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At the time of the attempt on the Shah's life Baha'u'llah was staying at Lavasan as the guest of the Grand Vizir. Rejecting the protection and the good offices tendered Him, Baha'u'llah went to the headquarters of the Imperial Army at Niyavaran and was conducted thence under escort and in chains, bareheaded and with bare feet to Tihran. There He was taken at once to the Siyah-Chal, the most terrible of all the dungeons in the capital. (72:2) Baha'u'llah in His Epistle to the Son of the Wolf gives the following description.. "The dungeon was wrapt in thick darkness, and Our fellow-prisoners numbered nearly a hundred and fifty souls: thieves, assassins and highwaymen. Though crowded, it had no other outlet than the passage by which We entered. No pen can depict that place, nor any tongue describe its loathsome smell. Most of these men had neither clothes nor bedding to lie on. God alone knoweth what befell Us in that most foul-smelling and gloomy place!" (72:3) Such was the place and such the occasion which God chose for the Call of Baha'u'llah to the office of Prophethood. (73:1) Baha'u'llah describes this Call in the following words in His letter to the Shah: "O King! I was but a man like others, asleep upon My couch, when lo, the breezes of the All-Glorious were wafted over Me, and taught Me the knowledge of all that hath been. This thing is not from Me, but from One Who is Almighty and All-Knowing. And He bade Me lift up My voice between earth and heaven, and for this there befell Me what hath caused the tears of every man of understanding to flow... This is but a leaf which the winds of the will of Thy Lord, the Almighty, the All-Praised, have stirred."
(74:2)
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