We were consigned for four months to a place foul beyond
comparison. As to the dungeon in which this Wronged One and others similarly
wronged were confined, a dark and narrow pit were preferable. Upon Our arrival
We were first conducted along a pitch-black corridor, from whence We descended
three steep flights of stairs to the place of confinement assigned to Us. The
dungeon was wrapped in thick darkness, and Our fellow prisoners numbered nearly
a hundred and fifty souls: thieves, assassins and highwaymen. Though crowded,
it had no other outlet than the passage by which We entered. No pen can depict
that place, nor any tongue describe its loathsome smell. Most of these men had
neither clothes nor bedding to lie on. God alone knoweth what befell Us in that
most foul-smelling and gloomy place!
- Baha’u’llah (‘Epistle to the Son of the Wolf’)
