When Bahá’u’lláh departed from Baghdád, and traveled to
Rumelia, the friends remained behind. The inhabitants of Baghdád then rose up
against those helpless believers, sending them away as captives to Mosul. Ustád [Ismá’íl] was old and feeble, but he left on foot, with no provisions for his
journey, crossed over mountains and deserts, valleys and hills, and in the end
arrived at the Most Great Prison. At one time, Bahá’u’lláh had written down an
ode of Rúmí’s [a famous Persian poet] for him, and had told him to turn his
face toward the Báb and sing the words, set to a melody. And so, as he wandered
through the long dark nights, Ustád would sing these lines:
I am lost, O Love, possessed and dazed,
Love’s fool am I, in all the earth.
They call me first among the crazed,
Though I once came first for wit and worth.
O Love, who sellest me this wine, [1]
O Love, for whom I burn and bleed,
Love, for whom I cry and pine—
Thou the Piper, I the reed.
If Thou wishest me to live,
Through me blow Thy holy breath.
The touch of Jesus Thou wilt give
To me, who’ve lain an age in death.
Thou, both End and Origin,
Thou without and Thou within—
From every eye Thou hidest well,
And yet in every eye dost dwell.
He was like a bird with broken wings but he had the song and
it kept him going onward to his one true Love. By stealth, he approached the
Fortress and went in, but he was exhausted, spent. He remained for some days,
and came into the presence of Bahá’u’lláh, after which he was directed to look
for a lodging in Haifa. He got himself to Haifa, but he found no haven there,
no nest or hole, no water, no grain of corn. Finally he made his home in a cave
outside the town. He acquired a little tray and on this he set out rings of
earthenware, and some thimbles, pins and other trinkets. Every day, from
morning till noon, he peddled these, wandering about. Some days his earnings
would amount to twenty paras, some days
thirty; and forty on his best days. Then he would go home to the cave and
content himself with a piece of bread. He was always voicing his thanks, always
saying, “Praise be to God that I have attained such favor and grace; that I
have been separated from friend and stranger alike, and have taken refuge in
this cave. Now I am of those who gave their all, to buy the Divine Joseph in
the market place. What bounty could be any greater than this!”
Such was his condition, when he died. Many and many a time,
Bahá’u’lláh was heard to express His satisfaction with Ustád Ismá’íl. Blessings
hemmed him round, and the eye of God was on him. Salutations be unto him, and
praise. Upon him be the glory of the All-Glorious.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (‘Memorials of
the Faithful’)
[1] This wine, Rúmí says elsewhere, comes from the jar of
“Yea verily.” That is, it symbolizes the Primal Covenant established between
God and man on the day of “Am I not your Lord?” On that day, the Creator
summoned posterity out of the loins of Adam and said to the generations unborn,
“Am I not your Lord?” Whereupon they answered, “Yea, verily, Thou art.” Cf.
Qur’án 7:171.
