“Hearken, O king!” is the summons issued to Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz by Bahá’u’lláh, “to the speech of Him that speaketh the truth, Him that doth not ask thee to recompense Him with the things God hath chosen to bestow upon thee, Him Who unerringly treadeth the Straight Path.... Observe, O king, with thine inmost heart and with thy whole being, the precepts of God, and walk not in the paths of the oppressor.... Place not thy reliance on thy treasures. Put thy whole confidence in the grace of God, thy Lord.... Overstep not the bounds of moderation, and deal justly with them that serve thee.... Set before thine eyes God’s unerring Balance, and, as one standing in His presence, weigh in that Balance thine actions, every day, every moment of thy life. Bring thyself to account ere thou art summoned to a reckoning, on the Day when no man shall have strength to stand for fear of God, the Day when the hearts of the heedless ones shall be made to tremble.” “The day is approaching,” Bahá’u’lláh thus prophesies in the Lawḥ-i-Ra’ís, “when the Land of Mystery [Adrianople], and what is beside it shall be changed, and shall pass out of the hands of the king, and commotions shall appear, and the voice of lamentation shall be raised, and the evidences of mischief shall be revealed on all sides, and confusion shall spread by reason of that which hath befallen these captives at the hands of the hosts of oppression. The course of things shall be altered, and conditions shall wax so grievous, that the very sands on the desolate hills will moan, and the trees on the mountain will weep, and blood will flow out of all things. Then wilt thou behold the people in sore distress.” “Soon,” He, moreover has written, “will He seize you in His wrathful anger, and sedition will be stirred up in your midst, and your dominions will be disrupted. Then will ye bewail and lament, and will find none to help or succor you.... Several times calamities have overtaken you, and yet ye failed utterly to take heed. One of them was the conflagration which devoured most of the City [Constantinople] with the flames of justice, and concerning which many poems were written, stating that no such fire had ever been witnessed. And yet, ye waxed more heedless.... Plague, likewise, broke out, and ye still failed to give heed! Be expectant, however, for the wrath of God is ready to overtake you. Erelong will ye behold that which hath been sent down from the Pen of My command.” “By your deeds,” He, in another Tablet, anticipating the fall of the Sultanate and the Caliphate, thus reproves the combined forces of Sunní and _Sh_í’ih Islám, “the exalted station of the people hath been abased, the standard of Islám hath been reversed, and its mighty throne hath fallen.”