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These are the conditions under which this great universal movement began. Persia was in revolt. The government set itself against the movement, the ulama supporting the government. Terrible massacres ensued. They seized the body of Baha'o'llah and imprisoned him in Teheran where the ulama met and summoned him to appear before them in the mosque that they might question him and refute his statements. They searched one of his disciples and found on him a paper containing teachings in the Bab's handwriting in which there were inaccuracies from their orthodox Mohammedan viewpoint. Baha'o'llah showed them with incontrovertible proof that the mistakes lay in their limited interpretations - that the reality of truth is one. They became enraged and put him to the torture of the bastinado, inflicting sixty strokes. They condemned him to death and ordered the executioner to come with his instruments of torture to martyr their majestic prisoner. The governor, fearful lest the people should arise to vindicate Baha'o'llah, caused an opening to be made in the wall of the mosque through which Baha'o'llah was taken by night to the governor's house and after a time the order came to liberate him.
(65:2)
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