When, at the instigation of the violators, ‘Abdu’l-Hamíd [Ottoman Sultan] began his opposition to me, I was obliged to send Manshadí [1] away to Port Sa’íd, because he was widely known among the people as the distributor of our mail. I then had to relay the correspondence to him through intermediaries who were unknown, and he would send the letters on as before. In this way the treacherous and the hostile were unable to take over the mail. During the latter days of ‘Abdu’l-Hamíd, when a commission of investigation appeared and—urged on by those familiars-turned-strangers—made plans to tear out the Holy Tree by the roots; when they determined to cast me into the depths of the sea or banish me to the Fezzan, and this was their settled purpose; and when the commission accordingly tried their utmost to get hold of some document or other, they failed. In the thick of all that turmoil, with all the pressures and restraints, and the foul attacks of those persons who were pitiless as Yazíd, [2] still the mail went through.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (From a talk; ‘Memorials of the Faithful’)
[1] A faithful believer
[2] Yazíd, son of Mu’ávíyyih, Ummayad Caliph by whose order
the Imám Husayn was martyred. Proverbial for cruelty.
