n stigmatized, in
the Kitab-i-Aqdas, as occupying the "throne of tyranny," and whose fall
had been prophesied in the Lawh-i-Fu'ad, was deposed in consequence of a
palace revolution, was condemned by a fatva (sentence) of the Mufti in his
own capital, was four days later assassinated (1876), and was succeeded by
a nephew who was declared to be an imbecile. The war of 1877-78
emancipated eleven million people from the Turkish yoke; Adrianople was
occupied by the Russian forces; the empire itself was dissolved as a
result of the war of 1914-18; the Sultanate was abolished; a republic was
proclaimed; and a rulership that had endured above six centuries was
ended.

The vain and despotic Nasiri'd-Din _Sh_ah, denounced by Baha'u'llah as the
"Prince of Oppressors"; of whom He had written that he would soon be made
"an object-lesson for the world"; whose reign was stained by the execution
of the Bab and the imprisonment of Baha'u'llah; who had persistently
instigated his subsequent banishments to Constantinople, Adrianople and
Akka; who, in collusion with a vicious sacerdotal order, had vowed to
strangle the Faith in its cradle, was dramatically assassinated, in the
shrine of _Sh_ah 'Abdu'l-'Azim, on the very eve of his jubilee, which, as
ushering in a new era, was to have been celebrated with the most elaborate
magnificence, and was to go down in history as the greatest day in the
annals of the Persian nation. The fortunes of his house thereafter
steadily declined, and finally through the scandalous misconduct of the
dissipated and irresponsible Ahmad _Sh_ah, led to the eclipse and
disappearance of the Qajar dynasty.

Napoleon III, the foremost monarch of his day in the West, excessively
ambitious, inordinately proud, tricky and superficial, who is reported to
have contemptuously flung down the Tablet sent to him by Baha'u'llah, who
was tested by Him and found wanting, and whose downfall was explicitly
predicted in a subsequent Tablet, was ignominiously defeated in the Battle
of Sedan (1870), marking the greatest military capitulation recorded in
modern history; lost his kingdom and spent the remaining years of his life
in exile. His hopes were utterly blasted, his only son, the Prince
Imperial, was killed in the Zulu War, his much vaunted empire collapsed, a
civil war ensued more ferocious than the Franco-German war itself, and
William I, the Prussian king, was hailed emperor of a unified Germany in
the Palace of Versailles.