e, like showers of mercy, rained upon Me.... How many the
nights during which the weight of chains and fetters allowed Me no rest,
and how numerous the days during which peace and tranquillity were denied
Me, by reason of that wherewith the hands and tongues of men have
afflicted Me! Both bread and water which Thou hast, through Thy
all-embracing mercy, allowed unto the beasts of the field, they have, for
a time, forbidden unto this servant, and the things they refused to
inflict upon such as have seceded from Thy Cause, the same have they
suffered to be inflicted upon Me, until, finally, Thy decree was
irrevocably fixed, and Thy behest summoned this servant to depart out of
Persia, accompanied by a number of frail-bodied men and children of tender
age, at this time when the cold is so intense that one cannot even speak,
and ice and snow so abundant that it is impossible to move."

Finally, on the 28th of Jamadiyu'_th_-_Th_ani 1269 A.H. (April 8, 1853),
Baha'u'llah arrived in Ba_gh_dad, the capital city of what was then the
Turkish province of 'Iraq. From there He proceeded, a few days after, to
Kazimayn, about three miles north of the city, a town inhabited chiefly by
Persians, and where the two Kazims, the seventh and the ninth Imams, are
buried. Soon after His arrival the representative of the _Sh_ah's
government, stationed in Ba_gh_dad, called on Him, and suggested that it
would be advisable for Him, in view of the many visitors crowding that
center of pilgrimage, to establish His residence in Old Ba_gh_dad, a
suggestion with which He readily concurred. A month later, towards the end
of Rajab, He rented the house of Haji 'Ali Madad, in an old quarter of the
city, into which He moved with His family.

In that city, described in Islamic traditions as "Zahru'l-Kufih,"
designated for centuries as the "Abode of Peace," and immortalized by
Baha'u'llah as the "City of God," He, except for His two year retirement
to the mountains of Kurdistan and His occasional visits to Najaf, Karbila
and Kazimayn, continued to reside until His banishment to Constantinople.
To that city the Qur'an had alluded as the "Abode of Peace" to which God
Himself "calleth." To it, in that same Book, further allusion had been
made in the verse "For them is a Dwelling of Peace with their Lord ... on
the Day whereon God shall gather them all together." From it radiated,
wave after wave, a power, a radiance and a glory which insensibly
reanimated a lang