…[Baha’u’llah’s public] Proclamation was made at a time when
the Faith was in the throes of a crisis of extreme violence, and it was in the
main addressed to the kings of the earth, and to the Christian and Muslim
ecclesiastical leaders who, by virtue of their immense prestige, ascendancy and
authority, assumed an appalling and inescapable responsibility for the
immediate destinies of their subjects and followers.
The initial phase of that Proclamation may be said to have
opened in Constantinople with the communication (the text of which we, alas, do
not possess) addressed by Bahá’u’lláh to Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz himself, the
self-styled vicar of the Prophet of Islám and the absolute ruler of a mighty
empire. So potent, so august a personage was the first among the sovereigns of
the world to receive the Divine Summons, and the first among Oriental monarchs
to sustain the impact of God’s retributive justice. The occasion for this
communication was provided by the infamous edict the Sultán had promulgated,
less than four months after the arrival of the exiles in his capital, banishing
them, suddenly and without any justification whatsoever, in the depth of
winter, and in the most humiliating circumstances, to Adrianople, situated on
the extremities of his empire.
- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
