s would, immediately upon arrival in
Constantinople, join the throngs of patronage-seekers in the reception
rooms of the pashas and ministers of the imperial court. No element had a
worse reputation than the competing groups of Persian political exiles who
were known for both their sophistication and their lack of scruple.

To the distress of friends who urged Him to make use of the prevailing
hostility toward the Persian government and of the sympathy which His own
sufferings had aroused, Baha'u'llah made it clear that He had no requests
to make. Although several government ministers made social calls at the
residence assigned to Him, he did not take advantage of these openings. He
was in Constantinople, He said, as the guest of the Sultan, at his
invitation, and His interest lay in spiritual and moral concerns.

Many years later, the Persian ambassador, Mirza Husayn _Kh_an, reflecting
on his tour of duty in the Ottoman capital, and complaining about the
damage which the greed and untrustworthiness of his countrymen had done to
Persia's reputation in Constantinople, paid a surprisingly candid tribute
to the example which Baha'u'llah's conduct had been able briefly to
set.(70) At the time, however, he and his colleagues made use of the
situation to represent it as an astute way on the exile's part of
concealing secret conspiracies against public security and the religion of
the State. Under pressure of these influences, the Ottoman authorities
finally took the decision to transfer Baha'u'llah and His family to the
provincial city of Adrianople. The move was made hastily, in the depth of
an extremely severe winter. Housed there in inadequate buildings, lacking
suitable clothing and other provisions, the exiles endured a year of great
suffering. It was clear that, though charged with no crime and given no
opportunity to defend themselves, they had arbitrarily been made state
prisoners.

From the point of view of religious history, the successive banishments of
Baha'u'llah to Constantinople and Adrianople have a striking symbolism.
For the first time, a Manifestation of God, Founder of an independent
religious system which was soon to spread throughout the planet, had
crossed the narrow neck of water separating Asia from Europe, and had set
foot in "the West." All of the other great religions had arisen in Asia
and the ministries of their Founders had been confined to that continent.
Referring to the fact that the dispens