‘Abdu’l-Bahá was but six years old when the Báb was martyred in Tabríz, eight years of age when Bahá’u’lláh was imprisoned in a dungeon on Ṭihrán by order of the Sháh, and a few months later accompanied Bahá’u’lláh on His exile to Baghdád. This commenced a period of exile and imprisonment endured by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá until the year 1908. From Baghdád Bahá’u’lláh, His family and attendants, were conducted to Constantinople, from Constantinople to Adrianople, and from Adrianople to the fortress prison in ‘Akká in the Holy Land, where Bahá’u’lláh ascended in 1892. Throughout this period ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, steeled in adversity, triumphant in spirit, increasingly manifested those qualities and powers upon which Bahá’u’lláh established the future of His World Faith by appointing ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His Testament the Exemplar of the religious life, the Interpreter of His Word and the Center of His Covenant with mankind.

From 1892 until 1908, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá suffered extreme oppression, freed at last by the revolution in Turkey which released all political prisoners sentenced by the Sulṭán.