Muhammad Sháh, at so perilous an hour, was meanwhile rapidly
sinking under the weight of his physical infirmities. The shallow-minded Hájí
Mírzá Áqásí, now the pivot of state affairs, exhibited a vacillation and
incompetence that seemed to increase with every extension in the range of his
grave responsibilities. At one time he would feel inclined to support the
verdict of the ‘ulamás; at another he would censure their aggressiveness and
distrust their assertions; at yet another, he would relapse into mysticism,
and, wrapt in his reveries, lose sight of the gravity of the emergency that
confronted him. - Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
