One day the government leaders, pillars of the country, the
city’s ‘ulamás, leading mystics and intellectuals came out to the Mansion. The
Blessed Beauty paid them no attention whatever. They were not admitted to His
presence, nor did He inquire after any of them. I sat down with them and kept
them company for some hours, after which they returned whence they had come.
Although the royal farmán specifically decreed that Bahá’u’lláh was to be held
in solitary confinement within the Akká fortress, in a cell, under perpetual
guard; that He was never to set foot outside; that He was never even to see any
of the believers—notwithstanding such a farmán, such a drastic order, His tent
was raised in majesty on the heights of Mount Carmel. What greater display of
power could there be than this, that from the very prison, the banner of the
Lord was raised aloft, and rippled out for all the world to see! Praised be the
Possessor of such majesty and might; praised be He, weaponed with the power and
the glory; praised be He, Who defeated His foes when He lay captive in the Akká
prison!
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (From a talk; ‘Memorials of the Faithful’)
