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Nor should reference be omitted to the emergence of a prosperous community in the newly laid out city of Ishqabad, in Russian Turkistan, assured of the good will of a sympathetic government, enabling it to establish a Baha'i cemetery and to purchase property and erect thereon structures that were to prove the precursors of the first Mashriqu'l- Adhkar of the Baha'i world; or to the establishment of new outposts of the Faith in far- off Samarqand and Bukhara, in the heart of the Asiatic continent, in consequence of the discourses and writings of the erudite Fadil- i- Qa'ini and the learned apologist Mirza Abu'l- Fadl; or to the publication in India of five volumes of the writings of the Author of the Faith, including His "Most Holy Book"-- publications which were to herald the vast multiplication of its literature, in various scripts and languages, and its dissemination, in later decades, throughout both the East and the West. (195:2) "Sultan Abdu'l- 'Aziz," Baha'u'llah is reported by one of His fellow- exiles to have stated, "banished Us to this country in the greatest abasement, and since his object was to destroy Us and humble Us, whenever the means of glory and ease presented themselves, We did not reject them." "Now, praise be to God," He, moreover, as reported by Nabil in his narrative, once remarked, "it has reached the point when all the people of these regions are manifesting their submissiveness unto Us." And again, as recorded in that same narrative: "The Ottoman Sultan, without any justification, or reason, arose to oppress Us, and sent Us to the fortress of Akka. His imperial farman decreed that none should associate with Us, and that We should become the object of the hatred of every one. The Hand of Divine power, therefore, swiftly avenged Us. It first loosed the winds of destruction upon his two irreplaceable ministers and confidants, Ali and Fu'ad, after which that Hand was stretched out to roll up the panoply of Aziz himself, and to seize him, as He only can seize, Who is the Mighty, the Strong."
(195:3)
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