The Báb’s return to His native land (Safar 1261) (February-
March, 1845) was the signal for a commotion that rocked the entire country. The
fire which the declaration of His mission had lit was being fanned into flame
through the dispersal and activities of His appointed disciples. Already within
the space of less than two years it had kindled the passions of friend and foe
alike. The outbreak of the conflagration did not even await the return to His
native city of the One Who had generated it. The implications of a Revelation,
thrust so dramatically upon a race so degenerate, so inflammable in temper,
could indeed have had no other consequence than to excite within men’s bosoms
the fiercest passions of fear, of hate, of rage and envy.
(Shoghi Effendi, ‘God
Passes By’)
