Was it not He [Baha’u’llah] Who, at the early age of
twenty-seven, spontaneously arose to champion, in the capacity of a mere
follower, the nascent Cause of the Báb? Was He not the One Who by assuming the
actual leadership of a proscribed and harrassed sect exposed Himself, and His
kindred, and His possessions, and His rank, and His reputation to the grave
perils, the bloody assaults, the general spoliation and furious defamations of
both government and people? Was it not He—the Bearer of a Revelation, Whose day
“every Prophet hath announced,” for which “the soul of every Divine Messenger
hath thirsted,” and in which “God hath proved the hearts of the entire company
of His Messengers and Prophets”—was not the Bearer of such a Revelation, at the
instigation of Shí’ih ecclesiastics and by order of the Sháh
himself forced, for no less than four months, to breathe, in utter darkness,
whilst in the company of the vilest criminals and freighted down with galling
chains, the pestilential air of the vermin-infested subterranean dungeon of Ṭihrán—a place which, as He Himself subsequently declared, was
mysteriously converted into the very scene of the annunciation made to Him by
God of His Prophethood?
- Shoghi Effendi (from a letter dated 28 March 1941;
‘The Promised Day Is Come’)
