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A revolution, formidable in its proportions, far-reaching in its repercussions, amazing in the absence of bloodshed and even of violence which marked its progress, challenged that ecclesiastical ascendency which, for centuries, had been of the essence of Islam in that country, and virtually overthrew a hierarchy with which the machinery of the state and the life of the people had been inextricably interwoven. Such a revolution did not signalize the disestablishment of a state-church. It indeed was tantamount to the disruption of what may be called a church-state - a state that had been hopefully awaiting, even up till the moment of its expiry, the gladsome advent of the Hidden Imam, who would not only seize the reins of authority from the shah, the chief magistrate who was merely representing him, but would also assume dominion over the whole earth. (94:1) The spirit which that clerical order had so assiduously striven, during a whole century, to crush; the Faith which it had, with such ferocious brutality, attempted to extirpate; were now, in their turn, through the forces they had engendered in the world, deranging the equilibrium, and sapping the strength, of that same order whose ramifications had extended to every sphere, duty, and act of life in that country. The rock wall of Islam, seemingly impregnable, was now shaken to its foundations, and was tottering to its ruin, before the very eyes of the persecuted followers of the Faith of Baha'u'llah. A sacerdotal hierarchy that had held in thrall for so long the Faith of God, and seemed, at one time, to have mortally struck it down, now found itself the prey of a superior civil authority whose settled policy was to fasten, steadily and relentlessly, its coils around it.
(94:2)
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