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Dreadful persecution ensued and more than twenty thousand martyrs joyfully gave up property and life rather than renounce the faith which they recognized as divine truth. At such variance were his teachings with the creed-bound world about him that BAHA'O'LLAH, with his family and followers, was banished to Baghdad, to Constantinople, to Adrianople and finally to the penal colony of Acca in Syria. (6:1) Few people of the western world were fortunate enough to see BAHA'O'LLAH, who was born in Teheran November 12, 1817. One who had journeyed afar, and who was finally ushered into his presence, described him thus: "The face of him on whom I gazed I can never forget, though I cannot describe it. Those piercing eyes seemed to read one's very soul; power and authority sat on that ample brow...No need to ask in whose presence I stood, as I bowed myself before one who is the object of a devotion and love which kings might envy and emperors sigh for in vain!" (6:2) One of his followers in describing his power declares: "His proclamation was made with the certainty of immediate knowledge and a divine understanding of the needs of humanity for 'this gloomy and disastrous age!' Brilliant, spontaneous, mighty -- he was like a conscious sun bursting on a dark, dead world. Verily, in the future these rays will be used 'for the healing of the nations.'"
(6:3)
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