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It was the midst of bitter winter. In a prayer revealed by Bahá’u’lláh during that time, He recounts His suffering in the Síyáh-Chál and this journey:
My God, My Master, My Desire!… Thou hast created this atom of dust through the consummate power of Thy might, and nurtured Him with Thine hands which none can chain up.… Thou hast destined for Him trials and tribulations which no tongue can describe, nor any of Thy Tablets adequately recount. The throat Thou didst accustom to the touch of silk Thou hast, in the end, clasped with strong chains, and the body Thou didst ease with brocades and velvets Thou hast at last subjected to the abasement of a dungeon. Thy decree hath shackled Me with unnumbered fetters, and cast about My neck chains that none can sunder. .… How many the nights during which the weight of chains and fetters allowed Me no rest, and how numerous the days during which peace and tranquillity were denied Me, by reason of that wherewith the hands and tongues of men have afflicted Me! Both bread and water which Thou hast, through Thy all-embracing mercy, allowed unto the beasts of the field, they have, for a time, forbidden unto this servant, … until, finally, Thy decree was irrevocably fixed, and Thy behest summoned this servant to depart out of Persia, accompanied by a number of frail-bodied men and children of tender age, at this time when the cold is so intense that one cannot even speak, and ice and snow so abundant that it is impossible to move. 55_ACT16
So began a series of exiles and imprisonments that would take Bahá’u’lláh across the Ottoman empire from Baghdád to Constantinople to Adrianople and eventually to the prison-city of ‘Akká, in whose vicinity on 29 May 1892 the Sun of Bahá will set in this physical realm. The tale of what transpired in that amazing forty-year period will have to be told another day.
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