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In the Holy Land, however, though the outcome of that tremendous struggle was to liberate once and for all the Heart and Center of the Faith from the Turkish yoke, a yoke which had imposed for so long upon its Founder and His Successor such oppressive and humiliating restrictions, yet severe privations and grave dangers continued to surround its inhabitants during the major part of that conflict, and renewed, for a time, the perils which had confronted Abdu'l- Baha during the years of His incarceration in Akka. The privations inflicted on the inhabitants by the gross incompetence, the shameful neglect, the cruelty and callous indifference of both the civil and military authorities, though greatly alleviated through the bountiful generosity, the foresight and the tender care of Abdu'l- Baha, were aggravated by the rigors of a strict blockade. A bombardment of Haifa by the Allies was a constant threat, at one time so real that it necessitated the temporary removal of Abdu'l- Baha, His family and members of the local community to the village of Abu- Sinan at the foot of the hills east of Akka. The Turkish Commander- in- Chief, the brutal, the all- powerful and unscrupulous Jamal Pasha, an inveterate enemy of the Faith, through his own ill- founded suspicions and the instigation of its enemies, had already grievously afflicted Abdu'l- Baha, and even expressed his intention of crucifying Him and of razing to the ground the Tomb of Baha'u'llah. Abdu'l- Baha Himself still suffered from the ill- health and exhaustion brought on by the fatigues of His three- year journeys. He felt acutely the virtual stoppage of all communication with most of the Baha'i centers throughout the world. Agony filled His soul at the spectacle of human slaughter precipitated through humanity's failure to respond to the summons He had issued, or to heed the warnings He had given. Surely sorrow upon sorrow was added to the burden of trials and vicissitudes which He, since His boyhood, had borne so heroically for the sake, and in the service, of His Father's Cause.
(304:2)
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