y would, as a result, be set afire. At such moments My
tongue recited what no man could bear to hear.(11)

EXILE

Eventually, still without trial or recourse, Baha'u'llah was released from
prison and immediately banished from His native land, His wealth and
properties arbitrarily confiscated. The Russian diplomatic representative,
who knew Him personally and who had followed the Babi persecutions with
growing distress, offered Him his protection and refuge in lands under the
control of his government. In the prevailing political climate, acceptance
of such help would almost certainly have been misrepresented by others as
having political implications.(12) Perhaps for this reason, Baha'u'llah
chose to accept banishment to the neighboring territory of Iraq, then
under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. This expulsion was the beginning of
forty years of exile, imprisonment, and bitter persecution.

In the years which immediately followed His departure from Persia,
Baha'u'llah gave priority to the needs of the Babi community which had
gathered in Baghdad, a task which had devolved on Him as the only
effective Babi leader to have survived the massacres. The death of the Bab
and the almost simultaneous loss of most of the young faith's teachers and
guides had left the body of the believers scattered and demoralized. When
His efforts to rally those who had fled to Iraq aroused jealousy and
dissension,(13) He followed the path that had been taken by all of the
Messengers of God gone before Him, and withdrew to the wilderness,
choosing for the purpose the mountain region of Kurdistan. His withdrawal,
as He later said, had "contemplated no return." Its reason "was to avoid
becoming a subject of discord among the faithful, a source of disturbance
unto Our companions." Although the two years spent in Kurdistan were a
period of intense privation and physical hardship, Baha'u'llah describes
them as a time of profound happiness during which He reflected deeply on
the message entrusted to Him: "Alone, We communed with Our spirit,
oblivious of the world and all that is therein."(14)

Only with great reluctance, believing it His responsibility to the cause
of the Bab, did He eventually accede to urgent messages from the remnant
of the desperate group of exiles in Baghdad who had discovered His
whereabouts and appealed to Him to return and assume the leadership of
their community.

Two of the most important volumes of Baha'u'll