Sultan ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz: “had thrice banished Bahá’u’lláh, and in whose dominions the Manifestation of God spent almost the whole of His forty years’ captivity”

Of the two despots ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz was the more powerful, the more exalted in rank, the more preeminent in guilt, and the more concerned with the tribulations and fortunes of the Founder of our Faith. He it was who, through his farmáns, had thrice banished Bahá’u’lláh, and in whose dominions the Manifestation of God spent almost the whole of His forty years’ captivity. It was during his reign and that of his nephew and successor, ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd II, that the Center of the Covenant of God had to endure, for no less than forty years, in the fortress-town of Akká, an incarceration fraught with so many perils, affronts and privations. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)