What of Turkey and Persia?
Already in the lifetime of Baha'u'llah, and later during the ministry of 'Abdu'l-Baha, the first blows of a slow yet steady and relentless retribution were falling alike upon the rulers of the Turkish House of 'Uthman and of the Qajar dynasty in Persia - the archenemies of God's infant Faith. Sultan 'Abdu'l-'Aziz fell from power, and was murdered soon after Baha'u'llah's banishment from Adrianople, while Nasiri'd-Din Shah succumbed to an assassin's pistol, during 'Abdu'l-Baha's incarceration in the fortress-town of 'Akka. It was reserved, however, for the Formative Period of the Faith of God - the Age of the birth and rise of its Administrative Order - which, as stated in a previous communication, is through its unfoldment casting such a turmoil in the world, to witness not only the extinction of both of these dynasties, but also the abolition of the twin institutions of the Sultanate and the Caliphate. (61:1)

Of the two despots 'Abdu'l-'Aziz was the more powerful, the more exalted in rank, the more preeminent in guilt, and the more concerned with the tribulations and fortunes of the Founder of our Faith. He it was who, through his farmans, had thrice banished Baha'u'llah, and in whose dominions the Manifestation of God spent almost the whole of His forty years' captivity. It was during his reign and that of his nephew and successor, 'Abdu'l-Hamid, that the Center of the Covenant of God had to endure, for no less than forty years, in the fortress-town of 'Akka, an incarceration fraught with so many perils, affronts and privations. (61:2)

"Hearken, O king!" is the summons issued to Sultan 'Abdu'l-'Aziz by Baha'u'llah, "to the speech of Him that speaketh the truth, Him that doth not ask thee to recompense Him with the things God hath chosen to bestow upon thee, Him Who unerringly treadeth the Straight Path... Observe, O king, with thine inmost heart and with thy whole being, the precepts of God, and walk not in the paths of the oppressor... Place not thy reliance on thy treasures. Put thy whole confidence in the grace of God, thy Lord... Overstep not the bounds of moderation, and deal justly with them that serve thee... Set before thine eyes God's unerring Balance, and, as one standing in His presence, weigh in that Balance thine actions, every day, every moment of thy life. Bring thyself to account ere thou art summoned to a reckoning, on the Day when no man shall have strength to stand for fear of God, the Day when the hearts of the heedless ones shall be made to tremble." (61:3)

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