We Refuse to Be Separated
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When in Bahá'í history
Gallipoli (today: Gelibolu, Turkey)
Bahíyyih Khánum, the daughter of Bahá’u’lláh, recalls the exiles’ journey from Adrianople in 1868, in the account recorded by Myron H. Phelps.
We journeyed six days, and arrived at Gallipoli, which is on the sea. On our arrival at this town we were met with the information that the Governor had a telegraphic order from the Sultan's government directing our separation; that my father with one servant was to go to one place, my brother with one servant to another, the family to Constantinople, the other followers to various places. This sudden and unexplained withdrawal of the hard-won concession we had so recently obtained exhausted our patience. We unhesitatingly declared that we would not be separated, and a repetition, in substance, of the events of the last days in Adrianople followed. My brother went to the Governor and told him that we would not submit to separation. 'Do this,' said he, - 'take us out on a steamer and drown us in the ocean. You can thus end at once our sufferings and your perplexities. But we refuse to be separated.' We remained in Gallipoli for a week, in the same horrible suspense which we had experienced at Adrianople. Finally my brother, by his eloquence in argument and power of will, succeeded in gaining for the second time from the Constantinople government the concession that we should remain together.
Source: Myron H. Phelps, Life and Teachings of Abbas Effendi (1903), pp. 52–53 (Bahíyyih Khánum’s narrative)
Collected from bahaistories.com (Subject: bahaullah-exile).
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