taken prisoner and exiled from Ba_gh_dad to Mosul,
after which he journeyed to Haifa, where day and night, lowly and humble,
he chanted prayers and supplications and centered his thoughts on God.

He remained a long time in Haifa, successfully serving the believers
there, and most humbly and unobtrusively seeing to the travelers' needs.
He married in that city, and fathered fine children. To him every day was
a new life and a new joy, and whatever money he made he spent on strangers
and friends. After the slaying of the King of Martyrs, he wrote an elegy
to memorialize that believer who had fallen on the field of anguish, and
recited his ode in the presence of Baha'u'llah; the lines were touching in
the extreme, so that all who were there shed tears, and voices were raised
in grief.

Aqa Muhammad continued to live out his life, high of aim, unvarying as to
his inner condition, with fervor and love. Then he welcomed death,
laughing like a rose suddenly full-blown, and crying, "Here am I!" Thus he
quitted Haifa, exchanging it for the world above. From this narrow slip of
land he hastened upward to the Well-Beloved, soared out of this dust heap
to pitch his tent in a fair and shining place. Blessings be unto him, and
a goodly home.(48) May God sheathe him in mercies; may he rest under the
tabernacles of forgiveness and be brought into the gardens of Heaven.

ZAYNU'L-ABIDIN YAZDI

One of the emigrants who died along the way to the Holy Land was
Zaynu'l-Abidin of Yazd. When, in Man_sh_ad, this devoted man first heard
the cry of God, he was awakened to restless life. A holy passion stirred
him, his soul was made new. The light of guidance flamed from the lamp of
his heart; the love of God sparked a revolution in the country of his
inner self. Carried away by love for the Loved One's beauty, he left the
home that was dear to him and set out for the Desired Land.

As he traveled along with his two sons, gladdened by hopes of the meeting
that would be his, he paused on every hilltop, in every plain, village and
hamlet to visit with the friends. But the great distance stretching out
before him changed to a sea of troubles, and although his spirit yearned,
his body weakened, and at the end he sickened and turned helpless; all
this when he was without a home.

Sick as he was, he did not renounce the journey, nor fail in his resolve;
he had amazing strength of will, and was determined to keep on; but the
illness wors