The Red Roan Stallion

*A retelling based on **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi (chapter IX), which draws on the eyewitness chronicle of Nabíl. Words in quotation marks are from that book.*

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On the afternoon of 22 April 1863, with an order for His removal to Constantinople in His hands, Bahá'u'lláh was ferried across the Tigris to the Najíbíyyih Garden, which His followers came to call the Garden of Riḍván. He stayed there twelve days. His friends and companions came out from Baghdád in successive waves to say farewell, and in that garden He declared to His companions that He was the One Whose coming the Báb had foretold.

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At noon on 3 May He left the garden to begin a journey of about four months to the Ottoman capital. Shoghi Effendi writes that the departure "witnessed scenes of tumultuous enthusiasm no less spectacular, and even more touching, than those which greeted Him when leaving His Most Great House in Baghdád." An eyewitness recalled: "Believers and unbelievers alike sobbed and lamented. The chiefs and notables who had congregated were struck with wonder."

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He rode "a red roan stallion of the finest breed, the best His lovers could purchase for Him," and left behind Him "a bowing multitude of fervent admirers." Nabíl, who saw it, wrote: "Numerous were the heads which, on every side, bowed to the dust at the feet of His horse, and kissed its hoofs, and countless were those who pressed forward to embrace His stirrups." A fellow-traveller added: "How great the number of those embodiments of fidelity who, casting themselves before that charger, preferred death to separation from their Beloved!"

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Bahá'u'lláh Himself wrote that it was God "Who enabled Me to depart out of the city (Baghdád), clothed with such majesty as none, except the denier and the malicious, can fail to acknowledge." Such marks of homage, Shoghi Effendi records, "continued to surround Him until He was installed in Constantinople."

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*This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi.*

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