Home from Sulaymáníyyih

After two years in the mountains of Sulaymáníyyih, Bahá’u’lláh returned to His family in Baghdad in 1856. His daughter Bahíyyih Khánum, the Greatest Holy Leaf, remembered the day in the recollections recorded by Lady Blomfield:

My mother had made a coat for Him out of some pieces of precious Persian stuff (Tirmih - red cloth), which she had carefully kept for the purpose out of the remains of her marriage treasures. It was now ready for Him to put on. At last! At last! As my mother, my brother, and I sat in a breathless state of expectancy, we heard a step. It was a dervish. Through the disguise we saw the light of our beloved one's presence! Our joy cannot be described as we clung to Him. I can see now my beloved mother, calm and gentle, and my brother holding His father's hand fast, as though never again could He let Him go out of His sight, the lovely boy almost enfolded in the uncouth garment of the dervish disguise. I could never forget this scene, so touching and so happy.

Many were the incidents of that two years' sojourn in the wilderness, which were told to us; we were never tired of listening. The food was easy to describe - coarse bread, a little cheese was the usual diet; sometimes, but very rarely, a cup of milk; into this would be put some rice, and a tiny bit of sugar. When boiled together, these scanty rations provided the great treat of a sort of rice pudding.

Source: Lady Blomfield, The Chosen Highway, Part II, 'Bahá'u'lláh: A Spoken Chronicle', ch. III, 'Baghdad' (the recollections of Bahíyyih Khánum).

Collected from bahaistories.com (Subject: bahaullah-sulaymaniyyih).

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