itself, in the solitude of a self-imposed exile (many of them, alas lost
to posterity) are, with the Tablet of Kullu't-Ta'am and the poem entitled
Ra_sh_h-i-'Ama, revealed in Tihran, the first fruits of His Divine Pen.
They are the forerunners of those immortal works--the Kitab-i-Iqan, the
Hidden Words and the Seven Valleys--which in the years preceding His
Declaration in Ba_gh_dad, were to enrich so vastly the steadily swelling
volume of His writings, and which paved the way for a further flowering of
His prophetic genius in His epoch-making Proclamation to the world,
couched in the form of mighty Epistles to the kings and rulers of mankind,
and finally for the last fruition of His Mission in the Laws and
Ordinances of His Dispensation formulated during His confinement in the
Most Great Prison of Akka.

Baha'u'llah was still pursuing His solitary existence on that mountain
when a certain _Sh_ay_kh_, a resident of Sulaymaniyyih, who owned a
property in that neighborhood, sought Him out, as directed in a dream he
had of the Prophet Muhammad. Shortly after this contact was established,
_Sh_ay_kh_ Isma'il, the leader of the _Kh_alidiyyih Order, who lived in
Sulaymaniyyih, visited Him, and succeeded, after repeated requests, in
obtaining His consent to transfer His residence to that town. Meantime His
friends in Ba_gh_dad had discovered His whereabouts, and had dispatched
_Sh_ay_kh_ Sultan, the father-in-law of Aqay-i-Kalim, to beg Him to
return; and it was now while He was living in Sulaymaniyyih, in a room
belonging to the Takyiy-i-Mawlana _Kh_alid (theological seminary) that
their messenger arrived. "I found," this same _Sh_ay_kh_ Sultan,
recounting his experiences to Nabil, has stated, "all those who lived with
Him in that place, from their Master down to the humblest neophyte, so
enamoured of, and carried away by their love for Baha'u'llah, and so
unprepared to contemplate the possibility of His departure that I felt
certain that were I to inform them of the purpose of my visit, they would
not have hesitated to put an end to my life."

Not long after Baha'u'llah's arrival in Kurdistan, _Sh_ay_kh_ Sultan has
related, He was able, through His personal contacts with _Sh_ay_kh_
U_th_man, _Sh_ay_kh_ 'Abdu'r-Rahman, and _Sh_ay_kh_ Isma'il, the honored
and undisputed leaders of the Naq_sh_bandiyyih, the Qadiriyyih and the
_Kh_alidiyyih Orders respectively, to win their hearts completely and
establish His ascendancy over them.