
> of the world’s Great Peace.”1
> The tribunal was not to be merely a conference, a place for discussion. It
> was to have powers to enforce peace, powers derived from the cooperative
> action of all governments: “Be united O kings of the earth…. Should any one
> among you take up arms against another, rise ye all against him, for this is
> naught but manifest justice.”2
> During the 1919 peace conferences, Woodrow Wilson, president of the
> United States, called for a League of Nations to assure the permanent peace
> of the world. The president’s daughter showed keen interest in the new
> Revelation. Whether through this link, or merely because his own ideals were
> so closely attuned to the spirit of the age, President Wilson called his fellow
> statesmen to join with him in this first modest experiment in international
> control.
> What followed is a familiar and tragic story. Betrayed by the diplomatic
> ambitions of other nations, cruelly disappointed by the attitude adopted by
> many of his own countrymen, this “tragically unappreciated” statesman saw
> his dream wrecked.3 His own life was given in a fruitless attempt to secure
> the support of the United States for the newly created world body.
> When the League came into existence, it lacked the teeth to make its
> decisions effective. Long before night fell on Europe in 1939, the “League of
> Peace” had become an international mockery.
> Bahá’u’lláh’s words to “the elected representatives of the people in every
> land” contain ominous and very clear warnings to the successors of the
> monarchies: “Regard the world as the human body which, though at its
> creation whole and perfect, hath been afflicted, through various causes, with
> grave disorders and maladies…. Its sickness waxed more severe, as it fell
> under the treatment of ignorant physicians, who gave full rein to their
> personal desires.”4
> The reminder of the ruin brought by the reckless military adventures of the
> fallen kings fell on deaf ears. Throughout the world the only solutions
> advanced for the problems in which society has been steadily sinking have
> been political, or at best social and economic. Until very recently all
> suggestions that the roots of the disorder are spiritual have been treated with
> impatience or ridicule.
> How ominous, in the age since Hiroshima, are these words of the Prisoner
> of ‘Akká, uttered a century ago, “Strange and astonishing things exist in the
> earth but they are hidden from the minds and the understanding of men.
> These things are capable of changing the whole atmosphere of the earth and
> their contamination would prove lethal.”5
> And finally: “Oppression will envelop the world. And following a
> universal convulsion, the sun of justice will rise from the horizon of the
> unseen realm.”6 “Soon will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one
> spread out in its stead. Verily, thy Lord speaketh the truth, and is the Knower
> of things unseen.”7
> 
> How odd that our civilization should have left the
> spiritual realm almost totally unexplored.
> A New View of History
> And what about us? What about the millions of people who make up the
> “mankind” that Bahá’u’lláh sought to protect from the ignorance of kings and
> despots?
> Bahá’u’lláh’s message is directed not only to governments but also to each
> individual human being. How odd that our civilization, which harnessed the
> atom, probed space, discovered so many miraculous secrets of nature, and
> made so many brilliant advancements in all the sciences, should have left the
> spiritual realm almost totally unexplored.
> How did it happen that humanity, with its gigantic resources and
> unequaled brilliance, missed the most important truth of all: a moral and
> spiritual understanding of history?
> The real purpose of life, the Bahá’í teachings point out, is the development
> of a praiseworthy character. The building of moral and ethical virtues is the
> true business of life for both people and nations. Anything that advances this
> goal is of value and should be encouraged. Anything that hampers, delays, or
> prevents it is useless and should be discarded. All life revolves around this
> goal. It is the reason for existence. Every event in life depends for its ultimate
> usefulness and value on its direct or indirect connection with this main
> purpose. It is worthwhile if it forwards this great theme. It is worthless if it
> does not.
> Any philosophy that does not advance in some way this perspective of life
> is futile. Any person who devotes himself to something else, such as
> acquiring wealth, seeking pleasure or luxury, or chasing ambition, reputation,
> or conquest, and thinks of that goal as having in itself an independent value
> and importance separate from the spiritual and moral motivation of his life is,
> sooner or later, doomed to disillusionment and unhappiness.
> Such a person is without a real purpose in life. He will be prone to
> depression and self-destruction in one form or another. He will gradually
> destroy himself physically or morally or both, through despair or through the
> excessive physical pleasure by which he seeks in vain to escape his destiny.
> That is the tragedy that is taking place on a planetary scale today.
> No one loves us. Not our mothers, our fathers, our children, our wives, our
> husbands, our sweethearts. No one.
> Our families and friends love only the inner qualities we possess—
> kindness, generosity, compassion, tenderness, love, justice, fairness,
> gentleness, consideration; these are the things they love. As we increase these
> qualities in our lives, their love for us increases. As we lose these virtues,
> their love for us withers and dies away.
> And what is true of individuals is also true of nations or civilizations. To
> acquire these inward moral and ethical virtues is the real business of life, for
> both the individual soul and society.
> Every other goal is meaningless by comparison.
> The world today has lost most of these virtues. It continues to lose more.
> Both men and nations are drifting on the tide of empty materialism.
> Something must reverse the current. That is why Bahá’u’lláh has come. That
> is the mission of His Faith.
> The churches can find no remedy because they have lost their Divine
> Physician, Christ. His Spirit left them over a century ago when He returned in
> the glory of the Father, Bahá’u’lláh, and the churches and their leaders turned
> their back on Him—just as they had the first time. The same is true of each of
> the other great religions of the past.
> Had this not been the case, the clergy of the world’s religions would have
> responded to the Message for which they claimed they had been yearning for
> centuries. Because the Messenger spoke directly to them, individually and
> collectively, as clearly as He addressed the kings.
> He spoke, for example, to Pope Pius IX. And the story of that brief
> encounter and its reverberations in modern history may well be the most
> dramatic chapter of the entire spiritual drama.
> Bahá’u’lláh told the pope that He was the Father Who had been promised
> by Christ, the Son. The very One the pope was awaiting; the One in Whose
> Name the pontiff held his position.
> There has been only a century of silence from the church. But the seeds
> were sown, and let us see what took place a hundred years later.
> 
> O Supreme Pontiff!
> Echoes from the Past
> How many Christians have made a study of the now famous pastoral letter of
> Pope John XXIII, the encylical Pacem in Terris (“Peace on Earth”)? Most
> Protestants perhaps couldn’t have cared less. But how many Catholics are
> aware of its contents?
> For the origins of this encyclical, which had such far-reaching effects on
> the two-thousand-year-old Roman Catholic Church, we must turn back to the
> words Bahá’u’lláh addressed to Pope John’s predecessor Pius IX in 1869.
> Bahá’u’lláh told the pontiff bluntly that the “Father” had come as promised
> by the “Son,” Jesus the Christ. Bahá’u’lláh said that He was that Father. The
> response was less than joyful.
> Perhaps that attitude was understandable a hundred years ago—regrettable,
> but understandable. The world head of any religion is not likely to be stirred
> to his depths when his position of eminence is challenged—especially by
> such a seemingly preposterous claim, written from a penal-colony prison by a
> condemned exile.
> Caiaphas didn’t go into spasms of ecstasy when Christ told him He was the
> “Son of God.” And he met Jesus face to face. Instead, he called Christ a
> blasphemer.
> We can imagine then the reaction generated by Bahá’u’lláh’s letter to the
> pope. No one even bothered to call Him a blasphemer, although His claim
> was even more presumptuous than Christ’s. Nor did the Curia exhibit the
> annoyance and alarm that had been aroused among several of the kings.
> Instead, a curtain of silence descended around the entire subject.
> Then, in the exact year and exact month of the one hundredth anniversary
> of Bahá’u’lláh’s Declaration to the world proclaiming that the sacred
> promise in all the Holy Books had been fulfilled, Pope John XXIII issued his
> encyclical letter, which “received worldwide acclaim.”
> The praise was justified. Not only did the encylical deal with the problems
> facing the world, but Pope John himself was a true lover of his fellow man, a
> saintly human being.
> In that encyclical, the supreme pontiff spoke of the following subjects:
> 
> World peace
> A world community
> Search after truth
> Universal education
> Equality between men and women
> The oneness of humankind
> The oneness of God
> The harmony of science and religion
> Disarmament
> A warning concerning atomic energy
> A spiritual solution to the economic problem
> 
> Do these ideas sound familiar?
> They are one and all principles of the Bahá’í Faith. They are teachings and
> counsels that Bahá’u’lláh had given to the kings and religious leaders of the
> world more than a century previous. The pontiff finally spoke out, exactly
> one hundred years afterward.
> How powerfully those words of Bahá’u’lláh, spoken so long ago to a pope
> in Rome, now ring through the halls of history after a century: “O Supreme
> Pontiff! Incline thine ear unto that which the Fashioner of moldering bones
> counseleth thee.”8
> Pope John XXIII, because of his sincere love of humanity and his wise
> guidance to a troubled world, received the Nobel Prize for peace. He was
> admired and lauded in all parts of the world by both public and press.
> Yet he had no more than echoed, faintly at that, and only after a hundred
> years, the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh. He had done no more than to share with
> humanity ideals that had been denied to the world for a century by the leaders
> of men, both religious and secular.
> What was Bahá’u’lláh’s reward?
> He was scourged, chained, banished and imprisoned for nearly half a
> century. He was denounced as an enemy of religion and civil order.
> The most bitter and persistent of those denouncing His teachings, whether
> in Persia, Turkey, or the Near East, had been the clergy. The Muslim clergy
> indeed had taken the lead, but it is an unhappy fact that those who did most to
> spread these early slanders were Christians, missionaries who feared the loss
> of their jealously guarded flocks.
> Their church, however, had only begun to experience the delayed effects of
> the Revelation they had so long awaited.
> 
> Emerge from your palace!
> 
> More Echoes from the Same Pen
> It is almost impossible to turn to any great event taking place in the religious
> world today without tracing its inspiration to the words that Bahá’u’lláh
> addressed so long ago to the ecclesiastics of the nineteenth century.
> How many Catholics are aware of the significance of the visit of Pope Paul
> VI to the United Nations? How many Christians are aware of the spiritual
> implications of the pope’s visit to the World Council of Churches in
> Switzerland? Or to Kampala, Uganda? All of these events have their roots in
> Bahá’u’lláh’s letter to Pope Piux IX.
> Bahá’u’lláh called upon the pope to “arise in the name of thy Lord.” He
> urged the Pope to “emerge” from his “palaces” and “speak forth the praises
> of thy Lord betwixt earth and heaven.” Bahá’u’lláh urged Pope Pius IX to
> “sell the embellished ornaments” he possessed and “expend them in the path
> of God.”9
> Bahá’u’lláh was not asking the pope to do anything He had not already
> done Himself in a fuller measure.
> When the hour came for Bahá’u’lláh to carry out the bidding of the
> Almighty, He was in the “hey-day of His life.” Yet He flung aside “every
> consideration of earthly fame, wealth and position.”10 Bahá’u’lláh was a
> nobleman of the province of Núr in Persia. He had everything our world
> prizes so highly. Bahá’u’lláh cast them all aside, although He knew only too
> well where such a decision would lead Him.
> During those hours when Pope Pius IX rode the crest of popularity and
> sovereignty, Bahá’u’lláh had fallen from the highest to the lowest estate,
> from wealth to poverty, from freedom to imprisonment. Bahá’u’lláh thanked
> God for such “tribulations” saying, “The throat Thou didst accustom to the
> touch of silk Thou hast, in the end, clasped with strong chains, and the body
> Thou didst ease with brocades and velvets Thou hast at last subjected to the
> abasement of a dungeon.”11
> Bahá’u’lláh now urged the pontiff to follow this example. He told the pope
> to leave his “palace” and to assist the Father, and to “proffer” His teachings
> to the “people of all faiths.”12
> In the prison-city from which Bahá’u’lláh sent His letter to Pius IX, He
> wrote, “The Ancient Beauty [Bahá’u’lláh] hath consented to be bound with
> chains that mankind may be released from its bondage, and hath accepted to
> be made a prisoner within this most mighty Stronghold that the whole world
> may attain unto true liberty. He hath drained to its dregs the cup of sorrow,
> that all the peoples of the earth may attain unto abiding joy, and be filled with
> gladness.”13
> Such tasks should have been the business of the pope as well. The pope
> declared himself to be the vicar of Christ on earth. Bahá’u’lláh told him that
> the Promised One Whom he awaited had come. The returned Christ was
> standing before his eyes.
> Bahá’u’lláh warned the pope not to reject Him because His name was
> different than he expected: “O Pope … Beware lest any name debar thee
> from God…. Dwellest thou in palaces whilst He Who is the King of
> Revelation liveth in the most desolate of abodes? Leave them unto such as
> desire them, and set thy face with joy and delight toward the Kingdom.”14
> Pope Pius IX did none of these things. The pope was soon to suffer the
> same loss of his worldly kingdom as had the secular rulers.
> In those days, Pius IX was a temporal as well as a spiritual king. As with
> his fellow monarchs, however, he found himself caught up in the forces
> released by the “Day of God.” In 1870, only a year after Bahá’u’lláh had
> revealed His epistle to Pius IX, King Victor Emmanuel II suddenly declared
> war with the Papal States. The royalist troops had entered Rome and seized it.
> The following morning, as the cannonade began, the pope ordered the
> white flag to be hoisted above the dome of St. Peter. The pope shut himself
> up in the buildings left to him and declared himself to be “the Prisoner of the
> Vatican.”
> “Rome, the ‘Eternal City, on which rest twenty-five centuries of glory,’
> and over which the Popes had ruled in unchallengeable right for ten centuries,
> finally became the seat of the new kingdom, and the scene of that humiliation
> which Bahá’u’lláh had anticipated and which the Prisoner of the Vatican had
> imposed upon himself.”15
> The commands of God in the directive to the pope, however, remained to
> be carried out. The fall of Pius IX did not change the obligation on those who
> declared themselves the vicars on earth of Jesus Christ. Pope John XXIII was
> the first pontiff, unwittingly, to carry out the role assigned to the papacy. His
> successor, Pope Paul VI, had carried this response much further, and much
> less willingly. Paul VI answered Bahá’u’lláh’s century-old “summons” to
> “emerge” from the Lateran “palace” and go out “amidst the peoples of the
> world.” He visited Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America and Europe,
> thus breaking with twenty centuries of papal tradition.
> One of the most important visits of Pope Paul VI was to the United
> Nations headquarters in New York City. There he did “speak out” among the
> leaders of men. He did “exhort” them to “justice” and to be mindful of the
> things in the holy book of God.16
> Why is this particular event interesting to the student of Bahá’u’lláh’s
> story?
> For the following reasons, to give only a few: Bahá’u’lláh, in His writings,
> called upon the kings and leaders to establish an international body such as
> the United Nations. Later, His son ‘Abdu’l-Bahá visited New York City, and
> while there explained the significances of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant with the
> peoples of the world. New York City, the United Nations’ world
> headquarters, has been named in the Bahá’í writings as the “City of the
> Covenant” of Bahá’u’lláh. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá also visited California. While in the
> shadow of San Francisco, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said that California was worthy to
> raise the first banner of International Peace. In San Francisco, some thirty
> years after His visit, the United Nations Charter was written, and the blue and
> white flag of the United Nations, a symbol of peace, was created.
> How remarkable that in this involuntary manner a pope had answered
> God’s century-old “summons.”
> While addressing the United Nations, Pope Paul VI, like John XXIII
> before him, echoed the very principles that Bahá’u’lláh had given to the
> world so long ago.
> It is a tragedy for us all that it took over a hundred years. It is a greater
> tragedy that the pontiff, a sincere and holy man, was far too late for his words
> to have any effect.
> Only one thing could have made his address relevant. He could have
> repeated Bahá’u’lláh’s words to his predecessor: “He Who is the Lord of
> Lords is come…. He hath stored away that which He chose in the vessels of
> justice, and cast into the fire that which befitteth it.”17
> The pope’s rendezvous with history, however, was not yet complete. Two
> other specific tasks had been appointed to his office. His predecessors had let
> them pass, and God would wait no longer.
> Impelled as by an unseen hand, he proceeded on the course laid out for him
> a hundred years earlier.
> 
> Enter into wedlock, O people, that ye may bring forth
> one who will make mention of Me amid My servants.
> 
> O Concourse of Priests!
> Bahá’u’lláh invited Pius IX to visit Him in the Holy Land.
> If the pope loved and remembered Christ, he would open his heart to
> Bahá’u’lláh.
> “Reliance” on God would be the only “provision” he would need for such
> a journey.18
> It was clear that if he were truly waiting, truly seeking, the pope would not
> fail to investigate a claim that had the stupendous moral authority that
> Bahá’u’lláh’s reputation was now giving to His words. If the pope did not
> come himself, there were hundreds whom he could send.
> The journey was never made. There was only silence from the church—a
> century of silence.
> Then, one hundred years later, Pope Paul VI visited the Holy Land. Again
> breaking all precedent, and for reasons that were never made clear, he left
> Rome and visited the land to which the Messenger of God had summoned his
> predecessor.
> Paul VI was accorded a huge welcome, similar to that which had greeted
> Emperor Franz Josef and Kaiser William I so long before him. It was hailed
> as a great event in the press. After 150 years of no pope leaving Italy, one had
> come at last to the Holy Land.
> Bahá’u’lláh came as a prisoner and an exile, despised and imprisoned. The
> vicar who sat on His throne and held that seat of honor in the Promised One’s
> name, against the day of His return, was showered with praise and blessings.
> It was a century too late. The Promised One was no longer there. Nor did
> Pope Paul VI seek to investigate the flourishing center whose shrines and
> gardens covered the slope of Mount Carmel in memory of the Prisoner of
> ‘Akká.
> During the visit of Pope Paul VI to Israel, news arrived at the World
> Center of the Bahá’í Faith announcing that the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh were
> well established all over the world. (More than 2,100 tribes, races, and ethnic
> groups in more than one hundred thousand localities on the planet are
> enrolled under the banner of Bahá’u’lláh.)
> This had been envisioned by Habakkuk: “For the earth shall be filled with
> the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”19
> The press, television, and radio were all reporting the wrong story. But that
> had happened before, too.
> There on the side of Mount Carmel stood the seat of that “Kingdom”
> which the pope and more than 500 million Catholics extolled daily in their
> prayers.
> The Kingdom had come. God’s Will had been done on earth as promised
> in the Lord’s prayer. The Christ-promised Kingdom had appeared in the
> exact spot foretold in passage after passage from the holy book revered by the
> pope and his people. But, unhappily, neither Catholics nor Protestants were
> aware of it.
> Surely the echo of Bahá’u’lláh’s voice must have reverberated through
> those holy hills on the occasion of Pope Paul’s visit. Like rolling thunder
> those words must have resounded through Zion, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and
> Nazareth, where they were originally uttered:
> 
> O Pope! … Lo! The Father is come.20
> 
> O Concourse of patriarchs! He Whom ye were promised in the Tablets
> is come.21
> O Concourse of archbishops! He Who is the Lord of all men hath
> appeared.22
> 
> O Concourse of bishops! … He Who is the Everlasting Father calleth
> aloud between earth and heaven.23
> 
> O Concourse of priests! Leave the bells, and come forth, then, from your
> churches…. The Lord is come in His great glory!24
> 
> O Concourse of monks! … Come forth by My leave … Thus biddeth
> you the King of the Day of Reckoning…. Enter ye into wedlock, that
> after you someone may fill your place.25
> 
> O Concourse of Christians! … Ye call upon Me, and are heedless of My
> Revelation … O people of the Gospel! … Verily, He (Jesus) said:
> “Come after Me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.” In this
> day, however, We say: “Come ye after Me, that we may make you
> quickeners of mankind.”26
> 
> Ironically, Bahá’u’lláh’s letter to Pope Pius IX had repeatedly warned the
> pontiff not to make the same mistake the high priests and religious leaders
> made in the days of Christ.
> Bahá’u’lláh wrote, “Thou, in truth, art one of the suns of the heaven of His
> names. Guard thyself; lest darkness spread its veils over thee, and fold thee
> away from His light.”27
> Christ Himself had warned against such a calamity. In the chapter of
> Matthew in which Jesus gave so many proofs of the time of His coming, He
> also warned that the sun shall be “darkened, and the moon shall not give her
> light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall
> be shaken.”28
> The meaning, Bahá’u’lláh explained, is clear. The “moons” are those
> religious leaders who take their light from the “Sun” of Christ. Such “moons”
> and “stars” fade away each morning when the Sun of a new day dawns. In
> like manner, when the “Sun” of Christ returns, the Sun of the past day is
> “darkened.” If the “moon” refuses the Light of the new Sun, it too is
> “darkened” and sheds no light on the problems of men.29
> This was the meaning of Bahá’u’lláh’s words when He entreated such
> religious leaders not to turn away from Him: “Ye are the stars of the heaven
> of My knowledge. My mercy desireth not that ye should fall upon the
> earth.”30
> One more task remained to the itinerant and record-breaking Pope Paul VI.
> He visited the World Council of Churches in Switzerland in June 1969, thus
> bringing together leaders from both the Catholic and Protestant faiths. That
> visit took place one hundred years after Bahá’u’lláh had urged the pope in
> Rome to do precisely that: to offer His teachings to the other religious leaders
> of humankind.
> First “drink” of the words yourself, Bahá’u’lláh had instructed Pius IX,
> then “proffer” them to the “peoples of all faiths.”
> The World Council of Protestant Churches had met before. During one of
> their international gatherings, the press reported that the delegates found it
> impossible to reach a vote on the subject of Christ’s return. Delegates from
> 163 denominations from 48 countries “disagreed sharply and fundamentally”
> on the question of “whether the Christian hope for the establishment of God’s
> kingdom can be fulfilled in this world or only after the second coming of
> Christ.”31
> He had come, and He had gone!
> For sixteen decades, the Báb, Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and the followers
> of Bahá’u’lláh in all parts of the planet, have been telling the Christian world
> that Christ has already returned. He has come and He has gone, just as He
> said in the Bible that He would. Christ cautioned that although “all eyes shall
> see His glory,” He would come “as a thief in the night.”32 The parable He
> told made it clear that the divine “thief” would have come and gone! It
> happened over a hundred years ago! And that is why a world body of the
> Christian faith spent hours debating whether they could establish Christ’s
> Kingdom now or only after He returned. That is why a Catholic pope broke
> all precedents and went to meet with them.
> Tragically, they had nothing to say to one another when they met. The
> pope did not, in fact, understand the impulse that had sent him there. And he
> demonstrated no awareness of the one message that could have had any
> relevance for his audience.
> And so they all went home.
> Ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men.
> 
> Blind Leaders
> Bahá’u’lláh has written thus of the clergy of His time: “When We observed
> carefully, We discovered that Our enemies are, for the most part, the
> divines.”33
> He addressed them directly, “How long will ye … level the spears of
> hatred at the face of Bahá? … follow not your desires which have altered the
> face of creation.”34
> Bahá’u’lláh tried to open their eyes and ears so they might hear that “new
> song” spoken of by Isaiah. He said, “Purify your ears that they may hearken
> unto the Voice of God…. Can any one of you race with the Divine Youth in
> the arena of wisdom and utterance, or soar with Him in the heaven of inner
> meaning and explanation? … Can the one possessed of wooden legs resist
> him whose feet God hath made of steel? Nay, by Him Who illumineth the
> whole of creation!”35
> Bahá’u’lláh offered an ocean of proof to the religious leaders of all Faiths
> that He was the One they awaited. Yet many not only rejected Bahá’u’lláh,
> but they actively opposed, persecuted, and tried to stamp out both
> Bahá’u’lláh and His teachings.
> Almost without exception, religious leaders have taken the lead in holding
> shut the door whenever their followers became interested in the Message of
> Bahá’u’lláh.
> Their attacks on the Revelation and their willingness to retell slanders
> passed on to them by Muslim clergy carry discouraging echoes of similar
> actions in the early days of Christianity by the same sort of religious
> opponents.
> No wonder Bahá’u’lláh was to write to such clergymen: “O ye that are
> foolish yet have a name to be wise! Wherefore do ye wear the guise of the
> shepherd, when inwardly ye have become wolves, intent upon my flock?”36
> It is also not surprising that Christ Himself would warn against such
> unseeing shepherds of His flock. Jesus said, “Let them alone: they be blind
> leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the
> ditch.”37
> Yet Bahá’u’lláh in no way sought to degrade or belittle the importance of
> the world’s religious leaders. Rather, He praised unreservedly those religious
> leaders whose actions and conduct conform to their words. He has said that
> “The guidance of men hath, at all times, been and is dependent upon these
> blessed souls.”38
> Of such a sincere religious leader, whatever his religion or denomination,
> Bahá’u’lláh has also written, “The inmates of Paradise, and the dwellers of
> the sacred Folds, bless him at eventide and at dawn.”39
> Such spiritual giants, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or of any other
> religion, are “as the spirit to the body of the world,” Bahá’u’lláh declares, and
> “as an eye unto the world.”40
> It was two Christian clergymen from the missionary field who first
> introduced the Bahá’í Faith to America in 1893 at the World Parliament of
> Religions. One wrote a paper describing the “Christ-like” sentiments of
> Bahá’u’lláh, the other read the document to the assembled audience.
> Over four hundred outstanding clergy of the Muslim Faith, some of them
> the most illustrious in the land, recognized and accepted the Báb and
> Bahá’u’lláh as the promised Messengers of God. They made great sacrifices
> for their Faith. Many were killed for their beliefs.
> Clergy of all Faiths have since embraced the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh,
> from Catholic priests to Buddhist monks. But in almost every instance they
> have been shunned by their former colleagues, belittled, ridiculed,
> persecuted, and in some instances killed.
> It is too late to patch up and sew together a pathetically fragmented
> Christianity. Hundreds and hundreds of sects in a patchwork quilt of curious
> variations compete with each other for the Body of Christ. Even the hopeful
> signs of an ecumenical drawing together is but the unwitting result of
> Bahá’u’lláh’s Message of oneness. Almost against their will the unifying
> forces of life drive these broken and tattered pieces before the wind toward
> one common destination—unity.
> And if all the multitude of Christian sects were to unite, there would still
> remain Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Zoroastrians, agnostics, atheists,
> and primitive peoples. Bahá’u’lláh is reaching out an embrace to all religions
> and all peoples, not just to Christianity alone.
> Bahá’u’lláh was saddened at the apathy of the Christian masses who had
> been given so many opportunities, yet who stood by indifferently while
> multitudes from other religious heritages entered the Faith of God ahead of
> them: “O people of the Gospel! They who were not in the Kingdom have
> now entered it, whilst We behold you, in this day, tarrying at the gate….
> Open the doors of your hearts…. Will ye bar the doors of your houses in My
> face?”41
> In a poetic reference to His own appearance as foretold in Christian
> scripture and to His exile to the land of Jesus, where His Kingdom was
> established, He asks, “O Bethlehem! This Light hath risen in the orient, and
> traveled towards the occident, until it reached thee in the evening of its life.
> Tell Me then: Do the sons recognize the Father, and acknowledge Him, or do
> they deny Him, even as the people aforetime denied Him [Jesus]?”42
> 15 THE HEART OF THE WORLD
> AFIRE
> Why should these be exempt?
> 
> A Spiritual Revolution
> Nearly 150 years ago, Bahá’u’lláh warned that a spiritual revolution would
> invade in every land every institution of the human social order. However
> painful the process, He warned against efforts to defend standards and
> institutions that, by their very existence, keep people from becoming aware of
> the need for a new social order based on the Revelation of God.
> The principles of the Bahá’í community are plain:
> 
> If long-cherished ideals and time-honored institutions, if certain social
> assumptions and religious formulae have ceased to promote the welfare
> of the generality of mankind, if they no longer minister to the needs of a
> continually evolving humanity, let them be swept away and relegated to
> the limbo of obsolescent and forgotten doctrines. Why should these, in a
> world subject to the immutable law of change and decay, be exempt
> from the deterioration that must needs overtake every human institution?
> For legal standards, political and economic theories are solely designed
> to safeguard the interests of humanity as a whole, and not humanity to
> be crucified for the preservation of the integrity of any particular law or
> doctrine.1
> 
> The truth is, entire civilizations perpetuate themselves long after the Spirit
> that gave them birth and relevance has departed. We are asking of our
> present-day civilizations, both East and West, the vitality, enthusiasm, purity,
> uprightness and courage of their youth while they are suffering from the
> diseases of old age. Hardening of the spiritual arteries has set in. Traditional
> religion in each case has dug down deep into its barrel of spiritual resources
> and has come up empty.
> Both religious and government leaders continue to make adjustments in the
> old institutions to try and make them relevant. These leaders are confident
> that the problems are only temporary. They are sure they will find a solution
> to these passing crises if their people are only patient enough.
> The representatives of the established order seem somehow incapable of
> accepting that we cannot go back to the past or try to solve problems only on
> a local or national level. Any solution to the crying needs of humanity that is
> not planetary in its scope is doomed to failure. Sectarian religion similarly
> has no relevance in an age where unity is essential for survival. It is no longer
> possible to launch our rockets on the oats we feed our horses. A world society
> is erupting beneath our feet and shaking down the cultural walls behind
> which we still try to hide.
> The world is not suffering from a “temporary maladjustment” in its life. It
> is suffering from the “death-pangs” of an old, effete, worn-out order. We
> have become a profit-making world instead of a welfare-producing world.
> We have become oblivion-seeking people instead of a truth-seeking people.
> The tremendous resources of our planet are largely expended on weapons
> of war and defense, not on health, education, and the elimination of poverty.
> How is it possible for any people to turn for guidance concerning peace
> and welfare to agencies that have been developed for the ends of war and
> destruction?
> Bahá’ís see the current social breakdown as an irresistible natural process.
> It could have been prevented, and the transition could have been made
> peaceful and productive if only the leaders of nations had turned to the source
> of all civilization. Since they did not, the revolt is sweeping away the good
> with the bad. It seems too difficult and painful to weed out the good trees
> from the forest of diseased ones. So let it all fall together.
> Yet Bahá’ís are firmly obedient to the governments of the nations in which
> they reside. Bahá’u’lláh Himself commanded them to behave “with loyalty,
> honesty and truthfulness” to the governments of their countries.2 The
> teachings of Bahá’u’lláh’s Faith demand not only that the Bahá’ís be loyal to
> their government, but also forbid any involvement in any political movement,
> apart from the individual’s right to decide his vote in the privacy of his own
> conscience. Bahá’ís everywhere have a “sacred obligation to promote, in the
> most effective manner, the best interests of their government and people,”3
> without associating themselves with the diplomatic policies or pursuits of any
> government. True patriotism, they believe, need not conflict with a person’s
> supreme loyalty to God and to the welfare of the one human race.
> Within this clear and undeviating framework, the Bahá’ís of the world
> labor energetically to change those things that are wrong and unjust. They use
> all the channels that are open to them. Above all, however, they seek to
> change hearts, for until we have a new world conscience we cannot have a
> new world society.
> The writings of Bahá’u’lláh’s Faith say that the “most vital duty” given to
> every Bahá’í is to “purify” his character.4 Every Bahá’í is commanded to
> conduct himself in such a manner that he will stand out amongst the people
> of the world because of his moral qualities. These seemingly impossible
> goals are within the individual’s reach for only one reason. Bahá’u’lláh has
> created, and God sustains, a true community, a society fit for human beings
> to live in.
> In this day, Bahá’u’lláh says, God loves and aids “those who work in His
> path in groups.”5 Like a healthy body, the community of Bahá’u’lláh
> provides the spiritual nourishment that each individual, as a cell in an
> organism, requires. There is no other way to live.
> Far from being negative, the Bahá’í community realizes that the painful ills
> now afflicting present-day society are the “death pangs” of a dying
> civilization. They are being accompanied by the “birth pangs” of a new
> civilization, which is the organic world community, the “Ark of human
> salvation” now rising in strength and beauty upon the ruins of the old.6
> Increasingly, it is young people who seem most able to grasp the necessity
> for this change. Ironically, it is this element of society, regarded as most
> irresponsible and violent, which best understands that humankind’s urgent
> need is for moral and spiritual regeneration.
> 
> They will experience an emotion they are not likely to
> forget.
> 
> Rebels of God
> Bahá’u’lláh’s community has been driven by youthful energy and zeal since
> its earliest days. The Herald of the Bahá’í Faith, the Báb, was but twenty-five
> when His mission began. He was only thirty when an execution squad of 750
> soldiers leveled their rifles at Him. The companion who died with Him on
> that occasion, head upon His breast, was only eighteen.
> The overwhelming majority of the Báb’s chief disciples were young. The
> first was twenty-seven, the last nineteen. Behind the dramatic dialogue
> between the Messenger of God and the kings of the world, hundreds of
> youths of both sexes willingly laid down their lives for the redemption of
> mankind. That is how the Revelation was born.
> In one inspiring encounter, a handful of young men, 313 in number,
> “unequipped yet God-intoxicated students, mostly sedentary recluses of the
> college and cloister” suddenly found themselves “pitted in self-defense
> against a trained army, well equipped, supported by the masses of the people,
> blessed by the clergy, headed by a prince of the royal blood” and backed “by
> the resources of the state.”7
> These early idealistic followers of the Báb rose up as one soul against the
> corruption and hypocrisy of their society. Their spiritual rebellion against
> injustices became the “seed” which already is beginning to yield its fruit in
> the shape of a world-encircling Order whose purpose is to assure the welfare
> and identity of every human being.
> It was no small thing. The French author Renan, in Les Apôtres, described
> one of the dramatic episodes in the rise of the Bahá’í Faith as “a day without
> parallel perhaps in the history of the world.”8
> Over twenty thousand followers were killed in Persia alone. More of these
> early believers were slain in one year than there were Christians martyred by
> official Roman decree in the most terrible eight-year-long persecution by the
> Emperor Diocletian.
> Lord Curzon of Kedleston wrote, “Of no small account, then, must be the
> tenets of a creed that can awaken in its followers so rare and beautiful a spirit
> of self-sacrifice.”9
> The spirit that animated and inspired these youthful defenders of the
> Bahá’í Faith was so moving that Professor E. G. Browne of Cambridge
> University said, “it can hardly fail to affect most powerfully all subjected to
> its influence.” “Should that spirit once reveal itself to them,” he added, “they
> will experience an emotion which they are not likely to forget.”10
> Bahá’u’lláh Himself was but twenty-seven when He first began teaching in
> His native province and thirty-six when His ministry began.
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was nine when He first understood the great station of His
> father. He was a small child when He saw Bahá’u’lláh beset with pain and
> suffering under the iron-yoke of chains in the Black Pit prison. He was
> nineteen when He left Iraq in exile with His father. He was only twenty-four
> when He arrived at the prison-city of ‘Akká and Bahá’u’lláh turned over to
> Him the responsibility of dealing with the outside world. He was still young
> when Bahá’u’lláh passed away and the weight of the entire Bahá’í world fell
> upon His shoulders.
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s youngest brother, Mírzá Mihdí, was but twenty-two when
> he sacrificed his life in the prison of ‘Akká so that the gates of the prison
> might open and the Spirit of Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation touch the hearts of all
> mankind.
> Shoghi Effendi, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s grandson, was only twenty-five when he
> was appointed as the Guardian of the Faith and assumed leadership of the
> global community.
> The messenger who carried Bahá’u’lláh’s powerful letter to Náṣiri’d-Dín
> Sháh was scarcely more than a boy, only seventeen. His family despaired of
> his conduct. They considered him to be what many people today would
> probably call a delinquent.
> Yet he was chosen by Bahá’u’lláh over a crowd of volunteers for this great
> mission. Alone, and on foot, he walked the entire distance from the prison on
> the Mediterranean Sea to Ṭihrán, the capital of Persia, a journey of four
> months.
> His name was Áqá Buzurg. He was known as Badí‘ (which means
> “wonderful”). He delivered the letter to Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh, was arrested, and
> branded and tortured for three successive days. And finally he was beaten to
> death, and his body was thrown into a pit.
> Bahá’u’lláh Himself declared that “the spirit of might and power was
> breathed” into that youth. He praised Badí‘ for three years in His writings,
> saying that his example was as “salt” in the spiritual food needed by
> humanity.11
> All over the world, in Africa, Asia, Australia, the islands of the South
> Pacific, Latin America, North America, and Europe, the number of young
> people embracing the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh increases each year. Those in their
> teens and twenties make up the majority of the new “recruits” for
> Bahá’u’lláh’s spiritual army.
> In the Bahá’í community there is no generation gap any more than there is
> a distinction between races or classes. The tragic lack of communication that
> causes the rift in our sick society need not exist if each individual is accepted
> on his own merits without regard to age or race, sex or culture. A disciple of
> the Báb, a youth of nineteen, who was the first to suffer persecution on
> Persian soil, was accompanied through every humiliation by an elderly man
> who miraculously withstood one thousand lashes on his back. They suffered
> together, fellow believers, side by side. It is the same the world over.
> Youth is not mainly a time of life, but a state of mind. Years can wrinkle
> the skin, but losses of ideals can wrinkle the soul and wither the spirit of man,
> whatever his age—young or old.
> 
> The hour of final victory
> 
> A World Community
> Bahá’u’lláh did not come to any one group of people. He came to the entire
> world. His Faith calls upon “young and old alike” to make the teaching of His
> healing, world-redeeming Faith the dominating passion of their lives.
> Bahá’u’lláh offers a challenge that is today testing the determination,
> stamina, selflessness, sacrifice, and devotion of people of every race, culture,
> nation, and position in life. The following words are those of Bahá’u’lláh’s
> great-grandson, Shoghi Effendi, the Bahá’í Faith’s appointed Guardian, who
> inspired and led the worldwide spread of the Message of God:
> 
> Under whatever conditions, the dearly loved, the divinely sustained, the
> onward marching legions of the army of Bahá’u’lláh may be laboring, in
> whatever theater they may operate, in whatever climes they may
> struggle, whether in the cold and inhospitable territories beyond the
> Arctic Circle, or in the torrid zones of both the Eastern and Western
> Hemispheres; on the borders of the jungles of Burma, Malaya and India;
> on the fringes of the deserts of Africa and of the Arabian Peninsula; in
> the lonely, far-away, backward and sparsely populated islands dotting
> the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Indian Oceans and the North Sea;
> amidst the diversified tribes of the Negroes of Africa, the Eskimos and
> the Lapps of the Arctic regions, the Mongolians of East and South East
> Asia, the Polynesians of the South Pacific Islands, the reservations of the
> Red Indians in both American continents, the Maoris of New Zealand,
> and the aborigines of Australia; within the time-honored strongholds of
> both Christianity and Islám, whether it be in Mecca, Rome, Cairo, Najaf
> or Karbilá; or in towns and cities whose inhabitants are either immersed
> in crass materialism, or breathe the fetid air of an aggressive racialism,
> or find themselves bound by the chains and fetters of a haughty
> intellectualism, or have fallen a prey to the forces of a blind and militant
> nationalism, or are steeped in the atmosphere of a narrow and intolerant
> ecclesiasticism—to them all, as well as to those who, as the fortunes of
> this fate-laden Crusade prosper, will be called upon to unfurl the
> standard of an all-conquering Faith in the strongholds of Hinduism, and
> assist in the breaking up of a rigid age-long caste system, who will
> replace the seminaries and monasteries acting as the nurseries of the
> Buddhist Faith with the divinely-ordained institutions of Bahá’u’lláh’s
> victorious Order, who will penetrate the jungles of the Amazon, scale
> the mountain-fastnesses of Tibet, establish direct contact with the
> teeming and hapless multitudes in the interior of China, Mongolia and
> Japan, sit with the leprous, consort with the outcasts in their penal
> colonies, traverse the steppes of Russia or scatter throughout the wastes
> of Siberia, I direct my impassioned appeal to obey, as befits His
> warriors, the summons of the Lord of Hosts, and prepare for that Day of
> Days when His victorious battalions will … celebrate the hour of final
> victory.12
> 
> Peoples of all ages, by the hundreds and by the thousands, from all races
> and nations, are answering that call.
> “The Word of God,” Bahá’u’lláh has said, “has set the heart of the world
> afire. How regrettable if you fail to be enkindled with its flame!”13
> APPENDIX
> Have the stars fallen? Say: Yea, when He Who is the Self-Subsisting
> dwelt in the Land of Mystery. Take heed, ye who are endued with
> discernment! All the signs appeared when We drew forth the Hand of
> Power from the bosom of majesty and might.
> 
> The Prisoner and the Kings has told of the sad but inevitable fate of those in
> supreme temporal authority who failed to heed the call of Him Who was the
> embodiment of all authority, the Manifestation of God, Bahá’u’lláh. So drunk
> were these rulers with pride and vainglory that they had stopped their ears to
> any call but self-interest and self-aggrandizement. Hence when the call came
> to each of them to bow their knee before God’s Vicegerent upon earth they
> had no capacity to hear it. Grave indeed were the consequences, not just for
> them, as you have read, but also for all humankind.
> Bahá’u’lláh clearly stated that had the kings responded to His Message, the
> Most Great Peace could have been established in His lifetime, for He would
> be on earth to counsel them. Alas, they did not respond, and so He warned
> them: “If ye pay no heed unto the counsels which, in peerless and
> unequivocal language, We have revealed in this Tablet, Divine chastisement
> shall assail you from every direction, and the sentence of His justice shall be
> pronounced against you. On that day ye shall have no power to resist Him,
> and shall recognize your own impotence.”1 When they still did not hearken to
> His Message, He stated in terse and unequivocal language: “From two ranks
> amongst men power hath been seized: kings and ecclesiastics.”2 From that
> moment the downfall of the mightiest potentates in the world proceeded with
> a speed astonishing to all. And none knew why. This is spiritual history that
> still needs to be written in detail.
> The process did not end with those to whom Bahá’u’lláh addressed
> specific messages. Governments all over the world have been thrown into
> confusion and consternation, unable to resolve internal problems, unwilling,
> for the most part, to unite in a common effort to establish peace and
> prosperity for all. They are both visionless and impotent to deal with the
> problems of the world. The root of the world’s unrest was accurately
> described by Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Faith, in the early days of the
> world’s Great Depression:
> 
> Is it not a fact—and this is the central idea I desire to emphasize—that
> the fundamental cause of this world unrest is attributable, not so much to
> the consequences of what must sooner or later come to be regarded as a
> transitory dislocation in the affairs of a continually changing world, but
> rather to the failure of those into whose hands the immediate destinies of
> peoples and nations have been committed, to adjust their system of
> economic and political institutions to the imperative needs of a rapidly
> evolving age? Are not these intermittent crises that convulse present-day
> society due primarily to the lamentable inability of the world’s
> recognized leaders to read aright the signs of the times, to rid themselves
> once for all of their preconceived ideas and fettering creeds, and to
> reshape the machinery of their respective governments according to
> those standards that are implicit in Bahá’u’lláh’s supreme declaration of
> the Oneness of Mankind—the chief and distinguishing feature of the
> Faith He proclaimed? For the principle of the Oneness of Mankind, the
> cornerstone of Bahá’u’lláh’s world-embracing dominion, implies
> nothing more nor less than the enforcement of His scheme for the
> unification of the world—the scheme to which we have already referred.
> “In every Dispensation,” writes ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “the light of Divine
> Guidance has been focussed upon one central theme…. In this wondrous
> Revelation, this glorious century, the foundation of the Faith of God and
> the distinguishing feature of His Law is the consciousness of the
> Oneness of Mankind.”3
> 
> However, there have been two monarchs who did read aright the signs of
> the times and responded to the message of Bahá’u’lláh. The first, Dowager
> Queen Marie of Romania,4 early in this century, and the second, His
> Highness Malietoa Tanumafili II of Samoa, in 1968. His Highness is the first
> reigning monarch to embrace the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh. About such noble
> souls Bahá’u’lláh has said,
> 
> How great the blessedness that awaiteth the king who will arise to aid
> My Cause in My Kingdom, who will detach himself from all else but
> Me! Such a king is numbered with the companions of the Crimson Ark
> —the Ark which God hath prepared for the people of Bahá. All must
> glorify his name, must reverence his station, and aid him to unlock the
> cities with the keys of My Name, the omnipotent Protector of all that
> inhabit the visible and invisible kingdoms. Such a king is the very eye of
> mankind, the luminous ornament on the brow of creation, the fountain-
> head of blessings unto the whole world. Offer up, O people of Bahá,
> your substance, nay your very lives, for his assistance.5
> 
> As Bahá’u’lláh clearly states, the Bahá’ís owe such rulers their
> wholehearted aid and support, even their lives. To them is due our praise and
> our reverence. We feel, then, a responsibility to bring to the readers of The
> Prisoner and the Kings some tribute to these magnificent souls to round out
> the story. But far be it from us to venture this. Rather, we have decided to
> excerpt tributes from the Guardian about Queen Marie and the salient facts
> that led to her conversion and public statements about the Faith. About His
> Highness Malietoa Tanumafili II, we have reprinted the article from The
> Bahá’í World, volume 15, which includes his personal letter avowing his
> belief in Bahá’u’lláh, as well as the announcement to the Bahá’í world of his
> declaration as a Bahá’í.
> Let us also say in passing that the author of this book, Hand of the Cause
> of God William Sears, met the Malietoa and they became friends.
> 
> Queen Marie of Romania
> Who is the sovereign, excepting a single woman, shining in solitary glory,
> who has, in however small a measure, felt impelled to respond to the
> poignant call of Bahá’u’lláh? Who amongst the great ones of the earth was
> inclined to extend this infant Faith of God the benefit of his recognition or
> support?6
> Eldest daughter of the Duke of Edinburgh, who was the second son of that
> Queen to whom Bahá’u’lláh had, in a significant Tablet, addressed words of
> commendation; granddaughter of Czar Alexander II to whom an Epistle had
> been revealed by that same Pen; related by both birth and marriage to
> Europe’s most prominent families; born in the Anglican Faith; closely
> associated through her marriage with the Greek Orthodox Church, the state
> religion of her adopted country; herself an accomplished authoress; possessed
> of a charming and radiant personality; highly talented, clear-visioned, daring
> and ardent by nature; keenly devoted to all enterprises of a humanitarian
> character, she, alone among her sister-queens, alone among all those of royal
> birth or station, was moved to spontaneously acclaim the greatness of the
> Message of Bahá’u’lláh, to proclaim His Fatherhood, as well as the
> Prophethood of Muḥammad, to commend the Bahá’í teachings to all men and
> women, and to extol their potency, sublimity and beauty.
> Through the fearless acknowledgment of her belief to her own kith and
> kin, and particularly to her youngest daughter; through three successive
> encomiums that constitute her greatest and abiding legacy to posterity;
> through three additional appreciations penned by her as her contribution to
> Bahá’í publications; through several letters written to friends and associates,
> as well as those addressed to her guide and spiritual mother; through various
> tokens expressive of faith and gratitude for the glad-tidings that had been
> brought to her through the orders for Bahá’í books placed by her and her
> youngest daughter; and lastly through her frustrated pilgrimage to the Holy
> Land for the express purpose of paying homage at the graves of the Founders
> of the Faith—through such acts as these this illustrious queen may well
> deserve to rank as the first of those royal supporters of the Cause of God who
> are to arise in the future, and each of whom, in the words of Bahá’u’lláh
> Himself, is to be acclaimed as “the very eye of mankind, the luminous
> ornament on the brow of creation, the fountainhead of blessings unto the
> whole world.”
> “Some of those of my caste,” she, in a personal letter, has significantly
> testified, “wonder at and disapprove my courage to step forward pronouncing
> words not habitual for crowned heads to pronounce, but I advance by an
> inner urge I cannot resist. With bowed head I recognize that I too am but an
> instrument in greater Hands, and I rejoice in the knowledge.”
> A note which Martha Root, upon her arrival in Bucharest, sent to her
> Majesty and a copy of Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, which accompanied the
> note, and which so absorbed the Queen’s attention that she continued reading
> it into the small hours of the morning, led, two days later, to the Queen’s
> granting Martha Root an audience, on January 30, 1926, in Controceni Palace
> in Bucharest, in the course of which her Majesty avowed her belief that
> “these teachings are the solution for the world’s problems”; and from these
> followed her publication, that same year on her own initiative, of those three
> epoch-making testimonies which appeared in nearly two hundred newspapers
> of the United States and Canada, and which were subsequently translated and
> published in Europe, China, Japan, Australia, the Near East and the Islands of
> the seas.
> In the first of these testimonies she affirmed that the writings of
> Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá are “a great cry toward peace, reaching
> beyond all limits of frontiers, above all dissensions about rites and dogmas….
> It is a wondrous message that Bahá’u’lláh and His Son ‘Abdu’l-Bahá have
> given us! They have not set it up aggressively, knowing that the germ of
> eternal truth which lies at its core cannot but take root and spread … It is
> Christ’s message taken up anew, in the same words almost, but adapted to the
> thousand years and more difference that lies between the year one and
> today.” She added a remarkable admonition, reminiscent of the telling words
> of Dr. Benjamin Jowett, who had hailed the Faith, in his conversation with
> his pupil, Prof. Lewis Campbell, as “the greatest light that has come into the
> world since the time of Jesus Christ,” and cautioned him to “watch it” and
> never let it out of his sight. “If ever,” wrote the Queen, “the name of
> Bahá’u’lláh or ‘Abdu’l-Bahá comes to your attention, do not put their
> writings from you. Search out their books, and let their glorious, peace-
> bringing, love-creating words and lessons sink into your hearts as they have
> into mine…. Seek them and be the happier.”
> In another of these testimonies, wherein she makes a significant comment
> on the station of the Arabian Prophet, she declared: “God is all. Everything.
> He is the power behind all beings…. His is the voice within us that shows us
> good and evil. But mostly we ignore or misunderstand this voice. Therefore,
> did He choose His Elect to come down amongst us upon earth to make clear
> His Word, His real meaning. Therefore the Prophets; therefore Christ,
> Muḥammad, Bahá’u’lláh, for man needs from time to time a voice upon earth
> to bring God to him, to sharpen the realization of the existence of the true
> God. Those voices sent to us had to become flesh, so that with our earthly
> ears we should be able to hear and understand.”
> In appreciation of these testimonies a communication was addressed to her,
> in the name of the followers of Bahá’u’lláh in East and West, and in the
> course of the deeply touching letter which she sent in reply she wrote:
> “Indeed a great light came to me with the Message of Bahá’u’lláh and
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá…. My youngest daughter finds also great strength and comfort
> in the teachings of the beloved Masters. We pass on the Message from mouth
> to mouth, and all those we give it to see a light suddenly lighting before them,
> and much that was obscure and perplexing becomes simple, luminous and
> full of hope as never before. That my open letter was a balm to those
> suffering for the Cause, is indeed a great happiness to me, and I take it as a
> sign that God accepted my humble tribute. The occasion given me to be able
> to express myself publicly was also His work, for indeed it was a chain of
> circumstances of which each link led me unwittingly one step further, till
> suddenly all was clear before my eyes and I understood why it had been.
> Thus does He lead us finally to our ultimate destiny…. Little by little the veil
> is lifting, grief tore it in two. And grief was also a step leading me ever nearer
> truth; therefore do I not cry out against grief!”
> In a significant and moving letter to an intimate American friend of hers,
> residing in Paris, she wrote: “Lately a great hope has come to me from one
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. I have found in His and His Father, Bahá’u’lláh’s Message of
> faith, all my yearning for real religion satisfied…. I mean: these Books have
> strengthened me beyond belief, and I am now ready to die any day full of
> hope. But I pray God not to take me away yet, for I still have a lot of work to
> do.”
> And again in one of her later appreciations of the Faith: “The Bahá’í
> teaching brings peace and understanding. It is like a wide embrace gathering
> all those who have long searched for words of hope…. Saddened by the
> continual strife amongst believers of many confessions and wearied of their
> intolerance towards each other, I discovered in the Bahá’í teaching the real
> spirit of Christ so often denied and misunderstood.” And again, this
> wonderful confession: “The Bahá’í teaching brings peace to the soul and
> hope to the heart. To those in search of assurance the words of the Father are
> as a fountain in the desert after long wandering.”
> “The beautiful truth of Bahá’u’lláh,” she wrote to Martha Root, “is with
> me always, a help and an inspiration. What I wrote was because my heart
> overflowed with gratitude for the reflection you brought me. I am happy if
> you think I helped. I thought it might bring truth nearer because my words are
> read by so many.”
> In the course of a visit to the Near East she expressed her intention of
> visiting the Bahá’í Shrines, and, accompanied by her youngest daughter,
> actually passed through Haifa, and was within sight of her goal, when she
> was denied the right to make the pilgrimage she had planned—to the keen
> disappointment of the aged Greatest Holy Leaf who had eagerly expected her
> arrival. A few months later, in June, 1931, she wrote in the course of a letter
> to Martha Root: “Both Ileana and I were cruelly disappointed at having been
> prevented going to the holy Shrines…. but at that time we were going
> through a cruel crisis, and every movement I made was being turned against
> me and being politically exploited in an unkind way. It caused me a good
> deal of suffering and curtailed my liberty most unkindly…. But the beauty of
> truth remains, and I cling to it through all the vicissitudes of a life become
> rather sad…. I am glad to hear that your traveling has been so fruitful, and I
> wish you continual success knowing what a beautiful Message you are
> carrying from land to land.”
> After this sad disappointment she wrote to a friend of her childhood who
> dwelt near ‘Akká, in a house formerly occupied by Bahá’u’lláh: “It was
> indeed nice to hear from you, and to think that you are of all things living
> near Haifa and are, as I am, a follower of the Bahá’í teachings. It interests me
> that you are living in that special house … I was so intensely interested and
> studied each photo intently. It must be a lovely place … and the house you
> live in, so incredibly attractive and made precious by its associations with the
> Man we all venerate.”
> Her last public tribute to the Faith she had dearly loved was made two
> years before her death. “More than ever today,” she wrote, “when the world
> is facing such a crisis of bewilderment and unrest, must we stand firm in
> Faith seeking that which binds together instead of tearing asunder. To those
> searching for light, the Bahá’í teachings offer a star which will lead them to
> deeper understanding, to assurance, peace and goodwill with all men.”
> Martha Root’s own illuminating record is given in one of her articles as
> follows: “For ten years Her Majesty and her daughter, HRH Princess Ileana
> (now Arch-Duchess Anton) have read with interest each new book about the
> Bahá’í Movement, as soon as it came from the press Received in audience by
> Her Majesty in Pelisor Palace, Sinaia, in 1927, after the passing of His
> Majesty King Ferdinand, her husband, she graciously gave me an interview,
> speaking of the Bahá’í teachings about immortality. She had on her table and
> on the divan a number of Bahá’í books, for she had just been reading in each
> of them the Teachings about life after death. She asked the writer to give her
> greeting to … the friends in Iran and to the many American Bahá’ís, who she
> said had been so remarkably kind to her during her trip through the United
> States the year before…. Meeting the Queen again on January 19, 1928, in
> the Royal Palace in Belgrade, where she and HRH Princess Ileana were
> guests of the Queen of Yugoslavia—and they had brought some of their
> Bahá’í books with them—the words that I shall remember longest of all that
> her dear Majesty said were these: ‘The ultimate dream which we shall realize
> is that the Bahá’í channel of thought has such strength, it will serve little by
> little to become a light to all those searching for the real expression of Truth.’
> … Then in the audience in Controceni Palace, on February 16, 1934, when
> her Majesty was told that the Rumanian translation of Bahá’u’lláh and the
> New Era had just been published in Bucharest, she said she was so happy that
> her people were to have the blessing of reading this precious teaching…. And
> now today, February 4, 1936, I have just had another audience with Her
> Majesty in Controceni Palace, in Bucharest…. Again Queen Marie of
> Rumania received me cordially in her softly lighted library, for the hour was
> six o’clock…. What a memorable visit it was! … She also told me that when
> she was in London she had met a Bahá’í, Lady Blomfield, who had shown
> her the original Message that Bahá’u’lláh had sent to her grand-mother,
> Queen Victoria, in London. She asked the writer about the progress of the
> Bahá’í Movement, especially in the Balkan countries…. She spoke too of
> several Bahá’í books, the depths of Íqán,* and especially of Gleanings from
> the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, which she said was a wonderful book! To quote
> her own words: ‘Even doubters would find a powerful strength in it, if they
> would read it alone, and would give their souls time to expand.’ … I asked
> her if I could perhaps speak of the brooch which historically is precious to
> Bahá’ís, and she replied, ‘Yes, you may.’ Once, and it was in 1928, Her dear
> Majesty had given the writer a gift, a lovely and rare brooch which had been
> a gift to the Queen from her royal relatives in Russia some years ago. It was
> two little wings of wrought gold and silver, set with tiny diamond chips, and
> joined together with one large pearl. ‘Always you are giving gifts to others,
> and I am going to give you a gift from me,’ said the Queen smiling, and she
> herself clasped it onto my dress. The wings and the pearl made it seem
> ‘Light-bearing’ Bahá’í! It was sent the same week to Chicago as a gift to the
> Bahá’í Temple … and at the National Bahá’í Convention which was in
> session that spring, a demur was made—should a gift from the Queen be
> sold? Should it not be kept as a souvenir of the first Queen who arose to
> promote the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh? However, it was sold immediately and the
> money given to the Temple, for all Bahá’ís were giving to the utmost to
> forward this mighty structure, the first of its kind in the United States of
> America. Mr. Willard Hatch, a Bahá’í of Los Angeles, Calif., who bought the
> exquisite brooch, took it to Haifa, Palestine, in 1931, and placed it in the
> Archives on Mt. Carmel, where down the ages it will rest with the Bahá’í
> treasures.”
> In July, 1938, Queen Marie of Rumania passed away. A message of
> condolence was communicated, in the name of all Bahá’í communities in
> East and West, to her daughter, the Queen of Yugoslavia, to which she
> replied expressing “sincere thanks to all of Bahá’u’lláh’s followers.” The
> National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Persia addressed, on behalf of
> the followers of the Faith in Bahá’u’lláh’s native land, a letter expressive of
> grief and sympathy to her son, the King of Rumania and the Rumanian Royal
> Family, the text of which was in both Persian and English. An expression of
> profound and loving sympathy was sent by Martha Root to Princess Ileana,
> and was gratefully acknowledged by her. Memorial gatherings were held in
> the Queen’s memory, at which a meed of honor was paid to her bold and
> epochal confession of faith in the Fatherhood of Bahá’u’lláh, to her
> recognition of the station of the Prophet of Islám and to the several
> encomiums from her pen. On the first anniversary of her death the National
> Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada
> demonstrated its grateful admiration and affection for the deceased Queen by
> associating itself, through an imposing floral offering, with the impressive
> memorial service, held in her honor, and arranged by the Rumanian Minister,
> in Bethlehem Chapel, at the Cathedral of Washington, DC, at which the
> American delegation, headed by the Secretary of State and including
> government officials and representatives of the Army and Navy, the British,
> French and Italian Ambassadors, and representatives of other European
> embassies and legations joined in a common tribute to one who, apart from
> the imperishable renown achieved by her in the Kingdom of Bahá’u’lláh, had
> earned, in this earthly life, the esteem and love of many a soul living beyond
> the confines of her own country.7
> 
> His Highness Malietoa Tanumafili, II
> The following is from appeared under the title “First Head Of State Embraces
> The Cause Of Bahá’u’lláh,” in The Bahá’í World, volume 15, pp. 180–3.
> 
> That His Highness Malietoa Tanumafili II, the first reigning monarch
> to embrace the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh, should do so during the year
> marking the centenary of the revelation of the Súriy-i-Mulúk8 and that he
> should openly declare his faith to his fellow believers during the days
> marking the one hundredth anniversary of the revelation of the Kitáb-i-
> Aqdas9 must surely be recognized as one of the most significant events
> in the evolution of the Formative Age. It is also most interesting that his
> country, Western Samoa, is located in the middle of the vast Pacific
> Ocean bringing to mind the prophecy of Bahá’u’lláh about His
> revelation that should they attempt to conceal its light on the continent,
> it will assuredly rear its head in the midmost heart of the oceans, and,
> raising its voice, proclaim: “I am the life-giver of the world!”10
> The events leading up to the acceptance of the Faith by His Highness
> began with the decision of the Universal House of Justice to present a
> deluxe edition of The Promulgation of Bahá’u’lláh to today’s reigning
> monarchs and heads of state. The Malietoa was one of the one hundred
> and forty-one to receive this book, re-stating Bahá’u’lláh’s Own
> announcement to the kings and rulers of His day.
> The Hand of the Cause Dr. Ugo Giachery, who was in Samoa on his
> return from the Intercontinental Conference in Sydney in October, 1967,
> was requested by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the
> South Pacific Ocean to present The Proclamation of Bahá’u’lláh to the
> head of state of Western Samoa, which he was glad to do. An
> appointment was made, and in the late afternoon of October 27, 1967,
> His Highness Malietoa Tanumafili received Dr. Giachery and the
> National Spiritual Assembly representative, Mr. Virgil Wilson, at a
> newly built Samoan fale on a tiny off-shore island at Letulatla Lefata. It
> was at this spot that His Highness had some years before been invested
> with the title “Malietoa.”
> His Highness offered Dr. Giachery his chair and after exchanging
> courtesies the book was presented on behalf of the Universal House of
> Justice. The Malietoa was greatly pleased to receive it and thoughtfully
> leafed through its pages. The Hand of the Cause explained what the
> volume contained and drew attention to the list of kings and rulers to
> whom the original Tablets had been addressed. Throughout the
> conversation which lasted for almost ninety minutes many questions
> about the Faith were answered and His Highness expressed great interest
> in the Bahá’í Teachings. As Dr. Giachery prepared to take his leave, the
> Malietoa grasped his hands and expressed the hope that he would return
> some time for another visit. No one knew at that time how soon this
> hope was to be realized.
> In early December, 1967, Dr. Giachery reported that he had recently
> received two letters from the American pioneer, Mr. Virgil Wilson, in
> which he stated that on more than one occasion the Malietoa had stated
> his desire to join the Faith. Because of the importance of the possibility
> that one of so high a rank and occupying a station which had been so
> greatly exalted by Bahá’u’lláh would embrace the Cause, the Universal
> House of Justice asked the Hand of the Cause Dr. Ugo Giachery to
> return to Western Samoa to discuss this matter with His Highness.
> The first historic meeting with the Malietoa took place at his official
> residence in Vailima on Monday, January 16, 1968. Dr. Giachery
> reports, “On arrival at the main entrance a triumphal chant was heard
> and His Highness rushed in person to the automobile with outstretched
> hands, bidding us welcome. After the exchange of greetings, he led us
> along the main staircase to the large reception hall where we were
> seated…” During the course of the conversation which followed, the
> Malietoa declared, “I am a Bahá’í … I believe in Bahá’u’lláh.”
> Afterward the Hand of the Cause cabled the Universal House of
> Justice:
> “HEARTY WELCOME JOYFUL CONVERSATION CONFIRM CONVICTION….”
> It is noteworthy that it was this Malietoa’s great-great-grandfather,
> Malietoa Tavita, who accepted Christianity in 1830 in response to the
> teaching work of John Williams of the London Missionary Society.
> On February 11, 1968, another meeting took place at the private
> residence of the Malietoa. His Highness showed keen interest and asked
> many questions as Dr. Giachery reviewed with him the principles of the
> Faith and its administration. Again he stated that he believed in
> Bahá’u’lláh and His Revelation. Within the hour, Dr. Giachery cabled
> the Universal House of Justice:
> “TODAYS INTERVIEW CONFIRMS HEARTFELT ACCEPTANCE…”
> Later, on February 19, 1968, the Malietoa wrote the Universal House
> of Justice expressing appreciation for “the beautiful and precious
> volume containing some letters addressed by Bahá’u’lláh, the exalted
> Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, to the rulers of His time…,” and added:
> “This gift is immensely appreciated because it has assisted me in
> better understanding … the Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, which I have fully
> and wholeheartedly accepted. I do consider myself a member of the
> Bahá’í Faith, even if at this time I do not deem it necessary to make a
> public declaration, but I do hope that your prayers at the Holy place of
> our Faith will attract upon me the divine assistance needed to carry on
> my duties and to increase my spiritual powers which will make of me a
> just and honored ruler.”
> The Universal House of Justice replied:
> “That the first ruling monarch should declare his wholehearted
> acceptance of Bahá’u’lláh during the centenary of Bahá’u’lláh’s
> proclamation brought great happiness to our hearts. Our souls are filled
> with feelings of awe and wonderment as we contemplate the fulfilment,
> in this day, of some of the prophecies of Bahá’u’lláh regarding the kings
> and rulers of the world….
> “The historic significance of your membership in the Bahá’í Faith has
> been recorded in our annals. We fully appreciate your feeling not to
> make a public declaration at the present time. We shall await word from
> you before informing the Bahá’ís of the world of this momentous event
> in the history of our Faith, which will fire their hearts with new zeal and
> enthusiasm enabling them to rise to new heights of endeavour in their
> God-given role in the quickening of mankind.”
> Five years and one month later, His Highness made known to his
> fellow believers his faith in Bahá’u’lláh.
> A transcription of the Malietoa’s letter letter is below.
> 
> March 31, 1973
> 
> Greatly esteemed members of the Universal House of Justice, much admired
> Hands of the Cause of God, respected Counsellors and honoured delegates
> attending the Third International Convention
> 
> My spiritual Brethren:
> 
> It is a joy for me and for my fellow Bahá’ís of the Samoan Islands in
> the heart of the Pacific, to be with you in spirit and with the friends of
> the God throughout the world, in celebrating this most significant first
> century of the revelation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the Most Holy Book of
> Bahá’u’lláh.
> We pray for the success of the historic convention now being held in
> the shadow of the Mountain of God in the Holy Land. Although we are
> unable to be with you in person on this memorable occasion, our hearts
> share with you these never to be forgotten days and the knowledge of
> the tremendous victories won for the Faith of God.
> To the north, to the south, to the east and to the west, to the most
> populous and to the most remote places, we send our fond greetings and
> cherished love. May the spirit created by your gathering at the Holy
> Shrines pave the way for the rapid establishment of the Kingdom of God
> on earth and the unity of all the peoples of the world.
> Alofa tele atu lava matou uma I Samoa nei.11
> [signed] Malietoa Tanumafili II
> 
> Following the Malietoa’s letter to the Universal House of Justice, it
> released the following message to the Bahá’ís of the world:
> 
> 7 May 1973
> 
> To the Bahá’ís of the world
> 
> Dear Bahá’í friends,
> 
> It is now possible to share with you all the news of an event which
> crowns the victories with which Bahá’u’lláh has blessed His followers
> during the Nine Year Plan, an event of which the true significance will
> be fully understood only in the course of centuries to come: a reigning
> monarch has accepted the Message of Bahá’u’lláh.
> Among those to whom The Proclamation of Bahá’u’lláh was
> presented in 1967 was His Highness Malietoa Tanumafili II, the Head of
> State of the independent nation of Western Samoa in the heart of the
> Pacific Ocean. His Highness, who had already heard of the Faith,
> showed immediately that the sacred Words had touched his heart, and
> the Universal House of Justice thereupon asked the Hand of the Cause
> Dr. Ugo Giachery, who had presented the book to him, to return to
> Western Samoa for further audiences with His Highness. Following this
> visit the Malietoa conveyed his acceptance of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh to
> the Universal House of Justice and became the first reigning sovereign
> to enter beneath the shade of this Cause.
> In its Riḍván 1967 message the Universal House of Justice announced
> that it would present to Heads of State around the world a collection of
> Tablets Bahá’u’lláh addressed to the kings and rulers of the world a
> century before. His Highness Malietoa Tanumafili II was one of the
> recipients.
> His Highness decided, with the full agreement of the Universal House
> of Justice, that it was not propitious to make his declaration public at
> that time. He has been visited from time to time by Hands of the Cause
> and other believers, and continual touch with His Highness has been
> maintained by the House of Justice through Mr. Suhayl ‘Alá’í, a
> member of the Continental Board of Counsellors for Australasia.
> Gradually the Malietoa has let it be known to those around him that he
> has accepted Bahá’u’lláh. Now he has judged the time ripe to share this
> wondrous news with his fellow-believers in all parts of the world, by
> addressing to the International Bahá’í Convention the gracious and
> inspiring message of which a copy is enclosed with this letter.12
> With loving Bahá’í greetings,
> The Universal House of Justice
> * The Kitáb-i-Íqán, the foremost doctrinal work of Bahá’u’lláh.
> NOTES
> Chapter 2
> 1. E. G. Browne, quoted in J. E. Esslemont, Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era,
> p. 39.
> 2. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Mulúk, ¶13, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 3. Bahá’u’lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 57.
> 4. Nabíl-i-A‘ẓam, The Dawn-Breakers, p. 608.
> 5. Bahá’u’lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 21.
> 6. Ibid., p. 40.
> 7. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶230, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 8. Nabíl-i-A‘ẓam, The Dawn-Breakers, pp. 631–2.
> 9. J. E. Esslemont, Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, p. 59.
> 
> Chapter 3
> 1. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶131, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 2. Ibid., ¶142.
> 3. The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the “Most Holy Book,” Bahá’u’lláh’s book of laws
> for the new dispensation and the world commonwealth.
> 4. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶137, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 5. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Promised Day Is Come, ¶123.
> 6. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶137, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 7. Ibid., ¶138.
> 8. Ibid., ¶131–3.
> 9. C. D. Hazen, Europe Since 1815, p. 199.
> 10. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶138, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 11. Ibid.
> 12. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, quoted in Promised Day Is Come, ¶225.
> 13. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Mulúk, ¶58, 79, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 14. Ibid., ¶79.
> 15. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶138, in ibid.
> 16. Ibid.
> 17. Isaiah 24.
> 18. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶164, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 19. Isaiah 24:21.
> 
> Chapter 4
> 1. Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, ¶86.
> 2. Ibid.
> 3. Bahá’u’lláh, Hidden Words, Persian, no. 64.
> 4. Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, ¶86.
> 5. Bahá’u’lláh, Suriy-i-Mulúk, ¶15, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 6. Ibid., ¶8.
> 7. Ibid.
> 8. Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, no. 117.
> 9. Bahá’u’lláh, Suriy-i-Mulúk, ¶21, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 10. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, A Traveller’s Narrative, p. xi.
> 11. Ibid.
> 12. Ibid.
> 13. Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, ¶90.
> 14. Ibid.
> 15. Bahá’u’lláh, Suriy-i-Mulúk, ¶85, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 16. Ironically, the Hohenzollern Crown Prince, William, served in a Nazi
> motor division and was captured by the French. The youngest son of Kaiser
> William II, August Wilhelm, also appeared in the ranks of the Nazis and fell
> with them.
> 17. See A. J. P. Taylor, The Hapsburg Monarchy, 1809–1918.
> 18. Jeremiah 49:38.
> 
> Chapter 5
> 1. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶158, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 2. Ibid., ¶170.
> 3. Ibid., ¶160.
> 4. Ibid.
> 5. Ibid., ¶158.
> 6. Ibid., ¶162.
> 7. Ibid., ¶170.
> 8. Ibid., ¶162.
> 9. Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day Is Come, ¶138.
> 10. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶178, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 11. Ibid., ¶158.
> 12. Haggai 2:7, 22.
> 
> Chapter 6
> 1. Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, ¶85.
> 2. Ibid.
> 3. Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, no. 118.5.
> 4. Bahá’u’lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 24.
> 5. Ibid., p. 27.
> 6. Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, no. 163.2.
> 7. Ibid.
> 8. Ibid., no. 164.7.
> 9. Jeremiah 51:20.
> 10. Bahá’u’lláh, Suriy-i-Mulúk, ¶64, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 11. Ibid., ¶15.
> 12. Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day Is Come, ¶146.
> 13. Ibid., ¶147.
> 14. Zephaniah 1:4–8.
> 
> Chapter 7
> 1. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶171, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 2. Ibid., ¶172.
> 3. Ibid., ¶171.
> 4. Ibid., ¶172.
> 5. Ibid., ¶173.
> 6. Ibid., ¶175.
> 7. Ibid., ¶176.
> 8. Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day Is Come, ¶163.
> 9. Queen Marie of Romania, quoted in God Passes By, p. 391.
> 10. Ibid.
> 11. Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, ¶84.
> 12. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Promised Day Is Come, ¶185.
> 13. Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, no. 112.
> 14. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in God Passes By, p. 225.
> 
> Chapter 8
> 1. Bahá’u’lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 11.
> 2. Quoted in God Passes By, p. 79.
> 3. Mírzá Áqá Khán, quoted in ibid., p. 105.
> 4. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in ibid.
> 5. Ezekiel 8:4.
> 6. Ezekiel 43:1–2.
> 
> Chapter 9
> 1. Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 225.
> 2. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 198.
> 3. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Mulúk, ¶96, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 4. Isaiah 14:5,27
> 5. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Mulúk, ¶26, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 6. Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, no. 112.
> 7. Daniel 8:23–25.
> 8. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Mulúk, ¶98, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 9. Ibid., ¶99.
> 10. Ibid.
> 11. Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day Is Come, ¶171.
> 
> Chapter 10
> 1. John 10:16.
> 2. The text of this Tablet can be found in Bahá’í Prayers, pp. 319–27.
> 3. Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, ¶89.
> 4. Isaiah 41.
> 5. Micah 7:12.
> 6. Shamsí Big, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 160.
> 7. Nabíl-i-A‘ẓám, quoted in ibid., p. 161.
> 8. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶58, 69, 72, 81, in Summons of the Lord of
> Hosts.
> 9. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 160.
> 10. Ibid., pp. 160–61.
> 11. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 171
> 12. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in ibid.
> 13. Ibid.
> 14. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 171.
> 15. Bahá’u’lláh, Hidden Words, Persian, no. 54.
> 16. Ibid., nos. 49, 51.
> 17. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶178, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 18. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 170.
> 19. Ibid.
> 20. Ibid., p. 179.
> 21. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 184.
> Author’s note: One hundred years later, the author of this book was present at
> the centenary commemoration of Bahá’u’lláh’s arrival in the Holy Land.
> Already His prophecy had come true. News was being shared from all parts
> of the earth announcing the entry of great numbers of new Bahá’ís into the
> Faith of Bahá’u’lláh. They were flocking to His standard in America, Asia,
> Europe, North and South America, Australia, and in the islands of the Pacific,
> Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and the Mediterranean and Caribbean Sea.
> Peoples and races in all nations, especially among the youth of the world,
> were embracing the Bahá’í Faith in over thirty thousand centers, in almost
> every section of the world. Indeed, all segments of humanity were now
> “enlisting” beneath the “banner” of Bahá’u’lláh’s Faith.
> 22. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 181
> 23. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, p.
> 24. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 181.
> 25. Áqá Riḍá, quoted in ibid.
> 26. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in ibid., p. 182.
> 27. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 183.
> 28. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, p. 32.
> 29. Psalms 2:2–12.
> 30. Muḥammad, quoted in Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 177.
> 31. Ibid., p. 179.
> 32. The year 1260 in the Muslim calendar (the one used in both Persia and
> Turkey) was the year 1844 of the Gregorian calendar. For the many repeated
> references to the year 1260/1844 from both Christianity and Islam, see
> William Sears, Thief in the Night, pp. 8–28.
> 33. Islamic hadith, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 184.
> 34. Bahá’u’lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 46
> 35. See Micah 7. Thief in the Night devotes an entire chapter to the
> incredible story of the fulfillment of these prophecies; see pp. 117–23.
> 36. Bahá’u’lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 146.
> 37. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 187.
> 38. Ibid., p. 185.
> 39. Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, no. 115.6.
> 40. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 186.
> 
> Chapter 11
> 1. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, A Traveller’s Narrative, p. 54.
> 2. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Mulúk, ¶58 in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 3. Ibid., ¶59–60.
> 4. Ibid., ¶61.
> 5. Ibid., ¶62–63.
> 6. Bahá’u’lláh, Suriy-i-Haykal, ¶179, in ibid.
> 7. Ibid.
> 8. Ibid.
> 9. Psalms 136:1, 17, 23, 24.
> 10. Bahá’u’lláh, Lawḥ-i-Ra’ís, ¶9, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 11. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Mulúk, ¶86 in ibid.
> 12. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 158.
> 13. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Mulúk, ¶26 in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 14. Ibid., ¶36.
> 15. Bahá’u’lláh, Lawḥ-i-Fu’ád, ¶13, in ibid.
> 16. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Ra’ís, ¶5, in ibid.
> 17. Ibid.
> 18. Bahá’u’lláh, Lawḥ-i-Ra’ís, ¶7, in ibid.
> 19. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Mulúk, ¶26, in ibid.
> 20. Ibid., ¶53.
> 21. Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, ¶89.
> 22. Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day Is Come, ¶245.
> 
> Chapter 12
> 1. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 191.
> 2. E. G. Browne, quoted in H. M. Balyuzi, Edward Granville Browne and
> the Bahá’í Faith, p. 53.
> 3. Ibid., p. 56.
> 4. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Lady Blomfield, The Chosen Highway, p. 64.
> 5. Psalms 89:3, 27, 28, 37.
> 6. Isaiah 59:20, 21; 60:1, 2, 3, 12, 16.
> 7. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 270.
> 8. Habakkuk 1:5.
> 9. Daniel 2:44.
> 10. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 224.
> 
> Chapter 13
> 1. Bahá’u’lláh, Súrih-i-Mulúk, ¶3, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 2. Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, ¶84.
> 3. Bahá’u’lláh, Súrih-i-Mulúk, ¶20.
> 4. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 230;
> Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, no. 110; ibid., no. 18.1
> 5. Jeremiah 25:15, 26–29.
> 6. See William Sears, Release the Sun, pp. 278–79, for an account of this
> dramatic event, described by the French author A. L. M. Nicholas as
> something “unique in the annals of the history of humanity.”
> 7. Amos 1:14–15, 8:11.
> 8. Amos 1:2,
> 9. Bahá’u’lláh, Súrih-i-Mulúk, ¶12, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 10. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 224.
> 11. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day Is Come, ¶9.
> 12. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 220.
> 
> Chapter 14
> 1. Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, no. 117.
> 2. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶182, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 3. Shoghi Effendi, Advent of Divine Justice, ¶119.
> 4. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶174, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 5. Bahá’u’lláh, Tablets, p. 69.
> 6. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day Is Come, ¶287.
> 7. Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, no. 4.2.
> 8. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶118, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 9. Ibid., ¶105, 118.
> 10. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 67.
> 11. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in ibid., p. 109
> 12. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶103, 105, in Summons of the Lord of
> Hosts.
> 13. Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, no. 45.
> 14. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶102, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 15. Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day Is Come, ¶38.
> 16. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶179, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 17. Ibid., ¶126.
> 18. Ibid., ¶120.
> 19. Habakkuk 2:14
> 20. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶113, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 21. Bahá’u’lláh, Proclamation, p. 92.
> 22. Ibid., p. 93.
> 23. Ibid.
> 24. Bahá’u’lláh, Lawḥ-i-Aqdas, in Tablets, p. 13.
> 25. Bahá’u’lláh, Proclamation, p. 92.
> 26. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶127, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 27. Ibid., ¶106.
> 28. Matthew 24:29.
> 29. See Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán, ¶31–42.
> 30. Bahá’u’lláh, Lawḥ-i-Aqdas, in Tablets, p. 14.
> 31. Chicago Daily News, August 26, 1954.
> 32. John 3:10.
> 33. Bahá’u’lláh, Proclamation, p. 76.
> 34. Ibid., p. 75.
> 35. Ibid., pp. 75–76.
> 36. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶225, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 37. Matthew 15:14.
> 38. Bahá’u’lláh, Proclamation, p. 79.
> 39. Ibid., p 76.
> 40. Bahá’u’lláh, Proclamation, p. 78.
> 41. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Haykal, ¶128, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 42. Bahá’u’lláh, Lawḥ-i-Aqdas, in Tablets, p. 14.
> 
> Chapter 15
> 1. Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 42.
> 2. Bahá’u’lláh, Bishárát, in Tablets, p. 23.
> 3. Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 65.
> 4. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections, no. 2.7
> 5. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in Bahá’í World Faith, p. 400.
> 6. Shoghi Effendi, Advent of Divine Justice, ¶19.
> 7. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 38.
> 8. Renan, Les Apôtres, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 80.
> 9. Lord Curzon, quoted in ibid.
> 10. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 81.
> 11. Ibid., p. 199.
> 12. Shoghi Effendi, Messages, pp. 37–38.
> 13. Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, p. 316.
> 
> Appendix
> The epigraph for this chapter is from Bahá’u’lláh, Ishráqát, in Tablets, p.
> 118.
> 1. Bahá’u’lláh, Súriy-i-Mulúk, ¶12, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 2. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 230.
> 3. Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 36.
> 4. For a detailed and well-written account of the story of Queen Marie’s
> conversion to and public acknowledgment of her faith in Bahá’u’lláh, please
> see Della L. Marcus, Her Eternal Crown.
> 5. Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, no. 105.7.
> 6. Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day Is Come, p. 13.
> 7. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, pp. 389–95
> 8. Súrih of the Kings, a Tablet revealed by Bahá’u’lláh in Adrianople that
> deals with the responsibility of kingship. An English translation is available
> in The Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
> 9. See chapter 3, note 3.
> 10. Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 253.
> 11. Translation from Samoan: “Loving greetings from all of us here in
> Samoa.”
> Bibliography
> Works of Bahá’u’lláh.
> 
> Epistle to the Son of the Wolf. 1st pocket-size ed. Translated by Shoghi
> Effendi. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1988.
> Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh. Translated by Shoghi Effendi.
> Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing, 2005.
> The Hidden Words. Translated by Shoghi Effendi. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í
> Publishing, 2002.
> The Kitáb-i-Aqdas: The Most Holy Book. 1st pocket-size ed. Wilmette, IL:
> Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1993.
> The Proclamation of Bahá’u’lláh to the Kings and Leaders of the World.
> Haifa: Bahá’í World Center, 1967.
> The Summons of the Lord of Hosts: Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh. Wilmette, IL:
> Bahá’í Publishing, 2006.
> Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh revealed after the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. Compiled by the
> Research Department of the Universal House of Justice. Translated by
> Habib Taherzadeh et al. Wilmette, IL: 1988.
> 
> Works of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
> 
> A Traveller’s Narrative Written to Illustrate the Episode of the Báb.
> Translated by E. G. Browne. New edition. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing
> Trust, 1980.
> The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Talks Delivered by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
> during His Visit to the United States and Canada in 1912. Compiled by
> Howard MacNutt. 2nd ed. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1982.
> Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Compiled by the Research
> Department of the Universal House of Justice. Translated by a Committee
> at the Bahá’í World Center and Marzieh Gail. 1st pocket-size ed. Wilmette,
> IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1996.
> Some Answered Questions. Compiled and translated by Laura Clifford
> Barney. 1st pocket-size ed. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1984.
> 
> Works of Shoghi Effendi
> 
> The Advent of Divine Justice. 1st pocket-size ed. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í
> Publishing Trust, 1990.
> God Passes By. New ed. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1974.
> Messages to the Bahá’í World 1950–1957. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing
> Trust, 1971.
> The Promised Day Is Come. 1st pocket-sized ed. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í
> Publishing Trust, 1996.
> The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: Selected Letters. 1st pocket-size ed.
> Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1991.
> 
> Compilations of Bahá’í Writings
> 
> Bahá’u’lláh, the Báb, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Bahá’í Prayers: A Selection of
> Prayers Revealed by Bahá’u’lláh, the Báb, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. New ed.
> Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1991.
> Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Bahá’í World Faith: Selected Writings of
> Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. 2nd ed. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing
> Trust, 1976.
> 
> Other Works
> 
> The Bahá’í World: An International Record, vol. 15, 1968–1973. Prepared
> under the supervision of the Universal House of Justice. Haifa: Universal
> House of Justice, 1975.
> Balyuzi, H. M. Edward Granville Browne and the Bahá’í Faith. Oxford:
> George Ronald, 1970.
> Blomfield, Lady [Sara Louisa]. The Chosen Highway. London: Bahá’í
> Publishing Trust, 1940.
> Esslemont, J. E. Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era: An Introduction to the Bahá’í
> Faith. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing, 2006.
> Hazen, C. D. Europe Since 1815. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1910.
> Marcus, Della L. Her Eternal Crown: Queen Marie of Romania and the
> Bahá’í Faith. Oxford: George Ronald, 2000.
> Nabíl-i-A‘ẓam [Muḥammad-i-Zarandí]. The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl’s
> Narrative of the Days of the Bahá’í Revelation. Translated and edited by
> Shoghi Effendi. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1932.
> Sears, William. Release the Sun. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing, 2003.
> —. Thief in the Night. Oxford: George Ronald, 1961.
> Taylor, A. J. P. The Hapsburg Monarchy, 1809–1918: A History of the
> Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary. Chicago: University of Chicago
> Press, 1941.
> For more information about the Bahá’í Faith,
> or to contact the Bahá’ís near you, visit
> http://www.bahai.us/
> or call
> 1-800-22-UNITE
> PUBLISHING
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> the Bahá’í Faith, asserted that he is the Messenger of God for all of humanity in this day. The
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> explains its theology, incorporates extracts from Bahá’í scripture, and provides information on Bahá’í
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> left much of society feeling disoriented and unbalanced. Medina’s insight sheds light on ways to
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> Have you ever wondered what other religions teach about creation, prayer, and faith? Gems from the
> World’s Great Scriptures answers these questions and more in an expertly arranged selection from the
> sacred scriptures of six religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and the Bahá’í
> Faith. Each chapter covers a different topic and offers insight and inspiration on a theme assembled
> from the sacred writings of different faiths.
> 
> ONE WORLD, ONE PEOPLE
> How Globalization Is Shaping Our Future
> Gregory C. Dahl
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> Globalization and its impact on mankind are front and center in today’s world! The media reports
> that planet Earth is rapidly becoming smaller and more interconnected. Many government policies,
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> Author Gregory C. Dahl, with twenty-seven years as an economist and senior official of the
> International Monetary Fund (IMF), offers a penetrating look at issues surrounding globalization and
> provides refreshing solutions to the many complex questions it raises. In One World, One People Dahl
> relies on his global experience with the IMF and insights provided by the Bahá’í Faith to suggest a
> promising future for all of humankind.
> 
> PARIS TALKS
> Addresses Given by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in 1911
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
> $12.00 U.S. / $15.00 CAN
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> 1-931847-32-0
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> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá gave on his historic trip to the West in the early twentieth century. Despite advanced age
> and poor health, he set out from Palestine in 1911 on a momentous journey to Europe and North
> America to share the teachings and vision of the Bahá’í Faith with the people of the West. Addressing
> such subjects as the nature of humankind, the soul, the Prophets of God, the establishment of world
> peace, the abolition of all forms of prejudice, the equality of women and men, the harmony of science
> and religion, the causes of war, and many other subjects, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá spoke in a profound yet simple
> manner that transcended social and cultural barriers. His deep spiritual wisdom remains as timely and
> soul-stirring as it was nearly a century ago. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, meaning Servant of the Glory, is the title
> assumed by ‘Abbás Effendi (1844–1921)—the eldest son and appointed successor of Bahá’u’lláh, the
> Prophet and Founder of the Bahá’í Faith. A prisoner since the age of nine, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá shared a
> lifetime of imprisonment and exile with his father at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. He spent his
> entire life in tireless service to, and promotion of, Bahá’u’lláh’s cause and is considered by Bahá’ís to
> be the perfect exemplar of the Faith’s teachings.
> 
> PARTNERS IN SPIRIT
> What Couples Say about Marriages that Work
> Heather Cardin
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> marriage is seen by many as outdated and unnecessary. Heather Cardin incorporates interviews with
> over twenty married couples who share what has worked to strengthen their union during their years
> together. Their stories, hints, and advice illustrate the Bahá’í perspective of marriage, which involves
> an equal partnership in the spiritual development of both husband and wife. This provides a strong
> foundation for a happy and prosperous family life. The couples’ advice on how to create these spiritual
> foundations can help both prospective marriage partners as well as those who have been married for
> years.
> 
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> Foreword by Peter Khan
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> The horrors of innumerable conflicts currently blazing throughout the globe would seem to indicate that
> world peace is nothing more than a childish fantasy. But members of the Bahá’í Faith believe that the
> future is filled with hope and promise, for the Bahá’í writings state unequivocally that world peace is
> not only possible, it’s inevitable.
> How can this be? The selections from the Bahá’í writings in this compilation spell out how world
> peace can be achieved. They explain that humanity is in a transition from adolescence to adulthood,
> that the spiritual roots of peace must be identified, and that the barriers to peace—racism, extremes of
> wealth and poverty, the denial of the equality of men and women, and unbridled nationalism and
> religious strife—must be eliminated in order to lay the groundwork for true and lasting peace. The book
> discusses the essential Bahá’í principles of the oneness of humanity and the oneness of religion as
> being critical to the creation of a true and lasting peace.
> Peace: More than an End to War is a blueprint both for the peace of the individual and the peace of
> our global society. This timely compilation can bring comfort to the world-weary souls who pause to
> explore the wisdom in its pages.
> SEEKING THE WISDOM OF THE HEART
> Reflections on Seven Stages of Spiritual Development
> Patricia Romano McGraw, Ph.D.
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> Looking for the keys to true happiness and fulfillment? Join author and therapist Dr. Patricia Romano
> McGraw on a journey toward a deeper, more intimate knowledge of your spiritual self.
> Through reflections, questions, and personal stories, McGraw leads readers on a journey toward
> enlightenment by narrating her own search for spiritual meaning as she reads, reflects, and writes in her
> personal journal about the Seven Valleys, an important work about spiritual development written by
> Bahá’u’lláh, the founder of the Bahá’í Faith. In her previous book, It’s Not Your Fault: How Healing
> Relationships Change Your Brain & Can Help You Overcome a Painful Past, she offered a unique
> perspective on the effects of emotional trauma and explained how relationships can assist and
> accelerate the healing process. But how does one heal when there is no one around to help? Does
> healing necessarily require a relationship with a therapist? How does one take personal responsibility
> for his or her own inner healing? Seeking the Wisdom of the Heart discusses these questions and more,
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> 
> THE SUMMONS OF THE LORD OF HOSTS
> Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh
> Bahá’u’lláh
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> 
> The Summons of the Lord of Hosts brings together in one volume several major letters written by
> Bahá’u’lláh, prophet and founder of the Bahá’í Faith. In these magnificent documents he invites the
> monarchs and leaders of his time to accept the basic tenets of his Faith, sets forth the nature of his
> mission, and establishes the standard of justice that must govern the rule of those entrusted with civil
> authority. Written between 1868 and 1870, the letters call upon leaders of the East and West to accept
> Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings on the oneness of God, the unity of all religions, and the oneness of humanity.
> Among the leaders specifically addressed are Napoleon III, Czar Alexander II, Queen Victoria,
> Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh, and Pope Pius IX. A vitally important resource for those interested in the scripture
> and history of the world’s great religions.
> 
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> Table of Contents
> Cover
> Half Title Page
> Title Page
> Copyright
> Contents
> Preface to the First Edition
> Preface to the Second Edition
> Prologue
> 1 The Assassins
> 2 The Prisoner
> 3 The First Kingdom Falls
> 4 The Second Kingdom Falls
> 5 The Third Kingdom Falls
> 6 The Fourth Kingdom Falls
> 7 A Kingdom Stands
> 8 The Exile
> 9 The Fifth Kingdom Falls
> 10 ‘Akká
> 11 The Sixth Kingdom Falls
> 12 The Prison Opens
> 13 Falling Kingdoms Everywhere
> 14 And All the King’s Men
> 15 The Heart of the World Afire
> Appendix
> Notes
> Bibliography
>
> — *The Prisoner and the Kings (Used by permission of the curator)*