When they exiled us from Persia, from Teheran to Baghdad, the journey was made in thirty stages and in these thirty stages we did not find one Baha’i. Now in every one of these places there are great numbers of Baha’i friends.
Notwithstanding that the ruler of Persia and the Sultan of Turkey opposed the Cause so violently exercising tyranny and oppression thinking to extinguish the Lamp of God yet this Lamp day by day grew in radiance, its power increased and its illumination became greater, until it reached such a degree that now its lights are spread throughout the world even as far as San Francisco, which is very far from Persia. See what this will mean in the future!
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (From a talk, October 5, 1912, San Francisco, California; Star of the West, vol. 10, no. 13, November 4, 1919)