He lived, however, in great seclusion, leaving the direction of affairs almost entirely in the hands of his elder halfbrother (born 12th November 1817), Mirth Husayn `Ali, entitled Baha' u'llah (" the Splendour of God "), who thus gradually became the most conspicuous and most influential member of the sect, though in the Igan, one of the most important polemical works of the Babis, composed in 1858-1859, he still implicitly recognized the supremacy of Subh-i-Ezel.
A Baha'i election is carried out by secret ballot.
In 1868 Baha and his followers were exiled to Acre in Syria, and Subh-i-Ezel with his few adherents to Famagusta in Cyprus, where he was still living in 1908.
Baha'u'llah died at Acre on the 16th of May 1892.
His son `Abbas Efendi (also called `Abdu'l-Baha, " the servant of Baha ") was generally recognized as his successor, but another of his four sons, Muhammad `Ali, put forward a rival claim.