holy city and always shall be, still the friends had
chosen another place. God, therefore, stirred up our enemies to prevent
the Najaf burial. They swarmed in, attacking the quarantine station to lay
hold of the body and either bury it in Basra or throw it into the sea or
out on the desert sands.

The case took on such importance that in the end it proved impossible to
bring the remains to Najaf, and Siyyid Asadu'llah had to carry them on to
Ba_gh_dad. Here, too, there was no burial place where the Afnan's body
would be safe from molestation at enemy hands. Finally the Siyyid decided
to carry it to the shrine of Persia's Salman the Pure,(11) about five
farsa_kh_s out of Ba_gh_dad, and bury it in Ctesiphon, close to the grave
of Salman, beside the palace of the Sasaniyan kings. The body was taken
there and that trust of God was, with all reverence, laid down in a safe
resting-place by the palace of Naw_sh_iravan.

And this was destiny, that after a lapse of thirteen hundred years, from
the time when the throne city of Persia's ancient kings was trampled down,
and no trace of it was left, except for rubble and hills of sand, and the
very palace roof itself had cracked and split so that half of it toppled
to the ground--this edifice should win back the kingly pomp and splendor of
its former days. It is indeed a mighty arch. The width of its entry-way is
fifty-two paces and it towers very high.

Thus did God's grace and favor encompass the Persians of an age long gone,
in order that their ruined capital should be rebuilt and flourish once
again. To this end, with the help of God, events were brought about which
led to the Afnan's being buried here; and there is no doubt that a proud
city will rise up on this site. I wrote many letters about it, until at
last the holy dust could be laid to rest in this place. Siyyid Asadu'llah
would write me from Basra and I would answer him. One of the public
functionaries there was completely devoted to us, and I directed him to do
all he could. Siyyid Asadu'llah informed me from Ba_gh_dad that he was at
his wits' end, and had no idea where he could consign this body to the
grave. "Wherever I might bury it," he wrote, "they will dig it up again."

At last, praised be God, it was laid down in the very spot to which time
and again the Blessed Beauty had repaired; in that place honored by His
footsteps, where He had revealed Tablets, where the believers of Ba_gh_dad
had been in His company;