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"That day," Aqay- i- Kalim is reported to have informed Nabil, "witnessed a most great commotion. All the companions lamented in their separation from the Blessed Beauty." "Those days," is the written testimony of one of those companions, "were marked by tumult and confusion. We were sore- perplexed, and greatly feared lest we be permanently deprived of the bounty of His presence." (167:2) This grief and perplexity were, however, destined to be of short duration. The calumnies with which both Mirza Yahya and Siyyid Muhammad now loaded their letters, which they disseminated in Persia and Iraq, as well as the petitions, couched in obsequious language, which the former had addressed to Khurshid Pasha, the governor of Adrianople, and to his assistant Aziz Pasha, impelled Baha'u'llah to emerge from His retirement. He was soon after informed that this same brother had despatched one of his wives to the government house to complain that her husband had been cheated of his rights, and that her children were on the verge of starvation-- an accusation that spread far and wide and, reaching Constantinople, became, to Baha'u'llah's profound distress, the subject of excited discussion and injurious comment in circles that had previously been greatly impressed by the high standard which His noble and dignified behavior had set in that city. Siyyid Muhammad journeyed to the capital, begged the Persian Ambassador, the Mushiru'd- Dawlih, to allot Mirza Yahya and himself a stipend, accused Baha'u'llah of sending an agent to assassinate Nasiri'd- Din Shah, and spared no effort to heap abuse and calumny on One Who had, for so long and so patiently, forborne with him, and endured in silence the enormities of which he had been guilty.
(167:3)
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