rred upon all that is in
heaven and on earth, are hidden and treasured within these Cities.(16)

No overt reference is made to Baha'u'llah's own as yet unannounced
mission; rather, The Book of Certitude is organized around a vigorous
exposition of the mission of the martyred Bab. Not the least of the
reasons for the book's powerful influence on the Babi community, which
included a number of scholars and former seminarians, was the mastery of
Islamic thought and teaching its author displays in demonstrating the
Bab's claim to have fulfilled the prophecies of Islam. Calling on the
Babis to be worthy of the trust which the Bab had placed in them and of
the sacrifice of so many heroic lives, Baha'u'llah held out before them
the challenge not only of bringing their personal lives into conformity
with the Divine teachings, but of making their community a model for the
heterogeneous population of Baghdad, the Iraqi provincial capital.

Though living in very straitened material circumstances, the exiles were
galvanized by this vision. One of their company, a man called Nabil, who
was later to leave a detailed history of both the ministries of the Bab
and Baha'u'llah, has described the spiritual intensity of those days:

Many a night no less than ten persons subsisted on no more than a
pennyworth of dates. No one knew to whom actually belonged the shoes, the
cloaks, or the robes that were to be found in their houses. Whoever went
to the bazaar could claim that the shoes upon his feet were his own, and
each one who entered the presence of Baha'u'llah could affirm that the
cloak and robe he then wore belonged to him.... O, for the joy of those
days, and the gladness and wonder of those hours!(17)

To the dismay of the Persian consular authorities who had believed the
Babi "episode" to have run its course, the community of exiles gradually
became a respected and influential element in Iraq's provincial capital
and the neighboring towns. Since several of the most important shrines of
Shi'ih Islam were located in the area, a steady stream of Persian pilgrims
was also exposed, under the most favorable circumstances, to the renewal
of Babi influence. Among dignitaries who called on Baha'u'llah in the
simple house He occupied were princes of the royal family. So enchanted by
the experience was one of them that he conceived the somewhat naive idea
that by erecting a duplicate of the building in the gardens of his own
estate, he might r