e verge of
extinction. Nor was the momentous Revelation vouchsafed to Baha'u'llah in
the Siyah-_Ch_al productive at once of any tangible results of a nature
that would exercise a stabilizing influence on a well-nigh disrupted
community. Baha'u'llah's unexpected banishment had been a further blow to
its members, who had learned to place their reliance upon Him. Mirza
Yahya's seclusion and inactivity further accelerated the process of
disintegration that had set in. Baha'u'llah's prolonged retirement to
Kurdistan seemed to have set the seal on its complete dissolution.

Now, however, the tide that had ebbed in so alarming a measure was
turning, bearing with it, as it rose to flood point, those inestimable
benefits that were to herald the announcement of the Revelation already
secretly disclosed to Baha'u'llah.

During the seven years that elapsed between the resumption of His labors
and the declaration of His prophetic mission--years to which we now direct
our attention--it would be no exaggeration to say that the Baha'i
community, under the name and in the shape of a re-arisen Babi community
was born and was slowly taking shape, though its Creator still appeared in
the guise of, and continued to labor as, one of the foremost disciples of
the Bab. It was a period during which the prestige of the community's
nominal head steadily faded from the scene, paling before the rising
splendor of Him Who was its actual Leader and Deliverer. It was a period
in the course of which the first fruits of an exile, endowed with
incalculable potentialities, ripened and were garnered. It was a period
that will go down in history as one during which the prestige of a
recreated community was immensely enhanced, its morals entirely reformed,
its recognition of Him who rehabilitated its fortunes enthusiastically
affirmed, its literature enormously enriched, and its victories over its
new adversaries universally acknowledged.

The prestige of the community, and particularly that of Baha'u'llah, now
began from its first inception in Kurdistan to mount in a steadily rising
crescendo. Baha'u'llah had scarcely gathered up again the reins of the
authority he had relinquished when the devout admirers He had left behind
in Sulaymaniyyih started to flock to Ba_gh_dad, with the name of
"Darvi_sh_ Muhammad" on their lips, and the "house of Mirza Musa the Babi"
as their goal. Astonished at the sight of so many 'ulamas and Sufis of
Kurdish origin, of both