When the messenger reached Ba[_gh_]dád the Válí kept him in prison and placed the books and the treatises in the council-chamber. My father, [_Sh_]ay[_kh_] Muḥammad, visited the messenger every day in the prison, and heard the Word of God from him for three months. Whatever he heard he imparted to those who were seekers, so that, during this short time, a large number of people came to believe. [_Sh_]ay[_kh_] Ba[_sh_]ír an-Najafí was one of them, a mujtahid seventy-five years old. Then there were [_Sh_]ay[_kh_] Sulṭán al-Karbilá'í and a group with him in Karbilá; Siyyid Muḥammad-Ja`far, Siyyid Ḥasan Ja`far, and Siyyid `Alí Bi[_sh_]r and a group with him in the town of Káẓimíyyah; [_Sh_]ay[_kh_] Muḥammad [_Sh_]ibl [the author's father], Siyyid Muḥsin al-Káẓimí, [_Sh_]ay[_kh_] Ṣáliḥ al-Karímí and a group with them of villagers like [_Sh_]ay[_kh_] `Abbás, Mullá Maḥmúd, `Abdu'l-Hádí and Mihdí.... When the Government noticed that the Cause was gaining ground day by day, the afore-mentioned Válí, Najíb Pá[_sh_]á, ordered the divines of all the regions to come to Ba[_gh_]dád....[4] They summoned my father, [_Sh_]ay[_kh_] Muḥammad, to present himself. But my father left Ba[_gh_]dád in disguise, because he had learned that the Válí intended to make him give witness against the Cause of the Day of Judgment. They brought the messenger to this terrible assembly and asked him who the Lord of the Cause was. He answered: 'The awaited Spirit of Truth hath come. He is the One promised in the Books of God.' Then he read them some verses and prayers and called upon them to believe. It went hard with them to accept the Cause. They arose to deny and to reject it, full of haughtiness. They agreed to denounce the messenger as a heretic and passed the sentence of death upon him, and thus ended that assemblage of ill omen. The Válí sent the account of the proceedings to the Sublime Porte, whence came the orders that the messenger should be sent in fetters, together with his books, to the capital. The messenger languished for six months in the gaol of Ba[_gh_]dád and was then dispatched to the Sublime Porte, under escort, by way of Mosul. The fame of the Cause was noised abroad in Mosul, and when he passed Mosul nothing more was heard of him.[5] [Footnote BD: Áqá Muḥammad-Muṣṭafá wrote in Arabic.] [Footnote BE: See Prologue I.] The circumstances of Mullá `Alí's arrest were also noted by Major Henry Rawlinson,[6] then British Political Agent in Ba[_gh_]dád, who, on January 8th 1845, reported to Sir Stratford Canning, the Ambassador in Istanbul: