In the days of Baha'u'llah, during the worst times in the Most Great
Prison, they would not permit any of the friends either to leave the
Fortress or to come in from the outside. "Skew-Cap"(8) and the Siyyid(9)
lived by the second gate of the city, and watched there at all times, day
and night. Whenever they spied a Baha'i traveler they would hurry away to
the Governor and tell him that the traveler was bringing in letters and
would carry the answers back. The Governor would then arrest the traveler,
seize his papers, jail him, and drive him out. This became an established
custom with the authorities and went on for a long time--indeed, for nine
years until, little by little, the practice was abandoned.
It was at such a period that the Afnan, Haji Mirza Muhammad-'Ali--that
great bough of the Holy Tree(10)--journeyed to Akka, coming from India to
Egypt, and from Egypt to Marseilles. One day I was up on the roof of the
caravanserai. Some of the friends were with me and I was walking up and
down. It was sunset. At that moment, glancing at the distant seashore, I
observed that a carriage was approaching. "Gentlemen," I said, "I feel
that a holy being is in that carriage." It was still far away, hardly
within sight.
"Let us go to the gate," I told them. "Although they will not allow us to
pass through, we can stand there till he comes." I took one or two people
with me and we left.
At the city gate I called to the guard, privately gave him something and
said: "A carriage is coming in and I think it is bringing one of our
friends. When it reaches here, do not hold it up, and do not refer the
matter to the Governor." He put out a chair for me and I sat down.
By this time the sun had set. They had shut the main gate, too, but the
little door was open. The gatekeeper stayed outside, the carriage drew up,
the gentleman had arrived. What a radiant face he had! He was nothing but
light from head to foot. Just to look at that face made one happy; he was
so confident, so assured, so rooted in his faith, and his expression so
joyous. He was truly a blessed being. He was a man who made progress day
by day, who added, every day, to his certitude and faith, his luminous
quality, his ardent love. He made extraordinary progress during the few
days that he spent in the Most Great Prison. The point is that when his
carriage had come only part of the way from Haifa to Akka, one could
already perceive his spirit, his light.
After he had received the endless bounties showered on him by Baha'u'llah,
he was given leave to go, and he traveled to China. There, over a
considerable period, he spent his days mindful of God and in a manner
conformable to Divine good pleasure. Later he went on to India, where he
died.
The other revered Afnan and the friends in India felt it advisable to send
his blessed remains to 'Iraq, ostensibly to Najaf, to be buried near the
Holy City; for the Muslims had refused to let him lie in their graveyard,
and his body had been lodged in a temporary repository for safekeeping.
Aqa Siyyid Asadu'llah, who was in Bombay at the time, was deputized to
transport the remains with all due reverence to 'Iraq. There were hostile
Persians on the steamship and these people, once they reached Bu_sh_ihr,
reported that the coffin of Mirza Muhammad-'Ali the Babi was being carried
to Najaf for burial in the Vale of Peace, near the sacred precincts of the
Shrine, and that such a thing was intolerable. They tried to take his
blessed remains off the ship, but they failed; see what the hidden Divine
decrees can bring about.
His body came as far as Basra. And since that was a period when the
friends had to remain in concealment, Siyyid Asadu'llah was obliged to
proceed as if he were going on with the burial in Najaf, meanwhile hoping
in one way or another to effect the interment near Ba_gh_dad. Because,
although Najaf is a holy city and always shall be, still the friends had
chosen another place. God, therefore, stirred up our enemies to prevent
the Najaf burial. They swarmed in, attacking the quarantine station to lay
hold of the body and either bury it in Basra or throw it into the sea or
out on the desert sands.
The case took on such importance that in the end it proved impossible to
bring the remains to Najaf, and Siyyid Asadu'llah had to carry them on to
Ba_gh_dad. Here, too, there was no burial place where the Afnan's body
would be safe from molestation at enemy hands. Finally the Siyyid decided
to carry it to the shrine of Persia's Salman the Pure,(11) about five
farsa_kh_s out of Ba_gh_dad, and bury it in Ctesiphon, close to the grave
of Salman, beside the palace of the Sasaniyan kings. The body was taken
there and that trust of God was, with all reverence, laid down in a safe
resting-place by the palace of Naw_sh_iravan.
And this was destiny, that after a lapse of thirteen hundred years, from
the time when the throne city of Persia's ancient kings was trampled down,
and no trace of it was left, except for rubble and hills of sand, and the
very palace roof itself had cracked and split so that half of it toppled
to the ground--this edifice should win back the kingly pomp and splendor of
its former days. It is indeed a mighty arch. The width of its entry-way is
fifty-two paces and it towers very high.
Thus did God's grace and favor encompass the Persians of an age long gone,
in order that their ruined capital should be rebuilt and flourish once
again. To this end, with the help of God, events were brought about which
led to the Afnan's being buried here; and there is no doubt that a proud
city will rise up on this site. I wrote many letters about it, until at
last the holy dust could be laid to rest in this place. Siyyid Asadu'llah
would write me from Basra and I would answer him. One of the public
functionaries there was completely devoted to us, and I directed him to do
all he could. Siyyid Asadu'llah informed me from Ba_gh_dad that he was at
his wits' end, and had no idea where he could consign this body to the
grave. "Wherever I might bury it," he wrote, "they will dig it up again."
At last, praised be God, it was laid down in the very spot to which time
and again the Blessed Beauty had repaired; in that place honored by His
footsteps, where He had revealed Tablets, where the believers of Ba_gh_dad
had been in His company; that very place where the Most Great Name was
wont to stroll. How did this come about? It was due to the Afnan's purity
of heart. Lacking this, all those ways and means could never have been
brought to bear. Verily, God is the Mover of heaven and earth.
I loved the Afnan very much. Because of him, I rejoiced. I wrote a long
Visitation Tablet for him and sent it with other papers to Persia. His
burial site is one of the holy places where a magnificent
Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar must be raised up. If possible, the actual arch of
the royal palace should be restored and become the House of Worship. The
auxiliary buildings of the House of Worship should likewise be erected
there: the hospital, the schools and university, the elementary school,
the refuge for the poor and indigent; also the haven for orphans and the
helpless, and the travelers' hospice.
Gracious God! That royal edifice was once splendidly decked forth and
fair. But there are spiders' webs today, where hung the curtains of gold
brocade, and where the king's drums beat and his musicians played, the
only sound is the harsh cries of kites and crows. "This is verily the
capital of the owl's realm, where thou wilt hear no sound, save only the
echo of his repeated calls." That is how the barracks were, when we came
to Akka. There were a few trees inside the walls, and on their branches,
as well as up on the battlements, the owls cried all night long. How
disquieting is the hoot of an owl; how it saddens the heart.
From earliest youth until he grew helpless and old, that sacred bough of
the Holy Tree, with his smiling face, shone out like a lamp in the midst
of all. Then he leapt and soared to undying glory, and plunged into the
ocean of light. Upon him be the breathings of his Lord, the All-Merciful.
Upon him, lapped in the waters of grace and forgiveness, be the mercy and
favor of God.