ut, and ye still failed to give heed! Be
expectant, however, for the wrath of God is ready to overtake you. Erelong
will ye behold that which hath been sent down from the Pen of My command."

"By your deeds," He, in another Tablet, anticipating the fall of the
Sultanate and the Caliphate, thus reproves the combined forces of Sunni
and _Sh_i'ih Islam, "the exalted station of the people hath been abased,
the standard of Islam hath been reversed, and its mighty throne hath
fallen."

And finally, in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, revealed soon after Baha'u'llah's
banishment to Akka, He thus apostrophizes the seat of Turkish imperial
power: "O Spot that art situate on the shores of the two seas! The throne
of tyranny hath, verily, been stablished upon thee, and the flame of
hatred hath been kindled within thy bosom.... Thou art indeed filled with
manifest pride. Hath thine outward splendor made thee vainglorious? By Him
Who is the Lord of mankind! It shall soon perish, and thy daughters, and
thy widows, and all the kindreds that dwell within thee shall lament. Thus
informeth thee, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise."

Indeed, in a most remarkable passage in the Lawh-i-Fu'ad, wherein mention
has been made of the death of Fu'ad Pa_sh_a, the Turkish Minister of
Foreign Affairs, the fall of the Sultan himself is unmistakably foretold:
"Soon will We dismiss the one who was like unto him, and will lay hold on
their Chief who ruleth the land, and I, verily, am the Almighty, the
All-Compelling."

The Sultan's reaction to these words, bearing upon his person, his empire,
his throne, his capital, and his ministers, can be gathered from the
recital of the sufferings he inflicted on Baha'u'llah, and already
referred to in the beginning of these pages. The extinction of the
"outward splendor" surrounding that proud seat of Imperial power is the
theme I now proceed to expose.

THE DOOM OF IMPERIAL TURKEY

A cataclysmic process, one of the most remarkable in modern history, was
set in motion ever since Baha'u'llah, while a prisoner in Constantinople,
delivered to a Turkish official His Tablet, addressed to Sultan
'Abdu'l-'Aziz and his ministers, to be transmitted to 'Ali Pa_sh_a, the
Grand Vizir. It was this Tablet which, as attested by that officer and
affirmed by Nabil in his chronicle, affected the Vizir so profoundly that
he paled while reading it. This process received fresh impetus after the
Lawh-i-Ra'is was revealed on the morrow of