The Falling Fortunes of Shi'ih Islam
Let us first consider the visitations that have marked the falling fortunes of Shi'ih Islam. The iniquities summarized in the beginning of these pages, and for which the Shi'ih ecclesiastical order in Persia is to be held primarily answerable; iniquities which, in the words of Baha'u'llah, had caused "the Apostle (Muhammad) to lament, and the Chaste One (Fatimih) to cry out", and "all created things to groan, and the limbs of the holy ones to quake"; iniquities which had riddled the breast of the Bab with bullets, and bowed down Baha'u'llah, and turned His hair white, and caused Him to groan aloud in anguish, and made Muhammad to weep over Him, and Jesus to beat Himself upon the head, and the Bab to bewail His plight - such iniquities indeed could not, and were not to, remain unpunished. God, the Fiercest of Avengers, was lying in wait, pledged "not to forgive any man's injustice." The scourge of His chastisement, swift, sudden and terrible, was, at long last, let loose upon the perpetrators of these iniquities. (93:3)

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