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| Mirza Taqi Khan |
"I am well aware of the nature and influence of your
activities, and am firmly convinced that
were it not for the support and assistance which you have extended to Mulla
Husayn and his companions, neither he nor his band of inexperienced students
would have been capable of resisting for seven months the forces of the
imperial government. The ability and
skill with which you have managed to direct and encourage those efforts could
not fail to excite my admiration, but I have been unable to obtain any evidence
whereby I could establish your complicity in this affair. I feel it a pity that
so resourceful a person should not be given an opportunity to serve his country
and sovereign. The thought has come to me to suggest that you visit Karbila in
these days when the Shah is contemplating a visit to Isfahan. It is my
intention to be enabled, upon your return, to confer upon you the position of
Amir-Divan (Head of the Court) a function you could admirably discharge." (‘The Dawn-Breakers’)
Although couched politely, this was tantamount to an order
by the Prime Minister.
Bahá’u’lláh courteously refused to accept the position but
advised Mírzá Taqí Khán of His wish to go on pilgrimage to the holy cities of
'Iraq. Many years later, Baha'u'llah told Nabil-i-A'zam: 'Had the Amir-Nizam
been aware of My true position, he would certainly have laid hold on Me. He
exerted the utmost effort to discover the real situation, but was unsuccessful.
God wished him to be ignorant of it.' (God Passes By)
The immediacy of departure had not been specified at that
momentous interview. But a few short days of preparation and of farewells to
the family, relatives and friends were necessary before Baha’u’llah could
depart, accompanied only by kinsmen Shukru'llah of Nur and Muhammad of
Mazindaran, a survivor of Fort Shaykh Tabarsi. Bahá’u’lláh left the capital for
Karbilá sometime during the month of June in the year 1851.
Left behind was a grieving and worried family, keenly aware
of the official nature of his exile but unsure of the true plans of the
dangerous Taqi Khan (the Prime Minister), who might easily be plotting
Baha’u’llah’s death in Iraq, far from His loyal relatives and friends.
The dusty road led westward to Kirmanshah across the
four-thousand-foot Iranian plateau ribbed with its mountain spines; there
Baha’u’llah spent the month of Ramadan, the Islamic period of fasting, before
continuing the journey to Baghdad.
(Adapted from ‘Baha’u’llah, the King of
Glory’, by Balyuzi; ‘Robe of Light, vol. 1’, by David Ruhe; and ‘The
Dawn-Breakers’, by Nabil, translated and edited by Shoghi Effendi)
