Exile
Eventually,
still without trial or recourse, Bahá’u’lláh was released from prison and
immediately banished from His native land, His wealth and properties arbitrarily
confiscated. The Russian diplomatic representative, who knew Him personally and
who had followed the Bábí persecutions with growing distress, offered Him his
protection and refuge in lands under the control of his government.
In the prevailing political climate, acceptance of such help would almost
certainly have been misrepresented by others as having political implications.12
Perhaps for this reason, Bahá’u’lláh chose to accept banishment to the
neighboring territory of Iraq, then under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. This
expulsion was the beginning of forty years of exile, imprisonment, and bitter
persecution.
In the years which immediately
followed His departure from Persia, Bahá’u’lláh gave priority to the needs of
the Bábí community which had gathered in Baghdad, a task which had devolved on
Him as the only effective Bábí leader to have survived the massacres. The death
of the Báb and the almost simultaneous loss of most of the young faith's
teachers and guides had left the body of the believers scattered and
demoralized. When His efforts to rally those who had fled to Iraq
aroused jealousy and dissension,13
He followed the path that had been taken by all of the Messengers of God gone
before Him, and withdrew to the wilderness, choosing for the purpose the
mountain region of Kurdistan. His withdrawal, as He later said, had
“contemplated no return.” Its reason “was to avoid becoming a subject of discord
among the faithful, a source of disturbance unto Our companions.” Although the
two years spent in Kurdistan were a period of intense privation and physical
hardship, Bahá’u’lláh describes them as a time of profound happiness during
which He reflected deeply on the message entrusted to Him:
“Alone, We communed with Our spirit, oblivious of the world and all that is
therein.”14
Only with great reluctance, believing it
His responsibility to the cause of the Báb, did He eventually accede to urgent
messages from the remnant of the desperate group of exiles in Baghdad who had
discovered His whereabouts and appealed to Him to return and assume the
leadership of their community.
Two of the most important volumes of
Bahá’u’lláh’s writings date from this first period of exile, preceding the
declaration of His mission in 1863. The first of these is a small book which He
named The Hidden Words. Written in the form of a compilation of moral
aphorisms, the volume represents the ethical heart of Bahá’u’lláh’s message. In
verses which Bahá’u’lláh describes as a distillation of the spiritual guidance
of all the Revelations of the past, the voice of God speaks directly to the
human soul:
O Son
of Spirit!
The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn
not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in
thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of
others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of
thy neighbor. Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be. Verily
justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then
before thine eyes.
O
Son of Being!
Love Me that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, My love
can in no wise reach thee. Know this, O servant.
O
Son of Man!
Sorrow not save that thou art far from Us. Rejoice not save
that thou art drawing near and returning unto Us.
O
Son of Being!
With the hands of power I made thee and with the fingers of
strength I created thee; and within thee have I placed the essence of My light.
Be thou content with it and seek naught else, for My work is perfect and My
command is binding. Question it not, nor have a doubt thereof.
15
The second of the two major works
composed by Bahá’u’lláh during this period is The Book of Certitude, a
comprehensive exposition of the nature and purpose of religion. In passages that
draw not only on the Qur'an, but with equal facility and insight on the Old and
New Testaments, the Messengers of God are depicted as agents of a single,
unbroken process, the awakening of the human race to its spiritual and moral
potentialities. A humanity which has come of age can respond to a directness of
teaching that goes beyond the language of parable and allegory; faith is a
matter not of blind belief, but of conscious knowledge. Nor is the guidance of
an ecclesiastical elite any longer required: the gift of reason confers on each
individual in this new age of enlightenment and education the capacity to
respond to Divine guidance. The test is that of sincerity:
No man shall attain the
shores of the ocean of true understanding except he be detached from all that is
in heaven and on earth.... The essence of these words is this: they that tread
the path of faith, they that thirst for the wine of certitude, must cleanse
themselves of all that is earthly – their ears from idle talk, their minds from
vain imaginings, their hearts from worldly affections, their eyes from that
which perisheth. They should put their trust in God, and, holding fast unto Him,
follow in His way. Then will they be made worthy of the effulgent glories of the
sun of divine knowledge and understanding, ... inasmuch as man can never hope to
attain unto the knowledge of the All-Glorious ... unless and until he ceases to
regard the words and deeds of mortal men as a standard for the true
understanding and recognition of God and His Prophets.
Consider the past. How
many, both high and low, have, at all times, yearningly awaited the advent of
the Manifestations of God in the sanctified persons of His chosen Ones.... And
whensoever the portals of grace did open, and the clouds of divine bounty did
rain upon mankind, and the light of the Unseen did shine above the horizon of
celestial might, they all denied Him, and turned away from His face – the face
of God Himself....
Only when the lamp of
search, of earnest striving, of longing desire, of passionate devotion, of
fervid love, of rapture, and ecstasy, is kindled within the seeker's heart, and
the breeze of His loving-kindness is wafted upon his soul, will the darkness of
error be dispelled, the mists of doubts and misgivings be dissipated, and the
lights of knowledge and certitude envelop his being.... Then will the manifold
favors and outpouring grace of the holy and everlasting Spirit confer such new
life upon the seeker that he will find himself endowed with a new eye, a new
ear, a new heart, and a new mind.... Gazing with the eye of God, he will
perceive within every atom a door that leadeth him to the stations of absolute
certitude. He will discover in all things the ... evidences of an everlasting
Manifestation.
When the
channel of the human soul is cleansed of all worldly and impeding attachments,
it will unfailingly perceive the breath of the Beloved across immeasurable
distances, and will, led by its perfume, attain and enter the City of
Certitude....
That city is none other
than the Word of God revealed in every age and dispensation.... All the
guidance, the blessings, the learning, the understanding, the faith, and
certitude, conferred upon all that is in heaven and on earth, are hidden and
treasured within these Cities.
16
No overt reference is made to
Bahá’u’lláh's own as yet unannounced mission; rather, The Book of Certitude
is organized around a vigorous exposition of the mission of the martyred Báb.
Not the least of the reasons for the book's powerful influence on the Bábí
community, which included a number of scholars and former seminarians, was the
mastery of Islamic thought and teaching its author displays in demonstrating the
Báb's claim to have fulfilled the prophecies of Islam. Calling on the Bábís to
be worthy of the trust which the Báb had placed in them and of the sacrifice of
so many heroic lives, Bahá’u’lláh held out before them the challenge not only of
bringing their personal lives into conformity with the Divine teachings, but of
making their community a model for the heterogeneous population of Baghdad, the
Iraqi provincial capital.
Though living in very straitened
material circumstances, the exiles were galvanized by this vision. One of their
company, a man called Nabil, who was later to leave a detailed history of both
the ministries of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh, has described the spiritual intensity
of those days:
Many
a night no less than ten persons subsisted on no more than a pennyworth of
dates. No one knew to whom actually belonged the shoes, the cloaks, or the robes
that were to be found in their houses. Whoever went to the bazaar could claim
that the shoes upon his feet were his own, and each one who entered the presence
of Bahá’u’lláh could affirm that the cloak and robe he then wore belonged to
him.... O, for the joy of those days, and the gladness and wonder of those
hours!
17
To the dismay of the Persian consular
authorities who had believed the Bábí “episode” to have run its course, the
community of exiles gradually became a respected and influential element in
Iraq’s provincial capital and the neighboring towns. Since several of the most
important shrines of Shi’ih Islam were located in the area, a steady stream of
Persian pilgrims was also exposed, under the most favorable circumstances, to
the renewal of Bábí influence. Among dignitaries who called on Bahá’u’lláh in
the simple house He occupied were princes of the royal family. So enchanted by
the experience was one of them that he conceived the somewhat naive idea that by
erecting a duplicate of the building in the gardens of his own estate, he might
recapture something of the atmosphere of spiritual purity and detachment he had
briefly encountered. Another, more deeply moved by the experience
of his visit, expressed to friends the feeling that “were all the sorrows of the
world to be crowded into my heart they would, I feel, all vanish, when in the
presence of Bahá’u’lláh. It is as if I had entered Paradise...”
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