Already in the lifetime of Baha'u'llah, and later during the ministry of
'Abdu'l-Baha, the first blows of a slow yet steady and relentless
retribution were falling alike upon the rulers of the Turkish House of
U_th_man and of the Qajar dynasty in Persia--the archenemies of God's
infant Faith. Sultan 'Abdu'l-'Aziz fell from power, and was murdered soon
after Baha'u'llah's banishment from Adrianople, while Nasiri'd-Din _Sh_ah
succumbed to an assassin's pistol, during 'Abdu'l-Baha's incarceration in
the fortress-town of Akka. It was reserved, however, for the Formative
Period of the Faith of God--the Age of the birth and rise of its
Administrative Order--which, as stated in a previous communication, is
through its unfoldment casting such a turmoil in the world, to witness not
only the extinction of both of these dynasties, but also the abolition of
the twin institutions of the Sultanate and the Caliphate.
Of the two despots 'Abdu'l-'Aziz was the more powerful, the more exalted
in rank, the more preeminent in guilt, and the more concerned with the
tribulations and fortunes of the Founder of our Faith. He it was who,
through his farmans, had thrice banished Baha'u'llah, and in whose
dominions the Manifestation of God spent almost the whole of His forty
years' captivity. It was during his reign and that of his nephew and
successor, 'Abdu'l-Hamid II, that the Center of the Covenant of God had to
endure, for no less than forty years, in the fortress-town of Akka, an
incarceration fraught with so many perils, affronts and privations.
"Hearken, O king!" is the summons issued to Sultan 'Abdu'l-'Aziz by
Baha'u'llah, "to the speech of Him that speaketh the truth, Him that doth
not ask thee to recompense Him with the things God hath chosen to bestow
upon thee, Him Who unerringly treadeth the Straight Path.... Observe, O
king, with thine inmost heart and with thy whole being, the precepts of
God, and walk not in the paths of the oppressor.... Place not thy reliance
on thy treasures. Put thy whole confidence in the grace of God, thy
Lord.... Overstep not the bounds of moderation, and deal justly with them
that serve thee.... Set before thine eyes God's unerring Balance, and, as
one standing in His presence, weigh in that Balance thine actions, every
day, every moment of thy life. Bring thyself to account ere thou art
summoned to a reckoning, on the Day when no man shall have strength to
stand for fear of God, the Day when the hearts of the heedless ones shall
be made to tremble."
"The day is approaching," Baha'u'llah thus prophesies in the Lawh-i-Ra'is,
"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, and the evidences of
mischief shall be revealed on all sides, and confusion shall spread by
reason of that which hath befallen these captives at the hands of the
hosts of oppression. 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."
"Soon," He, moreover has written, "will He 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 none to
help or succor you.... Several times calamities have overtaken you, and
yet ye failed utterly to take heed. One of them was the conflagration
which devoured most of the City [Constantinople] with the flames of
justice, and concerning which many poems were written, stating that no
such fire had ever been witnessed. And yet, ye waxed more heedless....
Plague, likewise, broke out, and ye still failed to give heed! 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."
"By your deeds," He, in another Tablet, anticipating the fall of the
Sultanate and the Caliphate, thus reproves the combined forces of Sunni
and _Sh_i'ih Islam, "the exalted station of the people hath been abased,
the standard of Islam hath been reversed, and its mighty throne hath
fallen."
And finally, in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, revealed soon after Baha'u'llah's
banishment to Akka, He thus apostrophizes the seat of Turkish imperial
power: "O Spot that art situate on the shores of the two seas! The throne
of tyranny hath, verily, been stablished upon thee, and the flame of
hatred hath been kindled within thy bosom.... 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."
Indeed, in a most remarkable passage in the Lawh-i-Fu'ad, wherein mention
has been made of the death of Fu'ad Pa_sh_a, the Turkish Minister of
Foreign Affairs, the fall of the Sultan himself is unmistakably foretold:
"Soon will We dismiss the one who was like unto him, and will lay hold on
their Chief who ruleth the land, and I, verily, am the Almighty, the
All-Compelling."
The Sultan's reaction to these words, bearing upon his person, his empire,
his throne, his capital, and his ministers, can be gathered from the
recital of the sufferings he inflicted on Baha'u'llah, and already
referred to in the beginning of these pages. The extinction of the
"outward splendor" surrounding that proud seat of Imperial power is the
theme I now proceed to expose.