or was any heart receptive to its
message." Such was the sadness that overwhelmed Him on His arrival that He
refused for some time to leave His house, except for His visits to
Kazimayn and for His occasional meeting with a few of His friends who
resided in that town and in Ba_gh_dad.

The tragic situation that had developed in the course of His two years'
absence now imperatively demanded His return. "From the Mystic Source," He
Himself explains in the Kitab-i-Iqan, "there came the summons bidding Us
return whence We came. Surrendering Our will to His, We submitted to His
injunction." "By God besides Whom there is none other God!" is His
emphatic assertion to _Sh_ay_kh_ Sultan, as reported by Nabil in his
narrative, "But for My recognition of the fact that the blessed Cause of
the Primal Point was on the verge of being completely obliterated, and all
the sacred blood poured out in the path of God would have been shed in
vain, I would in no wise have consented to return to the people of the
Bayan, and would have abandoned them to the worship of the idols their
imaginations had fashioned."

Mirza Yahya, realizing full well to what a pass his unrestrained
leadership of the Faith had brought him, had, moreover, insistently and in
writing, besought Him to return. No less urgent were the pleadings of His
own kindred and friends, particularly His twelve-year old Son,
'Abdu'l-Baha, Whose grief and loneliness had so consumed His soul that, in
a conversation recorded by Nabil in his narrative, He had avowed that
subsequent to the departure of Baha'u'llah He had in His boyhood grown
old.

Deciding to terminate the period of His retirement Baha'u'llah bade
farewell to the _sh_ay_kh_s of Sulaymaniyyih, who now numbered among His
most ardent and, as their future conduct demonstrated, staunchest
admirers. Accompanied by _Sh_ay_kh_ Sultan, He retraced His steps to
Ba_gh_dad, on "the banks of the River of Tribulations," as He Himself
termed it, proceeding by slow stages, realizing, as He declared to His
fellow-traveler, that these last days of His retirement would be "the only
days of peace and tranquillity" left to Him, "days which will never again
fall to My lot."

On the 12th of Rajab 1272 A.H. (March 19, 1856) He arrived in Ba_gh_dad,
exactly two lunar years after His departure for Kurdistan.

Chapter VIII: Baha'u'llah's Banishment to 'Iraq (Continued)

The return of Baha'u'llah from Sulaymaniyyih to Ba_gh_dad marks a