A fast ebbing life, so crowded with the accumulated
anxieties, disappointments, treacheries and sorrows of a tragic ministry, now
moved swiftly towards its climax. The most turbulent period of the Heroic Age
of the new Dispensation was rapidly attaining its culmination. The cup of
bitter woes which the Herald of that Dispensation had tasted was now full to
overflowing. Indeed, He Himself had already foreshadowed His own approaching
death. In the Kitáb-i-Panj-Sha’n, one of His last works, He had alluded to the
fact that the sixth Naw-Rúz after the declaration of His mission would be the
last He was destined to celebrate on earth. In His interpretation of the letter
Há, He had voiced His craving for martyrdom, while in the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá He had
actually prophesied the inevitability of such a consummation of His glorious
career. Forty days before His final departure from Chihríq He had even
collected all the documents in His possession, and placed them, together with
His pen-case, His seals and His rings, in the hands of Mullá Báqir, a Letter of
the Living, whom He instructed to entrust them to Mullá
‘Abdu’l-Karím-i-Qazvíní, surnamed Mírzá Aḥmad, who was to deliver them to
Bahá’u’lláh in Tihrán.
- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
