Recalling Bahá’u’lláh’s retirement to Sulaymaniyyih

In the evening the Master spoke of the retirement of the Blessed Beauty and the distress of the believers, speaking at length of Áqa Abu’l-Qasim-i-Hamadani. ‘From the circumstances, as reported,’ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá continued, we surmised that because Áqa Abu’l-Qasim-i-Hamadani had previously been with Bahá’u’lláh and had also set out on a journey when the Blessed Beauty disappeared, then Darvish Muhammad was really the Blessed Beauty and must be in the vicinity of Sulaymaniyyih. Thus it was that we sent the friends to petition Him, implore and supplicate Him to return to Baghdad.

… One day, as He was strolling, He called to remembrance the days of the Blessed Beauty, referring with sadness to His sojourn in Sulaymaniyyih, to His loneliness and to the wrongs inflicted upon Him. Though He had often recounted that episode, that day He was so overcome with emotion that He sobbed aloud in His grief … All His attendants wept with Him, and were plunged into sorrow as they heard the tale of the woeful trials endured by the Ancient Beauty, and witnessed the tenderness of heart manifested by His Son.