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This very brother, Mirza Muhammad- 'Ali's chief accomplice, in a written confession signed, sealed and published by him, on the occasion of his reconciliation with Abdu'l- Baha, has borne testimony to the wicked plots that had been devised. "What I have heard from others," wrote Mirza Badi'u'llah, "I will ignore. I will only recount what I have seen with my own eyes, and heard from his (Mirza Muhammad- 'Ali) lips." "It was arranged by him (Mirza Muhammad- 'Ali)," he, then, proceeds to relate, "to dispatch Mirza Majdi'd- Din with a gift and a letter written in Persian to Nazim Pasha, the Vali (governor) of Damascus, and to seek his assistance.... As he (Mirza Majdi'd- Din) himself informed me in Haifa he did all he could to acquaint him (governor) fully with the construction work on Mt. Carmel, with the comings and goings of the American believers, and with the gatherings held in Akka. The Pasha, in his desire to know all the facts, was extremely kind to him, and assured him of his aid. A few days after Mirza Majdi'd- Din's return a cipher telegram was received from the Sublime Porte, transmitting the Sultan's orders to incarcerate Abdu'l- Baha, myself and the others." "In those days," he, furthermore, in that same document, testifies, "a man who came to Akka from Damascus stated to outsiders that Nazim Pasha had been the cause of the incarceration of Abbas Effendi. The strangest thing of all is this that Mirza Muhammad- 'Ali, after he had been incarcerated, wrote a letter to Nazim Pasha for the purpose of achieving his own deliverance.... The Pasha, however, did not write even a word in answer to either the first or the second letter." (264:1) It was in 1901, on the fifth day of the month of Jamadiyu'l- Avval 1319 A.H. (August 20) that Abdu'l- Baha, upon His return from Bahji where He had participated in the celebration of the anniversary of the Bab's Declaration, was informed, in the course of an interview with the governor of Akka, of Sultan Abdu'l- Hamid's instructions ordering that the restrictions which had been gradually relaxed should be reimposed, and that He and His brothers should be strictly confined within the walls of that city. The Sultan's edict was at first rigidly enforced, the freedom of the exiled community was severely curtailed, while Abdu'l- Baha had to submit, alone and unaided, to the prolonged interrogation of judges and officials, who required His presence for several consecutive days at government headquarters for the purpose of their investigations. One of His first acts was to intercede on behalf of His brothers, who had been peremptorily summoned and informed by the governor of the orders of the sovereign, an act which failed to soften their hostility or lessen their malevolent activities. Subsequently, through His intervention with the civil and military authorities, He succeeded in obtaining the freedom of His followers who resided in Akka, and in enabling them to continue to earn, without interference, the means of livelihood.
(264:2)
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