Bahá’u’lláh had become well-known in Baghdad and Kurdistan, and people came out to meet Him all along the way to Constantinople. Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith from 1921 to 1957, writes in "God Passes By":
"The festivities which, at some stations, were held in His honor, the food the villagers prepared and brought for His acceptance, the eagerness which time and again they exhibited in providing the means for His comfort, recalled the reverence which the people of Baghdad had shown Him on so many occasions."(9)