The Winter Journey to Baghdad

On 12 January 1853 Bahá’u’lláh, banished from Persia, set out from Ṭihrán for Baghdad with members of His family, among them His wife, Navváb, His nine-year-old son, later known as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and His seven-year-old daughter, Bahíyyih Khánum.

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From January to April, through the worst part of winter, with small children, and elderly relatives, with insufficient food and inappropriate clothing they struggled through the freezing mountain ranges. It was so bitterly cold that they could not speak; there was so much snow, wind and ice that at times they could not move. But the hand of Almighty God was over them throughout that perishing, awful journey and with His unfailing protection, they finally arrived in Baghdad.

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In a prayer revealed at that time Bahá’u’lláh wrote that He had been summoned “to depart out of Persia, accompanied by a number of frail-bodied men and children of tender age, at this time when the cold is so intense that one cannot even speak, and ice and snow so abundant that it is impossible to move.”

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