For a full week a vast number of mourners, rich and poor
alike, tarried to grieve with the bereaved family, partaking day and night of
the food that was lavishly dispensed by its members. Notables, among whom were
numbered Shí’ahs, Sunnís, Christians, Jews and Druzes, as well as poets,
‘ulamás and government officials, all joined in lamenting the loss, and in
magnifying the virtues and greatness of Bahá’u’lláh, many of them paying to Him
their written tributes, in verse and in prose, in both Arabic and Turkish. From
cities as far afield as Damascus, Aleppo, Beirut and Cairo similar tributes
were received. These glowing testimonials were, without exception, submitted to
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Who now represented the Cause of the departed Leader, and Whose
praises were often mingled in these eulogies with the homage paid to His Father.
- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
