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The predestined hour of Baha'u'llah's departure from Iraq having now struck, the process whereby it could be accomplished was set in motion. The nine months of unremitting endeavor exerted by His enemies, and particularly by Shaykh Abdu'l- Husayn and his confederate Mirza Buzurg Khan, were about to yield their fruit. Nasiri'd- Din Shah and his ministers, on the one hand, and the Persian Ambassador in Constantinople, on the other, were incessantly urged to take immediate action to insure Baha'u'llah's removal from Baghdad. Through gross misrepresentation of the true situation and the dissemination of alarming reports a malignant and energetic enemy finally succeeded in persuading the Shah to instruct his foreign minister, Mirza Sa'id Khan, to direct the Persian Ambassador at the Sublime Porte, Mirza Husayn Khan, a close friend of Ali Pasha, the Grand Vizir of the Sultan, and of Fu'ad Pasha, the Minister of foreign affairs, to induce Sultan Abdu'l- 'Aziz to order the immediate transfer of Baha'u'llah to a place remote from Baghdad, on the ground that His continued residence in that city, adjacent to Persian territory and close to so important a center of Shi'ah pilgrimage, constituted a direct menace to the security of Persia and its government.
(145:2)
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