Occasional Papers in Shaykhi, Babi and Baha'i Studies

Walbridge, Essays and Notes on Babi and Baha'i History

Chapter Four

The Baha’i Faith in Turkey

Turkey is an Islamic state occupying the Anatolian peninsula and a small area of the southeastern part of the Balkan Peninsula. Modern Turkey is the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, which until the end of World War I also controlled parts of the Arab Near East and the Balkans. The Ottoman Empire played a major role in Baha’i history, for it was to Ottoman Iraq that Bahaullah went as an exile in 1853. Later he was exiled under Ottoman authority to Istanbul, Edirne, and ‘Akka. ‘Abd al-Baha also lived in the Ottoman Empire for most of his life, the greater part of the time as a prisoner.

Baha’is have lived in the territory of modern Turkey since the time of Bahaullah’s exile to Istanbul. The contemporary Baha’i community consists of several thousand believers with about a hundred local spiritual assemblies. The National Spiritual Assembly of Turkey was formed in 1959.

In addition to those living in modern Turkey itself, there are large numbers of Turks elsewhere, particularly in northwestern Iran and Soviet Central Asia. There are a considerable number of Turkish-speaking Baha’is in Iran and an increasing number of Turkic-speaking Baha’is in the new republics of Central Asia.

The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire

The Turks are among the many peoples who have overflowed from the steppes of Central Asia into the settled areas of the Middle East, Europe, and China. First known as the nomadic founders of a sixth-century empire stretching across Central Asia to the Black Sea, by the tenth century C.E. they had drifted into the eastern Islamic lands, at first as mercenaries but soon as rulers. Their descendants today are scattered across Central and Southwest Asia. They are linked by history, language, and a common allegiance to Islam. The Ottoman Empire began in the thirteenth century as one of the petty Turkish principalities in the former Byzantine lands of western Anatolia. In a series of brilliant conquests over the next two centuries, the Ottomans built an empire covering most of Anatolia and the southern Balkans, capped in 1453 with the capture of Constantinople itself. The Ottomans triumphantly moved the government from their old capital of Edirne (Adrianople) to Constantinople. At its height in the sixteenth century the Ottoman Empire stretched from Iraq to Algeria and from the Crimea to Aden and was one of the most powerful and advanced states in the world.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, it was clear that the Ottomans had failed to keep pace with the technological, economic, and military advances of the European states. Moreover, the administrative structure of the empire had become corrupt and the Sultan’s power diluted. A number of provinces had already been lost to European neighbors or insubordinate governors. Many observers expected the empire to collapse. Napoleon, for example, invaded Egypt and Syria as a way of striking at Britain’s Eastern interests.

However, the Ottomans proved more resilient than expected. A series of reforming Sultans attempted to reorder the state, army, and economy after European models. Salim (Selim) III (1789–1807) attempted to establish a “New Order” in which the old Janissary Corps would be replaced by a modern army, modern schools established, and the people given a say in local administration. In the end, however, the old army and government establishment united against him, and he was overthrown in a mutiny of the Janissaries.

His cousin, Mahmud II (1808–39), after consolidating his own power, carried on the reforms. In 1826 he tricked the Janissaries into mutinying and massacred them. He also tried to reform education, mostly without success, though he did establish a modern medical school and language academies for training diplomats. The result was a professional diplomatic corps that furnished most of the reforming statesman of the next decades.

‘Abd al-Majid I (Abdülmecid, 1839–61), though young and susceptible to influence, was sympathetic to the reforms and issued a series of decrees known as the Tanzimat, which, at least on paper, went far towards making Turkey a modern state. However, by about 1850 the impetus towards reform had largely petered out. It was during ‘Abd al-Majid’s reign that the Crimean War (1853–56) took place, in which the European powers united against Russia in defense of Turkey. Bahaullah alludes to the destruction of a Turkish fleet by the Russians in his Tablet to Napoleon III, an incident that Napoleon had used to justify his entrance into the war.

The Tanzimat reforms had failed to transform the state fundamentally, although many improvements had resulted. Their flaw was that for the sake of reform, power had been concentrated in the hands of the Sultan in order to allow him to make necessary changes. However, once power passed into the hands of an incapable Sultan, there were no institutions capable of restraining him.

For the history of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey, see Stanford J. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (2 vol.; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976– ); Lord Kinross, The Ottoman Centuries; EB “Turkey and Ancient Anatolia.” For the religious situation in contemporary Turkey, see World Christian Encyclopedia, s.v. “Turkey.”

Ottoman attitudes towards the Babis

In the nineteenth century Ottoman Iraq was the temporary or permanent home to a large number of Iranians—pilgrims, clerics, students, refugees, merchants—most drawn by the Shi‘i shrines there. The Babi religion first came to the attention of the Turkish authorities at the end of 1844 when one of the Letters of the Living, Mulla ‘Ali Bastami, was arrested in Iraq on the charges of circulating a blasphemous imitation of the Qur’an and disturbing the peace. Najib Pasha, the governor of Iraq under whose authority Bastami was tried, seems to have sincerely considered Bastami’s Babi views objectionable. Nonetheless, the main concern of the Turkish authorities was apparently to avoid provoking disturbances between the Shi‘i and Sunni communities in Iraq and complicating already strained relations with Iran.

Two years later when similar disturbances arose around the person of Tahira, Najib Pasha, having learned from the commotions associated with the Bastami affair, simply took her quietly into custody and held her in the house of a leading Sunni cleric while he waited for instructions from Istanbul. A few months later she was deported to Iran.

By the 1850s there were many Babis among the Iranians in Iraq, most notably Bahaullah. The Turks had traditionally granted asylum to refugees of all sorts, and at that time were freely giving Ottoman nationality to Iranian refugees, much to the irritation of the Iranian government. They protected the Babis as well, giving them citizenship when the Persian authorities tried to have them extradited. Bahaullah kept the Babis under careful control, so the Turks had few reasons to be apprehensive about them.

The Iranian government, seeing the recovery of the Babi community under Bahaullah’s guidance, was anxious to have him removed from Baghdad. The Iranian ambassador in Istanbul steadily agitated for this end. Eventually, the Turks gave in and ordered Bahaullah to Istanbul as a guest of the government.

For the trial of Mulla ‘Ali Bastami, see Amanat 220–38, Momen, “Trial,” Momen, Babi 83–90.

Istanbul, the Great City

From 16 August through 1 December 1863 Bahaullah was an exile in Istanbul. In the nineteenth century Istanbul was the chief city of the Islamic world and the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Once it had been Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine empire.

The City’s Name

Istanbul was originally named Byzantium, perhaps after the legendary Byzas, supposed to be the leader of the first Greek colonists to settle the site. The emperor Constantine the Great renamed the city “New Rome” and “Constantinpolis” in 330 C.E. In English this became “Constantinople"—"Qustantiyya” in the Islamic languages. This name remained in use until the adoption of the Roman alphabet in Turkey after World War I.

The modern name “Istanbul"—or “Stamboul” or “Astana"—is an Arabic corruption of a Greek phrase meaning “in the City” and was in use as early as the tenth century C.E. A pun attributed to Sultan Muhammad II, the Ottoman conqueror of the city, made this “Islambul"—“where Islam abounds.” This became the preferred spelling of educated Ottomans.

Islamic cities, like Islamic people, had titles. Those of Istanbul reflect its importance and prestige: “Seat of the Sultanate,” “Home of the Caliphate,” “Home of Victories,” “Dome of Islam,” and the like. Western diplomats referred to Istanbul and the Ottoman government as “the Sublime Porte,” a French mistranslation of Bab-i ‘Ali, “High Gate"—the name of the part of the palace where several ministries were located.

To Bahaullah Istanbul was simply “the City” or “the Great City” (al-madina al-kabira), reflecting its preeminence in the Islamic world.

History and description

Istanbul is strategically situated on the European bank of the waterway separating Europe from Asia, on a triangular peninsula formed by the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and a deep inlet called the Golden Horn. By its situation it controls sea traffic between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and land traffic between the Balkans and Asia. Moreover, the Golden Horn is a splendid natural harbor, and the peninsula lent itself to defense. Thus, the history of Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul may be read as a twenty-six-century-long struggle between those who would use the city to dominate the lands bordering the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean and those who found their ambitions limited by the rulers of the city.

According to legend, ancient Byzantium was founded about 657 B.C.E. by colonists from Megara and Argos during the great age of Greek colonization. The early history of the town is a complicated series of struggles as various powers contended for the town with its control of the Black Sea grain trade, punctuated by sacks as irritated neighbors retaliated for the tolls the city placed on shipping. Byzantium eventually joined the Roman Empire as a free confederate city, but soon lost its privileges. It was destroyed in 196 and 268 C.E. during civil wars, but was rebuilt both times. Ancient Byzantium occupied a much smaller area than the modern city, and none of its monuments survive.

In 330 C.E. Constantine I, the Great, the first Christian Roman emperor, moved the capital to Byzantium. Now known as Constantinople, the city almost immediately became the leading city of the Western world and the capital of what was really a new eastern Greek Christian empire. Constantine tripled the size of the city. He and his successors filled the city with wonderful churches, palaces, and monuments, and girdled it with great walls that were to be breached only once in their history. Within a century and a half, the last remnants of the Western Roman Empire had vanished, but the fortunes of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire continued to rise, and by the sixth century it had attained a power and magnificence nearly equal to that of Rome at its height. Constantinople was also the seat of the Patriarch of Constantinople, among Christian prelates second only to the Pope in Rome. After the split with Rome in the eleventh century, he became the titular head of the whole Orthodox Church, as he remains to this day. Thus, Constantinople became a sort of holy city to the Eastern Christians.

After the sixth century the empire slowly dwindled, but Constantinople remained one of the world’s great cities. At its height it had a population of half a million. An Arab traveler of the twelfth century could still remark, “This city is even greater than its repute.” By the fifteenth century, however, the Byzantine Empire had been reduced to some small, distant, and impoverished provinces and a few kilometers of land outside the city wall. The city was full of ruins and largely empty of people. The end came in 1453.

Muslims had besieged Constantinople for the first time in 669 C.E. During this campaign the elderly Abu-Ayyub al-Ansari, the standard-bearer of the Prophet Muhammad himself, died and was buried before the walls of Constantinople. The siege failed. Naval raids a few years later also failed. In 716–17 the caliph Sulayman b. ‘Abd al-Malik, encouraged by a tradition that Constantinople was to be conquered by a caliph bearing the name of a prophet, besieged the city, again without success. Seven centuries would pass before a Muslim army again stood before the Great City.

In 1355 the Ottoman Turks, having taken the last Byzantine territory in Asia Minor, crossed the Dardanelles and established themselves in Europe. For nine more decades the city maintained a fragile independence, protected mostly by the larger dangers and opportunities that preoccupied the Turks. A Turkish siege in 1422 failed to take the city, but in April 1453 a larger army equipped with the finest siege artillery in the world appeared before the walls. The desperate pleas of the last Byzantine emperor for aid from the West brought only two thousand Genoese soldiers. Cheered by the miraculous rediscovery of the tomb of Abu-Ayyub, the Turks stormed the city on 29 May. The last Roman emperor died fighting on the walls.

Sultan Muhammad II—now called “Fatih,” the “Conqueror”—made Constantinople his capital. Finding the city in ruins and depopulated, he filled it with people deported from other conquered areas. He ordered his nobles to build the mosques and other public buildings for the various quarters of the city. By the end of his reign the population was perhaps 70,000. Over the next century Istanbul rose steadily in wealth, population, and magnificence as the sultans strove to make their capital the greatest city in the world. In various ways the Sultans attempted to make Istanbul a sacred city of Islam. The Byzantines had left the ancient domed church of Hagia Sophia (“Holy Wisdom”). Taking this as their model, the Ottomans filled the city with great domed mosques. In the sixteenth century the great architect Sinan and his staff built more than three hundred public buildings, most in Istanbul. Though the highpoint of Ottoman architecture was the sixteenth century, the Sultans continued building right up to the end of the nineteenth century.

The Ottoman Empire was cosmopolitan, embracing dozens of nationalities—a diversity reflected in the capital. From the first the Sultans had brought Christians and Jews to live in Istanbul. Once the city was reestablished, people flocked in of their own accord: Arab, Turkish, and Persian Muslims; Greek and Armenian Christians; representatives of all the conquered Balkan provinces; Spanish Jews, refugees from the Inquisition seeking the relative freedom of Turkish rule; Western European traders, diplomats, and mercenaries. Typically, people of a particular ethnic group would settle in a quarter around a mosque, church, or synagogue. There they would be allowed to govern their own affairs and would be held collectively responsible for the taxes, good order, and public health of their neighborhood.

After the sixteenth century Istanbul began a slow decline, reflecting the decline of Ottoman power. The city had always been troubled by earthquakes, fires, plagues, and civil disorder. With the decline of the central authority, these grew worse. With the central authorities no longer able to strictly enforce building regulations, areas once burned over filled up with ramshackle wooden houses. Houses had long since encroached on the broad avenues of Byzantine Constantinople. The city had become a warren of narrow alleys. The rise of modern industrial Europe slowly ruined Istanbul’s traditional industries and trade. The government was no longer as rich or as efficient as it had been. Whereas the charitable endowments of wealthy noblemen had once built hospitals, hospices, public kitchens, and other such institutions requiring large annual expenses, they now built libraries and fountains.

Thus, when Bahaullah came to Istanbul in 1863, he found the Great City at perhaps its lowest point since the mid-fifteenth century, though still the greatest city of the Islamic world. It abounded with magnificent mosques and swarmed with people from many countries. It was the most European of Islamic cities, its harbors choked with shipping from all over the world and offering regular steamship service to Europe, Africa, and Asia. But Istanbul was run-down and ramshackle, like the empire it ruled, and none of the improvements in public services and facilities had yet been made that were later to transform Istanbul into a modern city.

There is a vast literature on Istanbul, its history, and its monuments—even excluding works in Turkish. Popular works include Bernard Lewis, Istanbul and the Civilization of the Ottoman Empire (Norman, Oklahoma: 1972); Constantinople: City on the Golden Horn (New York: Horizon Caravel Books, 1969); and Istanbul (Time-Life Books). See also EB “Istanbul.” Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire contains a classic account of Byzantine Constantinople. EI2 “Istanbul” contains detailed information with full bibliography on the development and workings of Turkish Istanbul. EI2 “Qustantiniyya” discusses the period before the conquest from the Islamic point of view. Guidebooks such as Hilary Sumner-Boyd and John Freely, Strolling through Istanbul (London: KPI, 1987) are a good source of information and monuments and the flavor of the city. Since modern tourism started about the time of Bahaullah, guidebooks exist from his time, such as Handbook for Travellers in Constantinople (London: John Murray, 1845, 1871).

Bahaullah in Istanbul

Bahaullah and his party reached Istanbul on Sunday, 16 August 1863/1 Rabi‘ I 1280 after a two-and-a-half day journey by steamship from Samsun on the northern coast of Asia Minor. Shamsi Big, an official responsible for guests of the government, met them and had them driven in carriages to a government guest house near the Mosque of Khirqiy-i Sharif. This was in the center of the city, not far from the huge Fatih Mosque built by Muhammad II. Shamsi Big assiduously attended to the needs of the exiles, though the large party—more than fifty people—overcrowded the house. He hired two servants to do errands and cooking. Various of Bahaullah’s companions helped as well.

The next day a representative of the Persian embassy called on Bahaullah bearing the compliments of Haji Mirza Husayn Khan Mushir al-Dawla, the Persian ambassador, and an apology for not being able to call in person. It was a courteous and carefully calibrated acknowledgement of Bahaullah’s high social rank and his status as a political exile. Many other visitors came as well, including high Turkish officials such as Yusuf Kamal Pasha, a former prime minister with whom Bahaullah discussed the possibility of an international language.

Bahaullah himself refused to return these visits or to make the customary calls on the Shaykh al-Islam, the foreign minister, and the prime minister to arrange an audience with the Sultan. Bahaullah turned aside the advice of friends with the words, “I have no wish to ask favors from them. I have come here at the Sultan’s command. Whatsoever additional commands he may issue, I am ready to obey.” Years later, the Persian ambassador, who had been shamed by the Persian princelings and schemers who swarmed in Istanbul looking for favors and pensions from the Sultan, confessed that he had felt pride in Bahaullah’s “dignified aloofness.” So it was left to Bahaullah’s brother Mirza Musa to do such visiting as was necessary, accompanied by Aqa ‘Abd al-Ghaffar Isfahani, the only one of Bahaullah’s companions who spoke Turkish well. Bahaullah himself never went anywhere except to his brother’s house and to the mosque and public baths. Nonetheless, Bahaullah did not live in seclusion. Visitors crowded into the house, and he regularly received his companions. Other Babis began to appear in Istanbul—though Bahaullah, foreseeing that they would occasion trouble, sent them away as fast as he could.

Baha’u’’llah composed several major tablets during this period, notably his Mathnavi, a mystical poem in Persian; the Lawh-i Naqus, known as Subhanaka ya Hu, revealed for the holy day of the Declaration of the Bab, which fell during Bahaullah’s stay in Istanbul; and the tablet to Sultan ‘Abd al-‘Aziz and his ministers.

It was also at Istanbul that Bahaullah’s eighteen-month-old daughter Sadhijiyya died. The child was buried outside the Edirne Gate. She was the daughter of Mahd-i ‘Ulya, Bahaullah’s second wife.

The original house having proved too small, the party moved after about a month to the house of Visi Pasha, a much larger and more comfortable house a short distance away near the Fatih Mosque.

The Persian ambassador soon realized he had made a major mistake in having Bahaullah brought to Istanbul. Though he was now much farther from Iran, Istanbul was not an isolated provincial town like Baghdad but the chief capital of the Islamic world. The ambassador now urged the Turkish government to transfer Bahaullah to somewhere less conspicuous, either Bursa in Anatolia or Edirne in European Turkey. The Sultan and his ministers, though not personally hostile to Bahaullah, saw that Babi doctrines had the potential to undermine the basis of Ottoman government, as well as to complicate relations with Iran. In any case, it had always been the intention of the Ottoman government to exile Bahaullah and his party to some place away from the capital. (Documents recently discovered by Juan Cole in the Ottoman archives show that this was the case.)

The news was first brought to Bahaullah by Shamsi Big. Bahaullah was furious. He had been brought to Istanbul as a guest and now was being made a prisoner. His first impulse was to refuse to go, sending the women and children to foreign embassies for safety and letting the Turkish government do what it could. At worst, the public martyrdom of the Babis in Istanbul would bring great glory to the Babi cause, but Bahaullah was confident the government would back down. However, Mirza Yahya, who had been living under an assumed name among the exiles, refused to take this risk. Faced with the possibility of a public rift among the Babi exiles, Bahaullah had to comply with the government’s instructions. The official order was brought by a brother-in-law of the prime minister. Bahaullah replied with the stinging Lawh-i ‘Abd al-‘Aziz va-Wukala’—the “Tablet to ‘Abd al-‘Aziz and His Ministers.”

After less than four months in Istanbul, the exiles were ordered to proceed immediately to Edirne. On 1 December 1863 they set out for their new place of exile.

For Bahaullah’s stay in Istanbul, see ‘Abd al-Baha, Makatib 145, 157–61; Balyuzi, Baha’u’llah, 154–55, ch. 26; Taherzadeh 2: 1–6, 55–61, 317–18, 325–32; Salmani 37–40, Phelps 42–47; ‘Abd al-Baha, Traveller’s 54–55, 65; Momen, Babi 34n, 199–200; ‘Abd al-Baha, Some 31; Blomfield, Chosen 59–60; Bahaullah, Epistle 68–69; Ishraq-Khavari, Ma’ida 8:27–28; ‘Abd al-Baha, Makatib 2:177.

A number of sites in Istanbul are associated with Bahaullah. The house of Shamsi Big, the first residence of Bahaullah and the Babi exiles in Istanbul, was evidently a government guest house, not the personal residence of Shamsi Big. It was a two-story house of some size, though too small for the fifty-five exiles. Bahaullah and his family lived in the apartments upstairs, while the other Babis lived in rooms in the lower story. A pleasant reception room on the first floor provided a meeting-place for the Babis. This house was near the Mosque of Khirqiy-i Sharif in the Sultan Muhammad Quarter in the center of Istanbul. The old house no longer exists.

Bahaullah moved to the house of Visi Pasha about a month after his arrival in Istanbul. This was a fine three-story house with its own bath and cistern, separate private apartments for the family (the famous “Turkish harem”), and a large walled garden in the visitors’ section of the house. The house was located in the same quarter as the house of Shamsi Beg near the Mosque of Sultan Muhammad II Fatih that gave the quarter its name. This house also no longer exists. In 1952 Baha’is purchased part of the siteand in 1955 built a national hazirat al-quds on the site. Conditions did not allow the building to be used for official Baha’i purposes so it was used as a residence.

The Fatih Mosque (Fatih Camii), built by Sultan Muhammad II Fatih “the Conqueror” as his contribution to the reconstruction of his new capital, is the largest mosque complex in Istanbul. Completed in 1471, in its original form it occupied a huge square, over 300 m. on a side. About half the area was an open court, in the midst of which sits the large domed structure of the mosque itself. Legend says that the Sultan cut off the architect’s hand because the dome was smaller than that of the Church of Hagia Sofia. The cemetery behind the mosque contains the tombs of the Sultan and his queen. Around the courtyard were arranged an elementary school, library, hospital, public bath, dervish monastery, eight seminaries, and a public kitchen that once fed the thousands who lived or worked in the mosque complex, as well as the poor of the neighborhood. It was a particularly magnificent example of the mosques with their complexes of charitable institutions that once were the centers of life in Islamic cities. The mosque and most of the other buildings were destroyed in an earthquake in 1766. They were immediately rebuilt according to a new plan in a style influenced by European baroque architecture. While he was in Istanbul, Bahaullah went to public noon prayers almost every day, usually in this mosque.

The Mosque of Khirqiy-i Sharif (Hirka-i Serif Camii), the mosque of the Holy Mantle, held one of the relics proving the legitimacy of the Ottoman Sultans’ claim to the caliphate. This was the possession of the mantle of the Prophet. As it happened, the Ottomans had two mantles, so in 1851 Sultan ‘Abd al-Majid built this charming mosque for the second, the first being kept in the treasury in the Topkapi Palace. The mosque is in the Neoclassical Empire style of the age of Napoleon I. It was very near the house of Shamsi Big, and Bahaullah came here for noon prayers. Both these mosques exist unchanged from Bahaullah’s time.

The Edirne Gate (Edirnekap’) was in Bahaullah’s time one of the two main gates to the city. The road to Adrianople started from this gate, so it is probably through it that Bahaullah left the city. Muhammad the Conqueror entered the city in triumph through the Edirne Gate. In ancient times there was a cemetery outside the gate. Perhaps it was still there in the nineteenth century, for it was outside this gate that Bahaullah buried his little daughter Sadhijiyya.

There are many references to Istanbul in Baha’i literature, usually either allusions to the Turkish government or to Bahaullah’s exile there. The most important is the apostrophe to the city in the Kitab-i Aqdas. (Bahaullah, Codification 21) Bahaullah addresses the city as the “Spot that art situate on the shores of the two seas” and says that “the throne of tyranny hath, verily, been established upon thee.” There, Bahaullah says, he beheld “the foolish ruling over the wise, and darkness vaunting itself against the light.” He prophesies that the “outward splendor” of the city would “soon perish, and thy daughters and thy widows and all the kindreds that dwell within thee shall lament.” The Great City thus symbolized the pride and corruption of the Ottoman Empire, and the literal abasement of the city becomes an example of the retribution of God. The Suriy-i Muluk addresses the Persian and French ambassadors in Istanbul and its clergy and wise men, criticizing the latter for their failure to investigate Bahaullah’s claim.

Shoghi Effendi in The Promised Day is Come makes the decline of Istanbul a symbol and sign, not just of divine retribution upon the Ottoman Empire, but of the decline in influence of Islam. He cites the fall of the caliphate and the flight of the last Ottoman Sultan, the decision to make Ankara the capital of the new Republic of Turkey, and the secularization of the city and of some of the great mosques.

References to Istanbul and its affairs in Baha’i writings include Bahaullah, Proclamation 50, 102–4; Bahaullah, Epistle 106; Bahaullah, Athar Muluk (Lawh-i Ra’is) 234; ‘Abd al-Baha, Makatib 1:381, 2:121–22, 299; Shoghi Effendi, World 173–74, Shoghi Effendi, Promised 38–39, 65–66, 100–1; Shoghi Effendi, Tawqi‘at 3:61; Balyuzi, Eminent 3.

Istanbul after Bahaullah

Though the great domed mosques still dominate the skyline of central Istanbul, the city has changed much in the century and a half since Bahaullah. In 1865 the Khwaja Pasha fire—said by Bahaullah in the Lawh-i Ra’is to have been a divine warning—burned a large part of the city. This allowed the building of the first modern wide streets in the old city. Over the next half century modern city services were gradually constructed. In recent decades modern apartment blocks have largely replaced the wooden houses of old Istanbul, though the old city also holds the shanties of poor immigrants from the countryside. Istanbul is now a modern city covering several hundred square kilometers on both sides of the Bosphorus. A suspension bridge now connects Asia and Europe. The population has expanded enormously, particularly since the 1970s and is now more than eleven million.

Politically, the last century has not been kind to the Great City. The Young Turks Revolution of 1908 humbled the Sultan. Five wars filled the city with Muslim refugees from the former Ottoman territories in Europe. After World War I the city was occupied for five years by the Allies. The Turkish Republic, idealizing the Turkish villages of Anatolia, spurned Istanbul and made its capital in Ankara, deep in Asia Minor. The Sultanate and Caliphate were abolished. The last Sultan fled to Europe, and the city lost its position as leading city of the Islamic world.

With the fall of the cosmopolitan Ottoman Empire and the rise of nationalistic Turkey and Greece, the Greek Christians who had lived in Istanbul for five centuries under Turkish rule began to leave. Istanbul has become steadily more Muslim and Turkish.

The Baha’i community of Istanbul

The first Babi to reach Istanbul was Mulla ‘Ali Bastami, the Letter of the Living who had gone to the Shi‘ite holy cities of Iraq to announce the coming of the Bab. He was arrested, condemned, sent as a prisoner to Istanbul, and set to hard labor in the naval dockyards where apparently he died, for he was never heard from again.

When Bahaullah left for Edirne, he left behind Aqa Muhammad-‘Ali Jilawdar (also known as Sabbagh-i Yazdi) as a sort of Babi agent to assist pilgrims passing through the city. About two years later he joined Bahaullah in Edirne. Others—both Baha’i and Azali—came to the city. Nine were arrested in 1868 at the time of Bahaullah’s exile to ‘Akka, interrogated, and either deported or sent along with the other exiles.

While Bahaullah and ‘Abd al-Baha were in ‘Akka, most Baha’i pilgrims passed through Istanbul, preferring the convenience of Russian railroads and steamships to the arduous overland journey through Iraq and Syria. Some stayed on in Istanbul. The Baha’i Qajar prince Abu al-Hasan Mirza Shaykh al-Ra’is spent several years there in the 1880s and 1890s, for example. See Juan Cole’s articles on this individual. In the early 1880s the Afnan family established a branch of their trading firm in Istanbul under the management of Nabil ibn Nabil, the brother of Samandar. Istanbul at this time was also a center of Azali activity, mainly directed against the Qajar regime but also against Bahaullah. The Azalis made a number of accusations against the honesty of the Afnans. The affair lasted ten years, drove Nabil ibn Nabil to suicide, and forced the Afnans to close their office in Istanbul.

For the complicated affair of Nabil ibn Nabil and the Azalis in Istanbul referred to in Bahaullah, Epistle 33, 108–9, 123–24, see Balyuzi, Baha’u’llah ch.40, Taherzadeh 3:172, 4:391–406; Ishraq-Khavari, Muhadirat 275–77, 417.

The modern Baha’i community of Istanbul was established around the turn of the century. After the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, the new government attempted to suppress all the old religious institutions. When Baha’is were arrested in Smyrna on suspicion of being a secret religious society, the Istanbul Spiritual Assembly intervened on their behalf and were themselves arrested. However, they were soon cleared, having had the opportunity to explain their beliefs publicly. Shoghi Effendi reported the event as a triumphant vindication of the Faith that resulted in publicity all over the Middle East. Baha’is were arrested again on similar charges in 1933 and were held for about two months. In 1951 a Baha’i delegation attended a United Nations conference for Middle Eastern non-governmental organizations in Istanbul. Shoghi Effendi told the Baha’i world of his pleasure at the degree of official recognition received by the Faith on this occasion. In 1952 Baha’is were able to purchase part of the site of the house of Visi Pasha. Since 1959 Istanbul has been the seat of the National Spiritual Assembly of Turkey. There is now a Baha’i center in Istanbul.

On the Baha’i community of Istanbul, see Balyuzi, Baha’u’llah 31n; Taherzadeh 1:286–89; ‘Abd al-Baha, Makatib 303; Baha’i World 3:222–23, 4:317 (a photo of the community, c. 1930), 8:692, 9:659, 12: 66, 602, 605–7, 14:602; Baha’i News 28 (Nov. 1928) 2, 72 (Ap. 1933) 4, 245 (July 1951) 7; Shoghi Effendi, Baha’i 152, 167–69; Garis, Root 295, 322–23, 326–27; Balyuzi, Eminent 147–48, 181–85, 259; Balyuzi, ‘Abdu’l-Baha 117, 399; Momen, Babi 89–90; Shoghi Effendi, Tawqi‘at 3:33; Rabbani, Priceless 316–18.

Edirne, the Land of Mystery

Bahaullah’s new place of exile was Edirne, the old capital of the Ottoman Empire, about 225 km. northwest of Istanbul on the main road from Istanbul to Central Europe.

Name, History, and description

Roman Edirne was called Hadrianopolis or Adrianople—the “city of Hadrian.” In Turkish this became Adirna—"Edirne” in modern Turkish spelling. Europeans—who learned classical Greek but not Turkish in their schools—continued to call the city “Adrianople” until Turkey adopted the Roman alphabet in the 1920s. Baha’i writers use “Edirne” in Persian and Arabic and generally use “Adrianople” in English. There are occasional references to “Rumelia,” the nineteenth-century name for the area around Edirne. Bahaullah, however, usually referred to Edirne as Ard-i Sirr, “the Land of Mystery"—Sirr, “mystery,” and Adirna both having the numerical value of 260 in Abjad reckoning. Bahaullah sometimes associates the epithet “remote” (ba‘id) with Edirne, as in the reference to “this remote prison” in the Arabic Tablet of Ahmad. He also calls it “the city We have made Our throne."

Edirne is strategically situated at the junction of several rivers in the gap between the Rhodope and Istranja mountain ranges and thus controls access from Europe to the Thracian plain and Istanbul itself. It is beautifully situated on a hill within a bend of the river Tunja.

The city was evidently founded by the Thracians who called it Uskadama. After its capture by the Macedonians in the fourth century B.C.E., it was renamed Oresteia. The Emperor Hadrian rebuilt the city in the second century C.E. Adrianople was an important Byzantine fortress town for more than a thousand years, guarding Constantinople against threats from the northwest. Major battles were fought there against Goths, Avars, Bulgars, Crusaders, Serbs, and Turks. In July 1362 the troops of the Ottoman Sultan Murad I defeated the last Byzantine governor of Adrianople. The Ottomans made it their capital for the next ninety years and the springboard for their conquests in the Balkans. After the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, Edirne was no longer the capital but remained a favored retreat for the Sultans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The town prospered under the favor of Sultans who built fabulous palaces, mosques, and other buildings in the town.

In the eighteenth century Edirne began to decline with the general loss of Ottoman power in the Balkans. Several mutinies of the garrison, a catastrophic fire, and an earthquake all damaged the city. After an occupation by Russian troops in 1828–29, Muslims began moving from the city to be replaced by Christians coming from nearby villages. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the population of Edirne was very mixed, with Muslim Turks being a minority. The bulk of the population consisted of Christian Greeks and Bulgarians with a large Jewish minority, Gypsies, and the usual scattering of nationalities from all over the Balkans and Near East. The population was about 100,000.

Though many of the Ottoman monuments had already disappeared or were in ruins, a number of important buildings still stood, especially several great mosques. Madrasas, bazaars, and caravansaries served the needs of learning, commerce, and travellers. The city once contained many palaces and mansions, but these had suffered cruelly in the decline of the city.

For the history and description of Edrine, see EI2 and EB, s.v. “Edirne.”

Bahaullah in Edirne

Bahaullah’s exile to Edirne marks his transformation from a guest of the Ottoman government to a political prisoner. Edirne, wrote Bahaullah, was “the place which none entereth except such as have rebelled against the authority of the sovereign.” (‘Abd al-Baha, Makatib 161.) The journey there was made in the middle of winter without adequate preparations, and Bahaullah’s party suffered severely. On their arrival they were placed in a series of temporary accomodations, vacant summer houses too small and too poorly built to hold a large number of people in winter. Among the documents giving some details of life and events in Edirne is a very early letter of ‘Abd al-Baha written in 1864 complaining of their living conditions during this first winter. Eventually adequate housing was found, but Bahaullah nonetheless moved several more times during his stay in Edirne. The other Baha’is generally rented houses near Bahaullah’s. Most of the Baha’is not serving in Bahaullah’s household found work, usually keeping shops in the bazaar. This helped to ease the financial hardships that had afflicted them during the first months in Edirne.

Two of Bahaullah’s children were born in Edirne, Diya’u’llah in 1864 and Badi‘u’llah in 1867.

Bahaullah’s stay in Edirne marked a crucial stage in the development of the Baha’i Faith. Most important, it was from Edirne that Bahaullah first made public announcement of his claim to prophethood. Most of the Tablets to the Kings were written in Edirne. Many tablets also announced and defended his claim to the Babi community. Messengers such as the historian Nabil carried the news of this claim to the Babis and won the allegiance of most of the Babi community of Iran and Iraq. A steady flow of pilgrims came to Edirne and carried away the news of Bahaullah’s claim.

The second major development of the Edirne period was the open break with Mirza Yahya, the generally-recognized successor of the Bab. Mirza Yahya had grown increasingly jealous of Bahaullah’s prestige. However, this had been concealed from the ordinary Babis, and Mirza Yahya had remained part of Bahaullah’s household. In Edirne, however, the dispute finally came into the open. After Bahaullah formally confronted Mirza Yahya with his claim to be him whom God shall make manifest, the promised one of the Bab, Mirza Yahya responded with a counterclaim to prophethood. Affairs reached such a state that Mirza Yahya made two attempts to kill Bahaullah, once by poison and once by suborning Bahaullah’s bath attendant. On 22 Shavval 1282/10 March 1866 Bahaullah withdrew from the community to allow his followers to decide their allegiances for themselves. Most chose to follow Bahaullah. Bahaullah referred to this period as the Ayyam-i Shidad (the “days of stress") and the “most great separation."

Finally, it was in Edirne that Bahaullah began to establish the laws of his own religion, composing, for example, the tablets containing the rituals to be followed during pilgrimage to the two Holy Houses of Shiraz and Baghdad, the prayers of fasting, and a summary of Baha’i law, as well as the Tablet of the Branch, which prefigured ‘Abd al-Baha’s later appointment as his successor.

During these years the Baha’is maintained excellent relations with the authorities and townspeople. Bahaullah and ‘Abd al-Baha were on visiting terms with several of the governors, as well as with consuls, missionaries, and the clergy, all of whom thought well of the character and piety of the Baha’is. Later some of these people came to visit in ‘Akka. It was also in Edirne that Bahaullah had his most extensive contact with Europeans.

In 1863–68 there were four governors of Edirne, at least three of whom are known to have been on good terms with the Baha’is: Muhammad-Amin Pasha Qibrisi, 1861–Apr. 1864, a former prime minister; Sulayman Pasha, Apr. 1864–Dec. 1864; ‘Arif Pasha, Dec. 1864–Mar. 1866; Muhammad-Khurshid Pasha, Mar. 1866– , whose deputy was ‘Aziz Pasha, later the governor of Beirut in 1889–92. When accusations were first made against Bahaullah, Khurshid Pasha defended his innocence. Later, when the orders came to exile Bahaullah, the Pasha left the city in protest, leaving his deputy ‘Aziz Pasha to carry out the explusion. ‘Aziz Pasha was a friend of ‘Abd al-Baha and later visited Bahaullah and ‘Abd al-Baha in ‘Akka.

Eventually, the dispute between the Baha’is and the Azalis came to the attention of the authorities. The decision was made to exile both parties to less sensitive areas. One morning in early August 1868, troops surrounded the house of Bahaullah. Despite the protests of the foreign consuls and the governor on their behalf, the Baha’is and Azalis were ordered to leave the city immediately. Bahaullah refused to leave until his steward could settle his debts. The property of the Baha’is was sold at auction at very low prices. Bahaullah and his companions left the city on 12 August 1868/22 Rabi‘ II 1285.

During their stay in Edirne, the Baha’i exiles rented a considerable number of houses and gardens. In addition, several other sites are also associated with Bahaullah’s stay.

The Khan-i ‘Arab was the two-story caravansary where Bahaullah was lodged during his first three nights in Edirne. It seems to have been located near the house of ‘Izzat Pasha, evidently in the southeastern part of the city near the Istanbul road. The accomodations there were poor. Others in the party stayed there somewhat longer. The Khan-i ‘Arab no longer exists.

Bahaullah and his family moved to a house near the Takyiy-i Mawlavi in the Muradiyya Quarter from the caravansary. It was too small for his family so they moved again after a week. Others of the party moved in from the caravansary after his departure. Bahaullah then moved to a larger house in the same area. His brothers, Yahya and Musa, lived with their families in a second house next door. These early residences in Edirne were all poorly built, draughty, and verminous. Since the winter was extremely cold and Bahaullah’s family had spent the previous winter in sweltering Baghdad, they were unprepared for the cold and suffered severely, especially the children, who were frequently sick. The sites of these first two houses were identified by Martha Root during her visit in 1933.

After six months or so, Bahaullah was able to rent the house of Amru’llah, a very large house across the street from the north entrance to the Salimiyya Mosque in the center of the city. This was a splendid three-story house covering a city block. The andaruni (inner family quarters) had thirty rooms. Bahaullah and his family occupied the top floor, Mirza Muhammad-Quli and his family the middle, and servants the bottom. The biruni (outer house) had four or five reception rooms on the top floor, as well as a kitchen. Other Baha’is occupied the middle floor. The house had a bath, cistern, and running water in the kitchen. Mirza Musa and Mirza Yahya occupied two other houses in the same quarter. Food for all three houses was prepared in the house of Amru’llah and was distributed to the poor as well. Meetings for prayer and to hear Bahaullah were regularly held in the reception rooms. Bahaullah lived in this house from 1864 until March 1866 and again later for a few months, probably during the first half of 1867. When the house was sold he moved to his final residence, the house of ‘Izzat Pasha. The house was apparently named for its owner, one Amru’ll’ah Big, but coincidentally its name means “Cause” or “command of God."

A the time of the open split with Mirza Yahya, Bahaullah moved to the house of Rida Big, where he lived with his family for a little less than a year, the first few months in total seclusion. It is now in Baha’i hands and has been rebuilt. Mirza Musa also had a house in the neighborhood, as did a number of Bahaullah’s companions. Down the street is an orchard rented by Bahaullah, now also in Baha’i hands. The house of Rida Big had an andaruni and a small biruni, but the latter had a very large walled garden.

After the sale of the house of Amru’llah, Bahaullah rented the house of ‘Izzat Aqa in the southeastern part of the city, not far from the Khan-i ‘Arab. This was another large house with a fine view of the river and countryside. There were two large courtyards with flowers and trees. Bahaullah lived here for about eleven months. his companions had another house in the same area. Mishkin-Qalam, the calligrapher, and Mirza Musa also had houses in the area which Bahaullah visited on occasion.

Also associated with Bahaullah is the Muradiyya mosque and Takyiy-i Mawlavi, which together form a fine fifteenth century mosque complex. Originally it was built for the Mawlavi dervishes, the mystical order founded by the poet Rumi and much patronized by the Ottoman Sultans. When the building became a mosque, a takya—dervish monastery—was built next door. Subsidiary charitable foundations were added to the complex: baths, a hospital, a seminary, a bakery, and an almshouse. Several of the Baha’i houses were close to this mosque, and Bahaullah is known to have visited it. It still stands.

The Salimiyya Mosque is the great domed royal mosque of Edirne. Built for the cultured and dissolute Sultan Salim II, “the Sot,” this wonderful building was the masterwork of Sinan, the greatest architect of the Ottomans. Its dome and minarets dominate the city, as they have since 1575. It was in this mosque that Mirza Yahya challenged Bahaullah to meet him to publicly dispute their claims. Bahaullah came to the mosque at the appointed time, but Mirza Yahya failed to appear.

For accounts of Bahaullah’s time in Edirne, see ‘Abd al-Baha, Makatib 161–180, Balyuzi, Baha’u’llah 217–59, 460–62, Taherzadeh 2, Momen, Babi 185–200, 205–7, 234–35, 487, Balyuzi, ‘Abdu’l-Baha 19–26, ‘Abd al-Baha, Traveller’s 55–59, Phelps, Life 47–69, Blomfield, Chosen 60–64, Shoghi Effendi, Baha’i 189.

Edirne after Bahaullah

Edirne is mentioned often in the later writings of Bahaullah, usually as the “Land of Mystery.” It is often associated with the open proclamation of his prophetic mission. The most important direct references to Edirne in Bahaullah’s writings are the prophecies found in the Suriy-i Ra’is and some other tablets of great destruction and political turmoil in the Edirne area and of Sultan ‘Abd al-‘Aziz’s impending loss of these territories. The fulfilment of these prophecies ten years later greatly raised Bahaullah’s prestige and was a proof often cited by Baha’i teachers over then next several decades. Another passage in the Suriy-i Ra’is states that “this Youth hath departed out of this country and deposited beneath every tree and every stone a trust, which God will erelong bring forth through the power of truth.”

‘Abd al-Baha, Makatib 181. Persian sources on the Edirne period, mainly important for Bahaullah’s prophecies concerning Edrine, are Ishraq-Khavari, Ma’ida 8:27–28, Mazandarani, Amr 2:284–92, 4:453–58, Ishraq-Khavari, Rahiq 1:55–56, 67–72, Qamus-i Tawqi‘ 1:100–104, Ishraq-Khavari, Da’irat 2:282, 283, 7:915. Other references to these prophecies and related subjects include ‘Abd al-Baha, Promulgation 398, Shoghi Effendi, World 178, Shoghi Effendi, Promised 62, 65, Iqt. 74, ‘Abd al-Baha, Tablets 213, Ishraq-Khavari, Ma’ida 4:277, 7:194–95, Bahaullah, Epistle 132, Bahaullah, Athar 4:336, ‘Abd al-Baha, Makatib 2:213, Zarqani, Badayi‘ 1:357, 2:194.

Bahaullah’s prophecies concerning Edirne were realized when war broke out with Russia and several Balkan Christian states soon after the fall of ‘Abd al-‘Aziz in 1876. The war of 1877–78 with Russia began with an initial success as the Turks heroically defended Plevna in Bulgaria against a Russian siege. However, when the Turks attempted to break out, they were defeated. The Russians poured south and the Muslim population of Bulgaria and Rumelia fled before them, dying in thousands from cold, hunger, disease, and Russian shells in that horrible winter. All the chief towns of European Turkey fell, Edirne included. The city and its population, particularly the Muslims, suffered greatly from that occupation. Most of the Turkish territory north of Edirne was lost to the new Christian state of Bulgaria.

After the Russians withdrew, the town recovered for a time, and in 1890 its population was still about 87,000. However, it was once more devastated in the Balkan Wars of 1912–13. The Turkish defeats in October 1912 left Edirne besieged by the Bulgarians. The Turks held out there until March 1913. When the Bulgarians began fighting with their former allies over the spoils of the war, the Turks were able to reoccupy Edirne. After the establishment of modern Turkey in 1923, the Greek population abandoned the town as part of the population exchanges between the two countries. The population—65,000 in 1911—had dropped to 34,500 in 1927.

Today Edirne is a border town with a population of 72,000 (1980), the first stop for travellers entering Turkey by train from Western Europe. It is the capital of the province of the same name. The area grows various grains and fruits.

The modern Baha’i community

After Bahaullah’s departure in 1868, no Baha’is lived in or visited Edirne for many decades. The first recorded Baha’i visit to the city was that of Martha Root and Marion Jack, 17 October–6 November 1933. Shoghi Effendi had supplied them with a list of the houses and sites associated with Bahaullah. In the course of their visit they were able to identify four houses—all then in ruins after five wars—in which Bahaullah had lived, as well as several other sites. Though sixty-five years had passed since Bahaullah’s departure, they were able to find two old men who remembered “Baha’i Big” and “‘Abbas Big” and who were able to supply them with information about the Baha’i households.

By 1963 a local spiritual assembly had been established in Edirne with the aid of pioneers from Iran, and two sites associated with Bahaullah—the house of Rida Big and a nearby orchard—were in Baha’i hands. This house has been rebuilt though not fully restored and furnished. Pilgrims occasionally visit. Two major anniversaries of events in Bahaullah’s life were observed in Edirne. On 11–12 December 1963 some seventy Turkish Baha’is visited the city to observe the centenary of Bahaullah’s arrival there. In 1967 five Hands of the Cause came to commemorate the centenary of the revelation of the Suriy-i Muluk.

For Martha Root’s account of her visit to Edirne, see Baha’i World 5:581–93, reprinted in Garis, Root 179–96. This article contains photographs of most of the important Baha’i sites. See also Garis, Root 393–97. On the modern Baha’i community of Edirne and the house of Rida Big, see Baha’i World 14:3, Baha’i News 328 (6/1958) 14, 397 (4/1964) 3–4, 434 (5/1967) 2.

Sultan ‘Abd al-‘Aziz and his Ministers

The period from Bahaullah’s arrival in Istanbul in 1863 to his de facto release from confinement in ‘Akka in 1877 coincided with the important political developments that took place in the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Sultan ‘Abd al-‘Aziz. He and his ministers ‘Ali Pasha and Fu’ad Pasha were the Ottoman officials responsible for Bahaullah’s successive exiles, and each was the recipient of important tablets from Bahaullah. Ottoman officials were apparently impressed with Bahaullah personally, and ‘Ali Pasha praised his character and beliefs to foreign diplomats. However, the Ottomans were mainly interested in the Babis as a pawn in Turkish-Iranian relations. By favoring or suppressing the Babis, they could exercise some influence on the Persian government. Bahaullah, however, held himself aloof from such machinations, refusing even to return the visits of Turkish officials. This evidently irritated the Sultan, and the Ottoman government yielded to the Iranian entreaties to send Bahaullah away from Istanbul. They were also apparently becoming concerned about the possibility of Babi views on theocratic government spreading and undermining Ottoman authority.

The reasons for Bahaullah’s final exile, to ‘Akka, are not absolutely clear. Evidently, the agitation of the Azalis in Istanbul aroused the implausible fear that Bahaullah was conspiring with the Bulgarians. (Balyuzi, Baha’u’llah 254.) Foreign diplomats were told that the Baha’is threatened to cause unrest by their efforts to convert Muslims. Although there do not seem to have been converts in Edirne, a number of Baha’is had drifted into the city. There also had been trouble in Baghdad occasioned by the conversion of an Ottoman officer of Sunni clerical background. Bahaullah Himself believed that the Persian government was at least partly responsible. In any case, the Baha’is were treated with noticeable harshness in their expulsion from Edirne and in their initial conditions of imprisonment in ‘Akka.

In the late 1860s a further concern began to trouble the Ottoman government. A group of young intellectuals, the Young Ottomans, had started agitating for constitutional reform. Bahaullah’s letters to the kings, written mostly during the Edirne period, also advocated constitutional monarchy. A number of the Young Ottomans were in touch with Bahaullah and ‘Abd al-Baha, both because Bahaullah and ‘Abd al-Baha were perceived as belonging to corresponding social and intellectual circles in Iran and because some of the Young Ottomans were imprisoned in ‘Akka at the same time as Bahaullah. See Necati Alkan’s articles in the bibliography on these links. Thus during the last decades of Bahaullah’s life, he was imprisoned not just because of old fears of Babi revolution but also because of the threat of liberal reform.

Bahaullah addressed the Ottoman government in a number of his works, especially during the period 1863–73. A number of tablets, notably the Suriy-i Muluk and the lost Lawh-i ‘Abd al-‘Aziz va-Wukala, addressed the Sultan directly, sternly criticizing the quality of his government. Bahaullah also complained of the unjust treatment he had endured at the hands of the Ottoman government, especially after his exile to ‘Akka. The Persian Lawh-i Ra’is, for example, catalogs the sufferings endured by the Baha’i exiles during the early months in the Barracks of ‘Akka. The Kitab-i Aqdas, completed in 1873, also denounces the tyranny of the regime of ‘Abd al-‘Aziz.

For Bahaullah’s relations with the Ottomans, see ‘Abd al-Baha, Makatib 146–47, 172–75, 179, 181, 225; Momen, Babi 182–200; as well as the sources cited in elsewhere in this chapter.

Sultan ‘Abd al-‘Aziz

Sultan ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ("Abdülaziz.” b. 9 Feb. 1830. d. June 1876) was the thirty-second Ottoman Sultan. Bahaullah’s exiles to Istanbul, Edirne, and ‘Akka all took place during his reign, and it was only after his overthrow and death the Bahaullah regained relative freedom.

The third son of the reforming Sultan Mahmud II, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz came to the throne after the early death of his brother ‘Abd al-Majid I on 25 June 1861. In the early years of his reign he was under the influence of his two great ministers ‘Ali and Fu’ad Pasha, who were thus able to continue the Tanzimat reforms. European-style reforms were made in such areas as provincial administration, education, civil law, and the treatment of minorities and foreigners. He himself toured Western Europe, the first Ottoman sultan to do so. On the other hand, unrest continued in the Balkans, much encouraged by Russia. There were revolts in Montenegro, Serbia, Herzegovina, Bulgaria, and Crete, eventually leading to the loss of much territory in Europe.

After the deaths of Fu’ad and ‘Ali Pasha in 1869 and 1871, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz became increasingly autocratic and reactionary. Though he aligned the Ottoman Empire with Russia, a traditional enemy, unrest continued in the Balkans, culminating in a bloody uprising in Bulgaria in 1875–76. Beginning in 1873 famine struck Anatolia. In one particularly severe winter wolves killed animals and people in the suburbs of Istanbul. The “Young Ottomans,” a loose network of constitutionalist reformers, agitated against the regime. Finally, the government was forced in 1875 to default on the huge public debt accumulated through years of deficits, triggering a major financial crisis and panic.

Midhat Pasha, the president of the Council of State