The same tokens of devotion shown Bahá’u’lláh at the time of
His departure from His House, and later from the Garden of Ridván, were
repeated when…accompanied by members of His family and twenty-six of His
disciples, He left Firayját, His first stopping-place in the course of that
journey [to Constantinople] … In Kárkúk, in Irbíl, in Mosul, where He tarried
three days, in Nisíbín, in Mardín, in Díyár-Bakr, where a halt of a couple of
days was made, in Khárpút, in Sívas, as well as in other villages and hamlets,
He would be met by a delegation immediately before His arrival, and would be
accompanied, for some distance, by a similar delegation upon His departure. The
festivities which, at some stations, were held in His honor, the food the
villagers prepared and brought for His acceptance, the eagerness which time and
again they exhibited in providing the means for His comfort, recalled the
reverence which the people of Baghdád had shown Him on so many occasions.
- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
