As to the subterranean dungeon into which He [Baha’u’llah]
was thrown, and which originally had served as a reservoir of water for one of
the public baths of the capital, let His own words, recorded in His “Epistle to
the Son of the Wolf,” bear testimony to the ordeal which He endured in that pestilential
hole. “We were consigned for four months to a place foul beyond comparison....
Upon Our arrival We were first conducted along a pitch-black corridor, from
whence We descended three steep flights of stairs to the place of confinement
assigned to Us. The dungeon was wrapped in thick darkness, and Our
fellow-prisoners numbered nearly one hundred and fifty souls: thieves,
assassins and highwaymen. Though crowded, it had no other outlet than the
passage by which We entered. No pen can depict that place, nor any tongue
describe its loathsome smell. Most of those men had neither clothes nor bedding
to lie on. God alone knoweth what befell Us in that most foul-smelling and
gloomy place!”
- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
