Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 41. (1990)

BEVERIDGE, Kent D.: „Worthy Representative of Europe“. Anton Graf Prokesch von Osten

Anton Graf Prokesch von Osten

Gobineau et le Comte de Prokesch-Osten reveals that other letters which he addressed to Gobineau are also absent from that collection42).

It was during this eighteen-month period that events with grave consequences for the Bahá’í religion took place: one of Bahá’u’lláh’s half- brothers, known as Subh-i-Azal, contested Bahá’u’lláh’s claim to be the Manifestation of God promised by the Báb, and advanced his own claim to that station. Although the great majority of the community loyally followed Bahá’u’lláh, the Bahá’ís feel that this open break, and the subsequent divisions that it caused among the followers of the Báb, weak- end their community in the eyes of its enemies and emboldened them to move against it43). Unsigned letters, purporting to have been written by Bahá’ís and boasting of their numbers, were covertly thrown into the houses of notables in Constantinople, which heightened the fears of such officials as were already concerned about the number of Bahá’ís in Adrianople44). In addition, erroneous stories about the deeds and plans of the Bahá’ís were circulated. One of this intimated that Bahá’u’lláh was involved with Bulgarian revolutionaries, which so alarmed Fu’ád Pasha, the Minister of Foreign Affairs45), that he pressed the Sultan to take action46). Thus, ‘Abdu‘l-‘Aziz came to issue a farman dated 26 July 1868 condemning Bahá’u’lláh and several of his followers to perpetual banishment in the penal colony of ‘Akká (St. Jean d’Acre), stipulating their close confinement and forbidding them association with each other or with the local inhabitants47). The rationale for this drastic action was the accusation that the exiles had grievously erred and had also led others astray.

42) For example, the letter dated 28 August 1868, in which he describes his intervention on behalf of Bahá’u’lláh, as well as those dated 23 June and 11 December 1869; 20 April, 1 November and 2 December 1870; etc. Engel-Janosi Briefwechsel 456ff.

43) Shoghi Effendi God Passes By chapter 10.

44) Balyuzi Bahá’u’lláh 252.

45) Fu’ád Pasha had taken over the Foreign Ministry from ‘Ali Pasha in 1867.

46) Balyuzi Bahá’u’lláh 254. These accusations are said to have originated with the followers of Subh-i-Azal. Shoghi Effendi God Passes By 179. The extremely unstable situation in the Balkans during that period helps to explain the reaction of ‘Ali Pasha and Fu’ád Pasha. In the summer of 1868, the Russians were smuggling arms on a large scale to the Serbians through the Danubian Principalities (two provinces of European Turkey), and local authorities were unable to stop them. The ruler of the Ottoman province of Serbia, which bordered on the Austrian Empire, had just been assassinated, and civil war was threatening to break out between the rival clans of the Karageorgevichs and Obreno- vichs. An uneasy peace was barely being maintained in Montenegro following an uprising which had been bloodily quelled by Turkish troops in 1863. Moreover, tensions were running high between the Muslim Turks and the Christian Bulgarians, who were also incited and supported by the Russians. Agents of all these factions were operating throughout European Turkey.

47) Cf. note 60 and Taherzadeh Bevelation vol.2, 402 and 408f.

147