In a State of Utmost Joy

*A retelling based on **The Summons of the Lord of Hosts** by Bahá'u'lláh, with details from **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi. Words in quotation marks are quoted from those texts.*

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"Know thou, O servant, that one day, upon awakening, We found the beloved of God at the mercy of Our adversaries. Sentinels were posted at every gate and no one was permitted to enter or leave."

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So Bahá'u'lláh described the morning in Adrianople, in the summer of 1868, when soldiers surrounded His house. Sultán 'Abdu'l-'Azíz had issued a strongly worded edict banishing Him to the penal colony of 'Akká. His followers were summoned by the authorities, questioned, and ordered to make ready to leave. On the first night, He wrote, the loved ones of God and His kindred were left without food.

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"The people surrounded the house, and Muslims and Christians wept over Us," Bahá'u'lláh wrote. "We perceived that the weeping of the people of the Son exceeded the weeping of others." Áqá Riḍá, one of the exiles, recorded that most of their possessions were auctioned at half their value. Some of the foreign consuls called on Bahá'u'lláh and offered to intervene with their governments on His behalf. He thanked them and firmly declined.

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Khurshíd Páshá, the governor, had several times denied the accusations sent to him from Constantinople and had interceded on Bahá'u'lláh's behalf. He was so embarrassed by his government's action that he stayed away when told of the departure, and left it to the Registrar to convey the Sultán's edict.

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One believer, Ḥájí Ja'far-i-Tabrízí, found that his name had been left off the list of those who might go with Bahá'u'lláh. He cut his throat with a razor, but was prevented in time from ending his life. Several pilgrims had reached Adrianople in those days, among them Ḥájí Muḥammad Ismá'íl-i-Káshání. They had to go on to Gallipoli without seeing their Master's face.

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On 12 August 1868 Bahá'u'lláh and His family set out in carriages, escorted by a Turkish captain, Ḥasan Effendi, and other soldiers, on the four-day journey to Gallipoli. They stopped at Üzün-Küprü and at the village of Káshánih. At Káshánih Bahá'u'lláh began the Súriy-i-Ra'ís, completed shortly afterward, which addresses the Ottoman Prime Minister, 'Álí Páshá, whose influence had played an important part in His banishments. Ra'ís means Chief.

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It begins: "Hearken, O Chief, to the voice of God, the Sovereign, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting." It warns him: "Neither thy grunting, nor the barking of those around thee, nor the opposition of the hosts of the world can withhold the Almighty from achieving His purpose." It charges him with conspiring with the Persian Ambassador to harm Bahá'u'lláh. It asks: "Hast thou imagined thyself capable of extinguishing the fire which God hath kindled in the heart of creation?" Because of what his hands had wrought, it says, the fire "blazed higher and burned more fiercely."

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It foretells that the Land of Mystery, Bahá'u'lláh's name for Adrianople, "and what is beside it shall be changed, and shall pass out of the hands of the King, and commotions shall appear, and the voice of lamentation shall be raised."

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Then the Tablet turns from the minister: "Forsake Thy mention of the Chief, O Pen, and call to remembrance Anís." Anís, the Companion, was one of the titles Bahá'u'lláh gave to Ḥájí Muḥammad Ismá'íl-i-Káshání, the pilgrim who had been sent on to Gallipoli, and the Tablet was revealed in his honour. The next lines read:

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"O nightingale! Incline thine ear unto the voice of the All-Glorious on this night when armed troops have surrounded Us while We remain in a state of utmost joy."

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Bahá'u'lláh goes on to tell of the sentinels at the gates, the first night without food, and the weeping crowd. He speaks of the companion who cut his throat, "an act unheard of in bygone centuries," which God had set apart for this Revelation as an evidence of the power of His might, and of God's forgiveness for such souls.

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"Say: This Youth hath departed out of this country and deposited beneath every tree and every stone a trust, which God will erelong bring forth through the power of truth." And: "Adversity is the oil which feedeth the flame of this Lamp and by which its light is increased, did ye but know."

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He calls the pilgrim by his other title, Dhabíh, the Sacrifice, and tells him: "Be thou patient, though thy heart be consumed in its separation from God, for He hath granted thee an exalted station in His presence. Nay, thou art even now standing before His face."

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At Gallipoli, when Ḥasan Effendi had done his duty and came to take his leave, Bahá'u'lláh said to him: "Tell the king that this territory will pass out of his hands, and his affairs will be thrown into confusion."

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According to Shoghi Effendi, 'Álí Páshá was dismissed from office a few years after Bahá'u'lláh's banishment to 'Akká, was shorn of all power, and sank into complete oblivion. In 1876 Sultán 'Abdu'l-'Azíz lost both his throne and his life, and in the war with Russia that followed, Adrianople was occupied by the enemy.

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*This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see **The Summons of the Lord of Hosts** by Bahá'u'lláh and **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi.*

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