“O King! We were in ‘Iráq, when the hour of parting arrived.
At the bidding of the King of Islám (Sultán of Turkey) We set Our steps in his
direction. Upon Our arrival, there befell Us at the hands
of the malicious that which the books of the world can never adequately
recount. Thereupon the inmates of Paradise, and they that dwell within the
retreats of holiness, lamented; and yet the people are wrapped in a thick
veil!”
And further We have said: “More grievous became Our plight
from day to day, nay, from hour to hour, until they took Us forth from Our
prison and made Us, with glaring injustice, enter the Most Great Prison. And if
anyone ask them: ‘For what crime were they imprisoned?’ they would answer and
say: ‘They, verily, sought to supplant the Faith with a new religion!’ If that
which is ancient be what ye prefer, wherefore, then, have ye discarded that
which hath been set down in the Torah and the Evangel? Clear it up, O men! By
My life! There is no place for you to flee to in this day. If this be My crime,
then Muhammad, the Apostle of God, committed it before Me, and before Him He
Who was the Spirit of God (Jesus Christ), and yet earlier He Who conversed with
God (Moses). And if My sin be this, that I have exalted the Word of God and
revealed His Cause, then indeed am I the greatest of sinners! Such a sin I will
not barter for the kingdoms of earth and heaven.” (Baha’u’llah, from a Tablet
to Napoleon, ‘Epistle to the
Son of the Wolf’)
