…the fate that has overtaken those kings, ministers and
ecclesiastics, in the East as well as in the West, who have, at various stages
of Bahá’u’lláh’s ministry, either deliberately persecuted His Cause, or have
neglected to heed the warnings He had uttered, or have failed in their manifest
duty to respond to His summons or to accord Him and His message the treatment
they deserved, particular attention… Bahá’u’lláh Himself, referring to those
who had actively arisen to destroy or harm His Faith, had declared that “God
hath not blinked, nor will He ever blink His eyes at the tyranny of the
oppressor. More particularly in this Revelation hath He visited each and every
tyrant with His vengeance.” Vast and awful is, indeed, the spectacle which
meets our eyes, as we survey the field over which the retributory winds of God
have, since the inception of the ministry of Bahá’u’lláh, furiously swept,
dethroning monarchs, extinguishing dynasties, uprooting ecclesiastical
hierarchies, precipitating wars and revolutions, driving from office princes and
ministers, dispossessing the usurper, casting down the tyrant, and chastising
the wicked and the rebellious.
- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
