|
The complete transformation which the written and spoken word of Baha'u'llah had effected in the outlook and character of His companions was equalled by the burning devotion which His love had kindled in their souls. A passionate zeal and fervor, that rivalled the enthusiasm that had glowed so fiercely in the breasts of the Bab's disciples in their moments of greatest exaltation, had now seized the hearts of the exiles of Baghdad and galvanized their entire beings. "So inebriated," Nabil, describing the fecundity of this tremendously dynamic spiritual revival, has written, "so carried away was every one by the sweet savors of the Morn of Divine Revelation that, methinks, out of every thorn sprang forth heaps of blossoms, and every seed yielded innumerable harvests." "The room of the Most Great House," that same chronicler has recorded, "set apart for the reception of Baha'u'llah's visitors, though dilapidated, and having long since outgrown its usefulness, vied, through having been trodden by the blessed footsteps of the Well Beloved, with the Most Exalted Paradise. Low- roofed, it yet seemed to reach to the stars, and though it boasted but a single couch, fashioned from the branches of palms, whereon He Who is the King of Names was wont to sit, it drew to itself, even as a loadstone, the hearts of the princes." (134:2) It was this same reception room which, in spite of its rude simplicity, had so charmed the Shuja'u'd- Dawlih that he had expressed to his fellow- princes his intention of building a duplicate of it in his home in Kazimayn. "He may well succeed," Baha'u'llah is reported to have smilingly remarked when apprized of this intention, "in reproducing outwardly the exact counterpart of this low- roofed room made of mud and straw with its diminutive garden. What of his ability to open onto it the spiritual doors leading to the hidden worlds of God?" "I know not how to explain it," another prince, Zaynu'l- Abidin Khan, the Fakhru'd- Dawlih, describing the atmosphere which pervaded that reception- room, had affirmed, "were all the sorrows of the world to be crowded into my heart they would, I feel, all vanish, when in the presence of Baha'u'llah. It is as if I had entered Paradise itself."
(134:3)
|