GOD PASSES BY
(U.S., Second Printing 1979)
FILENAME: GPB
FILEDATE: 08-06-94
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FOREWORD
On the 23rd of May of this auspicious year the Bahá'í world will
celebrate the centennial anniversary of the founding of the Faith of
Bahá'u'lláh. It will commemorate at once the hundreth anniversary
of the inception of the Bábí Dispensation, of the inauguration of the
Bahá'í Era, of the commencement of the Bahá'í Cycle, and of the
birth of `Abdu'l-Bahá. The weight of the potentialities with which
this Faith, possessing no peer or equal in the world's spiritual history,
and marking the culmination of a universal prophetic cycle, has been
endowed, staggers our imagination. The brightness of the millennial
glory which it must shed in the fullness of time dazzles our eyes. The
magnitude of the shadow which its Author will continue to cast on
successive Prophets destined to be raised up after Him eludes our
calculation.
Already in the space of less than a century the operation of the
mysterious processes generated by its creative spirit has provoked a
tumult in human society such as no mind can fathom. Itself undergoing
a period of incubation during its primitive age, it has, through
the emergence of its slowly-crystallizing system, induced a fermentation
in the general life of mankind designed to shake the very foundations
of a disordered society, to purify its life-blood, to reorientate
and reconstruct its institutions, and shape its final destiny.
To what else can the observant eye or the unprejudiced mind,
acquainted with the signs and portents heralding the birth, and
accompanying the rise, of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh ascribe this dire,
this planetary upheaval, with its attendant destruction, misery and
fear, if not to the emergence of His embryonic World Order, which,
as He Himself has unequivocally proclaimed, has "deranged the
equilibrium of the world and revolutionized mankind's ordered life"?
To what agency, if not to the irresistible diffusion of that world-shaking,
world-energizing, world-redeeming spirit, which the Báb has
affirmed is "vibrating in the innermost realities of all created things"
can the origins of this portentous crisis, incomprehensible to man,
and admittedly unprecedented in the annals of the human race, be
attributed? In the convulsions of contemporary society, in the
frenzied, world-wide ebullitions of men's thoughts, in the fierce
antagonisms inflaming races, creeds and classes, in the shipwreck of
nations, in the downfall of kings, in the dismemberment of empires,
in the extinction of dynasties, in the collapse of ecclesiastical hierarchies,
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in the deterioration of time-honored institutions, in the dissolution
of ties, secular as well as religious, that had for so long held
together the members of the human race--all manifesting themselves
with ever-increasing gravity since the outbreak of the first World War
that immediately preceded the opening years of the Formative Age
of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh--in these we can readily recognize the
evidences of the travail of an age that has sustained the impact of
His Revelation, that has ignored His summons, and is now laboring
to be delivered of its burden, as a direct consequence of the impulse
communicated to it by the generative, the purifying, the transmuting
influence of His Spirit.
It is my purpose, on the occasion of an anniversary of such profound
significance, to attempt in the succeeding pages a survey of
the outstanding events of the century that has seen this Spirit burst
forth upon the world, as well as the initial stages of its subsequent
incarnation in a System that must evolve into an Order designed to
embrace the whole of mankind, and capable of fulfilling the high
destiny that awaits man on this planet. I shall endeavor to review,
in their proper perspective and despite the comparatively brief space
of time which separates us from them, the events which the revolution
of a hundred years, unique alike in glory and tribulation, has unrolled
before our eyes. I shall seek to represent and correlate, in however
cursory a manner, those momentous happenings which have insensibly,
relentlessly, and under the very eyes of successive generations, perverse,
indifferent or hostile, transformed a heterodox and seemingly
negligible offshoot of the Shaykhí school of the Ithná-`Ash'áríyyih sect
of Shí'ah Islám into a world religion whose unnumbered followers are
organically and indissolubly united; whose light has overspread the
earth as far as Iceland in the North and Magellanes in the South;
whose ramifications have spread to no less than sixty countries of the
world; whose literature has been translated and disseminated in no
less than forty languages; whose endowments in the five continents
of the globe, whether local, national or international, already run
into several million dollars; whose incorporated elective bodies have
secured the official recognition of a number of governments in East
and West; whose adherents are recruited from the diversified races
and chief religions of mankind; whose representatives are to be found
in hundreds of cities in both Persia and the United States of America;
to whose verities royalty has publicly and repeatedly testified; whose
independent status its enemies, from the ranks of its parent religion
and in the leading center of both the Arab and Muslim worlds, have
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proclaimed and demonstrated; and whose claims have been virtually
recognized, entitling it to rank as the fourth religion of a Land in
which its world spiritual center has been established, and which is
at once the heart of Christendom, the holiest shrine of the Jewish
people, and, save Mecca alone, the most sacred spot in Islám.
It is not my purpose--nor does the occasion demand it,--to write
a detailed history of the last hundred years of the Bahá'í Faith, nor
do I intend to trace the origins of so tremendous a Movement, or to
portray the conditions under which it was born, or to examine the
character of the religion from which it has sprung, or to arrive at an
estimate of the effects which its impact upon the fortunes of mankind
has produced. I shall rather content myself with a review of the
salient features of its birth and rise, as well as of the initial stages in the
establishment of its administrative institutions--institutions which
must be regarded as the nucleus and herald of that World Order
that must incarnate the soul, execute the laws, and fulfill the purpose
of the Faith of God in this day.
Nor will it be my intention to ignore, whilst surveying the
panorama which the revolution of a hundred years spreads before our
gaze, the swift interweaving of seeming reverses with evident victories,
out of which the hand of an inscrutable Providence has chosen
to form the pattern of the Faith from its earliest days, or to minimize
those disasters that have so often proved themselves to be the prelude
to fresh triumphs which have, in turn, stimulated its growth and
consolidated its past achievements. Indeed, the history of the first
hundred years of its evolution resolves itself into a series of internal
and external crises, of varying severity, devastating in their immediate
effects, but each mysteriously releasing a corresponding measure of
divine power, lending thereby a fresh impulse to its unfoldment, this
further unfoldment engendering in its turn a still graver calamity,
followed by a still more liberal effusion of celestial grace enabling its
upholders to accelerate still further its march and win in its service
still more compelling victories.
In its broadest outline the first century of the Bahá'í Era may be
said to comprise the Heroic, the Primitive, the Apostolic Age of the
Faith of Bahá'u'lláh, and also the initial stages of the Formative, the
Transitional, the Iron Age which is to witness the crystallization and
shaping of the creative energies released by His Revelation. The first
eighty years of this century may roughly be said to have covered the
entire period of the first age, while the last two decades may be
regarded as having witnessed the beginnings of the second. The
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former commences with the Declaration of the Báb, includes the
mission of Bahá'u'lláh, and terminates with the passing of `Abdu'l-Bahá.
The latter is ushered in by His Will and Testament, which
defines its character and establishes its foundation.
The century under our review may therefore be considered as
falling into four distinct periods, of unequal duration, each of specific
import and of tremendous and indeed unappraisable significance.
These four periods are closely interrelated, and constitute successive
acts of one, indivisible, stupendous and sublime drama, whose
mystery no intellect can fathom, whose climax no eye can even
dimly perceive, whose conclusion no mind can adequately foreshadow.
Each of these acts revolves around its own theme, boasts of its own
heroes, registers its own tragedies, records its own triumphs, and contributes
its own share to the execution of one common, immutable
Purpose. To isolate any one of them from the others, to dissociate the
later manifestations of one universal, all-embracing Revelation from
the pristine purpose that animated it in its earliest days, would be
tantamount to a mutilation of the structure on which it rests, and
to a lamentable perversion of its truth and of its history.
The first period (1844-1853), centers around the gentle, the
youthful and irresistible person of the Báb, matchless in His meekness,
imperturbable in His serenity, magnetic in His utterance, unrivaled
in the dramatic episodes of His swift and tragic ministry. It begins
with the Declaration of His Mission, culminates in His martyrdom,
and ends in a veritable orgy of religious massacre revolting in its
hideousness. It is characterized by nine years of fierce and relentless
contest, whose theatre was the whole of Persia, in which above ten
thousand heroes laid down their lives, in which two sovereigns of the
Qájár dynasty and their wicked ministers participated, and which
was supported by the entire Shí'ah ecclesiastical hierarchy, by the
military resources of the state, and by the implacable hostility of the
masses. The second period (1853-1892) derives its inspiration from
the august figure of Bahá'u'lláh, preeminent in holiness, awesome in
the majesty of His strength and power, unapproachable in the transcendent
brightness of His glory. It opens with the first stirrings,
in the soul of Bahá'u'lláh while in the Síyáh-Chál of Tihrán, of the
Revelation anticipated by the Báb, attains its plenitude in the
proclamation of that Revelation to the kings and ecclesiastical leaders
of the earth, and terminates in the ascension of its Author in the
vicinity of the prison-town of `Akká. It extends over thirty-nine
years of continuous, of unprecedented and overpowering Revelation,
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is marked by the propagation of the Faith to the neighboring territories
of Turkey, of Russia, of `Iráq, of Syria, of Egypt and of India,
and is distinguished by a corresponding aggravation of hostility,
represented by the united attacks launched by the Sháh of Persia and
the Sultán of Turkey, the two admittedly most powerful potentates
of the East, as well as by the opposition of the twin sacerdotal orders
of Shí'ah and Sunní Islám. The third period (1892-1921) revolves
around the vibrant personality of `Abdu'l-Bahá, mysterious in His
essence, unique in His station, astoundingly potent in both the charm
and strength of His character. It commences with the announcement
of the Covenant of Bahá'u'lláh, a document without parallel in the
history of any earlier Dispensation, attains its climax in the emphatic
assertion by the Center of that Covenant, in the City of the Covenant,
of the unique character and far-reaching implications of that Document,
and closes with His passing and the interment of His remains
on Mt. Carmel. It will go down in history as a period of almost thirty
years' duration, in which tragedies and triumphs have been so intertwined
as to eclipse at one time the Orb of the Covenant, and at
another time to pour forth its light over the continent of Europe,
and as far as Australasia, the Far East and the North American continent.
The fourth period (1921-1944) is motivated by the forces
radiating from the Will and Testament of `Abdu'l-Bahá, that Charter
of Bahá'u'lláh's New World Order, the offspring resulting from the
mystic intercourse between Him Who is the Source of the Law of
God and the mind of the One Who is the vehicle and interpreter of
that Law. The inception of this fourth, this last period of the first
Bahá'í century synchronizes with the birth of the Formative Age of
the Bahá'í Era, with the founding of the Administrative Order of the
Faith of Bahá'u'lláh--a system which is at once the harbinger, the
nucleus and pattern of His World Order. This period, covering the
first twenty-three years of this Formative Age, has already been distinguished
by an outburst of further hostility, of a different character,
accelerating on the one hand the diffusion of the Faith over a still
wider area in each of the five continents of the globe, and resulting
on the other in the emancipation and the recognition of the independent
status of several communities within its pale.
These four periods are to be regarded not only as the component,
the inseparable parts of one stupendous whole, but as progressive stages
in a single evolutionary process, vast, steady and irresistible. For as
we survey the entire range which the operation of a century-old Faith
has unfolded before us, we cannot escape the conclusion that from
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whatever angle we view this colossal scene, the events associated with
these periods present to us unmistakable evidences of a slowly maturing
process, of an orderly development, of internal consolidation, of
external expansion, of a gradual emancipation from the fetters of
religious orthodoxy, and of a corresponding diminution of civil disabilities
and restrictions.
Viewing these periods of Bahá'í history as the constituents of a
single entity, we note the chain of events proclaiming successfully the
rise of a Forerunner, the Mission of One Whose advent that Forerunner
had promised, the establishment of a Covenant generated
through the direct authority of the Promised One Himself, and lastly
the birth of a System which is the child sprung from both the Author
of the Covenant and its appointed Center. We observe how the Báb,
the Forerunner, announced the impending inception of a divinely-conceived
Order, how Bahá'u'lláh, the Promised One, formulated its
laws and ordinances, how `Abdu'l-Bahá, the appointed Center, delineated
its features, and how the present generation of their followers
have commenced to erect the framework of its institutions. We
watch, through these periods, the infant light of the Faith diffuse itself
from its cradle, eastward to India and the Far East, westward to the
neighboring territories of `Iráq, of Turkey, of Russia, and of Egypt,
travel as far as the North American continent, illuminate subsequently
the major countries of Europe, envelop with its radiance,
at a later stage, the Antipodes, brighten the fringes of the Arctic,
and finally set aglow the Central and South American horizons. We
witness a corresponding increase in the diversity of the elements
within its fellowship, which from being confined, in the first period of
its history, to an obscure body of followers chiefly recruited from the
ranks of the masses in Shí'ah Persia, has expanded into a fraternity
representative of the leading religious systems of the world, of almost
every caste and color, from the humblest worker and peasant to
royalty itself. We notice a similar development in the extent of its
literature--a literature which, restricted at first to the narrow range
of hurriedly transcribed, often corrupted, secretly circulated, manuscripts,
so furtively perused, so frequently effaced, and at times even
eaten by the terrorized members of a proscribed sect, has, within the
space of a century, swelled into innumerable editions, comprising tens
of thousands of printed volumes, in diverse scripts, and in no less than
forty languages, some elaborately reproduced, others profusely illustrated,
all methodically and vigorously disseminated through the
agency of world-wide, properly constituted and specially organized
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committees and Assemblies. We perceive a no less apparent evolution
in the scope of its teachings, at first designedly rigid, complex and
severe, subsequently recast, expanded, and liberalized under the succeeding
Dispensation, later expounded, reaffirmed and amplified by an
appointed Interpreter, and lastly systematized and universally applied
to both individuals and institutions. We can discover a no less distinct
gradation in the character of the opposition it has had to encounter--
an opposition, at first kindled in the bosom of Shí'ah Islám, which, at a
later stage, gathered momentum with the banishment of Bahá'u'lláh
to the domains of the Turkish Sultán and the consequent hostility of
the more powerful Sunní hierarchy and its Caliph, the head of the vast
majority of the followers of Muhammad--an opposition which, now,
through the rise of a divinely appointed Order in the Christian West,
and its initial impact on civil and ecclesiastical institutions, bids fair
to include among its supporters established governments and systems
associated with the most ancient, the most deeply entrenched sacerdotal
hierarchies in Christendom. We can, at the same time, recognize,
through the haze of an ever-widening hostility, the progress, painful
yet persistent, of certain communities within its pale through the
stages of obscurity, of proscription, of emancipation, and of recognition
--stages that must needs culminate in the course of succeeding
centuries, in the establishment of the Faith, and the founding, in the
plenitude of its power and authority, of the world-embracing Bahá'í
Commonwealth. We can likewise discern a no less appreciable
advance in the rise of its institutions, whether as administrative
centers or places of worship--institutions, clandestine and subterrene
in their earliest beginnings, emerging imperceptibly into the broad
daylight of public recognition, legally protected, enriched by pious
endowments, ennobled at first by the erection of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár
of Ishqábád, the first Bahá'í House of Worship, and more
recently immortalized, through the rise in the heart of the North
American continent of the Mother Temple of the West, the forerunner
of a divine, a slowly maturing civilization. And finally, we
can even bear witness to the marked improvement in the conditions
surrounding the pilgrimages performed by its devoted adherents to
its consecrated shrines at its world center--pilgrimages originally
arduous, perilous, tediously long, often made on foot, at times ending
in disappointment, and confined to a handful of harassed Oriental
followers, gradually attracting, under steadily improving circumstances
of security and comfort, an ever swelling number of new
converts converging from the four corners of the globe, and culminating
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in the widely publicized yet sadly frustrated visit of a noble
Queen, who, at the very threshold of the city of her heart's desire,
was compelled, according to her own written testimony, to divert her
steps, and forego the privilege of so priceless a benefit.
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FIRST PERIOD
THE MINISTRY OF THE BÁB
1844-1853
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CHAPTER I
The Birth of the Bábí Revelation
May 23, 1844, signalizes the commencement of the most turbulent
period of the Heroic Age of the Bahá'í Era, an age which marks the
opening of the most glorious epoch in the greatest cycle which the
spiritual history of mankind has yet witnessed. No more than a
span of nine short years marks the duration of this most spectacular,
this most tragic, this most eventful period of the first Bahá'í century.
It was ushered in by the birth of a Revelation whose Bearer posterity
will acclaim as the "Point round Whom the realities of the Prophets
and Messengers revolve," and terminated with the first stirrings of a
still more potent Revelation, "whose day," Bahá'u'lláh Himself affirms,
"every Prophet hath announced," for which "the soul of every Divine
Messenger hath thirsted," and through which "God hath proved the
hearts of the entire company of His Messengers and Prophets." Little
wonder that the immortal chronicler of the events associated with
the birth and rise of the Bahá'í Revelation has seen fit to devote no
less than half of his moving narrative to the description of those
happenings that have during such a brief space of time so greatly
enriched, through their tragedy and heroism, the religious annals of
mankind. In sheer dramatic power, in the rapidity with which events
of momentous importance succeeded each other, in the holocaust
which baptized its birth, in the miraculous circumstances attending
the martyrdom of the One Who had ushered it in, in the potentialities
with which it had been from the outset so thoroughly impregnated,
in the forces to which it eventually gave birth, this nine-year
period may well rank as unique in the whole range of man's religious
experience. We behold, as we survey the episodes of this first act of a
sublime drama, the figure of its Master Hero, the Báb, arise meteor-like
above the horizon of Shíráz, traverse the sombre sky of Persia
from south to north, decline with tragic swiftness, and perish in a
blaze of glory. We see His satellites, a galaxy of God-intoxicated
heroes, mount above that same horizon, irradiate that same incandescent
light, burn themselves out with that self-same swiftness, and
impart in their turn an added impetus to the steadily gathering
momentum of God's nascent Faith.
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He Who communicated the original impulse to so incalculable a
Movement was none other than the promised Qá'im (He who
ariseth), the Sáhibu'z-Zamán (the Lord of the Age), Who assumed
the exclusive right of annulling the whole Qur'ánic Dispensation,
Who styled Himself "the Primal Point from which have been generated
all created things ... the Countenance of God Whose splendor can
never be obscured, the Light of God Whose radiance can never fade."
The people among whom He appeared were the most decadent race
in the civilized world, grossly ignorant, savage, cruel, steeped in
prejudice, servile in their submission to an almost deified hierarchy,
recalling in their abjectness the Israelites of Egypt in the days of
Moses, in their fanaticism the Jews in the days of Jesus, and in their
perversity the idolators of Arabia in the days of Muhammad. The
arch-enemy who repudiated His claim, challenged His authority,
persecuted His Cause, succeeded in almost quenching His light, and
who eventually became disintegrated under the impact of His Revelation
was the Shí'ah priesthood. Fiercely fanatic, unspeakably corrupt,
enjoying unlimited ascendancy over the masses, jealous of their
position, and irreconcilably opposed to all liberal ideas, the members
of this caste had for one thousand years invoked the name of the
Hidden Imám, their breasts had glowed with the expectation of His
advent, their pulpits had rung with the praises of His world-embracing
dominion, their lips were still devoutly and perpetually murmuring
prayers for the hastening of His coming. The willing tools
who prostituted their high office for the accomplishment of the
enemy's designs were no less than the sovereigns of the Qájár dynasty,
first, the bigoted, the sickly, the vacillating Muhammad Sháh, who
at the last moment cancelled the Báb's imminent visit to the capital,
and, second, the youthful and inexperienced Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, who
gave his ready assent to the sentence of his Captive's death. The
arch villains who joined hands with the prime movers of so wicked a
conspiracy were the two grand vizirs, Hájí Mírzá Aqásí, the idolized
tutor of Muhammad Sháh, a vulgar, false-hearted and fickle-minded
schemer, and the arbitrary, bloodthirsty, reckless Amír-Nizám, Mírzá
Taqí Khán, the first of whom exiled the Báb to the mountain fastnesses
of Ádhirbayján, and the latter decreed His death in Tabríz.
Their accomplice in these and other heinous crimes was a government
bolstered up by a flock of idle, parasitical princelings and governors,
corrupt, incompetent, tenaciously holding to their ill-gotten privileges,
and utterly subservient to a notoriously degraded clerical order.
The heroes whose deeds shine upon the record of this fierce spiritual
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contest, involving at once people, clergy, monarch and government,
were the Báb's chosen disciples, the Letters of the Living, and their
companions, the trail-breakers of the New Day, who to so much
intrigue, ignorance, depravity, cruelty, superstition and cowardice
opposed a spirit exalted, unquenchable and awe-inspiring, a knowledge
surprisingly profound, an eloquence sweeping in its force, a piety
unexcelled in fervor, a courage leonine in its fierceness, a self-abnegation
saintly in its purity, a resolve granite-like in its firmness, a
vision stupendous in its range, a veneration for the Prophet and His
Imáms disconcerting to their adversaries, a power of persuasion alarming
to their antagonists, a standard of faith and a code of conduct
that challenged and revolutionized the lives of their countrymen.
The opening scene of the initial act of this great drama was laid
in the upper chamber of the modest residence of the son of a mercer
of Shíráz, in an obscure corner of that city. The time was the hour
before sunset, on the 22nd day of May, 1844. The participants were
the Báb, a twenty-five year old siyyid, of pure and holy lineage, and
the young Mullá Husayn, the first to believe in Him. Their meeting
immediately before that interview seemed to be purely fortuitous.
The interview itself was protracted till the hour of dawn. The Host
remained closeted alone with His guest, nor was the sleeping city
remotely aware of the import of the conversation they held with
each other. No record has passed to posterity of that unique night
save the fragmentary but highly illuminating account that fell from
the lips of Mullá Husayn.
"I sat spellbound by His utterance, oblivious of time and of those
who awaited me," he himself has testified, after describing the nature
of the questions he had put to his Host and the conclusive replies he
had received from Him, replies which had established beyond the
shadow of a doubt the validity of His claim to be the promised Qá'im.
"Suddenly the call of the Mu'adhdhin, summoning the faithful to
their morning prayer, awakened me from the state of ecstasy into
which I seemed to have fallen. All the delights, all the ineffable
glories, which the Almighty has recounted in His Book as the priceless
possessions of the people of Paradise--these I seemed to be experiencing
that night. Methinks I was in a place of which it could be
truly said: `Therein no toil shall reach us, and therein no weariness
shall touch us;' `no vain discourse shall they hear therein, nor any
falsehood, but only the cry, "Peace! Peace!"'; `their cry therein shall
be, "Glory to Thee, O God!" and their salutation therein, "Peace!",
and the close of their cry, "Praise be to God, Lord of all creatures!"'
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Sleep had departed from me that night. I was enthralled by the
music of that voice which rose and fell as He chanted; now swelling
forth as He revealed verses of the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá', again acquiring
ethereal, subtle harmonies as He uttered the prayers He was revealing.
At the end of each invocation, He would repeat this verse: `Far from
the glory of thy Lord, the All-Glorious, be that which His creatures
affirm of Him! And peace be upon His Messengers! And praise be
to God, the Lord of all beings!'"
"This Revelation," Mullá Husayn has further testified, "so suddenly
and impetuously thrust upon me, came as a thunderbolt which,
for a time, seemed to have benumbed my faculties. I was blinded by
its dazzling splendor and overwhelmed by its crushing force. Excitement,
joy, awe, and wonder stirred the depths of my soul. Predominant
among these emotions was a sense of gladness and strength
which seemed to have transfigured me. How feeble and impotent,
how dejected and timid, I had felt previously! Then I could neither
write nor walk, so tremulous were my hands and feet. Now, however,
the knowledge of His Revelation had galvanized my being. I
felt possessed of such courage and power that were the world, all its
peoples and its potentates, to rise against me, I would, alone and
undaunted, withstand their onslaught. The universe seemed but a
handful of dust in my grasp. I seemed to be the voice of Gabriel
personified, calling unto all mankind: `Awake, for, lo! the morning
Light has broken. Arise, for His Cause is made manifest. The portal
of His grace is open wide; enter therein, O peoples of the world!
For He Who is your promised One is come!'"
A more significant light, however, is shed on this episode, marking
the Declaration of the Mission of the Báb, by the perusal of that
"first, greatest and mightiest" of all books in the Bábí Dispensation,
the celebrated commentary on the Súrih of Joseph, the first chapter
of which, we are assured, proceeded, in its entirety, in the course of
that night of nights from the pen of its divine Revealer. The description
of this episode by Mullá Husayn, as well as the opening pages of
that Book attest the magnitude and force of that weighty Declaration.
A claim to be no less than the mouthpiece of God Himself,
promised by the Prophets of bygone ages; the assertion that He was,
at the same time, the Herald of One immeasurably greater than Himself;
the summons which He trumpeted forth to the kings and princes
of the earth; the dire warnings directed to the Chief Magistrate of
the realm, Muhammad Sháh; the counsel imparted to Hájí Mírzá
Aqásí to fear God, and the peremptory command to abdicate his
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authority as grand vizir of the Sháh and submit to the One Who is
the "Inheritor of the earth and all that is therein"; the challenge
issued to the rulers of the world proclaiming the self-sufficiency of
His Cause, denouncing the vanity of their ephemeral power, and
calling upon them to "lay aside, one and all, their dominion," and
deliver His Message to "lands in both the East and the West"--these
constitute the dominant features of that initial contact that marked
the birth, and fixed the date, of the inception of the most glorious
era in the spiritual life of mankind.
With this historic Declaration the dawn of an Age that signalizes
the consummation of all ages had broken. The first impulse of a
momentous Revelation had been communicated to the one "but for
whom," according to the testimony of the Kitáb-i-Iqán, "God would
not have been established upon the seat of His mercy, nor ascended
the throne of eternal glory." Not until forty days had elapsed, however,
did the enrollment of the seventeen remaining Letters of the
Living commence. Gradually, spontaneously, some in sleep, others
while awake, some through fasting and prayer, others through dreams
and visions, they discovered the Object of their quest, and were
enlisted under the banner of the new-born Faith. The last, but in
rank the first, of these Letters to be inscribed on the Preserved Tablet
was the erudite, the twenty-two year old Quddús, a direct descendant
of the Imám Hasan and the most esteemed disciple of Siyyid Kázim.
Immediately preceding him, a woman, the only one of her sex, who,
unlike her fellow-disciples, never attained the presence of the Báb,
was invested with the rank of apostleship in the new Dispensation.
A poetess, less than thirty years of age, of distinguished birth, of
bewitching charm, of captivating eloquence, indomitable in spirit,
unorthodox in her views, audacious in her acts, immortalized as
Táhirih (the Pure One) by the "Tongue of Glory," and surnamed
Qurratu'l-`Ayn (Solace of the Eyes) by Siyyid Kázim, her teacher,
she had, in consequence of the appearance of the Báb to her in a
dream, received the first intimation of a Cause which was destined
to exalt her to the fairest heights of fame, and on which she, through
her bold heroism, was to shed such imperishable luster.
These "first Letters generated from the Primal Point," this "company
of angels arrayed before God on the Day of His coming," these
"Repositories of His Mystery," these "Springs that have welled out
from the Source of His Revelation," these first companions who, in
the words of the Persian Bayán, "enjoy nearest access to God," these
"Luminaries that have, from everlasting, bowed down, and will everlastingly
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continue to bow down, before the Celestial Throne," and
lastly these "elders" mentioned in the Book of Revelation as "sitting
before God on their seats," "clothed in white raiment" and wearing
on their heads "crowns of gold"--these were, ere their dispersal,
summoned to the Báb's presence, Who addressed to them His parting
words, entrusted to each a specific task, and assigned to some of them
as the proper field of their activities their native provinces. He
enjoined them to observe the utmost caution and moderation in their
behavior, unveiled the loftiness of their rank, and stressed the magnitude
of their responsibilities. He recalled the words addressed by
Jesus to His disciples, and emphasized the superlative greatness of
the New Day. He warned them lest by turning back they forfeit
the Kingdom of God, and assured them that if they did God's bidding,
God would make them His heirs and spiritual leaders among men.
He hinted at the secret, and announced the approach, of a still
mightier Day, and bade them prepare themselves for its advent.
He called to remembrance the triumph of Abraham over Nimrod,
of Moses over Pharaoh, of Jesus over the Jewish people, and of
Muhammad over the tribes of Arabia, and asserted the inevitability
and ultimate ascendancy of His own Revelation. To the care of
Mullá Husayn He committed a mission, more specific in character
and mightier in import. He affirmed that His covenant with him had
been established, cautioned him to be forbearing with the divines he
would encounter, directed him to proceed to Tihrán, and alluded, in
the most glowing terms, to the as yet unrevealed Mystery enshrined
in that city--a Mystery that would, He affirmed, transcend the light
shed by both Hijáz and Shíráz.
Galvanized into action by the mandate conferred upon them,
launched on their perilous and revolutionizing mission, these lesser
luminaries who, together with the Báb, constitute the First Vahíd
(Unity) of the Dispensation of the Bayán, scattered far and wide
through the provinces of their native land, where, with matchless
heroism, they resisted the savage and concerted onslaught of the forces
arrayed against them, and immortalized their Faith by their own
exploits and those of their co-religionists, raising thereby a tumult
that convulsed their country and sent its echoes reverberating as far
as the capitals of Western Europe.
It was not until, however, the Báb had received the eagerly anticipated
letter of Mullá Husayn, His trusted and beloved lieutenant,
communicating the joyful tidings of his interview with Bahá'u'lláh,
that He decided to undertake His long and arduous pilgrimage to the
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Tombs of His ancestors. In the month of Sha'bán, of the year 1260
A.H. (September, 1844) He Who, both on His father's and mother's
side, was of the seed of the illustrious Fátimih, and Who was a
descendant of the Imám Husayn, the most eminent among the lawful
successors of the Prophet of Islám, proceeded, in fulfillment of Islamic
traditions, to visit the Kaaba. He embarked from Búshihr on the
19th of Ramadán (October, 1844) on a sailing vessel, accompanied
by Quddús whom He was assiduously preparing for the assumption of
his future office. Landing at Jaddih after a stormy voyage of over a
month's duration, He donned the pilgrim's garb, mounted a camel,
and set out for Mecca, arriving on the first of Dhi'l-Hájjih (December
12). Quddús, holding the bridle in his hands, accompanied his
Master on foot to that holy Shrine. On the day of Árafih, the
Prophet-pilgrim of Shíráz, His chronicler relates, devoted His whole
time to prayer. On the day of Nahr He proceeded to Muná, where
He sacrificed according to custom nineteen lambs, nine in His own
name, seven in the name of Quddús, and three in the name of the
Ethiopian servant who attended Him. He afterwards, in company
with the other pilgrims, encompassed the Kaaba and performed the
rites prescribed for the pilgrimage.
His visit to Hijáz was marked by two episodes of particular importance.
The first was the declaration of His mission and His open
challenge to the haughty Mírzá Muhít-i-Kirmání, one of the most
outstanding exponents of the Shaykhí school, who at times went so
far as to assert his independence of the leadership of that school
assumed after the death of Siyyid Kázim by Hájí Muhammad Karím
Khán, a redoubtable enemy of the Bábí Faith. The second was the
invitation, in the form of an Epistle, conveyed by Quddús, to the
Sherif of Mecca, in which the custodian of the House of God was
called upon to embrace the truth of the new Revelation. Absorbed
in his own pursuits the Sherif however failed to respond. Seven years
later, when in the course of a conversation with a certain Hájí
Níyáz-i-Baghdádí, this same Sherif was informed of the circumstances
attending the mission and martyrdom of the Prophet of
Shíráz, he listened attentively to the description of those events and
expressed his indignation at the tragic fate that had overtaken Him.
The Báb's visit to Medina marked the conclusion of His pilgrimage.
Regaining Jaddih, He returned to Búshihr, where one of His first acts
was to bid His last farewell to His fellow-traveler and disciple, and
to assure him that he would meet the Beloved of their hearts. He,
moreover, announced to him that he would be crowned with a
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martyr's death, and that He Himself would subsequently suffer a
similar fate at the hands of their common foe.
The Báb's return to His native land (Safar 1261) (February-
March, 1845) was the signal for a commotion that rocked the entire
country. The fire which the declaration of His mission had lit was
being fanned into flame through the dispersal and activities of His
appointed disciples. Already within the space of less than two years
it had kindled the passions of friend and foe alike. The outbreak of
the conflagration did not even await the return to His native city of
the One Who had generated it. The implications of a Revelation,
thrust so dramatically upon a race so degenerate, so inflammable in
temper, could indeed have had no other consequence than to excite
within men's bosoms the fiercest passions of fear, of hate, of rage
and envy. A Faith Whose Founder did not content Himself with
the claim to be the Gate of the Hidden Imám, Who assumed a rank
that excelled even that of the Sáhibu'z-Zamán, Who regarded Himself
as the precursor of one incomparably greater than Himself, Who
peremptorily commanded not only the subjects of the Sháh, but the
monarch himself, and even the kings and princes of the earth, to
forsake their all and follow Him, Who claimed to be the inheritor of
the earth and all that is therein--a Faith Whose religious doctrines,
Whose ethical standards, social principles and religious laws challenged
the whole structure of the society in which it was born, soon
ranged, with startling unanimity, the mass of the people behind their
priests, and behind their chief magistrate, with his ministers and his
government, and welded them into an opposition sworn to destroy,
root and branch, the movement initiated by One Whom they regarded
as an impious and presumptuous pretender.
With the Báb's return to Shíráz the initial collision of irreconcilable
forces may be said to have commenced. Already the energetic
and audacious Mullá Alíy-i-Bastamí, one of the Letters of the Living,
"the first to leave the House of God (Shíráz) and the first to
suffer for His sake," who, in the presence of one of the leading exponents
of Shí'ah Islám, the far-famed Shaykh Muhammad Hasan,
had audaciously asserted that from the pen of his new-found Master
within the space of forty-eight hours, verses had streamed that
equalled in number those of the Qur'án, which it took its Author
twenty-three years to reveal, had been excommunicated, chained,
disgraced, imprisoned, and, in all probability, done to death. Mullá
Sádiq-i-Khurasaní, impelled by the injunction of the Báb in the
Khasá'il-i-Sab`ih to alter the sacrosanct formula of the adhán, sounded
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it in its amended form before a scandalized congregation in Shíráz,
and was instantly arrested, reviled, stripped of his garments, and
scourged with a thousand lashes. The villainous Husayn Khán, the
Nizámu'd-Dawlih, the governor of Fárs, who had read the challenge
thrown out in the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá', having ordered that Mullá
Sádiq together with Quddús and another believer be summarily and
publicly punished, caused their beards to be burned, their noses
pierced, and threaded with halters; then, having been led through
the streets in this disgraceful condition, they were expelled from
the city.
The people of Shíráz were by that time wild with excitement. A
violent controversy was raging in the masjids, the madrisihs, the
bazaars, and other public places. Peace and security were gravely
imperiled. Fearful, envious, thoroughly angered, the mullás were
beginning to perceive the seriousness of their position. The governor,
greatly alarmed, ordered the Báb to be arrested. He was brought to
Shíráz under escort, and, in the presence of Husayn Khán, was
severely rebuked, and so violently struck in the face that His turban
fell to the ground. Upon the intervention of the Imám-Jum'ih He
was released on parole, and entrusted to the custody of His maternal
uncle Hájí Mírzá Siyyid `Alí. A brief lull ensued, enabling the
captive Youth to celebrate the Naw-Rúz of that and the succeeding
year in an atmosphere of relative tranquillity in the company of His
mother, His wife, and His uncle. Meanwhile the fever that had
seized His followers was communicating itself to the members of the
clergy and to the merchant classes, and was invading the higher circles
of society. Indeed, a wave of passionate inquiry had swept the whole
country, and unnumbered congregations were listening with wonder
to the testimonies eloquently and fearlessly related by the Báb's
itinerant messengers.
The commotion had assumed such proportions that the Sháh,
unable any longer to ignore the situation, delegated the trusted
Siyyid Yahyáy-i-Darábí, surnamed Vahíd, one of the most erudite,
eloquent and influential of his subjects--a man who had committed
to memory no less than thirty thousand traditions--to investigate
and report to him the true situation. Broad-minded, highly imaginative,
zealous by nature, intimately associated with the court, he, in
the course of three interviews, was completely won over by the
arguments and personality of the Báb. Their first interview centered
around the metaphysical teachings of Islám, the most obscure passages
of the Qur'án, and the traditions and prophecies of the Imáms. In
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the course of the second interview Vahíd was astounded to find that
the questions which he had intended to submit for elucidation had
been effaced from his retentive memory, and yet, to his utter amazement,
he discovered that the Báb was answering the very questions
he had forgotten. During the third interview the circumstances
attending the revelation of the Báb's commentary on the súrih of
Kawthar, comprising no less than two thousand verses, so overpowered
the delegate of the Sháh that he, contenting himself with a
mere written report to the Court Chamberlain, arose forthwith to
dedicate his entire life and resources to the service of a Faith that
was to requite him with the crown of martyrdom during the Nayríz
upheaval. He who had firmly resolved to confute the arguments of
an obscure siyyid of Shíráz, to induce Him to abandon His ideas,
and to conduct Him to Tihrán as an evidence of the ascendancy he
had achieved over Him, was made to feel, as he himself later acknowledged,
as "lowly as the dust beneath His feet." Even Husayn
Khán, who had been Vahíd's host during his stay in Shíráz, was
compelled to write to the Sháh and express the conviction that his
Majesty's illustrious delegate had become a Bábí.
Another famous advocate of the Cause of the Báb, even fiercer
in zeal than Vahíd, and almost as eminent in rank, was Mullá
Muhammad-`Alíy-i-Zanjání, surnamed Hujjat. An Akhbarí, a vehement
controversialist, of a bold and independent temper of mind, impatient
of restraint, a man who had dared condemn the whole
ecclesiastical hierarchy from the Abváb-i-Arbá'ih down to the humblest
mullá, he had more than once, through his superior talents and
fervid eloquence, publicly confounded his orthodox Shí'ah adversaries.
Such a person could not remain indifferent to a Cause that was
producing so grave a cleavage among his countrymen. The disciple
he sent to Shíráz to investigate the matter fell immediately under the
spell of the Báb. The perusal of but a page of the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá',
brought by that messenger to Hujjat, sufficed to effect such a transformation
within him that he declared, before the assembled `ulamás
of his native city, that should the Author of that work pronounce
day to be night and the sun to be a shadow he would unhesitatingly
uphold his verdict.
Yet another recruit to the ever-swelling army of the new Faith
was the eminent scholar, Mírzá Ahmad-i-Azghandí, the most learned,
the wisest and the most outstanding among the `ulamás of Khurásán,
who, in anticipation of the advent of the promised Qá'im, had compiled
above twelve thousand traditions and prophecies concerning the
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time and character of the expected Revelation, had circulated them
among His fellow-disciples, and had encouraged them to quote them
extensively to all congregations and in all meetings.
While the situation was steadily deteriorating in the provinces,
the bitter hostility of the people of Shíráz was rapidly moving towards
a climax. Husayn Khán, vindictive, relentless, exasperated by the
reports of his sleepless agents that his Captive's power and fame were
hourly growing, decided to take immediate action. It is even reported
that his accomplice, Hájí Mírzá Aqásí, had ordered him to
kill secretly the would-be disrupter of the state and the wrecker of
its established religion. By order of the governor the chief constable,
`Abdu'l-Hamíd Khán, scaled, in the dead of night, the wall and
entered the house of Hájí Mírzá Siyyid `Alí, where the Báb was
confined, arrested Him, and confiscated all His books and documents.
That very night, however, took place an event which, in its dramatic
suddenness, was no doubt providentially designed to confound the
schemes of the plotters, and enable the Object of their hatred to
prolong His ministry and consummate His Revelation. An outbreak
of cholera, devastating in its virulence, had, since midnight, already
smitten above a hundred people. The dread of the plague had entered
every heart, and the inhabitants of the stricken city were, amid
shrieks of pain and grief, fleeing in confusion. Three of the governor's
domestics had already died. Members of his family were lying dangerously
ill. In his despair he, leaving the dead unburied, had fled to a
garden in the outskirts of the city. `Abdu'l-Hamíd Khán, confronted
by this unexpected development, decided to conduct the Báb to His
own home. He was appalled, upon his arrival, to learn that his son
lay in the death-throes of the plague. In his despair he threw himself
at the feet of the Báb, begged to be forgiven, adjured Him not to
visit upon the son the sins of the father, and pledged his word to
resign his post, and never again to accept such a position. Finding
that his prayer had been answered, he addressed a plea to the governor
begging him to release his Captive, and thereby deflect the fatal
course of this dire visitation. Husayn Khán acceded to his request,
and released his Prisoner on condition of His quitting the city.
Miraculously preserved by an almighty and watchful Providence,
the Báb proceeded to Isfahán (September, 1846), accompanied by
Siyyid Kázim-i-Zanjání. Another lull ensued, a brief period of
comparative tranquillity during which the Divine processes which
had been set in motion gathered further momentum, precipitating a
series of events leading to the imprisonment of the Báb in the
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fortresses of Máh-Kú and Chihríq, and culminating in His martyrdom
in the barrack-square of Tabríz. Well aware of the impending trials
that were to afflict Him, the Báb had, ere His final separation from
His family, bequeathed to His mother and His wife all His possessions,
had confided to the latter the secret of what was to befall Him,
and revealed for her a special prayer the reading of which, He assured
her, would resolve her perplexities and allay her sorrows. The first
forty days of His sojourn in Isfahán were spent as the guest of Mírzá
Siyyid Muhammad, the Sultánu'l-`Ulamá, the Imám-Jum'ih, one of
the principal ecclesiastical dignitaries of the realm, in accordance with
the instructions of the governor of the city, Manúchihr Khán, the
Mu Tamídu'd-Dawlih, who had received from the Báb a letter requesting
him to appoint the place where He should dwell. He was
ceremoniously received, and such was the spell He cast over the
people of that city that, on one occasion, after His return from the
public bath, an eager multitude clamored for the water that had
been used for His ablutions. So magic was His charm that His host,
forgetful of the dignity of his high rank, was wont to wait personally
upon Him. It was at the request of this same prelate that the Báb,
one night, after supper, revealed His well-known commentary on
the súrih of Va'l-`Asr. Writing with astonishing rapidity, He, in a
few hours, had devoted to the exposition of the significance of only
the first letter of that súrih--a letter which Shaykh Ahmad-i-Ahsá'í
had stressed, and which Bahá'u'lláh refers to in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas--
verses that equalled in number a third of the Qur'án, a feat that called
forth such an outburst of reverent astonishment from those who
witnessed it that they arose and kissed the hem of His robe.
The tumultuous enthusiasm of the people of Isfahán was meanwhile
visibly increasing. Crowds of people, some impelled by curiosity,
others eager to discover the truth, still others anxious to be
healed of their infirmities, flocked from every quarter of the city to
the house of the Imám-Jum'ih. The wise and judicious Manúchihr
Khán could not resist the temptation of visiting so strange, so intriguing
a Personage. Before a brilliant assemblage of the most accomplished
divines he, a Georgian by origin and a Christian by birth,
requested the Báb to expound and demonstrate the truth of Muhammad's
specific mission. To this request, which those present had felt
compelled to decline, the Báb readily responded. In less than two
hours, and in the space of fifty pages, He had not only revealed a
minute, a vigorous and original dissertation on this noble theme, but
had also linked it with both the coming of the Qá'im and the return
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of the Imám Husayn--an exposition that prompted Manúchihr Khán
to declare before that gathering his faith in the Prophet of Islám, as
well as his recognition of the supernatural gifts with which the
Author of so convincing a treatise was endowed.
These evidences of the growing ascendancy exercised by an unlearned
Youth on the governor and the people of a city rightly
regarded as one of the strongholds of Shí'ah Islám, alarmed the
ecclesiastical authorities. Refraining from any act of open hostility which
they knew full well would defeat their purpose, they sought, by
encouraging the circulation of the wildest rumors, to induce the
Grand Vizir of the Sháh to save a situation that was growing hourly
more acute and menacing. The popularity enjoyed by the Báb, His
personal prestige, and the honors accorded Him by His countrymen,
had now reached their high watermark. The shadows of an impending
doom began to fast gather about Him. A series of tragedies from then
on followed in rapid sequence destined to culminate in His own death
and the apparent extinction of the influence of His Faith.
The overbearing and crafty Hájí Mírzá Aqásí, fearful lest the
sway of the Báb encompass his sovereign and thus seal his own doom,
was aroused as never before. Prompted by a suspicion that the Báb
possessed the secret sympathies of the Mu'tamíd, and well aware of
the confidence reposed in him by the Sháh, he severely upbraided the
Imám-Jum'ih for the neglect of his sacred duty. He, at the same
time, lavished, in several letters, his favors upon the `ulamás of
Isfahán, whom he had hitherto ignored. From the pulpits of that
city an incited clergy began to hurl vituperation and calumny upon
the Author of what was to them a hateful and much to be feared
heresy. The Sháh himself was induced to summon the Báb to his
capital. Manúchihr Khán, bidden to arrange for His departure,
decided to transfer His residence temporarily to his own home.
Meanwhile the mujtahids and `ulamás, dismayed at the signs of so
pervasive an influence, summoned a gathering which issued an abusive
document signed and sealed by the ecclesiastical leaders of the city,
denouncing the Báb as a heretic and condemning Him to death.
Even the Imám-Jum'ih was constrained to add his written testimony
that the Accused was devoid of reason and judgment. The Mu'tamíd,
in his great embarrassment, and in order to appease the rising tumult,
conceived a plan whereby an increasingly restive populace were made
to believe that the Báb had left for Tihrán, while he succeeded in
insuring for Him a brief respite of four months in the privacy of the
Imárat-i-Khurshíd, the governor's private residence in Isfahán. It
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was in those days that the host expressed the desire to consecrate all
his possessions, evaluated by his contemporaries at no less than forty
million francs, to the furtherance of the interests of the new Faith,
declared his intention of converting Muhammad Sháh, of inducing
him to rid himself of a shameful and profligate minister, and of
obtaining his royal assent to the marriage of one of his sisters with the
Báb. The sudden death of the Mu'tamíd, however, foretold by the
Báb Himself, accelerated the course of the approaching crisis. The
ruthless and rapacious Gurgín Khán, the deputy governor, induced
the Sháh to issue a second summons ordering that the captive Youth
be sent in disguise to Tihrán, accompanied by a mounted escort. To
this written mandate of the sovereign the vile Gurgín Khán, who
had previously discovered and destroyed the will of his uncle, the
Mu'tamíd, and seized his property, unhesitatingly responded. At the
distance of less than thirty miles from the capital, however, in the
fortress of Kinár-Gird, a messenger delivered to Muhammad Big,
who headed the escort, a written order from Hájí Mírzá Aqásí instructing
him to proceed to Kulayn, and there await further instructions.
This was, shortly after, followed by a letter which the Sháh
had himself addressed to the Báb, dated Rabí'u'th-thání 1263 (March
19-April 17, 1847), and which, though couched in courteous terms,
clearly indicated the extent of the baneful influence exercised by the
Grand Vizir on his sovereign. The plans so fondly cherished by
Manúchihr Khán were now utterly undone. The fortress of Máh-Kú,
not far from the village of that same name, whose inhabitants had
long enjoyed the patronage of the Grand Vizir, situated in the remotest
northwestern corner of Ádhirbayján, was the place of incarceration
assigned by Muhammad Sháh, on the advice of his perfidious
minister, for the Báb. No more than one companion and
one attendant from among His followers were allowed to keep Him
company in those bleak and inhospitable surroundings. All-powerful
and crafty, that minister had, on the pretext of the necessity of his
master's concentrating his immediate attention on a recent rebellion
in Khurásán and a revolt in Kirmán, succeeded in foiling a plan,
which, had it materialized, would have had the most serious repercussions
on his own fortunes, as well as on the immediate destinies of his
government, its ruler and its people.
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CHAPTER II
The Báb's Captivity in Ádhirbayján
The period of the Báb's banishment to the mountains of Ádhirbayján,
lasting no less than three years, constitutes the saddest,
the most dramatic, and in a sense the most pregnant phase of His six
year ministry. It comprises His nine months' unbroken confinement
in the fortress of Máh-Kú, and His subsequent incarceration in the
fortress of Chihríq, which was interrupted only by a brief yet
memorable visit to Tabríz. It was overshadowed throughout by the
implacable and mounting hostility of the two most powerful adversaries
of the Faith, the Grand Vizir of Muhammad Sháh, Hájí Mírzá
Aqásí, and the Amír-Nizám, the Grand Vizir of Násiri'd-Dín
Sháh. It corresponds to the most critical stage of the mission of
Bahá'u'lláh, during His exile to Adrianople, when confronted with
the despotic Sultán `Abdu'l-`Azíz and his ministers, `Alí Páshá and
Fu'ád Páshá, and is paralleled by the darkest days of `Abdu'l-Bahá's
ministry in the Holy Land, under the oppressive rule of the tyrannical
`Abdu'l-Hamíd and the equally tyrannical Jamál Páshá. Shíráz had
been the memorable scene of the Báb's historic Declaration; Isfahán
had provided Him, however briefly, with a haven of relative peace
and security; whilst Ádhirbayján was destined to become the theatre
of His agony and martyrdom. These concluding years of His earthly
life will go down in history as the time when the new Dispensation
attained its full stature, when the claim of its Founder was fully and
publicly asserted, when its laws were formulated, when the Covenant
of its Author was firmly established, when its independence was proclaimed,
and when the heroism of its champions blazed forth in
immortal glory. For it was during these intensely dramatic, fate-laden
years that the full implications of the station of the Báb were
disclosed to His disciples, and formally announced by Him in the
capital of Ádhirbayján, in the presence of the Heir to the Throne;
that the Persian Bayán, the repository of the laws ordained by the
Báb, was revealed; that the time and character of the Dispensation of
"the One Whom God will make manifest" were unmistakably determined;
that the Conference of Badasht proclaimed the annulment
of the old order; and that the great conflagrations of Mazindarán,
of Nayríz and of Zanján were kindled.
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And yet, the foolish and short-sighted Hájí Mírzá Aqásí fondly
imagined that by confounding the plan of the Báb to meet the Sháh
face to face in the capital, and by relegating Him to the farthest
corner of the realm, he had stifled the Movement at its birth, and
would soon conclusively triumph over its Founder. Little did he
imagine that the very isolation he was forcing upon his Prisoner
would enable Him to evolve the System designed to incarnate the
soul of His Faith, and would afford Him the opportunity of safeguarding
it from disintegration and schism, and of proclaiming
formally and unreservedly His mission. Little did he imagine that
this very confinement would induce that Prisoner's exasperated
disciples and companions to cast off the shackles of an antiquated
theology, and precipitate happenings that would call forth from them
a prowess, a courage, a self-renunciation unexampled in their country's
history. Little did he imagine that by this very act he would be
instrumental in fulfilling the authentic tradition ascribed to the
Prophet of Islám regarding the inevitability of that which should
come to pass in Ádhirbayján. Untaught by the example of the
governor of Shíráz, who, with fear and trembling, had, at the first
taste of God's avenging wrath, fled ignominiously and relaxed his
hold on his Captive, the Grand Vizir of Muhammad Sháh was, in
his turn, through the orders he had issued, storing up for himself
severe and inevitable disappointment, and paving the way for his own
ultimate downfall.
His orders to `Alí Khán, the warden of the fortress of Máh-Kú,
were stringent and explicit. On His way to that fortress the Báb
passed a number of days in Tabríz, days that were marked by such an
intense excitement on the part of the populace that, except for a few
persons, neither the public nor His followers were allowed to meet
Him. As He was escorted through the streets of the city the shout
of "Alláh-u-Akbar" resounded on every side. So great, indeed,
became the clamor that the town crier was ordered to warn the
inhabitants that any one who ventured to seek the Báb's presence
would forfeit all his possessions and be imprisoned. Upon His arrival
in Máh-Kú, surnamed by Him Jabál-i-Basít (the Open Mountain)
no one was allowed to see Him for the first two weeks except His
amanuensis, Siyyid Husayn, and his brother. So grievous was His
plight while in that fortress that, in the Persian Bayán, He Himself
has stated that at night-time He did not even have a lighted lamp,
and that His solitary chamber, constructed of sun-baked bricks,
lacked even a door, while, in His Tablet to Muhammad Sháh, He
+P19
has complained that the inmates of the fortress were confined to two
guards and four dogs.
Secluded on the heights of a remote and dangerously situated
mountain on the frontiers of the Ottoman and Russian empires;
imprisoned within the solid walls of a four-towered fortress; cut off
from His family, His kindred and His disciples; living in the vicinity
of a bigoted and turbulent community who, by race, tradition,
language and creed, differed from the vast majority of the inhabitants
of Persia; guarded by the people of a district which, as the birthplace
of the Grand Vizir, had been made the recipient of the special
favors of his administration, the Prisoner of Máh-Kú seemed in the
eyes of His adversary to be doomed to languish away the flower of
His youth, and witness, at no distant date, the complete annihilation
of His hopes. That adversary was soon to realize, however, how
gravely he had misjudged both his Prisoner and those on whom he
had lavished his favors. An unruly, a proud and unreasoning people
were gradually subdued by the gentleness of the Báb, were chastened
by His modesty, were edified by His counsels, and instructed by His
wisdom. They were so carried away by their love for Him that their
first act every morning, notwithstanding the remonstrations of the
domineering `Alí Khán, and the repeated threats of disciplinary measures
received from Tihrán, was to seek a place where they could
catch a glimpse of His face, and beseech from afar His benediction
upon their daily work. In cases of dispute it was their wont to
hasten to the foot of the fortress, and, with their eyes fixed upon His
abode, invoke His name, and adjure one another to speak the truth.
`Alí Khán himself, under the influence of a strange vision, felt such
mortification that he was impelled to relax the severity of his discipline,
as an atonement for his past behavior. Such became his leniency
that an increasing stream of eager and devout pilgrims began to be
admitted at the gates of the fortress. Among them was the dauntless
and indefatigable Mullá Husayn, who had walked on foot the entire
way from Mashad in the east of Persia to Máh-Kú, the westernmost
outpost of the realm, and was able, after so arduous a journey, to
celebrate the festival of Naw-Rúz (1848) in the company of his
Beloved.
Secret agents, however, charged to watch `Alí Khán, informed Hájí
Mírzá Aqásí of the turn events were taking, whereupon he immediately
decided to transfer the Báb to the fortress of Chihríq (about
April 10, 1848), surnamed by Him the Jabál-i-Shadíd (the Grievous
Mountain). There He was consigned to the keeping of Yahyá Khán,
+P20
a brother-in-law of Muhammad Sháh. Though at the outset he acted
with the utmost severity, he was eventually compelled to yield to
the fascination of his Prisoner. Nor were the kurds, who lived in the
village of Chihríq, and whose hatred of the Shí'ahs exceeded even
that of the inhabitants of Máh-Kú, able to resist the pervasive power
of the Prisoner's influence. They too were to be seen every morning,
ere they started for their daily work, to approach the fortress and
prostrate themselves in adoration before its holy Inmate. "So great
was the confluence of the people," is the testimony of a European
eye-witness, writing in his memoirs of the Báb, "that the courtyard,
not being large enough to contain His hearers, the majority remained
in the street and listened with rapt attention to the verses of the
new Qur'án."
Indeed the turmoil raised in Chihríq eclipsed the scenes which
Máh-Kú had witnessed. Siyyids of distinguished merit, eminent
`ulamás, and even government officials were boldly and rapidly
espousing the Cause of the Prisoner. The conversion of the zealous,
the famous Mírzá Asadu'lláh, surnamed Dayyán, a prominent official
of high literary repute, who was endowed by the Báb with the
"hidden and preserved knowledge," and extolled as the "repository
of the trust of the one true God," and the arrival of a dervish, a
former navváb, from India, whom the Báb in a vision had bidden
renounce wealth and position, and hasten on foot to meet Him in
Ádhirbayján, brought the situation to a head. Accounts of these
startling events reached Tabríz, were thence communicated to Tihrán,
and forced Hájí Mírzá Aqásí again to intervene. Dayyán's father, an
intimate friend of that minister, had already expressed to him his
grave apprehension at the manner in which the able functionaries of
the state were being won over to the new Faith. To allay the rising
excitement the Báb was summoned to Tabríz. Fearful of the enthusiasm
of the people of Ádhirbayján, those into whose custody He had
been delivered decided to deflect their route, and avoid the town of
Khúy, passing instead through Urúmíyyih. On His arrival in that
town Prince Malik Qásim Mírzá ceremoniously received Him, and
was even seen, on a certain Friday, when his Guest was riding on His
way to the public bath, to accompany Him on foot, while the
Prince's footmen endeavored to restrain the people who, in their
overflowing enthusiasm, were pressing to catch a glimpse of so
marvelous a Prisoner. Tabríz, in its turn in the throes of wild excitement,
joyously hailed His arrival. Such was the fervor of popular
feeling that the Báb was assigned a place outside the gates of the city.
+P21
This, however, failed to allay the prevailing emotion. Precautions,
warnings and restrictions served only to aggravate a situation that
had already become critical. It was at this juncture that the Grand
Vizir issued his historic order for the immediate convocation of the
ecclesiastical dignitaries of Tabríz to consider the most effectual
measures which would, once and for all, extinguish the flames of so
devouring a conflagration.
The circumstances attending the examination of the Báb, as a
result of so precipitate an act, may well rank as one of the chief
landmarks of His dramatic career. The avowed purpose of that convocation
was to arraign the Prisoner, and deliberate on the steps to
be taken for the extirpation of His so-called heresy. It instead
afforded Him the supreme opportunity of His mission to assert in
public, formally and without any reservation, the claims inherent in
His Revelation. In the official residence, and in the presence, of the
governor of Ádhirbayján, Násiri'd-Dín Mírzá, the heir to the throne;
under the presidency of Hájí Mullá Mahmúd, the Nizámu'l-`Ulamá,
the Prince's tutor; before the assembled ecclesiastical dignitaries of
Tabríz, the leaders of the Shaykhí community, the Shaykhu'l-Islám,
and the Imám-Jum'ih, the Báb, having seated Himself in the chief
place which had been reserved for the Valí-'Ahd (the heir to the
throne), gave, in ringing tones, His celebrated answer to the question
put to Him by the President of that assembly. "I am," He exclaimed,
"I am, I am the Promised One! I am the One Whose name
you have for a thousand years invoked, at Whose mention you have
risen, Whose advent you have longed to witness, and the hour of
Whose Revelation you have prayed God to hasten. Verily, I say, it is
incumbent upon the peoples of both the East and the West to obey
My word, and to pledge allegiance to My person."
Awe-struck, those present momentarily dropped their heads in
silent confusion. Then Mullá Muhammad-i-Mamaqaní, that one-eyed
white-bearded renegade, summoning sufficient courage, with characteristic
insolence, reprimanded Him as a perverse and contemptible
follower of Satan; to which the undaunted Youth retorted that He
maintained what He had already asserted. To the query subsequently
addressed to Him by the Nizámu'l-`Ulamá the Báb affirmed that His
words constituted the most incontrovertible evidence of His mission,
adduced verses from the Qur'án to establish the truth of His assertion,
and claimed to be able to reveal, within the space of two days
and two nights, verses equal to the whole of that Book. In answer to a
criticism calling His attention to an infraction by Him of the rules
+P22
of grammar, He cited certain passages from the Qur'án as corroborative
evidence, and, turning aside, with firmness and dignity, a
frivolous and irrelevant remark thrown at Him by one of those who
were present, summarily disbanded that gathering by Himself rising
and quitting the room. The convocation thereupon dispersed, its
members confused, divided among themselves, bitterly resentful and
humiliated through their failure to achieve their purpose. Far from
daunting the spirit of their Captive, far from inducing Him to
recant or abandon His mission, that gathering was productive of no
other result than the decision, arrived at after considerable argument
and discussion, to inflict the bastinado on Him, at the hands, and in
the prayer-house of the heartless and avaricious Mírzá `Alí-Asghar,
the Shaykhu'l-Islám of that city. Confounded in his schemes Hájí
Mírzá Aqásí was forced to order the Báb to be taken back to
Chihríq.
This dramatic, this unqualified and formal declaration of the
Báb's prophetic mission was not the sole consequence of the foolish
act which condemned the Author of so weighty a Revelation to a
three years' confinement in the mountains of Ádhirbayján. This
period of captivity, in a remote corner of the realm, far removed
from the storm centers of Shíráz, Isfahán, and Tihrán, afforded Him
the necessary leisure to launch upon His most monumental work, as
well as to engage on other subsidiary compositions designed to unfold
the whole range, and impart the full force, of His short-lived yet
momentous Dispensation. Alike in the magnitude of the writings
emanating from His pen, and in the diversity of the subjects treated
in those writings, His Revelation stands wholly unparalleled in the
annals of any previous religion. He Himself affirms, while confined
in Máh-Kú, that up to that time His writings, embracing highly
diversified subjects, had amounted to more than five hundred thousand
verses. "The verses which have rained from this Cloud of Divine
mercy," is Bahá'u'lláh's testimony in the Kitáb-i-Iqán, "have been so
abundant that none hath yet been able to estimate their number. A
score of volumes are now available. How many still remain beyond
our reach! How many have been plundered and have fallen into the
hands of the enemy, the fate of which none knoweth!" No less
arresting is the variety of themes presented by these voluminous
writings, such as prayers, homilies, orations, Tablets of visitation,
scientific treatises, doctrinal dissertations, exhortations, commentaries
on the Qur'án and on various traditions, epistles to the highest religious
and ecclesiastical dignitaries of the realm, and laws and
+P23
ordinances for the consolidation of His Faith and the direction of
its activities.
Already in Shíráz, at the earliest stage of His ministry, He had
revealed what Bahá'u'lláh has characterized as "the first, the greatest,
and mightiest of all books" in the Bábí Dispensation, the celebrated
commentary on the súrih of Joseph, entitled the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá',
whose fundamental purpose was to forecast what the true Joseph
(Bahá'u'lláh) would, in a succeeding Dispensation, endure at the
hands of one who was at once His arch-enemy and blood brother.
This work, comprising above nine thousand three hundred verses,
and divided into one hundred and eleven chapters, each chapter a
commentary on one verse of the above-mentioned súrih, opens with
the Báb's clarion-call and dire warnings addressed to the "concourse
of kings and of the sons of kings;" forecasts the doom of Muhammad
Sháh; commands his Grand Vizir, Hájí Mírzá Aqásí, to abdicate his
authority; admonishes the entire Muslim ecclesiastical order; cautions
more specifically the members of the Shí'ah community; extols the
virtues, and anticipates the coming, of Bahá'u'lláh, the "Remnant of
God," the "Most Great Master;" and proclaims, in unequivocal language,
the independence and universality of the Bábí Revelation,
unveils its import, and affirms the inevitable triumph of its Author.
It, moreover, directs the "people of the West" to "issue forth from
your cities and aid the Cause of God;" warns the peoples of the earth
of the "terrible, the most grievous vengeance of God;" threatens the
whole Islamic world with "the Most Great Fire" were they to turn
aside from the newly-revealed Law; foreshadows the Author's
martyrdom; eulogizes the high station ordained for the people of
Bahá, the "Companions of the crimson-colored ruby Ark;" prophesies
the fading out and utter obliteration of some of the greatest luminaries
in the firmament of the Bábí Dispensation; and even predicts "afflictive
torment," in both the "Day of Our Return" and in "the world
which is to come," for the usurpers of the Imamate, who "waged war
against Husayn (Imám Husayn) in the Land of the Euphrates."
It was this Book which the Bábís universally regarded, during
almost the entire ministry of the Báb, as the Qur'án of the people of
the Bayán; whose first and most challenging chapter was revealed in
the presence of Mullá Husayn, on the night of its Author's Declaration;
some of whose pages were borne, by that same disciple, to
Bahá'u'lláh, as the first fruits of a Revelation which instantly won
His enthusiastic allegiance; whose entire text was translated into
Persian by the brilliant and gifted Táhirih; whose passages inflamed
+P24
the hostility of Husayn Khán and precipitated the initial outbreak
of persecution in Shíráz; a single page of which had captured the
imagination and entranced the soul of Hujjat; and whose contents
had set afire the intrepid defenders of the Fort of Shaykh Tabarsí
and the heroes of Nayríz and Zanján.
This work, of such exalted merit, of such far-reaching influence,
was followed by the revelation of the Báb's first Tablet to Muhammad
Sháh; of His Tablets to Sultán `Abdu'l-Majíd and to Najíb Páshá,
the Valí of Baghdád; of the Sahífiy-i-baynu'l-Harámayn, revealed
between Mecca and Medina, in answer to questions posed by Mírzá
Muhít-i-Kirmání; of the Epistle to the Sheríf of Mecca; of the
Kitábú'r-Rúh, comprising seven hundred súrihs; of the Khasá'il-i-Sab`ih,
which enjoined the alteration of the formula of the adhán;
of the Risáliy-i-Furú-i-`Adlíyyih, rendered into Persian by Mullá
Muhammad-Taqíy-i-Haratí; of the commentary on the súrih of
Kawthar, which effected such a transformation in the soul of Vahíd;
of the commentary on the súrih of Va'l-`Asr, in the house of the
Imám-Jum'ih of Isfahán; of the dissertation on the Specific Mission
of Muhammad, written at the request of Manúchihr Khán; of the
second Tablet to Muhammad Sháh, craving an audience in which to
set forth the truths of the new Revelation, and dissipate his doubts;
and of the Tablets sent from the village of Síyáh-Dihán to the `ulamás
of Qazvín and to Hájí Mírzá Aqásí, inquiring from him as to the
cause of the sudden change in his decision.
The great bulk of the writings emanating from the Báb's prolific
mind was, however, reserved for the period of His confinement in
Máh-Kú and Chihríq. To this period must probably belong the
unnumbered Epistles which, as attested by no less an authority than
Bahá'u'lláh, the Báb specifically addressed to the divines of every city
in Persia, as well as to those residing in Najaf and Karbilá, wherein
He set forth in detail the errors committed by each one of them. It
was during His incarceration in the fortress of Máh-Kú that He,
according to the testimony of Shaykh Hasan-i-Zunúzí, who transcribed
during those nine months the verses dictated by the Báb to
His amanuensis, revealed no less than nine commentaries on the whole
of the Qur'án--commentaries whose fate, alas, is unknown, and one
of which, at least the Author Himself affirmed, surpassed in some
respects a book as deservedly famous as the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá.
Within the walls of that same fortress the Bayán (Exposition)--
that monumental repository of the laws and precepts of the new
Dispensation and the treasury enshrining most of the Báb's references
+P25
and tributes to, as well as His warning regarding, "Him Whom
God will make manifest"--was revealed. Peerless among the doctrinal
works of the Founder of the Bábí Dispensation; consisting of nine
Vahíds (Unities) of nineteen chapters each, except the last Vahíd
comprising only ten chapters; not to be confounded with the
smaller and less weighty Arabic Bayán, revealed during the same
period; fulfilling the Muhammadan prophecy that "a Youth from
Baní-Háshim ... will reveal a new Book and promulgate a new
Law;" wholly safeguarded from the interpolation and corruption
which has been the fate of so many of the Báb's lesser works, this
Book, of about eight thousand verses, occupying a pivotal position
in Bábí literature, should be regarded primarily as a eulogy of the
Promised One rather than a code of laws and ordinances designed
to be a permanent guide to future generations. This Book at once
abrogated the laws and ceremonials enjoined by the Qur'án regarding
prayer, fasting, marriage, divorce and inheritance, and upheld, in its
integrity, the belief in the prophetic mission of Muhammad, even as
the Prophet of Islám before Him had annulled the ordinances of
the Gospel and yet recognized the Divine origin of the Faith of Jesus
Christ. It moreover interpreted in a masterly fashion the meaning of
certain terms frequently occurring in the sacred Books of previous
Dispensations such as Paradise, Hell, Death, Resurrection, the Return,
the Balance, the Hour, the Last Judgment, and the like. Designedly
severe in the rules and regulations it imposed, revolutionizing in the
principles it instilled, calculated to awaken from their age-long torpor
the clergy and the people, and to administer a sudden and fatal blow
to obsolete and corrupt institutions, it proclaimed, through its drastic
provisions, the advent of the anticipated Day, the Day when "the
Summoner shall summon to a stern business," when He will "demolish
whatever hath been before Him, even as the Apostle of God demolished
the ways of those that preceded Him."
It should be noted, in this connection, that in the third Vahíd of
this Book there occurs a passage which, alike in its explicit reference
to the name of the Promised One, and in its anticipation of the
Order which, in a later age, was to be identified with His Revelation,
deserves to rank as one of the most significant statements recorded in
any of the Báb's writings. "Well is it with him," is His prophetic
announcement, "who fixeth his gaze upon the Order of Bahá'u'lláh,
and rendereth thanks unto his Lord. For He will assuredly be made
manifest. God hath indeed irrevocably ordained it in the Bayán."
It is with that self-same Order that the Founder of the promised
26
Revelation, twenty years later--incorporating that same term in His
Kitáb-i-Aqdas--identified the System envisaged in that Book, affirming
that "this most great Order" had deranged the world's equilibrium,
and revolutionized mankind's ordered life. It is the features of that
self-same Order which, at a later stage in the evolution of the Faith,
the Center of Bahá'u'lláh's Covenant and the appointed Interpreter
of His teachings, delineated through the provisions of His Will and
Testament. It is the structural basis of that self-same Order which,
in the Formative Age of that same Faith, the stewards of that same
Covenant, the elected representatives of the world-wide Bahá'í community,
are now laboriously and unitedly establishing. It is the
superstructure of that self-same Order, attaining its full stature
through the emergence of the Bahá'í World Commonwealth--the
Kingdom of God on earth--which the Golden Age of that same
Dispensation must, in the fullness of time, ultimately witness.
The Báb was still in Máh-Kú when He wrote the most detailed
and illuminating of His Tablets to Muhammad Sháh. Prefaced by a
laudatory reference to the unity of God, to His Apostles and to the
twelve Imáms; unequivocal in its assertion of the divinity of its
Author and of the supernatural powers with which His Revelation
had been invested; precise in the verses and traditions it cites in
confirmation of so audacious a claim; severe in its condemnation of
some of the officials and representatives of the Sháh's administration,
particularly of the "wicked and accursed" Husayn Khán; moving in
its description of the humiliation and hardships to which its writer
had been subjected, this historic document resembles, in many of its
features, the Lawh-i-Sultán, the Tablet addressed, under similar
circumstances, from the prison-fortress of `Akká by Bahá'u'lláh to
Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, and constituting His lengthiest epistle to any
single sovereign.
The Dalá'il-i-Sab`ih (Seven Proofs), the most important of the
polemical works of the Báb, was revealed during that same period.
Remarkably lucid, admirable in its precision, original in conception,
unanswerable in its argument, this work, apart from the many and
divers proofs of His mission which it adduces, is noteworthy for the
blame it assigns to the "seven powerful sovereigns ruling the world"
in His day, as well as for the manner in which it stresses the
responsibilities, and censures the conduct, of the Christian divines of a
former age who, had they recognized the truth of Muhammad's
mission, He contends, would have been followed by the mass of their
co-religionists.
+P27
During the Báb's confinement in the fortress of Chihríq, where
He spent almost the whole of the two remaining years of His life,
the Lawh-i-Hurúfat (Tablet of the Letters) was revealed, in honor
of Dayyán--a Tablet which, however misconstrued at first as an
exposition of the science of divination, was later recognized to have
unravelled, on the one hand, the mystery of the Mustagháth, and to
have abstrusely alluded, on the other, to the nineteen years which
must needs elapse between the Declaration of the Báb and that of
Bahá'u'lláh. It was during these years--years darkened throughout
by the rigors of the Báb's captivity, by the severe indignities inflicted
upon Him, and by the news of the disasters that overtook the heroes
of Mazindarán and Nayríz--that He revealed, soon after His return
from Tabríz, His denunciatory Tablet to Hájí Mírzá Aqásí. Couched
in bold and moving language, unsparing in its condemnation, this
epistle was forwarded to the intrepid Hujjat who, as corroborated
by Bahá'u'lláh, delivered it to that wicked minister.
To this period of incarceration in the fortresses of Máh-Kú and
Chihríq--a period of unsurpassed fecundity, yet bitter in its humiliations
and ever-deepening sorrows--belong almost all the written
references, whether in the form of warnings, appeals or exhortations,
which the Báb, in anticipation of the approaching hour of His
supreme affliction, felt it necessary to make to the Author of a
Revelation that was soon to supersede His own. Conscious from the
very beginning of His twofold mission, as the Bearer of a wholly
independent Revelation and the Herald of One still greater than His
own, He could not content Himself with the vast number of commentaries,
of prayers, of laws and ordinances, of dissertations and
epistles, of homilies and orations that had incessantly streamed from
His pen. The Greater Covenant into which, as affirmed in His writings,
God had, from time immemorial, entered, through the Prophets
of all ages, with the whole of mankind, regarding the newborn
Revelation, had already been fulfilled. It had now to be supplemented
by a Lesser Covenant which He felt bound to make with the entire
body of His followers concerning the One Whose advent He characterized
as the fruit and ultimate purpose of His Dispensation.
Such a Covenant had invariably been the feature of every previous
religion. It had existed, under various forms, with varying degrees
of emphasis, had always been couched in veiled language, and had
been alluded to in cryptic prophecies, in abstruse allegories, in
unauthenticated traditions, and in the fragmentary and obscure
passages of the sacred Scriptures. In the Bábí Dispensation, however,
+P28
it was destined to be established in clear and unequivocal language,
though not embodied in a separate document. Unlike the Prophets
gone before Him, Whose Covenants were shrouded in mystery, unlike
Bahá'u'lláh, Whose clearly defined Covenant was incorporated in a
specially written Testament, and designated by Him as "the Book
of My Covenant," the Báb chose to intersperse His Book of Laws,
the Persian Bayán, with unnumbered passages, some designedly
obscure, mostly indubitably clear and conclusive, in which He fixes
the date of the promised Revelation, extols its virtues, asserts its
pre-eminent character, assigns to it unlimited powers and prerogatives,
and tears down every barrier that might be an obstacle to its
recognition. "He, verily," Bahá'u'lláh, referring to the Báb in His
Kitáb-i-Badí', has stated, "hath not fallen short of His duty to
exhort the people of the Bayán and to deliver unto them His Message.
In no age or dispensation hath any Manifestation made mention, in
such detail and in such explicit language, of the Manifestation
destined to succeed Him."
Some of His disciples the Báb assiduously prepared to expect the
imminent Revelation. Others He orally assured would live to see its
day. To Mullá Báqir, one of the Letters of the Living, He actually
prophesied, in a Tablet addressed to him, that he would meet the
Promised One face to face. To Sáyyah, another disciple, He gave
verbally a similar assurance. Mullá Husayn He directed to Tihrán,
assuring him that in that city was enshrined a Mystery Whose light
neither Hijáz nor Shíráz could rival. Quddús, on the eve of his
final separation from Him, was promised that he would attain the
presence of the One Who was the sole Object of their adoration and
love. To Shaykh Hasan-i-Zunúzí He declared while in Máh-Kú that
he would behold in Karbilá the countenance of the promised Husayn.
On Dayyán He conferred the title of "the third Letter to believe in
Him Whom God shall make manifest," while to Azím He divulged,
in the Kitáb-i-Panj-Sha'n, the name, and announced the approaching
advent, of Him Who was to consummate His own Revelation.
A successor or vicegerent the Báb never named, an interpreter of
His teachings He refrained from appointing. So transparently clear
were His references to the Promised One, so brief was to be the
duration of His own Dispensation, that neither the one nor the other
was deemed necessary. All He did was, according to the testimony of
`Abdu'l-Bahá in "A Traveller's Narrative," to nominate, on the
advice of Bahá'u'lláh and of another disciple, Mírzá Yahyá, who
would act solely as a figure-head pending the manifestation of the
+P29
Promised One, thus enabling Bahá'u'lláh to promote, in relative
security, the Cause so dear to His heart.
"The Bayán," the Báb in that Book, referring to the Promised
One, affirms, "is, from beginning to end, the repository of all of His
attributes, and the treasury of both His fire and His light." "If thou
attainest unto His Revelation," He, in another connection declares,
"and obeyest Him, thou wilt have revealed the fruit of the Bayán;
if not, thou art unworthy of mention before God." "O people of
the Bayán!" He, in that same Book, thus warns the entire company
of His followers, "act not as the people of the Qur'án have acted,
for if ye do so, the fruits of your night will come to naught." "Suffer
not the Bayán," is His emphatic injunction, "and all that hath been
revealed therein to withhold you from that Essence of Being and
Lord of the visible and invisible." "Beware, beware," is His significant
warning addressed to Vahíd, "lest in the days of His Revelation the
Vahíd of the Bayán (eighteen Letters of the Living and the Báb)
shut thee out as by a veil from Him, inasmuch as this Vahíd is but a
creature in His sight." And again: "O congregation of the Bayán,
and all who are therein! Recognize ye the limits imposed upon you,
for such a One as the Point of the Bayán Himself hath believed in
Him Whom God shall make manifest before all things were created.
Therein, verily, do I glory before all who are in the kingdom of
heaven and earth."
"In the year nine," He, referring to the date of the advent of the
promised Revelation, has explicitly written, "ye shall attain unto all
good." "In the year nine, ye will attain unto the presence of God."
And again: "After Hín (68) a Cause shall be given unto you which
ye shall come to know." "Ere nine will have elapsed from the inception
of this Cause," He more particularly has stated, "the realities of
the created things will not be made manifest. All that thou hast as
yet seen is but the stage from the moist germ until We clothed it
with flesh. Be patient, until thou beholdest a new creation. Say:
`Blessed, therefore, be God, the most excellent of Makers!'" "Wait
thou," is His statement to Azím, "until nine will have elapsed from
the time of the Bayán. Then exclaim: `Blessed, therefore, be God,
the most excellent of Makers!'" "Be attentive," He, referring in a
remarkable passage to the year nineteen, has admonished, "from the
inception of the Revelation till the number of Vahíd (19)." "The
Lord of the Day of Reckoning," He, even more explicitly, has stated,
"will be manifested at the end of Vahíd (19) and the beginning of
eighty (1280 A.H.)." "Were He to appear this very moment," He,
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in His eagerness to insure that the proximity of the promised Revelation
should not withhold men from the Promised One, has revealed,
"I would be the first to adore Him, and the first to bow down
before Him."
"I have written down in My mention of Him," He thus extols
the Author of the anticipated Revelation, "these gem-like words: `No
allusion of Mine can allude unto Him, neither anything mentioned in
the Bayán.'" "I, Myself, am but the first servant to believe in Him
and in His signs...." "The year-old germ," He significantly affirms,
"that holdeth within itself the potentialities of the Revelation that is
to come is endowed with a potency superior to the combined forces
of the whole of the Bayán." And again: "The whole of the Bayán is
only a leaf amongst the leaves of His Paradise." "Better is it for thee,"
He similarly asserts, "to recite but one of the verses of Him Whom
God shall make manifest than to set down the whole of the Bayán,
for on that Day that one verse can save thee, whereas the entire Bayán
cannot save thee." "Today the Bayán is in the stage of seed; at the
beginning of the manifestation of Him Whom God shall make manifest
its ultimate perfection will become apparent." "The Bayán
deriveth all its glory from Him Whom God shall make manifest."
"All that hath been revealed in the Bayán is but a ring upon My hand,
and I Myself am, verily, but a ring upon the hand of Him Whom
God shall make manifest... He turneth it as He pleaseth, for whatsoever
He pleaseth, and through whatsoever He pleaseth. He, verily,
is the Help in Peril, the Most High." "Certitude itself," He, in reply
to Vahíd and to one of the Letters of the Living who had inquired
regarding the promised One, had declared, "is ashamed to be called
upon to certify His truth ... and Testimony itself is ashamed to
testify unto Him." Addressing this same Vahíd, He moreover had
stated: "Were I to be assured that in the day of His manifestation
thou wilt deny Him, I would unhesitatingly disown thee... If, on
the other hand, I be told that a Christian, who beareth no allegiance
to My Faith, will believe in Him, the same will I regard as the apple
of My eye."
And finally is this, His moving invocation to God: "Bear Thou
witness that, through this Book, I have covenanted with all created
things concerning the mission of Him Whom Thou shalt make manifest,
ere the covenant concerning My own mission had been established.
Sufficient witness art Thou and they that have believed in Thy
signs." "I, verily, have not fallen short of My duty to admonish that
people," is yet another testimony from His pen, "...If on the day of
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His Revelation all that are on earth bear Him allegiance, Mine inmost
being will rejoice, inasmuch as all will have attained the summit of
their existence.... If not, My soul will be saddened. I truly have
nurtured all things for this purpose. How, then, can any one be
veiled from Him?"
The last three and most eventful years of the Báb's ministry had,
as we have observed in the preceding pages, witnessed not only the
formal and public declaration of His mission, but also an unprecedented
effusion of His inspired writings, including both the revelation
of the fundamental laws of His Dispensation and also the establishment
of that Lesser Covenant which was to safeguard the unity of
His followers and pave the way for the advent of an incomparably
mightier Revelation. It was during this same period, in the early
days of His incarceration in the fortress of Chihríq, that the independence
of the new-born Faith was openly recognized and asserted
by His disciples. The laws underlying the new Dispensation had
been revealed by its Author in a prison-fortress in the mountains of
Ádhirbayján, while the Dispensation itself was now to be inaugurated
in a plain on the border of Mazindarán, at a conference of His
assembled followers.
Bahá'u'lláh, maintaining through continual correspondence close
contact with the Báb, and Himself the directing force behind the
manifold activities of His struggling fellow-disciples, unobtrusively
yet effectually presided over that conference, and guided and controlled
its proceedings. Quddús, regarded as the exponent of the
conservative element within it, affected, in pursuance of a pre-conceived
plan designed to mitigate the alarm and consternation which
such a conference was sure to arouse, to oppose the seemingly
extremist views advocated by the impetuous Táhirih. The primary
purpose of that gathering was to implement the revelation of the
Bayán by a sudden, a complete and dramatic break with the past--
with its order, its ecclesiasticism, its traditions, and ceremonials. The
subsidiary purpose of the conference was to consider the means of
emancipating the Báb from His cruel confinement in Chihríq. The
first was eminently successful; the second was destined from the
outset to fail.
The scene of such a challenging and far-reaching proclamation
was the hamlet of Badasht, where Bahá'u'lláh had rented, amidst
pleasant surroundings, three gardens, one of which He assigned to
Quddús, another to Táhirih, whilst the third He reserved for Himself.
The eighty-one disciples who had gathered from various provinces
+P32
were His guests from the day of their arrival to the day they dispersed.
On each of the twenty-two days of His sojourn in that
hamlet He revealed a Tablet, which was chanted in the presence of
the assembled believers. On every believer He conferred a new name,
without, however, disclosing the identity of the one who had bestowed
it. He Himself was henceforth designated by the name Bahá. Upon
the Last Letter of the Living was conferred the appellation of
Quddús, while Qurratu'l-`Ayn was given the title of Táhirih. By
these names they were all subsequently addressed by the Báb in the
Tablets He revealed for each one of them.
It was Bahá'u'lláh Who steadily, unerringly, yet unsuspectedly,
steered the course of that memorable episode, and it was Bahá'u'lláh
Who brought the meeting to its final and dramatic climax. One day
in His presence, when illness had confined Him to bed, Táhirih, regarded
as the fair and spotless emblem of chastity and the incarnation
of the holy Fátimih, appeared suddenly, adorned yet unveiled, before
the assembled companions, seated herself on the right-hand of the
affrighted and infuriated Quddús, and, tearing through her fiery
words the veils guarding the sanctity of the ordinances of Islám,
sounded the clarion-call, and proclaimed the inauguration, of a new
Dispensation. The effect was electric and instantaneous. She, of such
stainless purity, so reverenced that even to gaze at her shadow was
deemed an improper act, appeared for a moment, in the eyes of her
scandalized beholders, to have defamed herself, shamed the Faith
she had espoused, and sullied the immortal Countenance she symbolized.
Fear, anger, bewilderment, swept their inmost souls, and
stunned their faculties. `Abdu'l-Kháliq-i-Isfahání, aghast and deranged
at such a sight, cut his throat with his own hands. Spattered
with blood, and frantic with excitement, he fled away from her face.
A few, abandoning their companions, renounced their Faith. Others
stood mute and transfixed before her. Still others must have recalled
with throbbing hearts the Islamic tradition foreshadowing the appearance
of Fátimih herself unveiled while crossing the Bridge (Sirat)
on the promised Day of Judgment. Quddús, mute with rage, seemed
to be only waiting for the moment when he could strike her down
with the sword he happened to be then holding in his hand.
Undeterred, unruffled, exultant with joy, Táhirih arose, and,
without the least premeditation and in a language strikingly resembling
that of the Qur'án, delivered a fervid and eloquent appeal
to the remnant of the assembly, ending it with this bold assertion:
"I am the Word which the Qá'im is to utter, the Word which shall
+P33
put to flight the chiefs and nobles of the earth!" Thereupon, she
invited them to embrace each other and celebrate so great an occasion.
On that memorable day the "Bugle" mentioned in the Qur'án was
sounded, the "stunning trumpet-blast" was loudly raised, and the
"Catastrophe" came to pass. The days immediately following so
startling a departure from the time-honored traditions of Islám
witnessed a veritable revolution in the outlook, habits, ceremonials
and manner of worship of these hitherto zealous and devout upholders
of the Muhammadan Law. Agitated as had been the Conference
from first to last, deplorable as was the secession of the few who
refused to countenance the annulment of the fundamental statutes
of the Islamic Faith, its purpose had been fully and gloriously
accomplished. Only four years earlier the Author of the Bábí Revelation
had declared His mission to Mullá Husayn in the privacy of His
home in Shíráz. Three years after that Declaration, within the walls
of the prison-fortress of Máh-Kú, He was dictating to His amanuensis
the fundamental and distinguishing precepts of His Dispensation.
A year later, His followers, under the actual leadership of Bahá'u'lláh,
their fellow-disciple, were themselves, in the hamlet of Badasht,
abrogating the Qur'ánic Law, repudiating both the divinely-ordained
and man-made precepts of the Faith of Muhammad, and shaking off
the shackles of its antiquated system. Almost immediately after, the
Báb Himself, still a prisoner, was vindicating the acts of His disciples
by asserting, formally and unreservedly, His claim to be the promised
Qá'im, in the presence of the Heir to the Throne, the leading exponents
of the Shaykhí community, and the most illustrious ecclesiastical
dignitaries assembled in the capital of Ádhirbayján.
A little over four years had elapsed since the birth of the Báb's
Revelation when the trumpet-blast announcing the formal extinction
of the old, and the inauguration of the new Dispensation was sounded.
No pomp, no pageantry marked so great a turning-point in the world's
religious history. Nor was its modest setting commensurate with
such a sudden, startling, complete emancipation from the dark and
embattled forces of fanaticism, of priestcraft, of religious orthodoxy
and superstition. The assembled host consisted of no more than a
single woman and a handful of men, mostly recruited from the very
ranks they were attacking, and devoid, with few exceptions, of wealth,
prestige and power. The Captain of the host was Himself an absentee,
a captive in the grip of His foes. The arena was a tiny hamlet in the
plain of Badasht on the border of Mazindarán. The trumpeter was a
lone woman, the noblest of her sex in that Dispensation, whom even
+P34
some of her co-religionists pronounced a heretic. The call she sounded
was the death-knell of the twelve hundred year old law of Islám.
Accelerated, twenty years later, by another trumpet-blast, announcing
the formulation of the laws of yet another Dispensation,
this process of disintegration, associated with the declining fortunes
of a superannuated, though divinely revealed Law, gathered further
momentum, precipitated, in a later age, the annulment of the Sharí'ah
canonical Law in Turkey, led to the virtual abandonment of that
Law in Shí'ah Persia, has, more recently, been responsible for the
dissociation of the System envisaged in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas from the
Sunní ecclesiastical Law in Egypt, has paved the way for the recognition
of that System in the Holy Land itself, and is destined to
culminate in the secularization of the Muslim states, and in the
universal recognition of the Law of Bahá'u'lláh by all the nations,
and its enthronement in the hearts of all the peoples, of the
Muslim world.
+P35
CHAPTER III
Upheavals in Mazindarán, Nayríz and Zanján
The Báb's captivity in a remote corner of Ádhirbayján, immortalized
by the proceedings of the Conference of Badasht, and distinguished
by such notable developments as the public declaration of His
mission, the formulation of the laws of His Dispensation and the establishment
of His Covenant, was to acquire added significance through
the dire convulsions that sprang from the acts of both His adversaries
and His disciples. The commotions that ensued, as the years of that
captivity drew to a close, and that culminated in His own martyrdom,
called forth a degree of heroism on the part of His followers and a
fierceness of hostility on the part of His enemies which had never been
witnessed during the first three years of His ministry. Indeed, this
brief but most turbulent period may be rightly regarded as the
bloodiest and most dramatic of the Heroic Age of the Bahá'í Era.
The momentous happenings associated with the Báb's incarceration
in Máh-Kú and Chihríq, constituting as they did the high watermark
of His Revelation, could have no other consequence than to
fan to fiercer flame both the fervor of His lovers and the fury of
His enemies. A persecution, grimmer, more odious, and more
shrewdly calculated than any which Husayn Khán, or even Hájí
Mírzá Aqásí, had kindled was soon to be unchained, to be accompanied
by a corresponding manifestation of heroism unmatched by
any of the earliest outbursts of enthusiasm that had greeted the birth
of the Faith in either Shíráz or Isfahán. This period of ceaseless and
unprecedented commotion was to rob that Faith, in quick succession,
of its chief protagonists, was to attain its climax in the extinction
of the life of its Author, and was to be followed by a further and
this time an almost complete elimination of its eminent supporters,
with the sole exception of One Who, at its darkest hour, was entrusted,
through the dispensations of Providence, with the dual function
of saving a sorely-stricken Faith from annihilation, and of
ushering in the Dispensation destined to supersede it.
The formal assumption by the Báb of the authority of the
promised Qá'im, in such dramatic circumstances and in so challenging
a tone, before a distinguished gathering of eminent Shí'ah
+P36
ecclesiastics, powerful, jealous, alarmed and hostile, was the explosive
force that loosed a veritable avalanche of calamities which swept
down upon the Faith and the people among whom it was born.
It raised to fervid heat the zeal that glowed in the souls of the Báb's
scattered disciples, who were already incensed by the cruel captivity
of their Leader, and whose ardor was now further inflamed by the
outpourings of His pen which reached them unceasingly from the
place of His confinement. It provoked a heated and prolonged controversy
throughout the length and breadth of the land, in bazaars,
masjids, madrisihs and other public places, deepening thereby the
cleavage that had already sundered its people. Muhammad Sháh, at
so perilous an hour, was meanwhile rapidly sinking under the weight
of his physical infirmities. The shallow-minded Hájí Mírzá Aqásí,
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.
So glaring a mismanagement of national affairs emboldened the
clerical order, whose members were now hurling with malignant zeal
anathemas from their pulpits, and were vociferously inciting superstitious
congregations to take up arms against the upholders of a
much hated creed, to insult the honor of their women folk, to plunder
their property and harass and injure their children. "What of the
signs and prodigies," they thundered before countless assemblies,
"that must needs usher in the advent of the Qá'im? What of the
Major and Minor Occultations? What of the cities of Jabúlqá and
Jabúlsá? How are we to explain the sayings of Husayn-ibn-Rúh,
and what interpretation should be given to the authenticated traditions
ascribed to Ibn-i-Mihríyár? Where are the Men of the Unseen,
who are to traverse, in a week, the whole surface of the earth? What
of the conquest of the East and West which the Qá'im is to effect on
His appearance? Where is the one-eyed Anti-Christ and the ass on
which he is to mount? What of Súfyán and his dominion?" "Are
we," they noisily remonstrated, "are we to account as a dead letter
the indubitable, the unnumbered traditions of our holy Imáms, or
are we to extinguish with fire and sword this brazen heresy that has
dared to lift its head in our land?"
To these defamations, threats and protestations the learned and
+P37
resolute champions of a misrepresented Faith, following the example
of their Leader, opposed unhesitatingly treatises, commentaries and
refutations, assiduously written, cogent in their argument, replete
with testimonies, lucid, eloquent and convincing, affirming their
belief in the Prophethood of Muhammad, in the legitimacy of the
Imáms, in the spiritual sovereignty of the Sáhibu'z-Zamán (the
Lord of the Age), interpreting in a masterly fashion the obscure, the
designedly allegorical and abstruse traditions, verses and prophecies
in the Islamic holy Writ, and adducing, in support of their contention,
the meekness and apparent helplessness of the Imám Husayn
who, despite his defeat, his discomfiture and ignominious martyrdom,
had been hailed by their antagonists as the very embodiment and the
matchless symbol of God's all-conquering sovereignty and power.
This fierce, nation-wide controversy had assumed alarming proportions
when Muhammad Sháh finally succumbed to his illness, precipitating
by his death the downfall of his favorite and all-powerful
minister, Hájí Mírzá Aqásí, who, soon stripped of the treasures he
had amassed, fell into disgrace, was expelled from the capital, and
sought refuge in Karbilá. The seventeen year old Násiri'd-Dín Mírzá
ascended the throne, leaving the direction of affairs to the obdurate,
the iron-hearted Amír-Nizám, Mírzá Taqí Khán, who, without
consulting his fellow-ministers, decreed that immediate and condign
punishment be inflicted on the hapless Bábís. Governors, magistrates
and civil servants, throughout the provinces, instigated by the
monstrous campaign of vilification conducted by the clergy, and
prompted by their lust for pecuniary rewards, vied in their respective
spheres with each other in hounding and heaping indignities on the
adherents of an outlawed Faith. For the first time in the Faith's
history a systematic campaign in which the civil and ecclesiastical
powers were banded together was being launched against it, a campaign
that was to culminate in the horrors experienced by Bahá'u'lláh
in the Síyáh-Chál of Tihrán and His subsequent banishment to `Iráq.
Government, clergy and people arose, as one man, to assault and
exterminate their common enemy. In remote and isolated centers
the scattered disciples of a persecuted community were pitilessly
struck down by the sword of their foes, while in centers where
large numbers had congregated measures were taken in self-defense,
which, misconstrued by a cunning and deceitful adversary, served in
their turn to inflame still further the hostility of the authorities, and
multiply the outrages perpetrated by the oppressor. In the East at
Shaykh Tabarsí, in the south in Nayríz, in the west in Zanján, and
+P38
in the capital itself, massacres, upheavals, demonstrations, engagements,
sieges, acts of treachery proclaimed, in rapid succession, the
violence of the storm which had broken out, and exposed the bankruptcy,
and blackened the annals, of a proud yet degenerate people.
The audacity of Mullá Husayn who, at the command of the
Báb, had attired his head with the green turban worn and sent to
him by his Master, who had hoisted the Black Standard, the unfurling
of which would, according to the Prophet Muhammad, herald the
advent of the vicegerent of God on earth, and who, mounted on
his steed, was marching at the head of two hundred and two of his
fellow-disciples to meet and lend his assistance to Quddús in the
Jazíriy-i-Khadrá (Verdant Isle)--his audacity was the signal for a
clash the reverberations of which were to resound throughout the
entire country. The contest lasted no less than eleven months. Its
theatre was for the most part the forest of Mazindarán. Its heroes
were the flower of the Báb's disciples. Its martyrs comprised no less
than half of the Letters of the Living, not excluding Quddús and
Mullá Husayn, respectively the last and the first of these Letters.
The directive force which however unobtrusively sustained it was
none other than that which flowed from the mind of Bahá'u'lláh.
It was caused by the unconcealed determination of the dawn-breakers
of a new Age to proclaim, fearlessly and befittingly, its advent, and
by a no less unyielding resolve, should persuasion prove a failure, to
resist and defend themselves against the onslaughts of malicious and
unreasoning assailants. It demonstrated beyond the shadow of a
doubt what the indomitable spirit of a band of three hundred and
thirteen untrained, unequipped yet God-intoxicated students, mostly
sedentary recluses of the college and cloister, could achieve when
pitted in self-defense against a trained army, well equipped, supported
by the masses of the people, blessed by the clergy, headed by a prince
of the royal blood, backed by the resources of the state, acting with
the enthusiastic approval of its sovereign, and animated by the unfailing
counsels of a resolute and all-powerful minister. Its outcome
was a heinous betrayal ending in an orgy of slaughter, staining with
everlasting infamy its perpetrators, investing its victims with a halo
of imperishable glory, and generating the very seeds which, in a
later age, were to blossom into world-wide administrative institutions,
and which must, in the fullness of time, yield their golden fruit in
the shape of a world-redeeming, earth-encircling Order.
It will be unnecessary to attempt even an abbreviated narrative
of this tragic episode, however grave its import, however much misconstrued
+P39
by adverse chroniclers and historians. A glance over its
salient features will suffice for the purpose of these pages. We note,
as we conjure up the events of this great tragedy, the fortitude, the
intrepidity, the discipline and the resourcefulness of its heroes, contrasting
sharply with the turpitude, the cowardice, the disorderliness
and the inconstancy of their opponents. We observe the sublime
patience, the noble restraint exercised by one of its principal actors,
the lion-hearted Mullá Husayn, who persistently refused to unsheathe
his sword until an armed and angry multitude, uttering the foulest
invectives, had gathered at a farsang's distance from Barfurúsh to
block his way, and had mortally struck down seven of his innocent
and staunch companions. We are filled with admiration for the
tenacity of faith of that same Mullá Husayn, demonstrated by his
resolve to persevere in sounding the adhán, while besieged in the caravanserai
of Sabsih-Maydán, though three of his companions, who had
successively ascended to the roof of the inn, with the express purpose
of performing that sacred rite, had been instantly killed by the bullets
of the enemy. We marvel at the spirit of renunciation that prompted
those sore pressed sufferers to contemptuously ignore the possessions
left behind by their fleeing enemy; that led them to discard their own
belongings, and content themselves with their steeds and swords; that
induced the father of Badí', one of that gallant company, to fling
unhesitatingly by the roadside the satchel, full of turquoises which
he had brought from his father's mine in Nishápúr; that led Mírzá
Muhammad-Taqíy-i-Juvayní to cast away a sum equivalent in value in
silver and gold; and impelled those same companions to disdain, and
refuse even to touch, the costly furnishings and the coffers of gold
and silver which the demoralized and shame-laden Prince Mihdí-Qulí
Mírzá, the commander of the army of Mazindarán and a brother of
Muhammad Sháh, had left behind in his headlong flight from his
camp. We cannot but esteem the passionate sincerity with which
Mullá Husayn pleaded with the Prince, and the formal assurance he
gave him, disclaiming, in no uncertain terms, any intention on his
part or that of his fellow-disciples of usurping the authority of the
Sháh or of subverting the foundations of his state. We cannot but view
with contempt the conduct of that arch-villain, the hysterical, the
cruel and overbearing Sa'ídu'l-`Ulamá, who, alarmed at the approach
of those same companions, flung, in a frenzy of excitement, and
before an immense crowd of men and women, his turban to the
ground, tore open the neck of his shirt, and, bewailing the plight
into which Islám had fallen, implored his congregation to fly to arms
+P40
and cut down the approaching band. We are struck with wonder as
we contemplate the super-human prowess of Mullá Husayn which
enabled him, notwithstanding his fragile frame and trembling hand,
to slay a treacherous foe who had taken shelter behind a tree, by
cleaving with a single stroke of his sword the tree, the man and his
musket in twain. We are stirred, moreover, by the scene of the
arrival of Bahá'u'lláh at the Fort, and the indefinable joy it imparted
to Mullá Husayn, the reverent reception accorded Him by His
fellow-disciples, His inspection of the fortifications which they had
hurriedly erected for their protection, and the advice He gave them,
which resulted in the miraculous deliverance of Quddús, in his subsequent
and close association with the defenders of that Fort, and in
his effective participation in the exploits connected with its siege
and eventual destruction. We are amazed at the serenity and sagacity
of that same Quddús, the confidence he instilled on his arrival, the
resourcefulness he displayed, the fervor and gladness with which the
besieged listened, at morn and at even-tide, to the voice intoning the
verses of his celebrated commentary on the Sád of Samad, to which
he had already, while in Sarí, devoted a treatise thrice as voluminous
as the Qur'án itself, and which he was now, despite the tumultuary
attacks of the enemy and the privations he and his companions were
enduring, further elucidating by adding to that interpretation as
many verses as he had previously written. We remember with
thrilling hearts that memorable encounter when, at the cry "Mount
your steeds, O heroes of God!" Mullá Husayn, accompanied by two
hundred and two of the beleaguered and sorely-distressed companions,
and preceded by Quddús, emerged before daybreak from the Fort,
and, raising the shout of "Yá Sáhibu'z-Zamán!", rushed at full charge
towards the stronghold of the Prince, and penetrated to his private
apartments, only to find that, in his consternation, he had thrown
himself from a back window into the moat, and escaped bare-footed,
leaving his host confounded and routed. We see relived in poignant
memory that last day of Mullá Husayn's earthly life, when, soon after
midnight, having performed his ablutions, clothed himself in new
garments, and attired his head with the Báb's turban, he mounted his
charger, ordered the gate of the Fort to be opened, rode out at the
head of three hundred and thirteen of his companions, shouting aloud
"Yá Sáhibu'z-Zamán!", charged successively the seven barricades
erected by the enemy, captured every one of them, notwithstanding
the bullets that were raining upon him, swiftly dispatched their
defenders, and had scattered their forces when, in the ensuing tumult,
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his steed became suddenly entangled in the rope of a tent, and before
he could extricate himself he was struck in the breast by a bullet
which the cowardly Abbás-Qulí Khán-i-Laríjaní had discharged,
while lying in ambush in the branches of a neighboring tree. We
acclaim the magnificent courage that, in a subsequent encounter,
inspired nineteen of those stout-hearted companions to plunge headlong
into the camp of an enemy that consisted of no less than two
regiments of infantry and cavalry, and to cause such consternation
that one of their leaders, the same Abbás-Qulí Khán, falling from
his horse, and leaving in his distress one of his boots hanging from the
stirrup, ran away, half-shod and bewildered, to the Prince, and confessed
the ignominious reverse he had suffered. Nor can we fail to
note the superb fortitude with which these heroic souls bore the load
of their severe trials; when their food was at first reduced to the flesh
of horses brought away from the deserted camp of the enemy; when
later they had to content themselves with such grass as they could
snatch from the fields whenever they obtained a respite from their
besiegers; when they were forced, at a later stage, to consume the
bark of the trees and the leather of their saddles, of their belts, of
their scabbards and of their shoes; when during eighteen days they
had nothing but water of which they drank a mouthful every morning;
when the cannon fire of the enemy compelled them to dig
subterranean passages within the Fort, where, dwelling amid mud
and water, with garments rotting away with damp, they had to
subsist on ground up bones; and when, at last, oppressed by gnawing
hunger, they, as attested by a contemporary chronicler, were driven
to disinter the steed of their venerated leader, Mullá Husayn, cut it
into pieces, grind into dust its bones, mix it with the putrified meat,
and, making it into a stew, avidly devour it.
Nor can reference be omitted to the abject treachery to which the
impotent and discredited Prince eventually resorted, and his violation
of his so-called irrevocable oath, inscribed and sealed by him on the
margin of the opening súrih of the Qur'án, whereby he, swearing by
that holy Book, undertook to set free all the defenders of the Fort,
pledged his honor that no man in his army or in the neighborhood
would molest them, and that he would himself, at his own expense,
arrange for their safe departure to their homes. And lastly, we call
to remembrance, the final scene of that sombre tragedy, when, as a
result of the Prince's violation of his sacred engagement, a number
of the betrayed companions of Quddús were assembled in the camp
of the enemy, were stripped of their possessions, and sold as slaves,
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the rest being either killed by the spears and swords of the officers, or
torn asunder, or bound to trees and riddled with bullets, or blown
from the mouths of cannon and consigned to the flames, or else being
disemboweled and having their heads impaled on spears and lances.
Quddús, their beloved leader, was by yet another shameful act of the
intimidated Prince surrendered into the hands of the diabolical
Sa'ídu'l-`Ulamá who, in his unquenchable hostility and aided by
the mob whose passions he had sedulously inflamed, stripped his
victim of his garments, loaded him with chains, paraded him through
the streets of Barfurúsh, and incited the scum of its female inhabitants
to execrate and spit upon him, assail him with knives and
axes, mutilate his body, and throw the tattered fragments into a fire.
This stirring episode, so glorious for the Faith, so blackening to
the reputation of its enemies--an episode which must be regarded as a
rare phenomenon in the history of modern times--was soon succeeded
by a parallel upheaval, strikingly similar in its essential features.
The scene of woeful tribulations was now shifted to the south, to the
province of Fárs, not far from the city where the dawning light of
the Faith had broken. Nayríz and its environs were made to sustain
the impact of this fresh ordeal in all its fury. The Fort of Khájih, in
the vicinity of the Chinár-Sukhtih quarter of that hotly agitated
village became the storm-center of the new conflagration. The hero
who towered above his fellows, valiantly struggled, and fell a victim
to its devouring flames was that "unique and peerless figure of his
age," the far-famed Siyyid Yahyáy-i-Darábí, better known as Vahíd.
Foremost among his perfidious adversaries, who kindled and fed the
fire of this conflagration was the base and fanatical governor of
Nayríz, Zaynu'l-'Ábidín Khán, seconded by `Abdu'lláh Khán, the
Shujá'u'l-Mulk, and reinforced by Prince Fírúz Mírzá, the governor
of Shíráz. Of a much briefer duration than the Mazindarán upheaval,
which lasted no less than eleven months, the atrocities that
marked its closing stage were no less devastating in their consequences.
Once again a handful of men, innocent, law-abiding, peace-loving,
yet high-spirited and indomitable, consisting partly, in this case, of
untrained lads and men of advanced age, were surprised, challenged,
encompassed and assaulted by the superior force of a cruel and
crafty enemy, an innumerable host of able-bodied men who, though
well-trained, adequately equipped and continually reinforced, were
impotent to coerce into submission, or subdue, the spirit of their
adversaries.
This fresh commotion originated in declarations of faith as fearless
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and impassioned, and in demonstrations of religious enthusiasm
almost as vehement and dramatic, as those which had ushered in the
Mazindarán upheaval. It was instigated by a no less sustained and
violent outburst of uncompromising ecclesiastical hostility. It was
accompanied by corresponding manifestations of blind religious
fanaticism. It was provoked by similar acts of naked aggression on
the part of both clergy and people. It demonstrated afresh the same
purpose, was animated throughout by the same spirit, and rose to
almost the same height of superhuman heroism, of fortitude, courage,
and renunciation. It revealed a no less shrewdly calculated coordination
of plans and efforts between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities
designed to challenge and overthrow a common enemy. It was preceded
by a similar categorical repudiation, on the part of the Bábís,
of any intention of interfering with the civil jurisdiction of the
realm, or of undermining the legitimate authority of its sovereign.
It provided a no less convincing testimony to the restraint and forbearance
of the victims, in the face of the ruthless and unprovoked
aggression of the oppressor. It exposed, as it moved toward its
climax, and in hardly less striking a manner, the cowardice, the want
of discipline and the degradation of a spiritually bankrupt foe. It
was marked, as it approached its conclusion, by a treachery as vile
and shameful. It ended in a massacre even more revolting in the horrors
it evoked and the miseries it engendered. It sealed the fate
of Vahíd who, by his green turban, the emblem of his proud lineage,
was bound to a horse and dragged ignominiously through the streets,
after which his head was cut off, was stuffed with straw, and sent
as a trophy to the feasting Prince in Shíráz, while his body was
abandoned to the mercy of the infuriated women of Nayríz, who,
intoxicated with barbarous joy by the shouts of exultation raised by
a triumphant enemy, danced, to the accompaniment of drums and
cymbals, around it. And finally, it brought in its wake, with the aid
of no less than five thousand men, specially commissioned for this
purpose, a general and fierce onslaught on the defenseless Bábís,
whose possessions were confiscated, whose houses were destroyed,
whose stronghold was burned to the ground, whose women and
children were captured, and some of whom, stripped almost naked,
were mounted on donkeys, mules and camels, and led through rows
of heads hewn from the lifeless bodies of their fathers, brothers, sons
and husbands, who previously had been either branded, or had their
nails torn out, or had been lashed to death, or had spikes hammered
into their hands and feet, or had incisions made in their noses through
+P44
which strings were passed, and by which they were led through the
streets before the gaze of an irate and derisive multitude.
This turmoil, so ravaging, so distressing, had hardly subsided
when another conflagration, even more devastating than the two
previous upheavals, was kindled in Zanján and its immediate surroundings.
Unprecedented in both its duration and in the number of
those who were swept away by its fury, this violent tempest that
broke out in the west of Persia, and in which Mullá Muhammad-`Alíy-i-Zanjání,
surnamed Hujjat, one of the ablest and most formidable
champions of the Faith, together with no less than eighteen
hundred of his fellow-disciples, drained the cup of martyrdom, defined
more sharply than ever the unbridgeable gulf that separated
the torchbearers of the newborn Faith from the civil and ecclesiastical
exponents of a gravely shaken Order. The chief figures
mainly responsible for, and immediately concerned with, this ghastly
tragedy were the envious and hypocritical Amír Arslán Khán, the
Majdu'd-Dawlih, a maternal uncle of Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, and his
associates, the Sadru'd-Dawliy-i-Isfahání and Muhammad Khán, the
Amír-Tumán, who were assisted, on the one hand, by substantial
military reinforcements dispatched by order of the Amír-Nizám,
and aided, on the other, by the enthusiastic moral support of the
entire ecclesiastical body in Zanján. The spot that became the theatre
of heroic exertions, the scene of intense sufferings, and the target for
furious and repeated assaults, was the Fort of `Alí-Mardán Khán,
which at one time sheltered no less than three thousand Bábís, including
men, women and children, the tale of whose agonies is unsurpassed
in the annals of a whole century.
A brief reference to certain outstanding features of this mournful
episode, endowing the Faith, in its infancy, with measureless potentialities,
will suffice to reveal its distinctive character. The pathetic
scenes following upon the division of the inhabitants of Zanján into
two distinct camps, by the order of its governor--a decision dramatically
proclaimed by a crier, and which dissolved ties of worldly
interest and affection in favor of a mightier loyalty; the reiterated
exhortations addressed by Hujjat to the besieged to refrain from
aggression and acts of violence; his affirmation, as he recalled the
tragedy of Mazindarán, that their victory consisted solely in sacrificing
their all on the altar of the Cause of the Sáhibu'z-Zamán, and
his declaration of the unalterable intention of his companions to serve
their sovereign loyally and to be the well-wishers of his people; the
astounding intrepidity with which these same companions repelled
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the ferocious onslaught launched by the Sadru'd-Dawlih, who eventually
was obliged to confess his abject failure, was reprimanded by the
Sháh and was degraded from his rank; the contempt with which the
occupants of the Fort met the appeals of the crier seeking on behalf
of an exasperated enemy to inveigle them into renouncing their Cause
and to beguile them by the generous offers and promises of the
sovereign; the resourcefulness and incredible audacity of Zaynab, a
village maiden, who, fired with an irrepressible yearning to throw in
her lot with the defenders of the Fort, disguised herself in male
attire, cut off her locks, girt a sword about her waist, and, raising
the cry of Yá Sáhibu'z-Zamán!" rushed headlong in pursuit of the
assailants, and who, disdainful of food and sleep, continued, during a
period of five months, in the thick of the turmoil, to animate the
zeal and to rush to the rescue of her men companions; the stupendous
uproar raised by the guards who manned the barricades as they
shouted the five invocations prescribed by the Báb, on the very night
on which His instructions had been received--an uproar which
precipitated the death of a few persons in the camp of the enemy,
caused the dissolute officers to drop instantly their wine-glasses to
the ground and to overthrow the gambling-tables, and hurry forth
bare-footed, and induced others to run half-dressed into the wilderness,
or flee panic-stricken to the homes of the `ulamás--these stand
out as the high lights of this bloody contest. We recall, likewise, the
contrast between the disorder, the cursing, the ribald laughter, the
debauchery and shame that characterized the camp of the enemy,
and the atmosphere of reverent devotion that filled the Fort, from
which anthems of praise and hymns of joy were continually ascending.
Nor can we fail to note the appeal addressed by Hujjat and his chief
supporters to the Sháh, repudiating the malicious assertions of their
foes, assuring him of their loyalty to him and his government, and
of their readiness to establish in his presence the soundness of their
Cause; the interception of these messages by the governor and the
substitution by him of forged letters loaded with abuse which he
dispatched in their stead to Tihrán; the enthusiastic support extended
by the female occupants of the Fort, the shouts of exultation which
they raised, the eagerness with which some of them, disguised in the
garb of men, rushed to reinforce its defences and to supplant their
fallen brethren, while others ministered to the sick, and carried on
their shoulders skins of water for the wounded, and still others, like
the Carthaginian women of old, cut off their long hair and bound
the thick coils around the guns to reinforce them; the foul treachery
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of the besiegers, who, on the very day they had drawn up and written
out an appeal for peace and, enclosing with it a sealed copy of the
Qur'án as a testimony of their pledge, had sent it to Hujjat, did not
shrink from throwing into a dungeon the members of the delegation,
including the children, which had been sent by him to treat with
them, from tearing out the beard of the venerated leader of that
delegation, and from savagely mutilating one of his fellow-disciples.
We call to mind, moreover, the magnanimity of Hujjat who, though
afflicted with the sudden loss of both his wife and child, continued
with unruffled calm in exhorting his companions to exercise forbearance
and to resign themselves to the will of God, until he himself
succumbed to a wound he had received from the enemy; the barbarous
revenge which an adversary incomparably superior in numbers
and equipment wreaked upon its victims, giving them over to a
massacre and pillage, unexampled in scope and ferocity, in which
a rapacious army, a greedy populace and an unappeasable clergy
freely indulged; the exposure of the captives, of either sex, hungry
and ill-clad, during no less than fifteen days and nights, to the
biting cold of an exceptionally severe winter, while crowds of women
danced merrily around them, spat in their faces and insulted them
with the foulest invectives; the savage cruelty that condemned
others to be blown from guns, to be plunged into ice-cold water and
lashed severely, to have their skulls soaked in boiling oil, to be
smeared with treacle and left to perish in the snow; and finally, the
insatiable hatred that impelled the crafty governor to induce through
his insinuations the seven year old son of Hujjat to disclose the
burial-place of his father, that drove him to violate the grave,
disinter the corpse, order it to be dragged to the sound of drums
and trumpets through the streets of Zanján, and be exposed, for
three days and three nights, to unspeakable injuries. These, and other
similar incidents connected with the epic story of the Zanján upheaval,
characterized by Lord Curzon as a "terrific siege and
slaughter," combine to invest it with a sombre glory unsurpassed
by any episode of a like nature in the records of the Heroic Age of
the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh.
To the tide of calamity which, during the concluding years of
the Báb's ministry, was sweeping with such ominous fury the
provinces of Persia, whether in the East, in the South, or in the
West, the heart and center of the realm itself could not remain
impervious. Four months before the Báb's martyrdom Tihrán in its
turn was to participate, to a lesser degree and under less dramatic
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circumstances, in the carnage that was besmirching the face of the
country. A tragedy was being enacted in that city which was to
prove but a prelude to the orgy of massacre which, after the Báb's
execution, convulsed its inhabitants and sowed consternation as far
as the outlying provinces. It originated in the orders and was perpetrated
under the very eyes of the irate and murderous Amír-Nizám,
supported by Mahmúd Khán-i-Kalántar, and aided by a certain
Husayn, one of the `ulamás of Káshán. The heroes of that tragedy
were the Seven Martyrs of Tihrán, who represented the more important
classes among their countrymen, and who deliberately refused
to purchase life by that mere lip-denial which, under the name
of taqíyyih, Shí'ah Islám had for centuries recognized as a wholly
justifiable and indeed commendable subterfuge in the hour of peril.
Neither the repeated and vigorous intercessions of highly placed
members of the professions to which these martyrs belonged, nor the
considerable sums which, in the case of one of them--the noble and
serene Hájí Mírzá Siyyid `Alí, the Báb's maternal uncle--affluent
merchants of Shíráz and Tihrán were eager to offer as ransom, nor
the impassioned pleas of state officials on behalf of another--the
pious and highly esteemed dervish, Mírzá Qurbán-`Alí--nor even
the personal intervention of the Amír-Nizám, who endeavored to
induce both of these brave men to recant, could succeed in persuading
any of the seven to forego the coveted laurels of martyrdom. The
defiant answers which they flung at their persecutors; the ecstatic
joy which seized them as they drew near the scene of their death;
the jubilant shouts they raised as they faced their executioner; the
poignancy of the verses which, in their last moments, some of them
recited; the appeals and challenges they addressed to the multitude
of onlookers who gazed with stupefaction upon them; the eagerness
with which the last three victims strove to precede one another in
sealing their faith with their blood; and lastly, the atrocities which a
bloodthirsty foe degraded itself by inflicting upon their dead bodies
which lay unburied for three days and three nights in the Sabzih-Maydán,
during which time thousands of so-called devout Shí'ahs
kicked their corpses, spat upon their faces, pelted, cursed, derided,
and heaped refuse upon them--these were the chief features of the
tragedy of the Seven Martyrs of Tihrán, a tragedy which stands out
as one of the grimmest scenes witnessed in the course of the early
unfoldment of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh. Little wonder that the Báb,
bowed down by the weight of His accumulated sorrows in the Fortress
of Chihríq, should have acclaimed and glorified them, in the pages
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of a lengthy eulogy which immortalized their fidelity to His Cause,
as those same "Seven Goats" who, according to Islamic tradition,
should, on the Day of Judgment, "walk in front" of the promised
Qá'im, and whose death was to precede the impending martyrdom
of their true Shepherd.
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CHAPTER IV
The Execution of the Báb
The waves of dire tribulation that violently battered at the Faith,
and eventually engulfed, in rapid succession, the ablest, the dearest
and most trusted disciples of the Báb, plunged Him, as already
observed, into unutterable sorrow. For no less than six months the
Prisoner of Chihríq, His chronicler has recorded, was unable to either
write or dictate. Crushed with grief by the evil tidings that came so
fast upon Him, of the endless trials that beset His ablest lieutenants,
by the agonies suffered by the besieged and the shameless betrayal of
the survivors, by the woeful afflictions endured by the captives and
the abominable butchery of men, women and children, as well as
the foul indignities heaped on their corpses, He, for nine days, His
amanuensis has affirmed, refused to meet any of His friends, and was
reluctant to touch the meat and drink that was offered Him. Tears
rained continually from His eyes, and profuse expressions of anguish
poured forth from His wounded heart, as He languished, for no less
than five months, solitary and disconsolate, in His prison.
The pillars of His infant Faith had, for the most part, been
hurled down at the first onset of the hurricane that had been loosed
upon it. Quddús, immortalized by Him as Ismu'lláhi'l-Ákhir (the
Last Name of God); on whom Bahá'u'lláh's Tablet of Kullu't-Tá'am
later conferred the sublime appellation of Nuqtiy-i-Ukhrá (the Last
Point); whom He elevated, in another Tablet, to a rank second to
none except that of the Herald of His Revelation; whom He identifies,
in still another Tablet, with one of the "Messengers charged
with imposture" mentioned in the Qur'án; whom the Persian Bayán
extolled as that fellow-pilgrim round whom mirrors to the number of
eight Vahíds revolve; on whose "detachment and the sincerity of whose
devotion to God's will God prideth Himself amidst the Concourse on
high;" whom `Abdu'l-Bahá designated as the "Moon of Guidance;"
and whose appearance the Revelation of St. John the Divine anticipated
as one of the two "Witnesses" into whom, ere the "second woe
is past," the "spirit of life from God" must enter--such a man had,
in the full bloom of his youth, suffered, in the Sabzih-Maydán of
Barfurúsh, a death which even Jesus Christ, as attested by Bahá'u'lláh,
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had not faced in the hour of His greatest agony. Mullá Husayn, the
first Letter of the Living, surnamed the Bábu'l-Báb (the Gate of the
Gate); designated as the "Primal Mirror;" on whom eulogies, prayers
and visiting Tablets of a number equivalent to thrice the volume of
the Qur'án had been lavished by the pen of the Báb; referred to in
these eulogies as "beloved of My Heart;" the dust of whose grave,
that same Pen had declared, was so potent as to cheer the sorrowful
and heal the sick; whom "the creatures, raised in the beginning and
in the end" of the Bábí Dispensation, envy, and will continue to envy
till the "Day of Judgment;" whom the Kitáb-i-Iqán acclaimed as
the one but for whom "God would not have been established upon
the seat of His mercy, nor ascended the throne of eternal glory;" to
whom Siyyid Kázim had paid such tribute that his disciples suspected
that the recipient of such praise might well be the promised One
Himself--such a one had likewise, in the prime of his manhood, died a
martyr's death at Tabarsí. Vahíd, pronounced in the Kitáb-i-Iqán
to be the "unique and peerless figure of his age," a man of immense
erudition and the most preeminent figure to enlist under the banner
of the new Faith, to whose "talents and saintliness," to whose "high
attainments in the realm of science and philosophy" the Báb had
testified in His Dalá'il-i-Sab`ih (Seven Proofs), had already, under
similar circumstances, been swept into the maelstrom of another
upheaval, and was soon to quaff in his turn the cup drained by the
heroic martyrs of Mazindarán. Hujjat, another champion of conspicuous
audacity, of unsubduable will, of remarkable originality and
vehement zeal, was being, swiftly and inevitably, drawn into the
fiery furnace whose flames had already enveloped Zanján and its
environs. The Báb's maternal uncle, the only father He had known
since His childhood, His shield and support and the trusted guardian
of both His mother and His wife, had, moreover, been sundered from
Him by the axe of the executioner in Tihrán. No less than half of
His chosen disciples, the Letters of the Living, had already preceded
Him in the field of martyrdom. Táhirih, though still alive, was
courageously pursuing a course that was to lead her inevitably to
her doom.
A fast ebbing life, so crowded with the accumulated anxieties,
disappointments, treacheries and sorrows of a tragic ministry, now
moved swiftly towards its climax. The most turbulent period of the
Heroic Age of the new Dispensation was rapidly attaining its culmination.
The cup of bitter woes which the Herald of that Dispensation
had tasted was now full to overflowing. Indeed, He Himself had
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already foreshadowed His own approaching death. In the Kitáb-i-Panj-Sha'n,
one of His last works, He had alluded to the fact that
the sixth Naw-Rúz after the declaration of His mission would be
the last He was destined to celebrate on earth. In His interpretation
of the letter Há, He had voiced His craving for martyrdom, while in
the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá' He had actually prophesied the inevitability
of such a consummation of His glorious career. Forty days before
His final departure from Chihríq He had even collected all the documents
in His possession, and placed them, together with His pen-case,
His seals and His rings, in the hands of Mullá Báqir, a Letter of the
Living, whom He instructed to entrust them to Mullá `Abdu'l-Karím-i-Qazvíní,
surnamed Mírzá Ahmad, who was to deliver them to
Bahá'u'lláh in Tihrán.
While the convulsions of Mazindarán and Nayríz were pursuing
their bloody course the Grand Vizir of Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, anxiously
pondering the significance of these dire happenings, and apprehensive
of their repercussions on his countrymen, his government and his
sovereign, was feverishly revolving in his mind that fateful decision
which was not only destined to leave its indelible imprint on the
fortunes of his country, but was to be fraught with such incalculable
consequences for the destinies of the whole of mankind. The repressive
measures taken against the followers of the Báb, he was by now fully
convinced, had but served to inflame their zeal, steel their resolution
and confirm their loyalty to their persecuted Faith. The Báb's isolation
and captivity had produced the opposite effect to that which the
Amír-Nizám had confidently anticipated. Gravely perturbed, he
bitterly condemned the disastrous leniency of his predecessor, Hájí
Mírzá Aqásí, which had brought matters to such a pass. A more
drastic and still more exemplary punishment, he felt, must now be
administered to what he regarded as an abomination of heresy which
was polluting the civil and ecclesiastical institutions of the realm.
Nothing short, he believed, of the extinction of the life of Him Who
was the fountain-head of so odious a doctrine and the driving force
behind so dynamic a movement could stem the tide that had wrought
such havoc throughout the land.
The siege of Zanján was still in progress when he, dispensing with
an explicit order from his sovereign, and acting independently of his
counsellors and fellow-ministers, dispatched his order to Prince
Hamzih Mírzá, the Hishmatu'd-Dawlih, the governor of Ádhirbayján,
instructing him to execute the Báb. Fearing lest the infliction of such
condign punishment in the capital of the realm would set in motion
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forces he might be powerless to control, he ordered that his Captive
be taken to Tabríz, and there be done to death. Confronted with a
flat refusal by the indignant Prince to perform what he regarded as a
flagitious crime, the Amír-Nizám commissioned his own brother,
Mírzá Hasan Khán, to execute his orders. The usual formalities designed
to secure the necessary authorization from the leading mujtahids
of Tabríz were hastily and easily completed. Neither Mullá
Muhammad-i-Mamaqaní, however, who had penned the Báb's death-warrant
on the very day of His examination in Tabríz, nor Hájí
Mírzá Báqir, nor Mullá Murtadá-Qulí, to whose houses their Victim
was ignominiously led by the farrásh-báshí, by order of the Grand
Vizir, condescended to meet face to face their dreaded Opponent.
Immediately before and soon after this humiliating treatment
meted out to the Báb two highly significant incidents occurred, incidents
that cast an illuminating light on the mysterious circumstances
surrounding the opening phase of His martyrdom. The farrásh-báshí
had abruptly interrupted the last conversation which the Báb was
confidentially having in one of the rooms of the barracks with His
amanuensis Siyyid Husayn, and was drawing the latter aside, and
severely rebuking him, when he was thus addressed by his Prisoner:
"Not until I have said to him all those things that I wish to say can
any earthly power silence Me. Though all the world be armed against
Me, yet shall it be powerless to deter Me from fulfilling, to the last
word, My intention." To the Christian Sám Khán--the colonel of the
Armenian regiment ordered to carry out the execution--who, seized
with fear lest his act should provoke the wrath of God, had begged
to be released from the duty imposed upon him, the Báb gave the
following assurance: "Follow your instructions, and if your intention
be sincere, the Almighty is surely able to relieve you of your
perplexity."
Sám Khán accordingly set out to discharge his duty. A spike was
driven into a pillar which separated two rooms of the barracks facing
the square. Two ropes were fastened to it from which the Báb and
one of his disciples, the youthful and devout Mírzá Muhammad-`Alí-i-Zunúzí,
surnamed Anís, who had previously flung himself at the
feet of his Master and implored that under no circumstances he be
sent away from Him, were separately suspended. The firing squad
ranged itself in three files, each of two hundred and fifty men. Each
file in turn opened fire until the whole detachment had discharged
its bullets. So dense was the smoke from the seven hundred and
fifty rifles that the sky was darkened. As soon as the smoke had
+P53
cleared away the astounded multitude of about ten thousand souls,
who had crowded onto the roof of the barracks, as well as the tops
of the adjoining houses, beheld a scene which their eyes could
scarcely believe.
The Báb had vanished from their sight! Only his companion
remained, alive and unscathed, standing beside the wall on which
they had been suspended. The ropes by which they had been hung
alone were severed. "The Siyyid-i-Báb has gone from our sight!"
cried out the bewildered spectators. A frenzied search immediately
ensued. He was found, unhurt and unruffled, in the very room He
had occupied the night before, engaged in completing His interrupted
conversation with His amanuensis. "I have finished My conversation
with Siyyid Husayn" were the words with which the Prisoner, so
providentially preserved, greeted the appearance of the farrásh-báshí,
"Now you may proceed to fulfill your intention." Recalling the bold
assertion his Prisoner had previously made, and shaken by so stunning
a revelation, the farrásh-báshí quitted instantly the scene, and resigned
his post.
Sám Khán, likewise, remembering, with feelings of awe and
wonder, the reassuring words addressed to him by the Báb, ordered
his men to leave the barracks immediately, and swore, as he left the
courtyard, never again, even at the cost of his life, to repeat that act.
Áqá Ján-i-Khamsíh, colonel of the body-guard, volunteered to replace
him. On the same wall and in the same manner the Báb and His companion
were again suspended, while the new regiment formed in line
and opened fire upon them. This time, however, their breasts were
riddled with bullets, and their bodies completely dissected, with the
exception of their faces which were but little marred. "O wayward
generation!" were the last words of the Báb to the gazing multitude,
as the regiment prepared to fire its volley, "Had you believed in Me
every one of you would have followed the example of this youth, who
stood in rank above most of you, and would have willingly sacrificed
himself in My path. The day will come when you will have recognized
Me; that day I shall have ceased to be with you."
Nor was this all. The very moment the shots were fired a gale of
exceptional violence arose and swept over the city. From noon till
night a whirlwind of dust obscured the light of the sun, and blinded
the eyes of the people. In Shíráz an "earthquake," foreshadowed in no
less weighty a Book than the Revelation of St. John, occurred in
1268 A.H. which threw the whole city into turmoil and wrought
havoc amongst its people, a havoc that was greatly aggravated by
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the outbreak of cholera, by famine and other afflictions. In that same
year no less than two hundred and fifty of the firing squad, that had
replaced Sám Khán's regiment, met their death, together with their
officers, in a terrible earthquake, while the remaining five hundred
suffered, three years later, as a punishment for their mutiny, the same
fate as that which their hands had inflicted upon the Báb. To insure
that none of them had survived, they were riddled with a second
volley, after which their bodies, pierced with spears and lances, were
exposed to the gaze of the people of Tabríz. The prime instigator of
the Báb's death, the implacable Amír-Nizám, together with his
brother, his chief accomplice, met their death within two years of
that savage act.
On the evening of the very day of the Báb's execution, which fell
on the ninth of July 1850 (28th of Sha'bán 1266 A.H.), during the
thirty-first year of His age and the seventh of His ministry, the
mangled bodies were transferred from the courtyard of the barracks
to the edge of the moat outside the gate of the city. Four companies,
each consisting of ten sentinels, were ordered to keep watch in turn
over them. On the following morning the Russian Consul in
Tabríz visited the spot, and ordered the artist who had accompanied
him to make a drawing of the remains as they lay beside the moat.
In the middle of the following night a follower of the Báb, Hájí
Sulaymán Khán, succeeded, through the instrumentality of a certain
Hájí Alláh-Yár, in removing the bodies to the silk factory owned by
one of the believers of Milán, and laid them, the next day, in a
specially made wooden casket, which he later transferred to a place
of safety. Meanwhile the mullás were boastfully proclaiming from
the pulpits that, whereas the holy body of the Immaculate Imám
would be preserved from beasts of prey and from all creeping things,
this man's body had been devoured by wild animals. No sooner had
the news of the transfer of the remains of the Báb and of His fellow-sufferer
been communicated to Bahá'u'lláh than He ordered that
same Sulaymán Khán to bring them to Tihrán, where they were
taken to the Imám-Zádih-Hasan, from whence they were removed to
different places, until the time when, in pursuance of `Abdu'l-Bahá's
instructions, they were transferred to the Holy Land, and were permanently
and ceremoniously laid to rest by Him in a specially erected
mausoleum on the slopes of Mt. Carmel.
Thus ended a life which posterity will recognize as standing at
the confluence of two universal prophetic cycles, the Adamic Cycle
stretching back as far as the first dawnings of the world's recorded
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religious history and the Bahá'í Cycle destined to propel itself across
the unborn reaches of time for a period of no less than five thousand
centuries. The apotheosis in which such a life attained its consummation
marks, as already observed, the culmination of the most
heroic phase of the Heroic Age of the Bahá'í Dispensation. It can,
moreover, be regarded in no other light except as the most dramatic,
the most tragic event transpiring within the entire range of the first
Bahá'í century. Indeed it can be rightly acclaimed as unparalleled
in the annals of the lives of all the Founders of the world's existing
religious systems.
So momentous an event could hardly fail to arouse widespread
and keen interest even beyond the confines of the land in which it
had occurred. "C'est un des plus magnifiques exemples de courage
qu'il ait été donné à l'humanité de contempler," is the testimony
recorded by a Christian scholar and government official, who had
lived in Persia and had familiarized himself with the life and teachings
of the Báb, "et c'est aussi une admirable preuve de l'amour que
notre hèros portait à ses concitoyens. Il s'est sacrifié pour l'humanité:
pour elle il a donné son corps et son âme, pour elle il a subi les
privations, les affronts, les injures, la torture et le martyre. Il a scellé
de son sang le pacte de la fraternité universelle, et comme Jesús
il a payé de sa vie l'annonce du regné de la concorde, de l'équité et de
l'amour du prochain." "Un fait étrange, unique dans les annales de
l'humanité," is a further testimony from the pen of that same scholar
commenting on the circumstances attending the Báb's martyrdom.
"A veritable miracle," is the pronouncement made by a noted French
Orientalist. "A true God-man," is the verdict of a famous British
traveler and writer. "The finest product of his country," is the tribute
paid Him by a noted French publicist. "That Jesus of the age ...
a prophet, and more than a prophet," is the judgment passed by a
distinguished English divine. "The most important religious movement
since the foundation of Christianity," is the possibility that was
envisaged for the Faith the Báb had established by that far-famed
Oxford scholar, the late Master of Balliol.
"Many persons from all parts of the world," is `Abdu'l-Bahá's
written assertion, "set out for Persia and began to investigate wholeheartedly
the matter." The Czar of Russia, a contemporary chronicler
has written, had even, shortly before the Báb's martyrdom, instructed
the Russian Consul in Tabríz to fully inquire into, and report the
circumstances of so startling a Movement, a commission that could
not be carried out in view of the Báb's execution. In countries as
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remote as those of Western Europe an interest no less profound was
kindled, and spread with great rapidity to literary, artistic, diplomatic
and intellectual circles. "All Europe," attests the above-mentioned
French publicist, "was stirred to pity and indignation...
Among the littèrateurs of my generation, in the Paris of 1890, the
martyrdom of the Báb was still as fresh a topic as had been the first
news of His death. We wrote poems about Him. Sarah Bernhardt
entreated Catulle Mendés for a play on the theme of this historic
tragedy." A Russian poetess, member of the Philosophic, Oriental
and Bibliological Societies of St. Petersburg, published in 1903 a
drama entitled "The Báb," which a year later was played in one of
the principal theatres of that city, was subsequently given publicity
in London, was translated into French in Paris, and into German by
the poet Fiedler, was presented again, soon after the Russian Revolution,
in the Folk Theatre in Leningrad, and succeeded in arousing the
genuine sympathy and interest of the renowned Tolstoy, whose
eulogy of the poem was later published in the Russian press.
It would indeed be no exaggeration to say that nowhere in the
whole compass of the world's religious literature, except in the
Gospels, do we find any record relating to the death of any of the
religion-founders of the past comparable to the martyrdom suffered
by the Prophet of Shíráz. So strange, so inexplicable a phenomenon,
attested by eye-witnesses, corroborated by men of recognized standing,
and acknowledged by government as well as unofficial historians
among the people who had sworn undying hostility to the Bábí Faith,
may be truly regarded as the most marvelous manifestation of the
unique potentialities with which a Dispensation promised by all the
Dispensations of the past had been endowed. The passion of Jesus
Christ, and indeed His whole public ministry, alone offer a parallel to
the Mission and death of the Báb, a parallel which no student of comparative
religion can fail to perceive or ignore. In the youthfulness
and meekness of the Inaugurator of the Bábí Dispensation; in the
extreme brevity and turbulence of His public ministry; in the
dramatic swiftness with which that ministry moved towards its
climax; in the apostolic order which He instituted, and the primacy
which He conferred on one of its members; in the boldness of His
challenge to the time-honored conventions, rites and laws which had
been woven into the fabric of the religion He Himself had been born
into; in the rôle which an officially recognized and firmly entrenched
religious hierarchy played as chief instigator of the outrages which He
was made to suffer; in the indignities heaped upon Him; in the
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suddenness of His arrest; in the interrogation to which He was subjected;
in the derision poured, and the scourging inflicted, upon Him;
in the public affront He sustained; and, finally, in His ignominious
suspension before the gaze of a hostile multitude--in all these we
cannot fail to discern a remarkable similarity to the distinguishing
features of the career of Jesus Christ.
It should be remembered, however, that apart from the miracle
associated with the Báb's execution, He, unlike the Founder of the
Christian religion, is not only to be regarded as the independent
Author of a divinely revealed Dispensation, but must also be recognized
as the Herald of a new Era and the Inaugurator of a great
universal prophetic cycle. Nor should the important fact be overlooked
that, whereas the chief adversaries of Jesus Christ, in His lifetime,
were the Jewish rabbis and their associates, the forces arrayed
against the Báb represented the combined civil and ecclesiastical
powers of Persia, which, from the moment of His declaration to the
hour of His death, persisted, unitedly and by every means at their
disposal, in conspiring against the upholders and in vilifying the
tenets of His Revelation.
The Báb, acclaimed by Bahá'u'lláh as the "Essence of Essences,"
the "Sea of Seas," the "Point round Whom the realities of the Prophets
and Messengers revolve," "from Whom God hath caused to proceed
the knowledge of all that was and shall be," Whose "rank excelleth
that of all the Prophets," and Whose "Revelation transcendeth the
comprehension and understanding of all their chosen ones," had
delivered His Message and discharged His mission. He Who was, in
the words of `Abdu'l-Bahá, the "Morn of Truth" and "Harbinger of
the Most Great Light," Whose advent at once signalized the termination
of the "Prophetic Cycle" and the inception of the "Cycle of
Fulfillment," had simultaneously through His Revelation banished the
shades of night that had descended upon His country, and proclaimed
the impending rise of that Incomparable Orb Whose radiance was to
envelop the whole of mankind. He, as affirmed by Himself, "the
Primal Point from which have been generated all created things,"
"one of the sustaining pillars of the Primal Word of God," the
"Mystic Fane," the "Great Announcement," the "Flame of that
supernal Light that glowed upon Sinai," the "Remembrance of God"
concerning Whom "a separate Covenant hath been established with
each and every Prophet" had, through His advent, at once fulfilled the
promise of all ages and ushered in the consummation of all Revelations.
He the "Qá'im" (He Who ariseth) promised to the Shí'ahs,
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the "Mihdí" (One Who is guided) awaited by the Sunnís, the
"Return of John the Baptist" expected by the Christians, the
"Ushídar-Máh" referred to in the Zoroastrian scriptures, the "Return
of Elijah" anticipated by the Jews, Whose Revelation was to show
forth "the signs and tokens of all the Prophets", Who was to "manifest
the perfection of Moses, the radiance of Jesus and the patience of Job"
had appeared, proclaimed His Cause, been mercilessly persecuted and
died gloriously. The "Second Woe," spoken of in the Apocalypse of
St. John the Divine, had, at long last, appeared, and the first of the
two "Messengers," Whose appearance had been prophesied in the
Qur'án, had been sent down. The first "Trumpet-Blast", destined
to smite the earth with extermination, announced in the latter Book,
had finally been sounded. "The Inevitable," "The Catastrophe," "The
Resurrection," "The Earthquake of the Last Hour," foretold by that
same Book, had all come to pass. The "clear tokens" had been "sent
down," and the "Spirit" had "breathed," and the "souls" had "waked
up," and the "heaven" had been "cleft," and the "angels" had "ranged
in order," and the "stars" had been "blotted out," and the "earth" had
"cast forth her burden," and "Paradise" had been "brought near,"
and "hell" had been "made to blaze," and the "Book" had been "set,"
and the "Bridge" had been "laid out," and the "Balance" had been
"set up," and the "mountains scattered in dust." The "cleansing of
the Sanctuary," prophesied by Daniel and confirmed by Jesus Christ
in His reference to "the abomination of desolation," had been accomplished.
The "day whose length shall be a thousand years," foretold by
the Apostle of God in His Book, had terminated. The "forty and
two months," during which the "Holy City," as predicted by St. John
the Divine, would be trodden under foot, had elapsed. The "time of
the end" had been ushered in, and the first of the "two Witnesses"
into Whom, "after three days and a half the Spirit of Life from God"
would enter, had arisen and had "ascended up to heaven in a cloud."
The "remaining twenty and five letters to be made manifest," according
to Islamic tradition, out of the "twenty and seven letters" of
which Knowledge has been declared to consist, had been revealed.
The "Man Child," mentioned in the Book of Revelation, destined to
"rule all nations with a rod of iron," had released, through His coming,
the creative energies which, reinforced by the effusions of a
swiftly succeeding and infinitely mightier Revelation, were to instill
into the entire human race the capacity to achieve its organic unification,
attain maturity and thereby reach the final stage in its age-long
evolution. The clarion-call addressed to the "concourse of kings and
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of the sons of kings," marking the inception of a process which,
accelerated by Bahá'u'lláh's subsequent warnings to the entire company
of the monarchs of East and West, was to produce so widespread
a revolution in the fortunes of royalty, had been raised in the
Qayyúmu'l-Asmá'. The "Order," whose foundation the Promised One
was to establish in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, and the features of which the
Center of the Covenant was to delineate in His Testament, and whose
administrative framework the entire body of His followers are now
erecting, had been categorically announced in the Persian Bayán.
The laws which were designed, on the one hand, to abolish at a stroke
the privileges and ceremonials, the ordinances and institutions of a
superannuated Dispensation, and to bridge, on the other, the gap
between an obsolete system and the institutions of a world-encompassing
Order destined to supersede it, had been clearly formulated
and proclaimed. The Covenant which, despite the determined assaults
launched against it, succeeded, unlike all previous Dispensations, in
preserving the integrity of the Faith of its Author, and in paving
the way for the advent of the One Who was to be its Center and
Object, had been firmly and irrevocably established. The light which,
throughout successive periods, was to propagate itself gradually from
its cradle as far as Vancouver in the West and the China Sea in the
East, and to diffuse its radiance as far as Iceland in the North and
the Tasman Sea in the South, had broken. The forces of darkness, at
first confined to the concerted hostility of the civil and ecclesiastical
powers of Shí'ah Persia, gathering momentum, at a later stage,
through the avowed and persistent opposition of the Caliph of
Islám and the Sunní hierarchy in Turkey, and destined to culminate
in the fierce antagonism of the sacerdotal orders associated with other
and still more powerful religious systems, had launched their initial
assault. The nucleus of the divinely ordained, world-embracing Community--
a Community whose infant strength had already plucked
asunder the fetters of Shí'ah orthodoxy, and which was, with every
expansion in the range of its fellowship, to seek and obtain a wider
and still more significant recognition of its claims to be the world
religion of the future, had been formed and was slowly crystallizing.
And, lastly, the seed, endowed by the Hand of Omnipotence with
such vast potentialities, though rudely trampled under foot and
seemingly perished from the face of the earth, had, through this very
process, been vouchsafed the opportunity to germinate and remanifest
itself, in the shape of a still more compelling Revelation--a Revelation
destined to blossom forth, in a later period into the flourishing
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institutions of a world-wide administrative System, and to ripen,
in the Golden Age as yet unborn, into mighty agencies functioning
in consonance with the principles of a world-unifying, world-redeeming
Order.
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CHAPTER V
The Attempt on the Life of the Sháh and Its Consequences
The Faith that had stirred a whole nation to its depth, for whose
sake thousands of precious and heroic souls had been immolated and
on whose altar He Who had been its Author had sacrificed His life,
was now being subjected to the strain and stress of yet another crisis
of extreme violence and far-reaching consequences. It was one of
those periodic crises which, occurring throughout a whole century,
succeeded in momentarily eclipsing the splendor of the Faith and in
almost disrupting the structure of its organic institutions. Invariably
sudden, often unexpected, seemingly fatal to both its spirit and its
life, these inevitable manifestations of the mysterious evolution of a
world Religion, intensely alive, challenging in its claims, revolutionizing
in its tenets, struggling against overwhelming odds, have either
been externally precipitated by the malice of its avowed antagonists
or internally provoked by the unwisdom of its friends, the apostasy
of its supporters, or the defection of some of the most highly placed
amongst the kith and kin of its founders. No matter how disconcerting
to the great mass of its loyal adherents, however much trumpeted
by its adversaries as symptoms of its decline and impending dissolution,
these admitted setbacks and reverses, from which it has time
and again so tragically suffered, have, as we look back upon them,
failed to arrest its march or impair its unity. Heavy indeed has been
the toll which they exacted, unspeakable the agonies they engendered,
widespread and paralyzing for a time the consternation they provoked.
Yet, viewed in their proper perspective, each of them can be
confidently pronounced a blessing in disguise, affording a providential
means for the release of a fresh outpouring of celestial strength, a
miraculous escape from imminent and still more dreadful calamities,
an instrument for the fulfillment of age-old prophecies, an agency for
the purification and revitalization of the life of the community, an
impetus for the enlargement of its limits and the propagation of its
influence, and a compelling evidence of the indestructibility of its
cohesive strength. Sometimes at the height of the crisis itself, more
often when the crisis was past, the significance of these trials has
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manifested itself to men's eyes, and the necessity of such experiences
has been demonstrated, far and wide and beyond the shadow of a
doubt, to both friend and foe. Seldom, if indeed at any time, has
the mystery underlying these portentous, God-sent upheavals remained
undisclosed, or the profound purpose and meaning of their
occurrence been left hidden from the minds of men.
Such a severe ordeal the Faith of the Báb, still in the earliest
stages of its infancy, was now beginning to experience. Maligned and
hounded from the moment it was born, deprived in its earliest days
of the sustaining strength of the majority of its leading supporters,
stunned by the tragic and sudden removal of its Founder, reeling
under the cruel blows it had successively sustained in Mazindarán,
Tihrán, Nayríz and Zanján, a sorely persecuted Faith was about to
be subjected through the shameful act of a fanatical and irresponsible
Bábí, to a humiliation such as it had never before known. To the
trials it had undergone was now added the oppressive load of a fresh
calamity, unprecedented in its gravity, disgraceful in its character,
and devastating in its immediate consequences.
Obsessed by the bitter tragedy of the martyrdom of his beloved
Master, driven by a frenzy of despair to avenge that odious deed,
and believing the author and instigator of that crime to be none other
than the Sháh himself, a certain Sádiq-i-Tabrízí, an assistant in a
confectioner's shop in Tihrán, proceeded on an August day (August
15, 1852), together with his accomplice, an equally obscure youth
named Fathu'lláh-i-Qumí, to Níyávarán where the imperial army
had encamped and the sovereign was in residence, and there, waiting
by the roadside, in the guise of an innocent bystander, fired a round
of shot from his pistol at the Sháh, shortly after the latter had
emerged on horseback from the palace grounds for his morning
promenade. The weapon the assailant employed demonstrated beyond
the shadow of a doubt the folly of that half-demented youth, and
clearly indicated that no man of sound judgment could have possibly
instigated so senseless an act.
The whole of Níyávarán where the imperial court and troops had
congregated was, as a result of this assault, plunged into an unimaginable
tumult. The ministers of the state, headed by Mírzá Áqá
Khán-i-Núrí, the I'timádu'd-Dawlih, the successor of the Amír-Nizám,
rushed horror-stricken to the side of their wounded sovereign.
The fanfare of the trumpets, the rolling of the drums and the shrill
piping of the fifes summoned the hosts of His Imperial Majesty on
all sides. The Sháh's attendants, some on horseback, others on foot,
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poured into the palace grounds. Pandemonium reigned in which every
one issued orders, none listened, none obeyed, nor understood anything.
Ardishír Mírzá, the governor of Tihrán, having in the meantime
already ordered his troops to patrol the deserted streets of the
capital, barred the gates of the citadel as well as of the city, charged
his batteries and feverishly dispatched a messenger to ascertain the
veracity of the wild rumors that were circulating amongst the
populace, and to ask for special instructions.
No sooner had this act been perpetrated than its shadow fell
across the entire body of the Bábí community. A storm of public
horror, disgust and resentment, heightened by the implacable hostility
of the mother of the youthful sovereign, swept the nation, casting
aside all possibility of even the most elementary inquiry into the
origins and the instigators of the attempt. A sign, a whisper, was
sufficient to implicate the innocent and loose upon him the most
abominable afflictions. An army of foes--ecclesiastics, state officials
and people, united in relentless hate, and watching for an opportunity
to discredit and annihilate a dreaded adversary--had, at long last,
been afforded the pretext for which it was longing. Now it could
achieve its malevolent purpose. Though the Faith had, from its inception,
disclaimed any intention of usurping the rights and prerogatives
of the state; though its exponents and disciples had sedulously
avoided any act that might arouse the slightest suspicion of a desire
to wage a holy war, or to evince an aggressive attitude, yet its enemies,
deliberately ignoring the numerous evidences of the marked restraint
exercised by the followers of a persecuted religion, proved themselves
capable of inflicting atrocities as barbarous as those which will ever
remain associated with the bloody episodes of Mazindarán, Nayríz
and Zanján. To what depths of infamy and cruelty would not this
same enemy be willing to descend now that an act so treasonable, so
audacious had been committed? What accusations would it not be
prompted to level at, and what treatment would it not mete out to,
those who, however unjustifiably, could be associated with so heinous
a crime against one who, in his person, combined the chief magistracy
of the realm and the trusteeship of the Hidden Imám?
The reign of terror which ensued was revolting beyond description.
The spirit of revenge that animated those who had unleashed its
horrors seemed insatiable. Its repercussions echoed as far as the press
of Europe, branding with infamy its bloodthirsty participants. The
Grand Vizir, wishing to reduce the chances of blood revenge, divided
the work of executing those condemned to death among the princes
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and nobles, his principal fellow-ministers, the generals and officers of
the Court, the representatives of the sacerdotal and merchant classes,
the artillery and the infantry. Even the Sháh himself had his allotted
victim, though, to save the dignity of the crown, he delegated the
steward of his household to fire the fatal shot on his behalf. Ardishír
Mírzá, on his part, picketed the gates of the capital, and ordered the
guards to scrutinize the faces of all those who sought to leave it.
Summoning to his presence the kalantar, the darúghih and the kadkhudás
he bade them search out and arrest every one suspected of
being a Bábí. A youth named Abbás, a former servant of a well-known
adherent of the Faith, was, on threat of inhuman torture,
induced to walk the streets of Tihrán, and point out every one he
recognized as being a Bábí. He was even coerced into denouncing
any individual whom he thought would be willing and able to pay
a heavy bribe to secure his freedom.
The first to suffer on that calamitous day was the ill-fated Sádiq,
who was instantly slain on the scene of his attempted crime. His
body was tied to the tail of a mule and dragged all the way to Tihrán,
where it was hewn into two halves, each of which was suspended and
exposed to the public view, while the Tihránís were invited by the
city authorities to mount the ramparts and gaze upon the mutilated
corpse. Molten lead was poured down the throat of his accomplice,
after having subjected him to the torture of red-hot pincers and
limb-rending screws. A comrade of his, Hájí Qásim, was stripped of
his clothes, lighted candles were thrust into holes made in his flesh,
and was paraded before the multitude who shouted and cursed him.
Others had their eyes gouged out, were sawn asunder, strangled, blown
from the mouths of cannons, chopped in pieces, hewn apart with
hatchets and maces, shod with horse shoes, bayoneted and stoned.
Torture-mongers vied with each other in running the gamut of
brutality, while the populace, into whose hands the bodies of the
hapless victims were delivered, would close in upon their prey, and
would so mutilate them as to leave no trace of their original form.
The executioners, though accustomed to their own gruesome task,
would themselves be amazed at the fiendish cruelty of the populace.
Women and children could be seen led down the streets by their
executioners, their flesh in ribbons, with candles burning in their
wounds, singing with ringing voices before the silent spectators:
"Verily from God we come, and unto Him we return!" As some of
the children expired on the way their tormentors would fling their
bodies under the feet of their fathers and sisters who, proudly treading
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upon them, would not deign to give them a second glance. A
father, according to the testimony of a distinguished French writer,
rather than abjure his faith, preferred to have the throats of his two
young sons, both already covered with blood, slit upon his breast,
as he lay on the ground, whilst the elder of the two, a lad of fourteen,
vigorously pressing his right of seniority, demanded to be the first to
lay down his life.
An Austrian officer, Captain Von Goumoens, in the employ of
the Sháh at that time, was, it is reliably stated, so horrified at the
cruelties he was compelled to witness that he tendered his resignation.
"Follow me, my friend," is the Captain's own testimony in a letter
he wrote two weeks after the attempt in question, which was published
in the "Soldatenfreund," "you who lay claim to a heart and European
ethics, follow me to the unhappy ones who, with gouged-out eyes,
must eat, on the scene of the deed, without any sauce, their own
amputated ears; or whose teeth are torn out with inhuman violence
by the hand of the executioner; or whose bare skulls are simply
crushed by blows from a hammer; or where the bazaar is illuminated
with unhappy victims, because on right and left the people dig
deep holes in their breasts and shoulders, and insert burning wicks in
the wounds. I saw some dragged in chains through the bazaar, preceded
by a military band, in whom these wicks had burned so deep
that now the fat flickered convulsively in the wound like a newly
extinguished lamp. Not seldom it happens that the unwearying
ingenuity of the Oriental leads to fresh tortures. They will skin the
soles of the Bábí's feet, soak the wounds in boiling oil, shoe the foot
like the hoof of a horse, and compel the victim to run. No cry
escaped from the victim's breast; the torment is endured in dark
silence by the numbed sensation of the fanatic; now he must run;
the body cannot endure what the soul has endured; he falls. Give
him the coup de grâce! Put him out of his pain! No! The executioner
swings the whip, and--I myself have had to witness it--the unhappy
victim of hundredfold tortures runs! This is the beginning of the
end. As for the end itself, they hang the scorched and perforated
bodies by their hands and feet to a tree head downwards, and now
every Persian may try his marksmanship to his heart's content from a
fixed but not too proximate distance on the noble quarry placed at
his disposal. I saw corpses torn by nearly one hundred and fifty
bullets." "When I read over again," he continues, "what I have
written, I am overcome by the thought that those who are with you
in our dearly beloved Austria may doubt the full truth of the
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picture, and accuse me of exaggeration. Would to God that I had
not lived to see it! But by the duties of my profession I was unhappily
often, only too often, a witness of these abominations. At present
I never leave my house, in order not to meet with fresh scenes of
horror... Since my whole soul revolts against such infamy ... I
will no longer maintain my connection with the scene of such crimes."
Little wonder that a man as far-famed as Renan should, in his "Les
Apôtres" have characterized the hideous butchery perpetrated in a
single day, during the great massacre of Tihrán, as "a day perhaps
unparalleled in the history of the world!"
The hand that was stretched to deal so grievous a blow to the
adherents of a sorely-tried Faith did not confine itself to the rank
and file of the Báb's persecuted followers. It was raised with equal
fury and determination against, and struck down with equal force,
the few remaining leaders who had survived the winnowing winds of
adversity that had already laid low so vast a number of the supporters
of the Faith. Táhirih, that immortal heroine who had already shed
imperishable luster alike on her sex and on the Cause she had espoused,
was swept into, and ultimately engulfed by, the raging storm. Siyyid
Husayn, the amanuensis of the Báb, the companion of His exile, the
trusted repository of His last wishes, and the witness of the prodigies
attendant upon His martyrdom, fell likewise a victim of its fury.
That hand had even the temerity to lift itself against the towering
figure of Bahá'u'lláh. But though it laid hold of Him it failed to
strike Him down. It imperilled His life, it imprinted on His body
indelible marks of a pitiless cruelty, but was impotent to cut short a
career that was destined not only to keep alive the fire which
the Spirit of the Báb had kindled, but to produce a conflagration
that would at once consummate and outshine the glories of His
Revelation.
During those somber and agonizing days when the Báb was no
more, when the luminaries that had shone in the firmament of His
Faith had been successively extinguished, when His nominee, a
"bewildered fugitive, in the guise of a dervish, with kashkúl (alms-basket)
in hand" roamed the mountains and plains in the neighborhood
of Rasht, Bahá'u'lláh, by reason of the acts He had performed,
appeared in the eyes of a vigilant enemy as its most redoubtable adversary
and as the sole hope of an as yet unextirpated heresy. His seizure
and death had now become imperative. He it was Who, scarce three
months after the Faith was born, received, through the envoy of the
Báb, Mullá Husayn, the scroll which bore to Him the first tidings
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of a newly announced Revelation, Who instantly acclaimed its
truth, and arose to champion its cause. It was to His native city and
dwelling place that the steps of that envoy were first directed, as the
place which enshrined "a Mystery of such transcendent holiness as
neither Hijáz nor Shíráz can hope to rival." It was Mullá Husayn's
report of the contact thus established which had been received with
such exultant joy by the Báb, and had brought such reassurance to
His heart as to finally decide Him to undertake His contemplated
pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. Bahá'u'lláh alone was the object
and the center of the cryptic allusions, the glowing eulogies, the
fervid prayers, the joyful announcements and the dire warnings
recorded in both the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá' and the Bayán, designed to be
respectively the first and last written testimonials to the glory with
which God was soon to invest Him. It was He Who, through His
correspondence with the Author of the newly founded Faith, and
His intimate association with the most distinguished amongst its
disciples, such as Vahíd, Hujjat, Quddús, Mullá Husayn and Táhirih,
was able to foster its growth, elucidate its principles, reinforce its
ethical foundations, fulfill its urgent requirements, avert some of the
immediate dangers threatening it and participate effectually in its
rise and consolidation. It was to Him, "the one Object of our adoration
and love" that the Prophet-pilgrim, on His return to Búshihr,
alluded when, dismissing Quddús from His presence, He announced
to him the double joy of attaining the presence of their Beloved
and of quaffing the cup of martyrdom. He it was Who, in the hey-day
of His life, flinging aside every consideration of earthly fame, wealth
and position, careless of danger, and risking the obloquy of His
caste, arose to identify Himself, first in Tihrán and later in His native
province of Mazindarán, with the cause of an obscure and proscribed
sect; won to its support a large number of the officials and notables
of Núr, not excluding His own associates and relatives; fearlessly and
persuasively expounded its truths to the disciples of the illustrious
mujtahid, Mullá Muhammad; enlisted under its banner the mujtahid's
appointed representatives; secured, in consequence of this act, the
unreserved loyalty of a considerable number of ecclesiastical dignitaries,
government officers, peasants and traders; and succeeded in
challenging, in the course of a memorable interview, the mujtahid
himself. It was solely due to the potency of the written message
entrusted by Him to Mullá Muhammad Mihdíy-i-Kandí and delivered
to the Báb while in the neighborhood of the village of Kulayn, that
the soul of the disappointed Captive was able to rid itself, at an
+P68
hour of uncertainty and suspense, of the anguish that had settled
upon it ever since His arrest in Shíráz. He it was Who, for the sake
of Táhirih and her imprisoned companions, willingly submitted Himself
to a humiliating confinement, lasting several days--the first He
was made to suffer--in the house of one of the kad-khudás of Tihrán.
It was to His caution, foresight and ability that must be ascribed her
successful escape from Qazvín, her deliverance from her opponents,
her safe arrival in His home, and her subsequent removal to a place of
safety in the vicinity of the capital from whence she proceeded to
Khurásán. It was into His presence that Mullá Husayn was secretly
ushered upon his arrival in Tihrán, after which interview he traveled
to Ádhirbayján on his visit to the Báb then confined in the fortress
of Máh-Kú. He it was Who unobtrusively and unerringly directed
the proceedings of the Conference of Badasht; Who entertained as
His guests Quddús, Táhirih and the eighty-one disciples who had
gathered on that occasion; Who revealed every day a Tablet and
bestowed on each of the participants a new name; Who faced unaided
the assault of a mob of more than five hundred villagers in Níyálá;
Who shielded Quddús from the fury of his assailants; Who succeeded
in restoring a part of the property which the enemy had plundered
and Who insured the protection and safety of the continually harassed
and much abused Táhirih. Against Him was kindled the anger of
Muhammad Sháh who, as a result of the persistent representations of
mischief-makers, was at last induced to order His arrest and summon
Him to the capital--a summons that was destined to remain unfulfilled
as a result of the sudden death of the sovereign. It was to His
counsels and exhortations, addressed to the occupants of Shaykh
Tabarsí, who had welcomed Him with such reverence and love during
His visit to that Fort, that must be attributed, in no small measure,
the spirit evinced by its heroic defenders, while it was to His explicit
instructions that they owed the miraculous release of Quddús and
his consequent association with them in the stirring exploits that have
immortalized the Mazindarán upheaval. It was for the sake of those
same defenders, whom He had intended to join, that He suffered His
second imprisonment, this time in the masjid of Ámul to which He
was led, amidst the tumult raised by no less than four thousand
spectators,--for their sake that He was bastinadoed in the namáz-khánih
of the mujtahid of that town until His feet bled, and later
confined in the private residence of its governor; for their sake that
He was bitterly denounced by the leading mullá, and insulted by
the mob who, besieging the governor's residence, pelted Him with
+P69
stones, and hurled in His face the foulest invectives. He alone was
the One alluded to by Quddús who, upon his arrival at the Fort of
Shaykh Tabarsí, uttered, as soon as he had dismounted and leaned
against the shrine, the prophetic verse "The Baqíyyatu'lláh (the
Remnant of God) will be best for you if ye are of those who believe."
He alone was the Object of that prodigious eulogy, that masterly
interpretation of the Sád of Samad, penned in part, in that same Fort
by that same youthful hero, under the most distressing circumstances,
and equivalent in dimensions to six times the volume of the Qur'án.
It was to the date of His impending Revelation that the Lawh-i-Hurúfat,
revealed in Chihríq by the Báb, in honor of Dayyán,
abstrusely alluded, and in which the mystery of the "Mustagháth"
was unraveled. It was to the attainment of His presence that the
attention of another disciple, Mullá Báqir, one of the Letters of the
Living, was expressly directed by none other than the Báb Himself.
It was exclusively to His care that the documents of the Báb, His
pen-case, His seals, and agate rings, together with a scroll on which
He had penned, in the form of a pentacle, no less than three hundred
and sixty derivatives of the word Bahá, were delivered, in conformity
with instructions He Himself had issued prior to His departure from
Chihríq. It was solely due to His initiative, and in strict accordance
with His instructions, that the precious remains of the Báb were
safely transferred from Tabríz to the capital, and were concealed and
safeguarded with the utmost secrecy and care throughout the turbulent
years following His martyrdom. And finally, it was He Who,
in the days preceding the attempt on the life of the Sháh, had been
instrumental, while sojourning in Karbilá, in spreading, with that same
enthusiasm and ability that had distinguished His earlier exertions
in Mazindarán, the teachings of His departed Leader, in safeguarding
the interests of His Faith, in reviving the zeal of its grief-stricken
followers, and in organizing the forces of its scattered and bewildered
adherents.
Such a man, with such a record of achievements to His credit,
could not, indeed did not, escape either the detection or the fury of a
vigilant and fully aroused enemy. Afire from the very beginning
with an uncontrollable enthusiasm for the Cause He had espoused;
conspicuously fearless in His advocacy of the rights of the downtrodden;
in the full bloom of youth; immensely resourceful; matchless
in His eloquence; endowed with inexhaustible energy and penetrating
judgment; possessed of the riches, and enjoying, in full measure,
the esteem, power and prestige associated with an enviably high and
+P70
noble position, and yet contemptuous of all earthly pomp, rewards,
vanities and possessions; closely associated, on the one hand, through
His regular correspondence with the Author of the Faith He had
risen to champion, and intimately acquainted, on the other, with the
hopes and fears, the plans and activities of its leading exponents;
at one time advancing openly and assuming a position of acknowledged
leadership in the forefront of the forces struggling for that Faith's
emancipation, at another deliberately drawing back with consummate
discretion in order to remedy, with greater efficacy, an awkward or
dangerous situation; at all times vigilant, ready and indefatigable in
His exertions to preserve the integrity of that Faith, to resolve its
problems, to plead its cause, to galvanize its followers, and to confound
its antagonists, Bahá'u'lláh, at this supremely critical hour in its
fortunes, was at last stepping into the very center of the stage so
tragically vacated by the Báb--a stage on which He was destined, for
no less a period than forty years, to play a part unapproached in its
majesty, pathos and splendor by any of the great Founders of the
world's historic religions.
Already so conspicuous and towering a figure had, through the
accusations levelled against Him, kindled the wrath of Muhammad
Sháh, who, after having heard what had transpired in Badasht, had
ordered His arrest, in a number of farmáns addressed to the kháns of
Mazindarán, and expressed his determination to put Him to death.
Hájí Mírzá Aqásí, previously alienated from the Vazír (Bahá'u'lláh's
father), and infuriated by his own failure to appropriate by fraud
an estate that belonged to Bahá'u'lláh, had sworn eternal enmity to
the One Who had so brilliantly succeeded in frustrating his evil
designs. The Amír-Nizám, moreover, fully aware of the pervasive
influence of so energetic an opponent, had, in the presence of a
distinguished gathering, accused Him of having inflicted, as a result
of His activities, a loss of no less than five kurúrs upon the government,
and had expressly requested Him, at a critical moment in the
fortunes of the Faith, to temporarily transfer His residence to Karbilá.
Mírzá Áqá Khán-i-Núrí, who succeeded the Amír-Nizám, had endeavored,
at the very outset of his ministry, to effect a reconciliation
between his government and the One Whom he regarded as the most
resourceful of the Báb's disciples. Little wonder that when, later,
an act of such gravity and temerity was committed, a suspicion as
dire as it was unfounded, should at once have crept into the minds
of the Sháh, his government, his court, and his people against
Bahá'u'lláh. Foremost among them was the mother of the youthful
+P71
sovereign, who, inflamed with anger, was openly denouncing Him as
the would-be murderer of her son.
Bahá'u'lláh, when that attempt had been made on the life of the
sovereign, was in Lavásan, the guest of the Grand Vizir, and was
staying in the village of Áfchih when the momentous news reached
Him. Refusing to heed the advice of the Grand Vizir's brother,
Ja'far-Qulí Khán, who was acting as His host, to remain for a time
concealed in that neighborhood, and dispensing with the good offices
of the messenger specially dispatched to insure His safety, He rode
forth, the following morning, with cool intrepidity, to the headquarters
of the Imperial army which was then stationed in Níyávarán,
in the Shimírán district. In the village of Zarkandih He was met
by, and conducted to the home of, His brother-in-law, Mírzá Majíd,
who, at that time, was acting as secretary to the Russian Minister,
Prince Dolgorouki, and whose house adjoined that of his superior.
Apprised of Bahá'u'lláh's arrival the attendants of the Hájíbu'd-Dawlih,
Hájí `Alí Khán, straightway informed their master, who in
turn brought the matter to the attention of his sovereign. The Sháh,
greatly amazed, dispatched his trusted officers to the Legation, demanding
that the Accused be forthwith delivered into his hands.
Refusing to comply with the wishes of the royal envoys, the Russian
Minister requested Bahá'u'lláh to proceed to the home of the Grand
Vizir, to whom he formally communicated his wish that the safety
of the Trust the Russian government was delivering into his keeping
should be insured. This purpose, however, was not achieved because
of the Grand Vizir's apprehension that he might forfeit his position
if he extended to the Accused the protection demanded for Him.
Delivered into the hands of His enemies, this much-feared, bitterly
arraigned and illustrious Exponent of a perpetually hounded
Faith was now made to taste of the cup which He Who had been its
recognized Leader had drained to the dregs. From Níyávarán He
was conducted "on foot and in chains, with bared head and bare
feet," exposed to the fierce rays of the midsummer sun, to the
Síyáh-Chál of Tihrán. On the way He several times was stripped of
His outer garments, was overwhelmed with ridicule, and pelted with
stones. As to the subterranean dungeon into which He was thrown,
and which originally had served as a reservoir of water for one of
the public baths of the capital, let His own words, recorded in His
"Epistle to the Son of the Wolf," bear testimony to the ordeal which
He endured in that pestilential hole. "We were consigned for four
months to a place foul beyond comparison.... Upon Our arrival
+P72
We were first conducted along a pitch-black corridor, from whence
We descended three steep flights of stairs to the place of confinement
assigned to Us. The dungeon was wrapped in thick darkness, and
Our fellow-prisoners numbered nearly one hundred and fifty souls:
thieves, assassins and highwaymen. Though crowded, it had no other
outlet than the passage by which We entered. No pen can depict
that place, nor any tongue describe its loathsome smell. Most of
those men had neither clothes nor bedding to lie on. God alone
knoweth what befell Us in that most foul-smelling and gloomy place!"
Bahá'u'lláh's feet were placed in stocks, and around His neck were
fastened the Qará-Guhar chains of such galling weight that their
mark remained imprinted upon His body all the days of His life.
"A heavy chain," `Abdu'l-Bahá Himself has testified, "was placed
about His neck by which He was chained to five other Bábís; these
fetters were locked together by strong, very heavy, bolts and screws.
His clothes were torn to pieces, also His headdress. In this terrible
condition He was kept for four months." For three days and three
nights, He was denied all manner of food and drink. Sleep was impossible
to Him. The place was chill and damp, filthy, fever-stricken,
infested with vermin, and filled with a noisome stench. Animated
by a relentless hatred His enemies went even so far as to intercept
and poison His food, in the hope of obtaining the favor of the mother
of their sovereign, His most implacable foe--an attempt which,
though it impaired His health for years to come, failed to achieve
its purpose. "`Abdu'l-Bahá," Dr. J. E. Esslemont records in his book,
"tells how, one day, He was allowed to enter the prison yard to see
His beloved Father, where He came out for His daily exercise.
Bahá'u'lláh was terribly altered, so ill He could hardly walk, His
hair and beard unkempt, His neck galled and swollen from the
pressure of a heavy steel collar, His body bent by the weight of
His chains."
While Bahá'u'lláh was being so odiously and cruelly subjected to
the trials and tribulations inseparable from those tumultuous days,
another luminary of the Faith, the valiant Táhirih, was swiftly
succumbing to their devastating power. Her meteoric career, inaugurated
in Karbilá, culminating in Badasht, was now about to attain its
final consummation in a martyrdom that may well rank as one of the
most affecting episodes in the most turbulent period of Bahá'í history.
A scion of the highly reputed family of Hájí Mullá Salíh-i-Baraqání,
whose members occupied an enviable position in the
Persian ecclesiastical hierarchy; the namesake of the illustrious
+P73
Fátimih; designated as Zarrín-Táj (Crown of Gold) and Zakíyyih
(Virtuous) by her family and kindred; born in the same year as
Bahá'u'lláh; regarded from childhood, by her fellow-townsmen, as a
prodigy, alike in her intelligence and beauty; highly esteemed even
by some of the most haughty and learned `ulamás of her country,
prior to her conversion, for the brilliancy and novelty of the views
she propounded; acclaimed as Qurrat-i-`Ayní (solace of my eyes)
by her admiring teacher, Siyyid Kázim; entitled Táhirih (the Pure
One) by the "Tongue of Power and Glory;" and the only woman
enrolled by the Báb as one of the Letters of the Living; she had,
through a dream, referred to earlier in these pages, established her
first contact with a Faith which she continued to propagate to her
last breath, and in its hour of greatest peril, with all the ardor of
her unsubduable spirit. Undeterred by the vehement protests of her
father; contemptuous of the anathemas of her uncle; unmoved by
the earnest solicitations of her husband and her brothers; undaunted
by the measures which, first in Karbilá and subsequently in Baghdád,
and later in Qazvín, the civil and ecclesiastical authorities had taken
to curtail her activities, with eager energy she urged the Bábí Cause.
Through her eloquent pleadings, her fearless denunciations, her dissertations,
poems and translations, her commentaries and correspondence,
she persisted in firing the imagination and in enlisting the allegiance
of Arabs and Persians alike to the new Revelation, in condemning the
perversity of her generation, and in advocating a revolutionary transformation
in the habits and manners of her people.
She it was who while in Karbilá--the foremost stronghold of
Shí'ah Islám--had been moved to address lengthy epistles to each of
the `ulamás residing in that city, who relegated women to a rank
little higher than animals and denied them even the possession of a
soul--epistles in which she ably vindicated her high purpose and
exposed their malignant designs. She it was who, in open defiance of
the customs of the fanatical inhabitants of that same city, boldly
disregarded the anniversary of the martyrdom of the Imám Husayn,
commemorated with elaborate ceremony in the early days of Muharram,
and celebrated instead the anniversary of the birthday of the
Báb, which fell on the first day of that month. It was through her
prodigious eloquence and the astounding force of her argument that
she confounded the representative delegation of Shí'ah, of Sunní,
of Christian and Jewish notables of Baghdád, who had endeavored to
dissuade her from her avowed purpose of spreading the tidings of the
new Message. She it was who, with consummate skill, defended her
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faith and vindicated her conduct in the home and in the presence of
that eminent jurist, Shaykh Mahmúd-i-Álúsí, the Muftí of Baghdád,
and who later held her historic interviews with the princes, the
`ulamás and the government officials residing in Kirmánsháh, in
the course of which the Báb's commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar
was publicly read and translated, and which culminated in the conversion
of the Amír (the governor) and his family. It was this
remarkably gifted woman who undertook the translation of the Báb's
lengthy commentary on the Súrih of Joseph (the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá')
for the benefit of her Persian co-religionists, and exerted her utmost
to spread the knowledge and elucidate the contents of that mighty
Book. It was her fearlessness, her skill, her organizing ability and her
unquenchable enthusiasm which consolidated her newly won victories
in no less inimical a center than Qazvín, which prided itself on the
fact that no fewer than a hundred of the highest ecclesiastical leaders
of Islám dwelt within its gates. It was she who, in the house of
Bahá'u'lláh in Tihrán, in the course of her memorable interview
with the celebrated Vahíd, suddenly interrupted his learned discourse
on the signs of the new Manifestation, and vehemently urged him, as
she held `Abdu'l-Bahá, then a child, on her lap, to arise and demonstrate
through deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice the depth and
sincerity of his faith. It was to her doors, during the height of her
fame and popularity in Tihrán, that the flower of feminine society in
the capital flocked to hear her brilliant discourses on the matchless
tenets of her Faith. It was the magic of her words which won the
wedding guests away from the festivities, on the occasion of the marriage
of the son of Mahmúd Khán-i-Kalántar--in whose house she
was confined--and gathered them about her, eager to drink in her
every word. It was her passionate and unqualified affirmation of the
claims and distinguishing features of the new Revelation, in a series of
seven conferences with the deputies of the Grand Vizir commissioned
to interrogate her, which she held while confined in that same house,
which finally precipitated the sentence of her death. It was from
her pen that odes had flowed attesting, in unmistakable language,
not only her faith in the Revelation of the Báb, but also her recognition
of the exalted and as yet undisclosed mission of Bahá'u'lláh. And
last but not least it was owing to her initiative, while participating
in the Conference of Badasht, that the most challenging implications
of a revolutionary and as yet but dimly grasped Dispensation were
laid bare before her fellow-disciples and the new Order permanently
divorced from the laws and institutions of Islám. Such marvelous
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achievements were now to be crowned by, and attain their final
consummation in, her martyrdom in the midst of the storm that was
raging throughout the capital.
One night, aware that the hour of her death was at hand, she
put on the attire of a bride, and annointed herself with perfume, and,
sending for the wife of the Kalantar, she communicated to her the
secret of her impending martyrdom, and confided to her her last
wishes. Then, closeting herself in her chambers, she awaited, in
prayer and meditation, the hour which was to witness her reunion
with her Beloved. She was pacing the floor of her room, chanting a
litany expressive of both grief and triumph, when the farráshes of
Azíz Khán-i-Sardár arrived, in the dead of night, to conduct her to
the Ilkhání garden, which lay beyond the city gates, and which was
to be the site of her martyrdom. When she arrived the Sardár was
in the midst of a drunken debauch with his lieutenants, and was
roaring with laughter; he ordered offhand that she be strangled at
once and thrown into a pit. With that same silken kerchief which
she had intuitively reserved for that purpose, and delivered in her
last moments to the son of Kalantar who accompanied her, the death
of this immortal heroine was accomplished. Her body was lowered
into a well, which was then filled with earth and stones, in the
manner she herself had desired.
Thus ended the life of this great Bábí heroine, the first woman
suffrage martyr, who, at her death, turning to the one in whose
custody she had been placed, had boldly declared: "You can kill me
as soon as you like, but you cannot stop the emancipation of women."
Her career was as dazzling as it was brief, as tragic as it was eventful.
Unlike her fellow-disciples, whose exploits remained, for the most
part unknown, and unsung by their contemporaries in foreign lands,
the fame of this immortal woman was noised abroad, and traveling
with remarkable swiftness as far as the capitals of Western Europe,
aroused the enthusiastic admiration and evoked the ardent praise of
men and women of divers nationalities, callings and cultures. Little
wonder that `Abdu'l-Bahá should have joined her name to those of
Sarah, of Ásíyih, of the Virgin Mary and of Fátimih, who, in the
course of successive Dispensations, have towered, by reason of their
intrinsic merits and unique position, above the rank and file of their
sex. "In eloquence," `Abdu'l-Bahá Himself has written, "she was the
calamity of the age, and in ratiocination the trouble of the world."
He, moreover, has described her as "a brand afire with the love of
God" and "a lamp aglow with the bounty of God."
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Indeed the wondrous story of her life propagated itself as far and
as fast as that of the Báb Himself, the direct Source of her inspiration.
"Prodige de science, mais aussi prodige de beauté" is the tribute paid
her by a noted commentator on the life of the Báb and His disciples.
"The Persian Joan of Arc, the leader of emancipation for women of
the Orient ... who bore resemblance both to the mediaeval Heloise
and the neo-platonic Hypatia," thus was she acclaimed by a noted
playwright whom Sarah Bernhardt had specifically requested to write
a dramatized version of her life. "The heroism of the lovely but
ill-fated poetess of Qazvín, Zarrín-Táj (Crown of Gold) ..."
testifies Lord Curzon of Kedleston, "is one of the most affecting
episodes in modern history." "The appearance of such a woman as
Qurratu'l-`Ayn," wrote the well-known British Orientalist, Prof.
E. G. Browne, "is, in any country and any age, a rare phenomenon,
but in such a country as Persia it is a prodigy--nay, almost a miracle.
...Had the Bábí religion no other claim to greatness, this were
sufficient ... that it produced a heroine like Qurratu'l-`Ayn."
"The harvest sown in Islamic lands by Qurratu'l-`Ayn," significantly
affirms the renowned English divine, Dr. T. K. Cheyne, in one of his
books, "is now beginning to appear ... this noble woman ...
has the credit of opening the catalogue of social reforms in Persia..."
"Assuredly one of the most striking and interesting manifestations
of this religion" is the reference to her by the noted French diplomat
and brilliant writer, Comte de Gobineau. "In Qazvín," he adds,
"she was held, with every justification, to be a prodigy." "Many
people," he, moreover has written, "who knew her and heard her at
different periods of her life have invariably told me ... that when
she spoke one felt stirred to the depths of one's soul, was filled with
admiration, and was moved to tears." "No memory," writes Sir
Valentine Chirol, "is more deeply venerated or kindles greater enthusiasm
than hers, and the influence which she wielded in her lifetime
still inures to her sex." "O Táhirih!" exclaims in his book on the
Bábís the great author and poet of Turkey, Sulaymán Nazím Bey,
"you are worth a thousand Násiri'd-Dín Sháhs!" "The greatest ideal
of womanhood has been Táhirih" is the tribute paid her by the mother
of one of the Presidents of Austria, Mrs. Marianna Hainisch, "...
I shall try to do for the women of Austria what Táhirih gave her
life to do for the women of Persia."
Many and divers are her ardent admirers who, throughout the
five continents, are eager to know more about her. Many are those
whose conduct has been ennobled by her inspiring example, who have
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committed to memory her matchless odes, or set to music her poems,
before whose eyes glows the vision of her indomitable spirit, in whose
hearts is enshrined a love and admiration that time can never dim,
and in whose souls burns the determination to tread as dauntlessly,
and with that same fidelity, the path she chose for herself, and from
which she never swerved from the moment of her conversion to the
hour of her death.
The fierce gale of persecution that had swept Bahá'u'lláh into a
subterranean dungeon and snuffed out the light of Táhirih also sealed
the fate of the Báb's distinguished amanuensis, Siyyid Husayn-i-Yazdí,
surnamed Azíz, who had shared His confinement in both
Máh-Kú and Chihríq. A man of rich experience and high merit,
deeply versed in the teachings of his Master, and enjoying His
unqualified confidence, he, refusing every offer of deliverance from
the leading officials of Tihrán, yearned unceasingly for the martyrdom
which had been denied him on the day the Báb had laid down His
life in the barrack-square of Tabríz. A fellow-prisoner of Bahá'u'lláh
in the Síyáh-Chál of Tihrán, from Whom he derived inspiration
and solace as he recalled those precious days spent in the company of
his Master in Ádhirbayján, he was finally struck down, in circumstances
of shameful cruelty, by that same Azíz Khán-i-Sardár who
had dealt the fatal blow to Táhirih.
Another victim of the frightful tortures inflicted by an unyielding
enemy was the high-minded, the influential and courageous Hájí
Sulaymán Khán. So greatly was he esteemed that the Amír-Nizám
had felt, on a previous occasion, constrained to ignore his connection
with the Faith he had embraced and to spare his life. The turmoil
that convulsed Tihrán as a result of the attempt on the life of the
sovereign, however, precipitated his arrest and brought about his
martyrdom. The Sháh, having failed to induce him through the
Hájíbu'd-Dawlih to recant, commanded that he be put to death in
any way he himself might choose. Nine holes, at his express wish,
were made in his flesh, in each of which a lighted candle was placed.
As the executioner shrank from performing this gruesome task, he
attempted to snatch the knife from his hand that he might himself
plunge it into his own body. Fearing lest he should attack him the
executioner refused, and bade his men tie the victim's hands behind
his back, whereupon the intrepid sufferer pleaded with them to pierce
two holes in his breast, two in his shoulders, one in the nape of his
neck, and four others in his back--a wish they complied with. Standing
erect as an arrow, his eyes glowing with stoic fortitude, unperturbed
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by the howling multitude or the sight of his own blood
streaming from his wounds, and preceded by minstrels and drummers,
he led the concourse that pressed round him to the final place of his
martyrdom. Every few steps he would interrupt his march to address
the bewildered bystanders in words in which he glorified the Báb
and magnified the significance of his own death. As his eyes beheld
the candles flickering in their bloody sockets, he would burst forth in
exclamations of unrestrained delight. Whenever one of them fell
from his body he would with his own hand pick it up, light it from
the others, and replace it. "Why dost thou not dance?" asked the
executioner mockingly, "since thou findest death so pleasant?"
"Dance?" cried the sufferer, "In one hand the wine-cup, in one hand
the tresses of the Friend. Such a dance in the midst of the market-place
is my desire!" He was still in the bazaar when the flowing of a
breeze, fanning the flames of the candles now burning deep in his
flesh, caused it to sizzle, whereupon he burst forth addressing the
flames that ate into his wounds: "You have long lost your sting,
O flames, and have been robbed of your power to pain me. Make
haste, for from your very tongues of fire I can hear the voice that
calls me to my Beloved." In a blaze of light he walked as a conqueror
might have marched to the scene of his victory. At the foot of the
gallows he once again raised his voice in a final appeal to the multitude
of onlookers. He then prostrated himself in the direction of the
shrine of the Imám-Zádih Hasan, murmuring some words in Arabic.
"My work is now finished," he cried to the executioner, "come and
do yours." Life still lingered in him as his body was sawn into two
halves, with the praise of his Beloved still fluttering from his dying
lips. The scorched and bloody remnants of his corpse were, as he
himself had requested, suspended on either side of the Gate of Naw,
mute witnesses to the unquenchable love which the Báb had kindled
in the breasts of His disciples.
The violent conflagration kindled as a result of the attempted
assassination of the sovereign could not be confined to the capital. It
overran the adjoining provinces, ravaged Mazindarán, the native
province of Bahá'u'lláh, and brought about in its wake, the confiscation,
the plunder and the destruction of all His possessions. In
the village of Tákúr, in the district of Núr, His sumptuously furnished
home, inherited from His father, was, by order of Mírzá Abú-Talíb
Khán, nephew of the Grand Vizir, completely despoiled, and whatever
could not be carried away was ordered to be destroyed, while its
rooms, more stately than those of the palaces of Tihrán, were disfigured
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beyond repair. Even the houses of the people were leveled
with the ground, after which the entire village was set on fire.
The commotion that had seized Tihrán and had given rise to the
campaign of outrage and spoliation in Mazindarán spread even as far
as Yazd, Nayríz and Shíráz, rocking the remotest hamlets, and
rekindling the flames of persecution. Once again greedy governors and
perfidious subordinates vied with each other in despoiling the innocent,
in massacring the guiltless, and in dishonoring the noblest of
their race. A carnage ensued which repeated the atrocities already
perpetrated in Nayríz and Zanján. "My pen," writes the chronicler
of the bloody episodes associated with the birth and rise of our Faith,
"shrinks in horror in attempting to describe what befell those valiant
men and women.... What I have attempted to recount of the
horrors of the siege of Zanján ... pales before the glaring ferocity
of the atrocities perpetrated a few years later in Nayríz and Shíráz."
The heads of no less than two hundred victims of these outbursts of
ferocious fanaticism were impaled on bayonets, and carried triumphantly
from Shíráz to Ábádih. Forty women and children were
charred to a cinder by being placed in a cave, in which a vast quantity
of firewood had been heaped up, soaked with naphtha and set alight.
Three hundred women were forced to ride two by two on bare-backed
horses all the way to Shíráz. Stripped almost naked they were led
between rows of heads hewn from the lifeless bodies of their husbands,
sons, fathers and brothers. Untold insults were heaped upon them, and
the hardships they suffered were such that many among them perished.
Thus drew to a close a chapter which records for all time the
bloodiest, the most tragic, the most heroic period of the first Bahá'í
century. The torrents of blood that poured out during those crowded
and calamitous years may be regarded as constituting the fertile seeds
of that World Order which a swiftly succeeding and still greater
Revelation was to proclaim and establish. The tributes paid the noble
army of the heroes, saints and martyrs of that Primitive Age, by
friend and foe alike, from Bahá'u'lláh Himself down to the most
disinterested observers in distant lands, and from the moment of its
birth until the present day, bear imperishable witness to the glory of
the deeds that immortalize that Age.
"The whole world," is Bahá'u'lláh's matchless testimony in the
Kitáb-i-Iqán, "marveled at the manner of their sacrifice.... The
mind is bewildered at their deeds, and the soul marveleth at their
fortitude and bodily endurance.... Hath any age witnessed such
momentous happenings?" And again: "Hath the world, since the
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days of Adam, witnessed such tumult, such violent commotion?...
Methinks, patience was revealed only by virtue of their fortitude, and
faithfulness itself was begotten only by their deeds." "Through the
blood which they shed," He, in a prayer, referring more specifically
to the martyrs of the Faith, has significantly affirmed, "the earth hath
been impregnated with the wondrous revelations of Thy might and
the gem-like signs of Thy glorious sovereignty. Ere-long shall she
tell out her tidings, when the set time is come."
To whom else could these significant words of Muhammad, the
Apostle of God, quoted by Quddús while addressing his companions
in the Fort of Shaykh Tabarsí, apply if not to those heroes of God
who, with their life-blood, ushered in the Promised Day? "O how I
long to behold the countenance of My brethren, my brethren who
will appear at the end of the world! Blessed are We, blessed are they;
greater is their blessedness than ours." Who else could be meant by
this tradition, called Hadíth-i-Jabír, recorded in the Káfí, and
authenticated by Bahá'u'lláh in the Kitáb-i-Iqán, which, in indubitable
language, sets forth the signs of the appearance of the promised
Qá'im? "His saints shall be abased in His time, and their heads shall
be exchanged as presents, even as the heads of the Turk and the
Daylamite are exchanged as presents; they shall be slain and burned,
and shall be afraid, fearful and dismayed; the earth shall be dyed
with their blood, and lamentation and wailing shall prevail amongst
their women; these are My saints indeed."
"Tales of magnificent heroism," is the written testimony of Lord
Curzon of Kedleston, "illumine the blood-stained pages of Bábí
history.... The fires of Smithfield did not kindle a nobler courage
than has met and defied the more refined torture-mongers of Tihrán.
Of no small account, then, must be the tenets of a creed that can
awaken in its followers so rare and beautiful a spirit of self-sacrifice.
The heroism and martyrdom of His (the Báb) followers will appeal
to many others who can find no similar phenomena in the contemporaneous
records of Islám." "Bábísm," wrote Prof. J. Darmesteter,
"which diffused itself in less than five years from one end of
Persia to another, which was bathed in 1852 in the blood of its
martyrs, has been silently progressing and propagating itself. If
Persia is to be at all regenerate it will be through this new Faith."
"Des milliers de martyrs," attests Renan in his "Les Apôtres," "sont
accourus pour lui (the Báb) avec allegressé au devant de la mort.
Un jour sans pareil peut-être dans l'histoire du monde fut celui de la
grande boucherie qui se fit des Bábís à Teheran." "One of those
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strange outbursts," declares the well-known Orientalist Prof. E. G.
Browne, "of enthusiasm, faith, fervent devotion and indomitable
heroism ... the birth of a Faith which may not impossibly win a
place amidst the great religions of the world." And again: "The
spirit which pervades the Bábís is such that it can hardly fail to
affect most powerfully all subjected to its influence.... Let those
who have not seen disbelieve me if they will, but, should that spirit
once reveal itself to them, they will experience an emotion which
they are not likely to forget." "J'avoue même," is the assertion made
by Comte de Gobineau in his book, "que, si je voyais en Europe une
secte d'une nature analogue au Babysme se présenter avec des avantages
tels que les siens, foi aveugle, enthousiasme extrème, courage et devouément
éprouvés, respect inspiré aux indifférents, terreur profonde
inspirée aux adversaires, et de plus, comme je l'ai dit, un prosèlytisme
qui ne s'arrête pas, et donc les succès sont constants dans toutes les
classes de la societé; si je voyais, dis-je, tout cela exister en Europe, je
n'hésiterais pas à prediré que, dans un temps donné, la puissance et
le sceptre appartiendront de toute necessité aux possesseurs de ces
grands avantages."
"The truth of the matter," is the answer which Abbás-Qulí
Khán-i-Laríjaní, whose bullet was responsible for the death of Mullá
Husayn, is reported to have given to a query addressed to him by
Prince Ahmad Mírzá in the presence of several witnesses, "is that
any one who had not seen Karbilá would, if he had seen Tabarsí, not
only have comprehended what there took place, but would have
ceased to consider it; and had he seen Mullá Husayn of Bushrúyih,
he would have been convinced that the Chief of Martyrs (Imám
Husayn) had returned to earth; and had he witnessed my deeds, he
would assuredly have said: `This is Shimr come back with sword
and lance...' In truth, I know not what had been shown to these
people, or what they had seen, that they came forth to battle with
such alacrity and joy.... The imagination of man cannot conceive
the vehemence of their courage and valor."
What, in conclusion, we may well ask ourselves, has been the
fate of that flagitious crew who, actuated by malice, by greed or
fanaticism, sought to quench the light which the Báb and His followers
had diffused over their country and its people? The rod of
Divine chastisement, swiftly and with unyielding severity, spared
neither the Chief Magistrate of the realm, nor his ministers and
counselors, nor the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the religion with
which his government was indissolubly connected, nor the governors
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who acted as his representatives, nor the chiefs of his armed forces
who, in varying degrees, deliberately or through fear or neglect,
contributed to the appalling trials to which an infant Faith was so
undeservedly subjected. Muhammad Sháh himself, a sovereign at
once bigoted and irresolute who, refusing to heed the appeal of the
Báb to receive Him in the capital and enable Him to demonstrate
the truth of His Cause, yielded to the importunities of a malevolent
minister, succumbed, at the early age of forty, after sustaining a
sudden reverse of fortune, to a complication of maladies, and was
condemned to that "hell-fire" which, "on the Day of Resurrection,"
the Author of the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá' had sworn would inevitably
devour him. His evil genius, the omnipotent Hájí Mírzá Aqásí, the
power behind the throne and the chief instigator of the outrages
perpetrated against the Báb, including His imprisonment in the
mountains of Ádhirbayján, was, after the lapse of scarcely a year
and six months from the time he interposed himself between the
Sháh and his Captive, hurled from power, deprived of his ill-gotten
riches, was disgraced by his sovereign, was driven to seek shelter from
the rising wrath of his countrymen in the shrine of Sháh `Abdu'l-`Azím,
and was later ignominiously expelled to Karbilá, falling a
prey to disease, poverty and gnawing sorrow--a piteous vindication
of that denunciatory Tablet in which his Prisoner had foreshadowed
his doom and denounced his infamy. As to the low-born and infamous
Amír-Nizám, Mírzá Taqí Khán, the first year of whose short-lived
ministry was stained with the ferocious onslaught against the defenders
of the Fort of Tabarsí, who authorized and encouraged the
execution of the Seven Martyrs of Tihrán, who unleashed the assault
against Vahíd and his companions, who was directly responsible for
the death-sentence of the Báb, and who precipitated the great upheaval
of Zanján, he forfeited, through the unrelenting jealousy of
his sovereign and the vindictiveness of court intrigue, all the honors
he had enjoyed, and was treacherously put to death by the royal
order, his veins being opened in the bath of the Palace of Fín, near
Káshán. "Had the Amír-Nizám," Bahá'u'lláh is reported by Nabíl
to have stated, "been aware of My true position, he would certainly
have laid hold on Me. He exerted the utmost effort to discover the
real situation, but was unsuccessful. God wished him to be ignorant
of it." Mírzá Áqá Khán, who had taken such an active part in the
unbridled cruelties perpetrated as a result of the attempt on the life
of the sovereign, was driven from office, and placed under strict
surveillance in Yazd, where he ended his days in shame and despair.
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Husayn Khán, the governor of Shíráz, stigmatized as a "wine-bibber"
and a "tyrant," the first who arose to ill-treat the Báb, who
publicly rebuked Him and bade his attendant strike Him violently
in the face, was compelled not only to endure the dreadful calamity
that so suddenly befell him, his family, his city and his province,
but afterwards to witness the undoing of all his labors, and to lead
in obscurity the remaining days of his life, till he tottered to his
grave abandoned alike by his friends and his enemies. Hájíbu'd-Dawlih,
that bloodthirsty fiend, who had strenuously hounded down
so many innocent and defenseless Bábís, fell in his turn a victim to
the fury of the turbulent Lurs, who, after despoiling him of his
property, cut off his beard, and forced him to eat it, saddled and
bridled him, and rode him before the eyes of the people, after which
they inflicted under his very eyes shameful atrocities upon his womenfolk
and children. The Sa'ídu'l-`Ulamá, the fanatical, the ferocious
and shameless mujtahid of Barfurúsh, whose unquenchable hostility
had heaped such insults upon, and caused such sufferings to, the
heroes of Tabarsí, fell, soon after the abominations he had perpetrated,
a prey to a strange disease, provoking an unquenchable thirst
and producing such icy chills that neither the furs he wrapped himself
in, nor the fire that continually burned in his room could
alleviate his sufferings. The spectacle of his ruined and once luxurious
home, fallen into such ill use after his death as to become the refuse-heap
of the people of his town, impressed so profoundly the inhabitants
of Mazindarán that in their mutual vituperations they would
often invoke upon each other's home the same fate as that which
had befallen that accursed habitation. The false-hearted and ambitious
Mahmúd Khán-i-Kalántar, into whose custody Táhirih had
been delivered before her martyrdom, incurred, nine years later, the
wrath of his royal master, was dragged feet first by ropes through
the bazaars to a place outside the city gates, and there hung on the
gallows. Mírzá Hasan Khán, who carried out the execution of the
Báb under orders from his brother, the Amír-Nizám, was, within two
years of that unpardonable act, subjected to a dreadful punishment
which ended in his death. The Shaykhu'l-Islám of Tabríz, the insolent,
the avaricious and tyrannical Mírzá `Alí Asghar, who, after
the refusal of the bodyguard of the governor of that city to inflict
the bastinado on the Báb, proceeded to apply eleven times the rods
to the feet of his Prisoner with his own hand, was, in that same year,
struck with paralysis, and, after enduring the most excruciating
ordeal, died a miserable death--a death that was soon followed by
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the abolition of the function of the Shaykhu'l-Islám in that city.
The haughty and perfidious Mírzá Abú-Talíb Khán who, disregarding
the counsels of moderation given him by Mírzá Áqá Khán, the
Grand Vizir, ordered the plunder and burning of the village of
Tákúr, as well as the destruction of the house of Bahá'u'lláh, was, a
year later, stricken with plague and perished wretchedly, shunned
by even his nearest kindred. Mihr-`Alí Khán, the Shujá'u'l-Mulk,
who, after the attempt on the Sháh's life, so savagely persecuted the
remnants of the Bábí community in Nayríz, fell ill, according to
the testimony of his own grandson, and was stricken with dumbness,
which was never relieved till the day of his death. His accomplice,
Mírzá Na'ím, fell into disgrace, was twice heavily fined, dismissed
from office, and subjected to exquisite tortures. The regiment which,
scorning the miracle that warned Sám Khán and his men to dissociate
themselves from any further attempt to destroy the life of the
Báb, volunteered to take their place and riddled His body with its
bullets, lost, in that same year, no less than two hundred and fifty
of its officers and men, in a terrible earthquake between Ardibíl and
Tabríz; two years later the remaining five hundred were mercilessly
shot in Tabríz for mutiny, and the people, gazing on their exposed
and mutilated bodies, recalled their savage act, and indulged in such
expressions of condemnation and wonder as to induce the leading
mujtahids to chastise and silence them. The head of that regiment,
Áqá Ján Big, lost his life, six years after the Báb's martyrdom, during
the bombardment of Muhammarih by the British naval forces.
The judgment of God, so rigorous and unsparing in its visitations
on those who took a leading or an active part in the crimes committed
against the Báb and His followers, was not less severe in its
dealings with the mass of the people--a people more fanatical than
the Jews in the days of Jesus--a people notorious for their gross
ignorance, their ferocious bigotry, their willful perversity and savage
cruelty, a people mercenary, avaricious, egotistical and cowardly.
I can do no better than quote what the Báb Himself has written in
the Dalá'il-i-Sab`ih (Seven Proofs) during the last days of His
ministry: "Call thou to remembrance the early days of the Revelation.
How great the number of those who died of cholera! That was indeed
one of the prodigies of the Revelation, and yet none recognized it!
During four years the scourge raged among Shí'ah Muslims without
any one grasping its significance!" "As to the great mass of its people
(Persia)," Nabíl has recorded in his immortal narrative, "who
watched with sullen indifference the tragedy that was being enacted
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before their eyes, and who failed to raise a finger in protest against
the hideousness of those cruelties, they fell, in their turn, victims to
a misery which all the resources of the land and the energy of its
statesmen were powerless to alleviate.... From the very day the
hand of the assailant was stretched forth against the Báb ... visitation
upon visitation crushed the spirit out of that ungrateful people,
and brought them to the very brink of national bankruptcy. Plagues,
the very names of which were almost unknown to them except for
a cursory reference in the dust-covered books which few cared to
read, fell upon them with a fury that none could escape. That
scourge scattered devastation wherever it spread. Prince and peasant
alike felt its sting and bowed to its yoke. It held the populace in
its grip, and refused to relax its hold upon them. As malignant as
the fever which decimated the province of Gílán, these sudden afflictions
continued to lay waste the land. Grievous as were these calamities,
the avenging wrath of God did not stop at the misfortunes that
befell a perverse and faithless people. It made itself felt in every
living being that breathed on the surface of that stricken land. It
afflicted the life of plants and animals alike, and made the people
feel the magnitude of their distress. Famine added its horrors to the
stupendous weight of afflictions under which the people were groaning.
The gaunt spectre of starvation stalked abroad amidst them,
and the prospect of a slow and painful death haunted their vision....
People and government alike sighed for the relief which they could
nowhere obtain. They drank the cup of woe to its dregs, utterly
unregardful of the Hand which had brought it to their lips, and
of the Person for Whose sake they were made to suffer."
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SECOND PERIOD
THE MINISTRY OF BAHÁ'U'LLÁH
1853-1892
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CHAPTER VI
The Birth of The Bahá'í Revelation
The train of dire events that followed in swift succession the
calamitous attempt on the life of Násiri'd-Dín Sháh mark, as already
observed, the termination of the Bábí Dispensation and the closing
of the initial, the darkest and bloodiest chapter of the history of the
first Bahá'í century. A phase of measureless tribulation had been
ushered in by these events, in the course of which the fortunes of
the Faith proclaimed by the Báb sank to their lowest ebb. Indeed
ever since its inception trials and vexations, setbacks and disappointments,
denunciations, betrayals and massacres had, in a steadily rising
crescendo, contributed to the decimation of the ranks of its followers,
strained to the utmost the loyalty of its stoutest upholders, and all
but succeeded in disrupting the foundations on which it rested.
From its birth, government, clergy and people had risen as one
man against it and vowed eternal enmity to its cause. Muhammad
Sháh, weak alike in mind and will, had, under pressure, rejected the
overtures made to him by the Báb Himself, had declined to meet
Him face to face, and even refused Him admittance to the capital.
The youthful Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, of a cruel and imperious nature,
had, both as crown prince and as reigning sovereign, increasingly
evinced the bitter hostility which, at a later stage in his reign, was
to blaze forth in all its dark and ruthless savagery. The powerful
and sagacious Mu'tamíd, the one solitary figure who could have
extended Him the support and protection He so sorely needed, was
taken from Him by a sudden death. The Sherif of Mecca, who
through the mediation of Quddús had been made acquainted with
the new Revelation on the occasion of the Báb's pilgrimage to Mecca,
had turned a deaf ear to the Divine Message, and received His
messenger with curt indifference. The prearranged gathering that
was to have taken place in the holy city of Karbilá, in the course
of the Báb's return journey from Hijáz, had, to the disappointment
of His followers who had been eagerly awaiting His arrival, to be
definitely abandoned. The eighteen Letters of the Living, the principal
bastions that buttressed the infant strength of the Faith, had
for the most part fallen. The "Mirrors," the "Guides," the "Witnesses"
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comprising the Bábí hierarchy had either been put to the
sword, or hounded from their native soil, or bludgeoned into silence.
The program, whose essentials had been communicated to the foremost
among them, had, owing to their excessive zeal, remained for
the most part unfulfilled. The attempts which two of those disciples
had made to establish the Faith in Turkey and India had signally
failed at the very outset of their mission. The tempests that had
swept Mazindarán, Nayríz and Zanján had, in addition to blasting
to their roots the promising careers of the venerated Quddús, the
lion-hearted Mullá Husayn, the erudite Vahíd, and the indomitable
Hujjat, cut short the lives of an alarmingly large number of the most
resourceful and most valiant of their fellow-disciples. The hideous
outrages associated with the death of the Seven Martyrs of Tihrán
had been responsible for the extinction of yet another living symbol
of the Faith, who, by reason of his close kinship to, and intimate
association with, the Báb, no less than by virtue of his inherent qualities,
would if spared have decisively contributed to the protection and
furtherance of a struggling Cause.
The storm which subsequently burst, with unexampled violence,
on a community already beaten to its knees, had, moreover, robbed
it of its greatest heroine, the incomparable Táhirih, still in the full
tide of her victories, had sealed the doom of Siyyid Husayn, the
Báb's trusted amanuensis and chosen repository of His last wishes, had
laid low Mullá `Abdu'l-Karím-i-Qazvíní, admittedly one of the very
few who could claim to possess a profound knowledge of the origins
of the Faith, and had plunged into a dungeon Bahá'u'lláh, the sole
survivor among the towering figures of the new Dispensation. The
Báb--the Fountainhead from whence the vitalizing energies of a newborn
Revelation had flowed--had Himself, ere the outburst of that
hurricane, succumbed, in harrowing circumstances, to the volleys of
a firing squad leaving behind, as titular head of a well-nigh disrupted
community, a mere figurehead, timid in the extreme, good-natured
yet susceptible to the slightest influence, devoid of any outstanding
qualities, who now (loosed from the controlling hand of Bahá'u'lláh,
the real Leader) was seeking, in the guise of a dervish, the protection
afforded by the hills of his native Mazindarán against the threatened
assaults of a deadly enemy. The voluminous writings of the Founder
of the Faith--in manuscript, dispersed, unclassified, poorly transcribed
and ill-preserved, were in part, owing to the fever and tumult
of the times, either deliberately destroyed, confiscated, or hurriedly
dispatched to places of safety beyond the confines of the land in
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which they were revealed. Powerful adversaries, among whom towered
the figure of the inordinately ambitious and hypocritical Hájí
Mírzá Karím Khán, who at the special request of the Sháh had in a
treatise viciously attacked the new Faith and its doctrines, had now
raised their heads, and, emboldened by the reverses it had sustained,
were heaping abuse and calumnies upon it. Furthermore, under the
stress of intolerable circumstances, a few of the Bábís were constrained
to recant their faith, while others went so far as to apostatize
and join the ranks of the enemy. And now to the sum of these dire
misfortunes a monstrous calumny, arising from the outrage perpetrated
by a handful of irresponsible enthusiasts, was added, branding
a holy and innocent Faith with an infamy that seemed indelible, and
which threatened to loosen it from its foundations.
And yet the Fire which the Hand of Omnipotence had lighted,
though smothered by this torrent of tribulations let loose upon it,
was not quenched. The flame which for nine years had burned with
such brilliant intensity was indeed momentarily extinguished, but
the embers which that great conflagration had left behind still glowed,
destined, at no distant date, to blaze forth once again, through the
reviving breezes of an incomparably greater Revelation, and to shed
an illumination that would not only dissipate the surrounding darkness
but project its radiance as far as the extremities of both the
Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Just as the enforced captivity
and isolation of the Báb had, on the one hand, afforded Him the
opportunity of formulating His doctrine, of unfolding the full implications
of His Revelation, of formally and publicly declaring His
station and of establishing His Covenant, and, on the other hand, had
been instrumental in the proclamation of the laws of His Dispensation
through the voice of His disciples assembled in Badasht, so did
the crisis of unprecedented magnitude, culminating in the execution
of the Báb and the imprisonment of Bahá'u'lláh, prove to be the
prelude of a revival which, through the quickening power of a far
mightier Revelation, was to immortalize the fame, and fix on a still
more enduring foundation, far beyond the confines of His native
land, the original Message of the Prophet of Shíráz.
At a time when the Cause of the Báb seemed to be hovering on
the brink of extinction, when the hopes and ambitions which animated
it had, to all human seeming, been frustrated, when the
colossal sacrifices of its unnumbered lovers appeared to have been
made in vain, the Divine Promise enshrined within it was about to
be suddenly redeemed, and its final perfection mysteriously manifested.
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The Bábí Dispensation was being brought to its close (not
prematurely but in its own appointed time), and was yielding its
destined fruit and revealing its ultimate purpose--the birth of the
Mission of Bahá'u'lláh. In this most dark and dreadful hour a New
Light was about to break in glory on Persia's somber horizon. As a
result of what was in fact an evolving, ripening process, the most
momentous if not the most spectacular stage in the Heroic Age of the
Faith was now about to open.
During nine years, as foretold by the Báb Himself, swiftly,
mysteriously and irresistibly the embryonic Faith conceived by Him
had been developing until, at the fixed hour, the burden of the
promised Cause of God was cast amidst the gloom and agony of the
Síyáh-Chál of Tihrán. "Behold," Bahá'u'lláh Himself, years later,
testified, in refutation of the claims of those who had rejected the
validity of His mission following so closely upon that of the Báb,
"how immediately upon the completion of the ninth year of this
wondrous, this most holy and merciful Dispensation, the requisite
number of pure, of wholly consecrated and sanctified souls has been
most secretly consummated." "That so brief an interval," He, moreover
has asserted, "should have separated this most mighty and
wondrous Revelation from Mine own previous Manifestation is a
secret that no man can unravel, and a mystery such as no mind can
fathom. Its duration had been foreordained."
St. John the Divine had himself, with reference to these two
successive Revelations, clearly prophesied: "The second woe is past;
and, behold the third woe cometh quickly." "This third woe,"
`Abdu'l-Bahá, commenting upon this verse, has explained, "is the day
of the Manifestation of Bahá'u'lláh, the Day of God, and it is near
to the day of the appearance of the Báb." "All the peoples of the
world," He moreover has asserted, "are awaiting two Manifestations,
Who must be contemporaneous; all wait for the fulfillment of this
promise." And again: "The essential fact is that all are promised two
Manifestations, Who will come one following on the other." Shaykh
Ahmad-i-Ahsá'í, that luminous star of Divine guidance who had so
clearly perceived, before the year sixty, the approaching glory of
Bahá'u'lláh, and laid stress upon "the twin Revelations which are to
follow each other in rapid succession," had, on his part, made this
significant statement regarding the approaching hour of that supreme
Revelation, in an epistle addressed in his own hand to Siyyid Kázim:
"The mystery of this Cause must needs be made manifest, and the
secret of this Message must needs be divulged. I can say no more.
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I can appoint no time. His Cause will be made known after Hín
(68)."
The circumstances in which the Vehicle of this newborn Revelation,
following with such swiftness that of the Báb, received the first
intimations of His sublime mission recall, and indeed surpass in
poignancy the soul-shaking experience of Moses when confronted by
the Burning Bush in the wilderness of Sinai; of Zoroaster when
awakened to His mission by a succession of seven visions; of Jesus
when coming out of the waters of the Jordan He saw the heavens
opened and the Holy Ghost descend like a dove and light upon Him;
of Muhammad when in the Cave of Hira, outside of the holy city
of Mecca, the voice of Gabriel bade Him "cry in the name of Thy
Lord"; and of the Báb when in a dream He approached the bleeding
head of the Imám Husayn, and, quaffing the blood that dripped from
his lacerated throat, awoke to find Himself the chosen recipient of
the outpouring grace of the Almighty.
What, we may well inquire at this juncture, were the nature and
implications of that Revelation which, manifesting itself so soon after
the Declaration of the Báb, abolished, at one stroke, the Dispensation
which that Faith had so newly proclaimed, and upheld, with such
vehemence and force, the Divine authority of its Author? What, we
may well pause to consider, were the claims of Him Who, Himself
a disciple of the Báb, had, at such an early stage, regarded Himself
as empowered to abrogate the Law identified with His beloved
Master? What, we may further reflect, could be the relationship
between the religious Systems established before Him and His own
Revelation--a Revelation which, flowing out, in that extremely perilous
hour, from His travailing soul, pierced the gloom that had settled
upon that pestilential pit, and, bursting through its walls, and propagating
itself as far as the ends of the earth, infused into the entire
body of mankind its boundless potentialities, and is now under our
very eyes, shaping the course of human society?
He Who in such dramatic circumstances was made to sustain the
overpowering weight of so glorious a Mission was none other than
the One Whom posterity will acclaim, and Whom innumerable followers
already recognize, as the Judge, the Lawgiver and Redeemer
of all mankind, as the Organizer of the entire planet, as the Unifier
of the children of men, as the Inaugurator of the long-awaited
millennium, as the Originator of a new "Universal Cycle," as the
Establisher of the Most Great Peace, as the Fountain of the Most
Great Justice, as the Proclaimer of the coming of age of the entire
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human race, as the Creator of a new World Order, and as the Inspirer
and Founder of a world civilization.
To Israel He was neither more nor less than the incarnation of the
"Everlasting Father," the "Lord of Hosts" come down "with ten
thousands of saints"; to Christendom Christ returned "in the glory
of the Father," to Shí'ah Islám the return of the Imám Husayn; to
Sunní Islám the descent of the "Spirit of God" (Jesus Christ); to the
Zoroastrians the promised Sháh-Bahrám; to the Hindus the reincarnation
of Krishna; to the Buddhists the fifth Buddha.
In the name He bore He combined those of the Imám Husayn,
the most illustrious of the successors of the Apostle of God--the
brightest "star" shining in the "crown" mentioned in the Revelation
of St. John--and of the Imám `Alí, the Commander of the Faithful,
the second of the two "witnesses" extolled in that same Book. He
was formally designated Bahá'u'lláh, an appellation specifically recorded
in the Persian Bayán, signifying at once the glory, the light
and the splendor of God, and was styled the "Lord of Lords," the
"Most Great Name," the "Ancient Beauty," the "Pen of the Most
High," the "Hidden Name," the "Preserved Treasure," "He Whom
God will make manifest," the "Most Great Light," the "All-Highest
Horizon," the "Most Great Ocean," the "Supreme Heaven," the
"Pre-Existent Root," the "Self-Subsistent," the "Day-Star of the Universe,"
the "Great Announcement," the "Speaker on Sinai," the
"Sifter of Men," the "Wronged One of the World," the "Desire of
the Nations," the "Lord of the Covenant," the "Tree beyond which
there is no passing." He derived His descent, on the one hand, from
Abraham (the Father of the Faithful) through his wife Katurah,
and on the other from Zoroaster, as well as from Yazdigird, the last
king of the Sásáníyán dynasty. He was moreover a descendant of
Jesse, and belonged, through His father, Mírzá Abbás, better known
as Mírzá Buzurg--a nobleman closely associated with the ministerial
circles of the Court of Fath-`Alí Sháh--to one of the most ancient
and renowned families of Mazindarán.
To Him Isaiah, the greatest of the Jewish prophets, had alluded
as the "Glory of the Lord," the "Everlasting Father," the "Prince of
Peace," the "Wonderful," the "Counsellor," the "Rod come forth out
of the stem of Jesse" and the "Branch grown out of His roots," Who
"shall be established upon the throne of David," Who "will come
with strong hand," Who "shall judge among the nations," Who
"shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the
breath of His lips slay the wicked," and Who "shall assemble the
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outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from
the four corners of the earth." Of Him David had sung in his Psalms,
acclaiming Him as the "Lord of Hosts" and the "King of Glory."
To Him Haggai had referred as the "Desire of all nations," and
Zachariah as the "Branch" Who "shall grow up out of His place,"
and "shall build the Temple of the Lord." Ezekiel had extolled Him
as the "Lord" Who "shall be king over all the earth," while to His
day Joel and Zephaniah had both referred as the "day of Jehovah,"
the latter describing it as "a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress,
a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and
gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet
and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers."
His Day Ezekiel and Daniel had, moreover, both acclaimed as the
"day of the Lord," and Malachi described as "the great and dreadful
day of the Lord" when "the Sun of Righteousness" will "arise, with
healing in His wings," whilst Daniel had pronounced His advent as
signalizing the end of the "abomination that maketh desolate."
To His Dispensation the sacred books of the followers of Zoroaster
had referred as that in which the sun must needs be brought to a
standstill for no less than one whole month. To Him Zoroaster must
have alluded when, according to tradition, He foretold that a period
of three thousand years of conflict and contention must needs precede
the advent of the World-Savior Sháh-Bahrám, Who would triumph
over Ahriman and usher in an era of blessedness and peace.
He alone is meant by the prophecy attributed to Gautama Buddha
Himself, that "a Buddha named Maitreye, the Buddha of universal
fellowship" should, in the fullness of time, arise and reveal "His
boundless glory." To Him the Bhagavad-Gita of the Hindus had
referred as the "Most Great Spirit," the "Tenth Avatar," the "Immaculate
Manifestation of Krishna."
To Him Jesus Christ had referred as the "Prince of this world,"
as the "Comforter" Who will "reprove the world of sin, and of
righteousness, and of judgment," as the "Spirit of Truth" Who "will
guide you into all truth," Who "shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever
He shall hear, that shall He speak," as the "Lord of the Vineyard,"
and as the "Son of Man" Who "shall come in the glory of His
Father" "in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory," with
"all the holy angels" about Him, and "all nations" gathered before
His throne. To Him the Author of the Apocalypse had alluded as
the "Glory of God," as "Alpha and Omega," "the Beginning and the
End," "the First and the Last." Identifying His Revelation with
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the "third woe," he, moreover, had extolled His Law as "a new heaven
and a new earth," as the "Tabernacle of God," as the "Holy City,"
as the "New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared
as a bride adorned for her husband." To His Day Jesus Christ
Himself had referred as "the regeneration when the Son of Man shall
sit in the throne of His glory." To the hour of His advent St. Paul
had alluded as the hour of the "last trump," the "trump of God,"
whilst St. Peter had spoken of it as the "Day of God, wherein the
heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt
with fervent heat." His Day he, furthermore, had described as "the
times of refreshing," "the times of restitution of all things, which God
hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy Prophets since the world
began."
To Him Muhammad, the Apostle of God, had alluded in His
Book as the "Great Announcement," and declared His Day to be the
Day whereon "God" will "come down" "overshadowed with clouds,"
the Day whereon "thy Lord shall come and the angels rank on rank,"
and "The Spirit shall arise and the angels shall be ranged in order."
His advent He, in that Book, in a súrih said to have been termed
by Him "the heart of the Qur'án," had foreshadowed as that of the
"third" Messenger, sent down to "strengthen" the two who preceded
Him. To His Day He, in the pages of that same Book, had paid a
glowing tribute, glorifying it as the "Great Day," the "Last Day,"
the "Day of God," the "Day of Judgment," the "Day of Reckoning,"
the "Day of Mutual Deceit," the "Day of Severing," the "Day of
Sighing," the "Day of Meeting," the Day "when the Decree shall be
accomplished," the Day whereon the second "Trumpet blast" will be
sounded, the "Day when mankind shall stand before the Lord of the
world," and "all shall come to Him in humble guise," the Day when
"thou shalt see the mountains, which thou thinkest so firm, pass away
with the passing of a cloud," the Day "wherein account shall be
taken," "the approaching Day, when men's hearts shall rise up,
choking them, into their throats," the Day when "all that are in the
heavens and all that are on the earth shall be terror-stricken, save
him whom God pleaseth to deliver," the Day whereon "every suckling
woman shall forsake her sucking babe, and every woman that hath
a burden in her womb shall cast her burden," the Day "when the
earth shall shine with the light of her Lord, and the Book shall be
set, and the Prophets shall be brought up, and the witnesses; and
judgment shall be given between them with equity; and none shall
be wronged."
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The plenitude of His glory the Apostle of God had, moreover,
as attested by Bahá'u'lláh Himself, compared to the "full moon on its
fourteenth night." His station the Imám `Alí, the Commander of the
Faithful, had, according to the same testimony, identified with
"Him Who conversed with Moses from the Burning Bush on Sinai."
To the transcendent character of His mission the Imám Husayn
had, again according to Bahá'u'lláh, borne witness as a "Revelation
whose Revealer will be He Who revealed" the Apostle of God Himself.
About Him Shaykh Ahmad-i-Ahsá'í, the herald of the Bábí Dispensation,
who had foreshadowed the "strange happenings" that
would transpire "between the years sixty and sixty-seven," and had
categorically affirmed the inevitability of His Revelation had, as
previously mentioned, written the following: "The Mystery of this
Cause must needs be made manifest, and the Secret of this Message
must needs be divulged. I can say no more, I can appoint no time.
His Cause will be made known after Hín (68)" (i.e., after a while).
Siyyid Kázim-i-Rashtí, Shaykh Ahmad's disciple and successor,
had likewise written: "The Qá'im must needs be put to death. After
He has been slain the world will have attained the age of eighteen."
In his Sharh-i-Qásidiy-i-Lámíyyih he had even alluded to the name
"Bahá." Furthermore, to his disciples, as his days drew to a close,
he had significantly declared: "Verily, I say, after the Qá'im the
Qayyúm will be made manifest. For when the star of the former has
set the sun of the beauty of Husayn will rise and illuminate the whole
world. Then will be unfolded in all its glory the `Mystery' and the
`Secret' spoken of by Shaykh Ahmad.... To have attained unto
that Day of Days is to have attained unto the crowning glory of
past generations, and one goodly deed performed in that age is equal
to the pious worship of countless centuries."
The Báb had no less significantly extolled Him as the "Essence of
Being," as the "Remnant of God," as the "Omnipotent Master," as
the "Crimson, all-encompassing Light," as "Lord of the visible and
invisible," as the "sole Object of all previous Revelations, including
The Revelation of the Qá'im Himself." He had formally designated
Him as "He Whom God shall make manifest," had alluded to Him as
the "Abhá Horizon" wherein He Himself lived and dwelt, had specifically
recorded His title, and eulogized His "Order" in His best-known
work, the Persian Bayán, had disclosed His name through
His allusion to the "Son of `Alí, a true and undoubted Leader of
men," had, repeatedly, orally and in writing, fixed, beyond the
shadow of a doubt, the time of His Revelation, and warned His
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followers lest "the Bayán and all that hath been revealed therein"
should "shut them out as by a veil" from Him. He had, moreover,
declared that He was the "first servant to believe in Him," that He
bore Him allegiance "before all things were created," that "no allusion"
of His "could allude unto Him," that "the year-old germ that
holdeth within itself the potentialities of the Revelation that is to
come is endowed with a potency superior to the combined forces of
the whole of the Bayán." He had, moreover, clearly asserted that He
had "covenanted with all created things" concerning Him Whom
God shall make manifest ere the covenant concerning His own
mission had been established. He had readily acknowledged that He
was but "a letter" of that "Most Mighty Book," "a dew-drop" from
that "Limitless Ocean," that His Revelation was "only a leaf amongst
the leaves of His Paradise," that "all that hath been exalted in the
Bayán" was but "a ring" upon His own hand, and He Himself
"a ring upon the hand of Him Whom God shall make manifest," Who,
"turneth it as He pleaseth, for whatsoever He pleaseth, and through
whatsoever He pleaseth." He had unmistakably declared that He had
"sacrificed" Himself "wholly" for Him, that He had "consented to be
cursed" for His sake, and to have "yearned for naught but martyrdom"
in the path of His love. Finally, He had unequivocally
prophesied: "Today the Bayán is in the stage of seed; at the beginning
of the manifestation of Him Whom God shall make manifest its
ultimate perfection will become apparent." "Ere nine will have elapsed
from the inception of this Cause the realities of the created things will
not be made manifest. All that thou hast as yet seen is but the stage
from the moist-germ until We clothed it with flesh. Be patient until
thou beholdest a new creation. Say: Blessed, therefore, be God, the
Most Excellent of Makers!"
"He around Whom the Point of the Bayán (Báb) hath revolved
is come" is Bahá'u'lláh's confirmatory testimony to the inconceivable
greatness and preeminent character of His own Revelation. "If all
who are in heaven and on earth," He moreover affirms, "be invested
in this day with the powers and attributes destined for the Letters of
the Bayán, whose station is ten thousand times more glorious than
that of the Letters of the Qur'ánic Dispensation, and if they one and
all should, swift as the twinkling of an eye, hesitate to recognize My
Revelation, they shall be accounted, in the sight of God, of those that
have gone astray, and regarded as `Letters of Negation.'" "Powerful
is He, the King of Divine might," He, alluding to Himself in the
Kitáb-i-Iqán, asserts, "to extinguish with one letter of His wondrous
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words, the breath of life in the whole of the Bayán and the people
thereof, and with one letter bestow upon them a new and everlasting
life, and cause them to arise and speed out of the sepulchers of their
vain and selfish desires." "This," He furthermore declares, "is the king
of days," the "Day of God Himself," the "Day which shall never be
followed by night," the "Springtime which autumn will never overtake,"
"the eye to past ages and centuries," for which "the soul of every
Prophet of God, of every Divine Messenger, hath thirsted," for which
"all the divers kindreds of the earth have yearned," through which
"God hath proved the hearts of the entire company of His Messengers
and Prophets, and beyond them those that stand guard over His sacred
and inviolable Sanctuary, the inmates of the Celestial Pavilion and
dwellers of the Tabernacle of Glory." "In this most mighty Revelation,"
He moreover, states, "all the Dispensations of the past have
attained their highest, their final consummation." And again: "None
among the Manifestations of old, except to a prescribed degree, hath
ever completely apprehended the nature of this Revelation." Referring
to His own station He declares: "But for Him no Divine Messenger
would have been invested with the Robe of Prophethood, nor would
any of the sacred Scriptures have been revealed."
And last but not least is `Abdu'l-Bahá's own tribute to the transcendent
character of the Revelation identified with His Father:
"Centuries, nay ages, must pass away, ere the Day-Star of Truth
shineth again in its mid-summer splendor, or appeareth once more in
the radiance of its vernal glory." "The mere contemplation of the
Dispensation inaugurated by the Blessed Beauty," He furthermore
affirms, "would have sufficed to overwhelm the saints of bygone ages--
saints who longed to partake for one moment of its great glory."
"Concerning the Manifestations that will come down in the future
`in the shadows of the clouds,' know verily," is His significant statement,
"that in so far as their relation to the source of their inspiration
is concerned they are under the shadow of the Ancient Beauty. In
their relation, however, to the age in which they appear, each and
every one of them `doeth whatsoever He willeth.'" And finally stands
this, His illuminating explanation, setting forth conclusively the
true relationship between the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh and that of
the Báb: "The Revelation of the Báb may be likened to the sun, its
station corresponding to the first sign of the Zodiac--the sign Aries--
which the sun enters at the vernal equinox. The station of Bahá'u'lláh's
Revelation, on the other hand, is represented by the sign Leo,
the sun's mid-summer and highest station. By this is meant that this
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holy Dispensation is illumined with the light of the Sun of Truth
shining from its most exalted station, and in the plenitude of its
resplendency, its heat and glory."
To attempt an exhaustive survey of the prophetic references to
Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation would indeed be an impossible task. To this
the pen of Bahá'u'lláh Himself bears witness: "All the Divine Books
and Scriptures have predicted and announced unto men the advent
of the Most Great Revelation. None can adequately recount the
verses recorded in the Books of former ages which forecast this
supreme Bounty, this most mighty Bestowal."
In conclusion of this theme, I feel, it should be stated that the
Revelation identified with Bahá'u'lláh abrogates unconditionally all
the Dispensations gone before it, upholds uncompromisingly the
eternal verities they enshrine, recognizes firmly and absolutely the
Divine origin of their Authors, preserves inviolate the sanctity of
their authentic Scriptures, disclaims any intention of lowering the
status of their Founders or of abating the spiritual ideals they inculcate,
clarifies and correlates their functions, reaffirms their common,
their unchangeable and fundamental purpose, reconciles their seemingly
divergent claims and doctrines, readily and gratefully recognizes
their respective contributions to the gradual unfoldment of one
Divine Revelation, unhesitatingly acknowledges itself to be but one
link in the chain of continually progressive Revelations, supplements
their teachings with such laws and ordinances as conform to the
imperative needs, and are dictated by the growing receptivity, of a
fast evolving and constantly changing society, and proclaims its readiness
and ability to fuse and incorporate the contending sects and
factions into which they have fallen into a universal Fellowship,
functioning within the framework, and in accordance with the precepts,
of a divinely conceived, a world-unifying, a world-redeeming
Order.
A Revelation, hailed as the promise and crowning glory of past
ages and centuries, as the consummation of all the Dispensations
within the Adamic Cycle, inaugurating an era of at least a thousand
years' duration, and a cycle destined to last no less than five thousand
centuries, signalizing the end of the Prophetic Era and the beginning
of the Era of Fulfillment, unsurpassed alike in the duration of its
Author's ministry and the fecundity and splendor of His mission--
such a Revelation was, as already noted, born amidst the darkness of a
subterranean dungeon in Tihrán--an abominable pit that had once
served as a reservoir of water for one of the public baths of the city.
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Wrapped in its stygian gloom, breathing its fetid air, numbed by its
humid and icy atmosphere, His feet in stocks, His neck weighed
down by a mighty chain, surrounded by criminals and miscreants of
the worst order, oppressed by the consciousness of the terrible blot
that had stained the fair name of His beloved Faith, painfully aware
of the dire distress that had overtaken its champions, and of the
grave dangers that faced the remnant of its followers--at so critical
an hour and under such appalling circumstances the "Most Great
Spirit," as designated by Himself, and symbolized in the Zoroastrian,
the Mosaic, the Christian, and Muhammadan Dispensations by the
Sacred Fire, the Burning Bush, the Dove and the Angel Gabriel
respectively, descended upon, and revealed itself, personated by a
"Maiden," to the agonized soul of Bahá'u'lláh.
"One night in a dream," He Himself, calling to mind, in the
evening of His life, the first stirrings of God's Revelation within His
soul, has written, "these exalted words were heard on every side:
`Verily, We shall render Thee victorious by Thyself and by Thy pen.
Grieve Thou not for that which hath befallen Thee, neither be Thou
afraid, for Thou art in safety. Ere long will God raise up the treasures
of the earth--men who will aid Thee through Thyself and through
Thy Name, wherewith God hath revived the hearts of such as have
recognized Him.'" In another passage He describes, briefly and
graphically, the impact of the onrushing force of the Divine Summons
upon His entire being--an experience vividly recalling the
vision of God that caused Moses to fall in a swoon, and the voice of
Gabriel which plunged Muhammad into such consternation that,
hurrying to the shelter of His home, He bade His wife, Khadíjih,
envelop Him in His mantle. "During the days I lay in the prison of
Tihrán," are His own memorable words, "though the galling weight
of the chains and the stench-filled air allowed Me but little sleep, still
in those infrequent moments of slumber I felt as if something flowed
from the crown of My head over My breast, even as a mighty torrent
that precipitateth itself upon the earth from the summit of a lofty
mountain. Every limb of My body would, as a result, be set afire.
At such moments My tongue recited what no man could bear to hear."
In His Súratu'l-Haykal (the Súrih of the Temple) He thus
describes those breathless moments when the Maiden, symbolizing
the "Most Great Spirit" proclaimed His mission to the entire creation:
"While engulfed in tribulations I heard a most wondrous, a most sweet
voice, calling above My head. Turning My face, I beheld a Maiden--
the embodiment of the remembrance of the name of My Lord--suspended
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in the air before Me. So rejoiced was she in her very soul that
her countenance shone with the ornament of the good-pleasure of
God, and her cheeks glowed with the brightness of the All-Merciful.
Betwixt earth and heaven she was raising a call which captivated the
hearts and minds of men. She was imparting to both My inward and
outer being tidings which rejoiced My soul, and the souls of God's
honored servants. Pointing with her finger unto My head, she addressed
all who are in heaven and all who are on earth, saying: `By
God! This is the Best-Beloved of the worlds, and yet ye comprehend
not. This is the Beauty of God amongst you, and the power of His
sovereignty within you, could ye but understand. This is the Mystery
of God and His Treasure, the Cause of God and His glory unto all
who are in the kingdoms of Revelation and of creation, if ye be of
them that perceive.'"
In His Epistle to Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, His royal adversary, revealed
at the height of the proclamation of His Message, occur these passages
which shed further light on the Divine origin of His mission:
"O King! I was but a man like others, asleep upon My couch, when
lo, the breezes of the All-Glorious were wafted over Me, and taught
Me the knowledge of all that hath been. This thing is not from Me,
but from One Who is Almighty and All-Knowing. And he bade Me
lift up My voice between earth and heaven, and for this there befell
Me what hath caused the tears of every man of understanding to
flow.... This is but a leaf which the winds of the will of Thy Lord,
the Almighty, the All-Praised, have stirred.... His all-compelling
summons hath reached Me, and caused Me to speak His praise amidst
all people. I was indeed as one dead when His behest was uttered.
The hand of the will of Thy Lord, the Compassionate, the Merciful,
transformed Me." "By My Life!" He asserts in another Tablet, "Not
of Mine own volition have I revealed Myself, but God, of His own
choosing, hath manifested Me." And again: "Whenever I chose to
hold My peace and be still, lo, the Voice of the Holy Spirit, standing
on My right hand, aroused Me, and the Most Great Spirit appeared
before My face, and Gabriel overshadowed Me, and the Spirit of Glory
stirred within My bosom, bidding Me arise and break My silence."
Such were the circumstances in which the Sun of Truth arose in
the city of Tihrán--a city which, by reason of so rare a privilege
conferred upon it, had been glorified by the Báb as the "Holy Land,"
and surnamed by Bahá'u'lláh "the Mother of the world," the "Day-spring
of Light," the "Dawning-Place of the signs of the Lord," the
"Source of the joy of all mankind." The first dawnings of that Light
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of peerless splendor had, as already described, broken in the city of
Shíráz. The rim of that Orb had now appeared above the horizon
of the Síyáh-Chál of Tihrán. Its rays were to burst forth, a decade
later, in Baghdád, piercing the clouds which immediately after its
rise in those somber surroundings obscured its splendor. It was destined
to mount to its zenith in the far-away city of Adrianople, and ultimately
to set in the immediate vicinity of the fortress-town of `Akká.
The process whereby the effulgence of so dazzling a Revelation
was unfolded to the eyes of men was of necessity slow and gradual.
The first intimation which its Bearer received did not synchronize
with, nor was it followed immediately by, a disclosure of its character
to either His own companions or His kindred. A period of no less
than ten years had to elapse ere its far-reaching implications could be
directly divulged to even those who had been intimately associated
with Him--a period of great spiritual ferment, during which the
Recipient of so weighty a Message restlessly anticipated the hour at
which He could unburden His heavily laden soul, so replete with
the potent energies released by God's nascent Revelation. All He did,
in the course of this pre-ordained interval, was to hint, in veiled and
allegorical language, in epistles, commentaries, prayers and treatises,
which He was moved to reveal, that the Báb's promise had already
been fulfilled, and that He Himself was the One Who had been
chosen to redeem it. A few of His fellow-disciples, distinguished by
their sagacity, and their personal attachment and devotion to Him,
perceived the radiance of the as yet unrevealed glory that had flooded
His soul, and would have, but for His restraining influence, divulged
His secret and proclaimed it far and wide.
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CHAPTER VII
Bahá'u'lláh's Banishment to `Iráq
The attempt on the life of Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, as stated in a
previous chapter, was made on the 28th of the month of Shavval,
1268 A.H., corresponding to the 15th of August, 1852. Immediately
after, Bahá'u'lláh was arrested in Níyávarán, was conducted
with the greatest ignominy to Tihrán and cast into the Síyáh-Chál.
His imprisonment lasted for a period of no less than four months,
in the middle of which the "year nine" (1269), anticipated in such
glowing terms by the Báb, and alluded to as the year "after Hín" by
Shaykh Ahmad-i-Ahsá'í, was ushered in, endowing with undreamt-of
potentialities the whole world. Two months after that year was born,
Bahá'u'lláh, the purpose of His imprisonment now accomplished, was
released from His confinement, and set out, a month later, for
Baghdád, on the first stage of a memorable and life-long exile which
was to carry Him, in the course of years, as far as Adrianople in
European Turkey, and which was to end with His twenty-four years'
incarceration in `Akká.
Now that He had been invested, in consequence of that potent
dream, with the power and sovereign authority associated with His
Divine mission, His deliverance from a confinement that had achieved
its purpose, and which if prolonged would have completely fettered
Him in the exercise of His newly-bestowed functions, became not
only inevitable, but imperative and urgent. Nor were the means and
instruments lacking whereby his emancipation from the shackles that
restrained Him could be effected. The persistent and decisive intervention
of the Russian Minister, Prince Dolgorouki, who left no
stone unturned to establish the innocence of Bahá'u'lláh; the public
confession of Mullá Shaykh Alíy-i-Turshízí, surnamed Azím, who,
in the Síyáh-Chál, in the presence of the Hájíbu'd-Dawlih and the
Russian Minister's interpreter and of the government's representative,
emphatically exonerated Him, and acknowledged his own complicity;
the indisputable testimony established by competent tribunals;
the unrelaxing efforts exerted by His own brothers, sisters and
kindred,--all these combined to effect His ultimate deliverance from
the hands of His rapacious enemies. Another potent if less evident
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influence which must be acknowledged as having had a share in His
liberation was the fate suffered by so large a number of His self-sacrificing
fellow-disciples who languished with Him in that same
prison. For, as Nabíl truly remarks, "the blood, shed in the course
of that fateful year in Tihrán by that heroic band with whom
Bahá'u'lláh had been imprisoned, was the ransom paid for His deliverance
from the hand of a foe that sought to prevent Him from
achieving the purpose for which God had destined Him."
With such overwhelming testimonies establishing beyond the
shadow of a doubt the non-complicity of Bahá'u'lláh, the Grand Vizir,
after having secured the reluctant consent of his sovereign to set free
his Captive, was now in a position to dispatch his trusted representative,
Hájí `Alí, to the Síyáh-Chál, instructing him to deliver
to Bahá'u'lláh the order for His release. The sight which that emissary
beheld upon his arrival evoked in him such anger that he cursed his
master for the shameful treatment of a man of such high position
and stainless renown. Removing his mantle from his shoulders he
presented it to Bahá'u'lláh, entreating Him to wear it when in the
presence of the Minister and his counsellors, a request which He
emphatically refused, preferring to appear, attired in the garb of a
prisoner, before the members of the Imperial government.
No sooner had He presented Himself before them than the Grand
Vizir addressed Him saying: "Had you chosen to take my advice,
and had you dissociated yourself from the Faith of the Siyyid-i-Báb,
you would never have suffered the pains and indignities that have
been heaped upon you." "Had you, in your turn," Bahá'u'lláh retorted,
"followed My counsels, the affairs of the government would
not have reached so critical a stage." Mírzá Áqá Khán was thereupon
reminded of the conversation he had had with Him on the occasion
of the Báb's martyrdom, when he had been warned that "the flame
that has been kindled will blaze forth more fiercely than ever." "What
is it that you advise me now to do?" he inquired from Bahá'u'lláh.
"Command the governors of the realm," was the instant reply, "to
cease shedding the blood of the innocent, to cease plundering their
property, to cease dishonoring their women, and injuring their
children." That same day the Grand Vizir acted on the advice thus
given him; but any effect it had, as the course of subsequent events
amply demonstrated, proved to be momentary and negligible.
The relative peace and tranquillity accorded Bahá'u'lláh after His
tragic and cruel imprisonment was destined, by the dictates of an
unerring Wisdom, to be of an extremely short duration. He had
+P106
hardly rejoined His family and kindred when a decree from Násiri'd-Dín
Sháh was communicated to Him, bidding Him leave the territory
of Persia, fixing a time-limit of one month for His departure
and allowing Him the right to choose the land of His exile.
The Russian Minister, as soon as he was informed of the Imperial
decision, expressed the desire to take Bahá'u'lláh under the protection
of his government, and offered to extend every facility for His removal
to Russia. This invitation, so spontaneously extended, Bahá'u'lláh declined,
preferring, in pursuance of an unerring instinct, to establish
His abode in Turkish territory, in the city of Baghdád. "Whilst I
lay chained and fettered in the prison," He Himself, years after,
testified in His Epistle addressed to the Czar of Russia, Nicolaevitch
Alexander II, "one of thy ministers extended Me his aid. Whereupon
God hath ordained for thee a station which the knowledge of none
can comprehend except His knowledge. Beware lest thou barter away
this sublime station." "In the days," is yet another illuminating testimony
revealed by His pen, "when this Wronged One was sore-afflicted
in prison, the minister of the highly esteemed government
(of Russia)--may God, glorified and exalted be He, assist him!--
exerted his utmost endeavor to compass My deliverance. Several times
permission for My release was granted. Some of the `ulamás of the
city, however, would prevent it. Finally, My freedom was gained
through the solicitude and the endeavor of His Excellency the Minister.
...His Imperial Majesty, the Most Great Emperor--may God,
exalted and glorified be He, assist him!--extended to Me for the sake
of God his protection--a protection which has excited the envy and
enmity of the foolish ones of the earth."
The Sháh's edict, equivalent to an order for the immediate expulsion
of Bahá'u'lláh from Persian territory, opens a new and glorious
chapter in the history of the first Bahá'í century. Viewed in its
proper perspective it will be even recognized to have ushered in one
of the most eventful and momentous epochs in the world's religious
history. It coincides with the inauguration of a ministry extending over
a period of almost forty years--a ministry which, by virtue of its creative
power, its cleansing force, its healing influences, and the irresistible
operation of the world-directing, world-shaping forces it released,
stands unparalleled in the religious annals of the entire human race.
It marks the opening phase in a series of banishments, ranging over a
period of four decades, and terminating only with the death of Him
Who was the Object of that cruel edict. The process which it set in
motion, gradually progressing and unfolding, began by establishing
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His Cause for a time in the very midst of the jealously-guarded stronghold
of Shí'ah Islám, and brought Him in personal contact with its
highest and most illustrious exponents; then, at a later stage, it confronted
Him, at the seat of the Caliphate, with the civil and
ecclesiastical dignitaries of the realm and the representatives of the
Sultán of Turkey, the most powerful potentate in the Islamic world;
and finally carried Him as far as the shores of the Holy Land, thereby
fulfilling the prophecies recorded in both the Old and the New Testaments,
redeeming the pledge enshrined in various traditions attributed
to the Apostle of God and the Imáms who succeeded Him, and
ushering in the long-awaited restoration of Israel to the ancient cradle
of its Faith. With it, may be said to have begun the last and most
fruitful of the four stages of a life, the first twenty-seven years of
which were characterized by the care-free enjoyment of all the
advantages conferred by high birth and riches, and by an unfailing
solicitude for the interests of the poor, the sick and the down-trodden;
followed by nine years of active and exemplary discipleship in the
service of the Báb; and finally by an imprisonment of four months'
duration, overshadowed throughout by mortal peril, embittered by
agonizing sorrows, and immortalized, as it drew to a close, by the
sudden eruption of the forces released by an overpowering, soul-revolutionizing
Revelation.
This enforced and hurried departure of Bahá'u'lláh from His
native land, accompanied by some of His relatives, recalls in some of
its aspects, the precipitate flight of the Holy Family into Egypt; the
sudden migration of Muhammad, soon after His assumption of the
prophetic office, from Mecca to Medina; the exodus of Moses, His
brother and His followers from the land of their birth, in response
to the Divine summons, and above all the banishment of Abraham
from Ur of the Chaldees to the Promised Land--a banishment which,
in the multitudinous benefits it conferred upon so many divers
peoples, faiths and nations, constitutes the nearest historical approach
to the incalculable blessings destined to be vouchsafed, in this day,
and in future ages, to the whole human race, in direct consequence
of the exile suffered by Him Whose Cause is the flower and fruit of
all previous Revelations.
`Abdu'l-Bahá, after enumerating in His "Some Answered Questions"
the far-reaching consequences of Abraham's banishment,
significantly affirms that "since the exile of Abraham from Ur to
Aleppo in Syria produced this result, we must consider what will be
the effect of the exile of Bahá'u'lláh in His several removes from
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Tihrán to Baghdád, from thence to Constantinople, to Rumelia and
to the Holy Land."
On the first day of the month of Rabí'u'th-Thání, of the year
1269 A.H., (January 12, 1853), nine months after His return from
Karbilá, Bahá'u'lláh, together with some of the members of His
family, and escorted by an officer of the Imperial body-guard and
an official representing the Russian Legation, set out on His three
months' journey to Baghdád. Among those who shared His exile
was His wife, the saintly Navváb, entitled by Him the "Most Exalted
Leaf," who, during almost forty years, continued to evince a fortitude,
a piety, a devotion and a nobility of soul which earned her
from the pen of her Lord the posthumous and unrivalled tribute of
having been made His "perpetual consort in all the worlds of God." His
nine-year-old son, later surnamed the "Most Great Branch," destined
to become the Center of His Covenant and authorized Interpreter
of His teachings, together with His seven-year-old sister, known in
later years by the same title as that of her illustrious mother, and
whose services until the ripe old age of four score years and six, no
less than her exalted parentage, entitle her to the distinction of ranking
as the outstanding heroine of the Bahá'í Dispensation, were also
included among the exiles who were now bidding their last farewell
to their native country. Of the two brothers who accompanied Him
on that journey the first was Mírzá Músá, commonly called Aqáy-i-Kalím,
His staunch and valued supporter, the ablest and most distinguished
among His brothers and sisters, and one of the "only two
persons who," according to Bahá'u'lláh's testimony, "were adequately
informed of the origins" of His Faith. The other was Mírzá Muhammad-Qulí,
a half-brother, who, in spite of the defection of some
of his relatives, remained to the end loyal to the Cause he had
espoused.
The journey, undertaken in the depth of an exceptionally severe
winter, carrying the little band of exiles, so inadequately equipped,
across the snow-bound mountains of Western Persia, though long
and perilous, was uneventful except for the warm and enthusiastic
reception accorded the travelers during their brief stay in Karand by
its governor Hayat-Qulí Khán, of the Allíyu'lláhí sect. He was
shown, in return, such kindness by Bahá'u'lláh that the people of the
entire village were affected, and continued, long after, to extend such
hospitality to His followers on their way to Baghdád that they
gained the reputation of being known as Bábís.
In a prayer revealed by Him at that time, Bahá'u'lláh, expatiating
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upon the woes and trials He had endured in the Síyáh-Chál, thus
bears witness to the hardships undergone in the course of that "terrible
journey": "My God, My Master, My Desire!... Thou hast created
this atom of dust through the consummate power of Thy might,
and nurtured Him with Thine hands which none can chain up....
Thou hast destined for Him trials and tribulations which no tongue
can describe, nor any of Thy Tablets adequately recount. The throat
Thou didst accustom to the touch of silk Thou hast, in the end,
clasped with strong chains, and the body Thou didst ease with
brocades and velvets Thou hast at last subjected to the abasement of
a dungeon. Thy decree hath shackled Me with unnumbered fetters,
and cast about My neck chains that none can sunder. A number of
years have passed during which afflictions have, like showers of mercy,
rained upon Me.... How many the nights during which the weight
of chains and fetters allowed Me no rest, and how numerous the days
during which peace and tranquillity were denied Me, by reason of
that wherewith the hands and tongues of men have afflicted Me!
Both bread and water which Thou hast, through Thy all-embracing
mercy, allowed unto the beasts of the field, they have, for a time,
forbidden unto this servant, and the things they refused to inflict
upon such as have seceded from Thy Cause, the same have they
suffered to be inflicted upon Me, until, finally, Thy decree was irrevocably
fixed, and Thy behest summoned this servant to depart out
of Persia, accompanied by a number of frail-bodied men and children
of tender age, at this time when the cold is so intense that one cannot
even speak, and ice and snow so abundant that it is impossible to
move."
Finally, on the 28th of Jamádiyu'th-Thání 1269 A.H. (April 8,
1853), Bahá'u'lláh arrived in Baghdád, the capital city of what was
then the Turkish province of `Iráq. From there He proceeded, a
few days after, to Kázimayn, about three miles north of the city, a
town inhabited chiefly by Persians, and where the two Kázims, the
seventh and the ninth Imáms, are buried. Soon after His arrival
the representative of the Sháh's government, stationed in Baghdád,
called on Him, and suggested that it would be advisable for Him, in
view of the many visitors crowding that center of pilgrimage, to
establish His residence in Old Baghdád, a suggestion with which He
readily concurred. A month later, towards the end of Rajab, He
rented the house of Hájí `Alí Madad, in an old quarter of the city,
into which He moved with His family.
In that city, described in Islamic traditions as "Zahru'l-Kúfih,"
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designated for centuries as the "Abode of Peace," and immortalized
by Bahá'u'lláh as the "City of God," He, except for His two year
retirement to the mountains of Kurdistán and His occasional visits
to Najaf, Karbilá and Kázimayn, continued to reside until His banishment
to Constantinople. To that city the Qur'án had alluded as
the "Abode of Peace" to which God Himself "calleth." To it, in
that same Book, further allusion had been made in the verse "For
them is a Dwelling of Peace with their Lord ... on the Day whereon
God shall gather them all together." From it radiated, wave after
wave, a power, a radiance and a glory which insensibly reanimated
a languishing Faith, sorely-stricken, sinking into obscurity, threatened
with oblivion. From it were diffused, day and night, and with
ever-increasing energy, the first emanations of a Revelation which,
in its scope, its copiousness, its driving force and the volume and
variety of its literature, was destined to excel that of the Báb Himself.
Above its horizon burst forth the rays of the Sun of Truth, Whose
rising glory had for ten long years been overshadowed by the inky
clouds of a consuming hatred, an ineradicable jealousy, an unrelenting
malice. In it the Tabernacle of the promised "Lord of Hosts"
was first erected, and the foundations of the long-awaited Kingdom
of the "Father" unassailably established. Out of it went forth the
earliest tidings of the Message of Salvation which, as prophesied by
Daniel, was to mark, after the lapse of "a thousand two hundred
and ninety days" (1290 A.H.), the end of "the abomination that
maketh desolate." Within its walls the "Most Great House of God,"
His "Footstool" and the "Throne of His Glory," "the Cynosure of
an adoring world," the "Lamp of Salvation between earth and
heaven," the "Sign of His remembrance to all who are in heaven and
on earth," enshrining the "Jewel whose glory hath irradiated all creation,"
the "Standard" of His Kingdom, the "Shrine round which will
circle the concourse of the faithful" was irrevocably founded and
permanently consecrated. Upon it, by virtue of its sanctity as
Bahá'u'lláh's "Most Holy Habitation" and "Seat of His transcendent
glory," was conferred the honor of being regarded as a center of
pilgrimage second to none except the city of `Akká, His "Most Great
Prison," in whose immediate vicinity His holy Sepulcher, the Qiblih
of the Bahá'í world, is enshrined. Around the heavenly Table, spread
in its very heart, clergy and laity, Sunnís and Shí'ahs, Kurds, Arabs,
and Persians, princes and nobles, peasants and dervishes, gathered
in increasing numbers from far and near, all partaking, according to
their needs and capacities, of a measure of that Divine sustenance
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which was to enable them, in the course of time, to noise abroad the
fame of that bountiful Giver, swell the ranks of His admirers, scatter
far and wide His writings, enlarge the limits of His congregation,
and lay a firm foundation for the future erection of the institutions
of His Faith. And finally, before the gaze of the diversified communities
that dwelt within its gates, the first phase in the gradual
unfoldment of a newborn Revelation was ushered in, the first effusions
from the inspired pen of its Author were recorded, the first
principles of His slowly crystallizing doctrine were formulated, the
first implications of His august station were apprehended, the first
attacks aiming at the disruption of His Faith from within were
launched, the first victories over its internal enemies were registered,
and the first pilgrimages to the Door of His Presence were undertaken.
This life-long exile to which the Bearer of so precious a Message
was now providentially condemned did not, and indeed could not,
manifest, either suddenly or rapidly, the potentialities latent within
it. The process whereby its unsuspected benefits were to be manifested
to the eyes of men was slow, painfully slow, and was characterized,
as indeed the history of His Faith from its inception to the
present day demonstrates, by a number of crises which at times
threatened to arrest its unfoldment and blast all the hopes which its
progress had engendered.
One such crisis which, as it deepened, threatened to jeopardize
His newborn Faith and to subvert its earliest foundations, overshadowed
the first years of His sojourn in `Iráq, the initial stage in
His life-long exile, and imparted to them a special significance.
Unlike those which preceded it, this crisis was purely internal in
character, and was occasioned solely by the acts, the ambitions and
follies of those who were numbered among His recognized fellow-disciples.
The external enemies of the Faith, whether civil or ecclesiastical,
who had thus far been chiefly responsible for the reverses and humiliations
it had suffered, were by now relatively quiescent. The public
appetite for revenge, which had seemed insatiable, had now, to some
extent, in consequence of the torrents of blood that had flowed,
abated. A feeling, bordering on exhaustion and despair, had, moreover,
settled on some of its most inveterate enemies, who were astute
enough to perceive that though the Faith had bent beneath the
grievous blows their hands had dealt it, its structure had remained
essentially unimpaired and its spirit unbroken. The orders issued to
the governors of the provinces by the Grand Vizir had had, furthermore,
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a sobering effect on the local authorities, who were now dissuaded
from venting their fury upon, and from indulging in their
sadistic cruelties against, a hated adversary.
A lull had, in consequence, momentarily ensued, which was destined
to be broken, at a later stage, by a further wave of repressive
measures in which the Sultán of Turkey and his ministers, as well
as the Sunní sacerdotal order, were to join hands with the Sháh and
the Shí'ah clericals of Persia and `Iráq in an endeavor to stamp out,
once and for all, the Faith and all it stood for. While this lull persisted
the initial manifestations of the internal crisis, already mentioned,
were beginning to reveal themselves--a crisis which, though
less spectacular in the public eye, proved itself, as it moved to its
climax, to be one of unprecedented gravity, reducing the numerical
strength of the infant community, imperiling its unity, causing
immense damage to its prestige, and tarnishing for a considerable
period of time its glory.
This crisis had already been brewing in the days immediately
following the execution of the Báb, was intensified during the months
when the controlling hand of Bahá'u'lláh was suddenly withdrawn
as a result of His confinement in the Síyáh-Chál of Tihrán, was
further aggravated by His precipitate banishment from Persia, and
began to protrude its disturbing features during the first years of
His sojourn in Baghdád. Its devastating force gathered momentum
during His two year retirement to the mountains of Kurdistán, and
though it was checked, for a time, after His return from Sulamáníyyih,
under the overmastering influences exerted preparatory
to the Declaration of His Mission, it broke out later, with still greater
violence, and reached its climax in Adrianople, only to receive finally
its death-blow under the impact of the irresistible forces released
through the proclamation of that Mission to all mankind.
Its central figure was no less a person than the nominee of the
Báb Himself, the credulous and cowardly Mírzá Yahyá, to certain
traits of whose character reference has already been made in the foregoing
pages. The black-hearted scoundrel who befooled and manipulated
this vain and flaccid man with consummate skill and unyielding
persistence was a certain Siyyid Muhammad, a native of Isfahán,
notorious for his inordinate ambition, his blind obstinacy and uncontrollable
jealousy. To him Bahá'u'lláh had later referred in the
Kitáb-i-Aqdas as the one who had "led astray" Mírzá Yahyá, and
stigmatized him, in one of His Tablets, as the "source of envy and
the quintessence of mischief," while `Abdu'l-Bahá had described the
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relationship existing between these two as that of "the sucking child"
to the "much-prized breast" of its mother. Forced to abandon his
studies in the madrisiyi-i-Sadr of Isfahán, this Siyyid had migrated,
in shame and remorse, to Karbilá, had there joined the ranks of the
Báb's followers, and shown, after His martyrdom, signs of vacillation
which exposed the shallowness of his faith and the fundamental
weakness of his convictions. Bahá'u'lláh's first visit to Karbilá and
the marks of undisguised reverence, love and admiration shown Him
by some of the most distinguished among the former disciples and
companions of Siyyid Kázim, had aroused in this calculating and
unscrupulous schemer an envy, and bred in his soul an animosity,
which the forbearance and patience shown him by Bahá'u'lláh had
served only to inflame. His deluded helpers, willing tools of his
diabolical designs, were the not inconsiderable number of Bábís who,
baffled, disillusioned and leaderless, were already predisposed to be
beguiled by him into pursuing a path diametrically opposed to the
tenets and counsels of a departed Leader.
For, with the Báb no longer in the midst of His followers; with
His nominee, either seeking a safe hiding place in the mountains of
Mazindarán, or wearing the disguise of a dervish or of an Arab
wandering from town to town; with Bahá'u'lláh imprisoned and
subsequently banished beyond the limits of His native country; with
the flower of the Faith mown down in a seemingly unending series
of slaughters, the remnants of that persecuted community were sunk
in a distress that appalled and paralyzed them, that stifled their spirit,
confused their minds and strained to the utmost their loyalty. Reduced
to this extremity they could no longer rely on any voice that
commanded sufficient authority to still their forebodings, resolve their
problems, or prescribe to them their duties and obligations.
Nabíl, traveling at that time through the province of Khurásán,
the scene of the tumultuous early victories of a rising Faith, had
himself summed up his impressions of the prevailing condition. "The
fire of the Cause of God," he testifies in his narrative, "had been well-nigh
quenched in every place. I could detect no trace of warmth
anywhere." In Qazvín, according to the same testimony, the remnant
of the community had split into four factions, bitterly opposed to
one another, and a prey to the most absurd doctrines and fancies.
Bahá'u'lláh upon His arrival in Baghdád, a city which had witnessed
the glowing evidences of the indefatigable zeal of Táhirih, found
among His countrymen residing in that city no more than a single
Bábí, while in Kázimayn inhabited chiefly by Persians, a mere handful
+P114
of His compatriots remained who still professed, in fear and obscurity,
their faith in the Báb.
The morals of the members of this dwindling community, no
less than their numbers, had sharply declined. Such was their "waywardness
and folly," to quote Bahá'u'lláh's own words, that upon His
release from prison, His first decision was "to arise ... and undertake,
with the utmost vigor, the task of regenerating this people."
As the character of the professed adherents of the Báb declined
and as proofs of the deepening confusion that afflicted them multiplied,
the mischief-makers, who were lying in wait, and whose sole
aim was to exploit the progressive deterioration in the situation for
their own benefit, grew ever more and more audacious. The conduct
of Mírzá Yahyá, who claimed to be the successor of the Báb, and
who prided himself on his high sounding titles of Mir'atu'l-Azalíyyih
(Everlasting Mirror), of Subh-i-Azal (Morning of Eternity), and
of Ismu'l-Azal (Name of Eternity), and particularly the machinations
of Siyyid Muhammad, exalted by him to the rank of the first
among the "Witnesses" of the Bayán, were by now assuming such a
character that the prestige of the Faith was becoming directly involved,
and its future security seriously imperiled.
The former had, after the execution of the Báb, sustained such
a violent shock that his faith almost forsook him. Wandering for a
time, in the guise of a dervish, in the mountains of Mazindarán, he,
by his behavior, had so severely tested the loyalty of his fellow-believers
in Núr, most of whom had been converted through the
indefatigable zeal of Bahá'u'lláh, that they too wavered in their convictions,
some of them going so far as to throw in their lot with the
enemy. He subsequently proceeded to Rasht, and remained concealed
in the province of Gílán until his departure for Kirmánsháh, where
in order the better to screen himself he entered the service of a
certain `Abdu'lláh-i-Qazvíní, a maker of shrouds, and became a
vendor of his goods. He was still there when Bahá'u'lláh passed
through that city on His way to Baghdád, and expressing a desire
to live in close proximity to Bahá'u'lláh but in a house by himself
where he could ply some trade incognito, he succeeded in obtaining
from Him a sum of money with which he purchased several bales
of cotton and then proceeded, in the garb of an Arab, by way of
Mandalíj to Baghdád. He established himself there in the street
of the Charcoal Dealers, situated in a dilapidated quarter of the city,
and placing a turban upon his head, and assuming the name of
Hájí Alíy-i-Lás-Furúsh, embarked on his newly-chosen occupation.
+P115
Siyyid Muhammad had meanwhile settled in Karbilá, and was busily
engaged, with Mírzá Yahyá as his lever, in kindling dissensions and
in deranging the life of the exiles and of the community that had
gathered about them.
Little wonder that from the pen of Bahá'u'lláh, Who was as yet
unable to divulge the Secret that stirred within His bosom, these
words of warning, of counsel and of assurance should, at a time when
the shadows were beginning to deepen around Him, have proceeded:
"The days of tests are now come. Oceans of dissension and tribulation
are surging, and the Banners of Doubt are, in every nook and
corner, occupied in stirring up mischief and in leading men to perdition.
...Suffer not the voice of some of the soldiers of negation
to cast doubt into your midst, neither allow yourselves to become
heedless of Him Who is the Truth, inasmuch as in every Dispensation
such contentions have been raised. God, however, will establish His
Faith, and manifest His light albeit the stirrers of sedition abhor it.
...Watch ye every day for the Cause of God.... All are held
captive in His grasp. No place is there for any one to flee to. Think
not the Cause of God to be a thing lightly taken, in which any one
can gratify his whims. In various quarters a number of souls have,
at the present time, advanced this same claim. The time is approaching
when ... every one of them will have perished and been lost,
nay will have come to naught and become a thing unremembered,
even as the dust itself."
To Mírzá Áqá Ján, "the first to believe" in Him, designated later
as Khádimu'-lláh (Servant of God)--a Bábí youth, aflame with
devotion, who, under the influence of a dream he had of the Báb, and
as a result of the perusal of certain writings of Bahá'u'lláh, had
precipitately forsaken his home in Káshán and traveled to `Iráq, in
the hope of attaining His presence, and who from then on served
Him assiduously for a period of forty years in his triple function of
amanuensis, companion and attendant--to him Bahá'u'lláh, more
than to any one else, was moved to disclose, at this critical juncture,
a glimpse of the as yet unrevealed glory of His station. This same
Mírzá Áqá Ján, recounting to Nabíl his experiences, on that first
and never to be forgotten night spent in Karbilá, in the presence of
his newly-found Beloved, Who was then a guest of Hájí Mírzá
Hasan-i-Hakím-Báshí, had given the following testimony: "As it
was summer-time Bahá'u'lláh was in the habit of passing His evenings
and of sleeping on the roof of the House.... That night, when
He had gone to sleep, I, according to His directions, lay down for
+P116
a brief rest, at a distance of a few feet from Him. No sooner had
I risen, and ... started to offer my prayers, in a corner of the roof
which adjoined a wall, than I beheld His blessed Person rise and
walk towards me. When He reached me He said: `You, too, are
awake.' Whereupon He began to chant and pace back and forth.
How shall I ever describe that voice and the verses it intoned, and
His gait, as He strode before me! Methinks, with every step He took
and every word He uttered thousands of oceans of light surged
before my face, and thousands of worlds of incomparable splendor
were unveiled to my eyes, and thousands of suns blazed their light
upon me! In the moonlight that streamed upon Him, He thus continued
to walk and to chant. Every time He approached me He
would pause, and, in a tone so wondrous that no tongue can describe
it, would say: `Hear Me, My son. By God, the True One! This
Cause will assuredly be made manifest. Heed thou not the idle talk
of the people of the Bayán, who pervert the meaning of every word.'
In this manner He continued to walk and chant, and to address me
these words until the first streaks of dawn appeared.... Afterwards
I removed His bedding to His room, and, having prepared His tea
for Him, was dismissed from His presence."
The confidence instilled in Mírzá Áqá Ján by this unexpected
and sudden contact with the spirit and directing genius of a new-born
Revelation stirred his soul to its depths--a soul already afire
with a consuming love born of his recognition of the ascendancy
which his newly-found Master had already achieved over His fellow-disciples
in both `Iráq and Persia. This intense adoration that informed
his whole being, and which could neither be suppressed nor
concealed, was instantly detected by both Mírzá Yahyá and his
fellow-conspirator Siyyid Muhammad. The circumstances leading
to the revelation of the Tablet of Kullu't-Tá'am, written during that
period, at the request of Hájí Mírzá Kamálu'd-Dín-i-Naráqí, a
Bábí of honorable rank and high culture, could not but aggravate
a situation that had already become serious and menacing. Impelled
by a desire to receive illumination from Mírzá Yahyá concerning
the meaning of the Qur'ánic verse "All food was allowed to the
children of Israel," Hájí Mírzá Kamálu'd-Dín had requested him to
write a commentary upon it--a request which was granted, but
with reluctance and in a manner which showed such incompetence
and superficiality as to disillusion Hájí Mírzá Kamálu'd-Dín, and
to destroy his confidence in its author. Turning to Bahá'u'lláh and
repeating his request, he was honored by a Tablet, in which Israel
+P117
and his children were identified with the Báb and His followers
respectively--a Tablet which by reason of the allusions it contained,
the beauty of its language and the cogency of its argument, so enraptured
the soul of its recipient that he would have, but for the restraining
hand of Bahá'u'lláh, proclaimed forthwith his discovery of God's
hidden Secret in the person of the One Who had revealed it.
To these evidences of an ever deepening veneration for Bahá'u'lláh
and of a passionate attachment to His person were now being added
further grounds for the outbreak of the pent-up jealousies which
His mounting prestige evoked in the breasts of His ill-wishers and
enemies. The steady extension of the circle of His acquaintances
and admirers; His friendly intercourse with officials including the
governor of the city; the unfeigned homage offered Him, on so many
occasions and so spontaneously, by men who had once been distinguished
companions of Siyyid Kázim; the disillusionment which the
persistent concealment of Mírzá Yahyá, and the unflattering reports
circulated regarding his character and abilities, had engendered; the
signs of increasing independence, of innate sagacity and inherent
superiority and capacity for leadership unmistakably exhibited by
Bahá'u'lláh Himself--all combined to widen the breach which the
infamous and crafty Siyyid Muhammad had sedulously contrived
to create.
A clandestine opposition, whose aim was to nullify every effort
exerted, and frustrate every design conceived, by Bahá'u'lláh for the
rehabilitation of a distracted community, could now be clearly
discerned. Insinuations, whose purpose was to sow the seeds of doubt
and suspicion and to represent Him as a usurper, as the subverter of
the laws instituted by the Báb, and the wrecker of His Cause, were
being incessantly circulated. His Epistles, interpretations, invocations
and commentaries were being covertly and indirectly criticized, challenged
and misrepresented. An attempt to injure His person was
even set afoot but failed to materialize.
The cup of Bahá'u'lláh's sorrows was now running over. All His
exhortations, all His efforts to remedy a rapidly deteriorating situation,
had remained fruitless. The velocity of His manifold woes was
hourly and visibly increasing. Upon the sadness that filled His soul
and the gravity of the situation confronting Him, His writings,
revealed during that somber period, throw abundant light. In some
of His prayers He poignantly confesses that "tribulation upon tribulation"
had gathered about Him, that "adversaries with one consent"
had fallen upon Him, that "wretchedness" had grievously touched
+P118
Him, and that "woes at their blackest" had befallen Him. God
Himself He calls upon as a Witness to His "sighs and lamentations,"
His "powerlessness, poverty and destitution," to the "injuries" He
sustained, and the "abasement" He suffered. "So grievous hath been
My weeping," He, in one of these prayers, avows, "that I have been
prevented from making mention of Thee and singing Thy praises."
"So loud hath been the voice of My lamentation," He, in another
passage, avers, "that every mother mourning for her child would be
amazed, and would still her weeping and her grief." "The wrongs
which I suffer," He, in His Lawh-i-Maryam, laments, "have blotted
out the wrongs suffered by My First Name (the Báb) from the
Tablet of creation." "O Maryam!" He continues, "From the Land
of Tá (Tihrán), after countless afflictions, We reached `Iráq, at the
bidding of the Tyrant of Persia, where, after the fetters of Our foes,
We were afflicted with the perfidy of Our friends. God knoweth
what befell Me thereafter!" And again: "I have borne what no man,
be he of the past or of the future, hath borne or will bear." "Oceans
of sadness," He testifies in the Tablet of Qullu't-Tá'am, "have surged
over Me, a drop of which no soul could bear to drink. Such is My
grief that My soul hath well nigh departed from My body." "Give
ear, O Kamál!" He, in that same Tablet, depicting His plight, exclaims,
"to the voice of this lowly, this forsaken ant, that hath hid
itself in its hole, and whose desire is to depart from your midst, and
vanish from your sight, by reason of that which the hands of men
have wrought. God, verily, hath been witness between Me and His
servants." And again: "Woe is Me, woe is Me!... All that I have
seen from the day on which I first drank the pure milk from the
breast of My mother until this moment hath been effaced from My
memory, in consequence of that which the hands of the people have
committed." Furthermore, in His Qásidiy-i-Varqá'íyyih, an ode
revealed during the days of His retirement to the mountains of
Kurdistán, in praise of the Maiden personifying the Spirit of God
recently descended upon Him, He thus gives vent to the agonies of
His sorrow-laden heart: "Noah's flood is but the measure of the tears
I have shed, and Abraham's fire an ebullition of My soul. Jacob's
grief is but a reflection of My sorrows, and Job's afflictions a fraction
of my calamity." "Pour out patience upon Me, O My Lord!"--
such is His supplication in one of His prayers, "and render Me victorious
over the transgressors." "In these days," He, describing in
the Kitáb-i-Iqán the virulence of the jealousy which, at that time,
was beginning to bare its venomous fangs, has written, "such odors
+P119
of jealousy are diffused, that ... from the beginning of the foundation
of the world ... until the present day, such malice, envy and
hate have in no wise appeared, nor will they ever be witnessed in the
future." "For two years or rather less," He, likewise, in another
Tablet, declares, "I shunned all else but God, and closed Mine eyes to
all except Him, that haply the fire of hatred may die down and the
heat of jealousy abate."
Mírzá Áqá Ján himself has testified: "That Blessed Beauty evinced
such sadness that the limbs of my body trembled." He has, likewise,
related, as reported by Nabíl in his narrative, that, shortly before
Bahá'u'lláh's retirement, he had on one occasion seen Him, between
dawn and sunrise, suddenly come out from His house, His night-cap
still on His head, showing such signs of perturbation that he was
powerless to gaze into His face, and while walking, angrily remark:
"These creatures are the same creatures who for three thousand years
have worshipped idols, and bowed down before the Golden Calf.
Now, too, they are fit for nothing better. What relation can there
be between this people and Him Who is the Countenance of Glory?
What ties can bind them to the One Who is the supreme embodiment
of all that is lovable?" "I stood," declared Mírzá Áqá Ján, "rooted
to the spot, lifeless, dried up as a dead tree, ready to fall under the
impact of the stunning power of His words. Finally, He said: `Bid
them recite: "Is there any Remover of difficulties save God? Say:
Praised be God! He is God! All are His servants, and all abide by
His bidding!" Tell them to repeat it five hundred times, nay, a
thousand times, by day and by night, sleeping and waking, that haply
the Countenance of Glory may be unveiled to their eyes, and tiers
of light descend upon them.' He Himself, I was subsequently informed,
recited this same verse, His face betraying the utmost sadness.
...Several times during those days, He was heard to remark: `We
have, for a while, tarried amongst this people, and failed to discern
the slightest response on their part.' Oftentimes He alluded to His
disappearance from our midst, yet none of us understood His
meaning."
Finally, discerning, as He Himself testifies in the Kitáb-i-Iqán,
"the signs of impending events," He decided that before they happened
He would retire. "The one object of Our retirement," He, in
that same Book affirms, "was to avoid becoming a subject of discord
among the faithful, a source of disturbance unto Our companions,
the means of injury to any soul, or the cause of sorrow to any heart."
"Our withdrawal," He, moreover, in that same passage emphatically
+P120
asserts, "contemplated no return, and Our separation hoped for no
reunion."
Suddenly, and without informing any one even among the members
of His own family, on the 12th of Rajab 1270 A.H. (April 10,
1854), He departed, accompanied by an attendant, a Muhammadan
named Abu'l-Qásim-i-Hamadání, to whom He gave a sum of money,
instructing him to act as a merchant and use it for his own purposes.
Shortly after, that servant was attacked by thieves and killed, and
Bahá'u'lláh was left entirely alone in His wanderings through the
wastes of Kurdistán, a region whose sturdy and warlike people were
known for their age-long hostility to the Persians, whom they regarded
as seceders from the Faith of Islám, and from whom they
differed in their outlook, race and language.
Attired in the garb of a traveler, coarsely clad, taking with Him
nothing but his kashkúl (alms-bowl) and a change of clothes, and
assuming the name of Darvísh Muhammad, Bahá'u'lláh retired to
the wilderness, and lived for a time on a mountain named Sar-Galú,
so far removed from human habitations that only twice a year, at
seed sowing and harvest time, it was visited by the peasants of that
region. Alone and undisturbed, He passed a considerable part of
His retirement on the top of that mountain in a rude structure, made
of stone, which served those peasants as a shelter against the extremities
of the weather. At times His dwelling-place was a cave to which
He refers in His Tablets addressed to the famous Shaykh `Abdu'r-Rahmán
and to Maryam, a kinswoman of His. "I roamed the wilderness
of resignation" He thus depicts, in the Lawh-i-Maryam, the
rigors of His austere solitude, "traveling in such wise that in My exile
every eye wept sore over Me, and all created things shed tears of
blood because of My anguish. The birds of the air were My companions
and the beasts of the field My associates." "From My eyes,"
He, referring in the Kitáb-i-Iqán to those days, testifies, "there
rained tears of anguish, and in My bleeding heart surged an ocean
of agonizing pain. Many a night I had no food for sustenance, and
many a day My body found no rest.... Alone I communed with
My spirit, oblivious of the world and all that is therein."
In the odes He revealed, whilst wrapped in His devotions during
those days of utter seclusion, and in the prayers and soliloquies which,
in verse and prose, both in Arabic and Persian, poured from His
sorrow-laden soul, many of which He was wont to chant aloud to
Himself, at dawn and during the watches of the night, He lauded
the names and attributes of His Creator, extolled the glories and
+P121
mysteries of His own Revelation, sang the praises of that Maiden
that personified the Spirit of God within Him, dwelt on His loneliness
and His past and future tribulations, expatiated upon the
blindness of His generation, the perfidy of His friends and the perversity
of His enemies, affirmed His determination to arise and, if
needs be, offer up His life for the vindication of His Cause, stressed
those essential pre-requisites which every seeker after Truth must
possess, and recalled, in anticipation of the lot that was to be His,
the tragedy of the Imám Husayn in Karbilá, the plight of Muhammad
in Mecca, the sufferings of Jesus at the hands of the Jews, the trials
of Moses inflicted by Pharaoh and his people and the ordeal of
Joseph as He languished in a pit by reason of the treachery of His
brothers. These initial and impassioned outpourings of a Soul struggling
to unburden itself, in the solitude of a self-imposed exile (many
of them, alas lost to posterity) are, with the Tablet of Kullu't-Tá'am
and the poem entitled Rashh-i-`Amá, revealed in Tihrán, the first
fruits of His Divine Pen. They are the forerunners of those immortal
works--the Kitáb-i-Iqán, the Hidden Words and the Seven Valleys--
which in the years preceding His Declaration in Baghdád, were to
enrich so vastly the steadily swelling volume of His writings, and
which paved the way for a further flowering of His prophetic genius
in His epoch-making Proclamation to the world, couched in the
form of mighty Epistles to the kings and rulers of mankind, and
finally for the last fruition of His Mission in the Laws and Ordinances
of His Dispensation formulated during His confinement in the Most
Great Prison of `Akká.
Bahá'u'lláh was still pursuing His solitary existence on that mountain
when a certain Shaykh, a resident of Sulamáníyyih, who
owned a property in that neighborhood, sought Him out, as directed
in a dream he had of the Prophet Muhammad. Shortly after this
contact was established, Shaykh Ismá'íl, the leader of the Khalídíyyih
Order, who lived in Sulamáníyyih, visited Him, and succeeded,
after repeated requests, in obtaining His consent to transfer His
residence to that town. Meantime His friends in Baghdád had discovered
His whereabouts, and had dispatched Shaykh Sultán, the
father-in-law of Aqáy-i-Kalím, to beg Him to return; and it was
now while He was living in Sulamáníyyih, in a room belonging to
the Takyíy-i-Mawlaná Khálid (theological seminary) that their
messenger arrived. "I found," this same Shaykh Sultán, recounting
his experiences to Nabíl, has stated, "all those who lived with Him
in that place, from their Master down to the humblest neophyte, so
+P122
enamoured of, and carried away by their love for Bahá'u'lláh, and
so unprepared to contemplate the possibility of His departure that
I felt certain that were I to inform them of the purpose of my visit,
they would not have hesitated to put an end to my life."
Not long after Baha'u'llah's arrival in Kurdistán, Shaykh Sultán
has related, He was able, through His personal contacts with Shaykh
Uthmán, Shaykh `Abdu'r-Rahmán, and Shaykh Ismá'íl, the honored
and undisputed leaders of the Naqshbandíyyih, the Qádiríyyih
and the Khalídíyyih Orders respectively, to win their hearts completely
and establish His ascendancy over them. The first of these,
Shaykh Uthmán, included no less a person than the Sultán himself
and his entourage among his adherents. The second, in reply to whose
query the "Four Valleys" was later revealed, commanded the unwavering
allegiance of at least a hundred thousand devout followers,
while the third was held in such veneration by his supporters that
they regarded him as co-equal with Khálid himself, the founder of
the Order.
When Bahá'u'lláh arrived in Sulamáníyyih none at first, owing to
the strict silence and reserve He maintained, suspected Him of being
possessed of any learning or wisdom. It was only accidentally, through
seeing a specimen of His exquisite penmanship shown to them by one
of the students who waited upon Him, that the curiosity of the
learned instructors and students of that seminary was aroused, and
they were impelled to approach Him and test the degree of His
knowledge and the extent of His familiarity with the arts and
sciences current amongst them. That seat of learning had been renowned
for its vast endowments, its numerous takyihs, and its
association with Saláhi'd-Dín-i-Ayyubí and his descendants; from it
some of the most illustrious exponents of Sunní Islám had gone forth
to teach its precepts, and now a delegation, headed by Shaykh Ismá'íl
himself, and consisting of its most eminent doctors and most distinguished
students, called upon Bahá'u'lláh, and, finding Him willing
to reply to any questions they might wish to address Him, they
requested Him to elucidate for them, in the course of several interviews,
the abstruse passages contained in the Futúhát-i-Makkíyyih,
the celebrated work of the famous Shaykh Muhyi'd-Dín-i-`Arabí.
"God is My witness," was Bahá'u'lláh's instant reply to the learned
delegation, "that I have never seen the book you refer to. I regard,
however, through the power of God, ... whatever you wish me to
do as easy of accomplishment." Directing one of them to read aloud
to Him, every day, a page of that book, He was able to resolve their
+P123
perplexities in so amazing a fashion that they were lost in admiration.
Not contenting Himself with a mere clarification of the obscure
passages of the text, He would interpret for them the mind of its
author, and expound his doctrine, and unfold his purpose. At times
He would even go so far as to question the soundness of certain
views propounded in that book, and would Himself vouchsafe a
correct presentation of the issues that had been misunderstood, and
would support it with proofs and evidences that were wholly convincing
to His listeners.
Amazed by the profundity of His insight and the compass of His
understanding, they were impelled to seek from Him what they
considered to be a conclusive and final evidence of the unique power
and knowledge which He now appeared in their eyes to possess.
"No one among the mystics, the wise, and the learned," they claimed,
while requesting this further favor from Him, "has hitherto proved
himself capable of writing a poem in a rhyme and meter identical
with that of the longer of the two odes, entitled Qásidiy-i-Ta'íyyih
composed by Ibn-i-Faríd. We beg you to write for us a poem in that
same meter and rhyme." This request was complied with, and no
less than two thousand verses, in exactly the manner they had
specified, were dictated by Him, out of which He selected one hundred
and twenty-seven, which He permitted them to keep, deeming the
subject matter of the rest premature and unsuitable to the needs of
the times. It is these same one hundred and twenty-seven verses that
constitute the Qásidiy-i-Varqá'íyyih, so familiar to, and widely circulated
amongst, His Arabic speaking followers.
Such was their reaction to this marvelous demonstration of the
sagacity and genius of Bahá'u'lláh that they unanimously acknowledged
every single verse of that poem to be endowed with a force,
beauty and power far surpassing anything contained in either the
major or minor odes composed by that celebrated poet.
This episode, by far the most outstanding among the events that
transpired during the two years of Bahá'u'lláh's absence from Baghdád,
immensely stimulated the interest with which an increasing number
of the `ulamás, the scholars, the shaykhs, the doctors, the holy men
and princes who had congregated in the seminaries of Sulamáníyyih
and Kárkúk, were now following His daily activities. Through His
numerous discourses and epistles He disclosed new vistas to their eyes,
resolved the perplexities that agitated their minds, unfolded the inner
meaning of many hitherto obscure passages in the writings of various
commentators, poets and theologians, of which they had remained
+P124
unaware, and reconciled the seemingly contradictory assertions which
abounded in these dissertations, poems and treatises. Such was the
esteem and respect entertained for Him that some held Him as One
of the "Men of the Unseen," others accounted Him an adept in
alchemy and the science of divination, still others designated Him
"a pivot of the universe," whilst a not inconsiderable number among
His admirers went so far as to believe that His station was no less
than that of a prophet. Kurds, Arabs, and Persians, learned and
illiterate, both high and low, young and old, who had come to know
Him, regarded Him with equal reverence, and not a few among them
with genuine and profound affection, and this despite certain assertions
and allusions to His station He had made in public, which, had
they fallen from the lips of any other member of His race, would
have provoked such fury as to endanger His life. Small wonder that
Bahá'u'lláh Himself should have, in the Lawh-i-Maryam, pronounced
the period of His retirement as "the mightiest testimony" to, and "the
most perfect and conclusive evidence" of, the truth of His Revelation.
"In a short time," is `Abdu'l-Bahá's own testimony, "Kurdistán was
magnetized with His love. During this period Bahá'u'lláh lived in
poverty. His garments were those of the poor and needy. His food
was that of the indigent and lowly. An atmosphere of majesty
haloed Him as the sun at midday. Everywhere He was greatly
revered and loved."
While the foundations of Bahá'u'lláh's future greatness were being
laid in a strange land and amidst a strange people, the situation of
the Bábí community was rapidly going from bad to worse. Pleased
and emboldened by His unexpected and prolonged withdrawal from
the scene of His labors, the stirrers of mischief with their deluded
associates were busily engaged in extending the range of their
nefarious activities. Mírzá Yahyá, closeted most of the time in his
house, was secretly directing, through his correspondence with those
Bábís whom he completely trusted, a campaign designed to utterly
discredit Bahá'u'lláh. In his fear of any potential adversary he had
dispatched Mírzá Muhammad-i-Mazindaraní, one of his supporters,
to Ádhirbayján for the express purpose of murdering Dayyán, the
"repository of the knowledge of God," whom he surnamed "Father
of Iniquities" and stigmatized as "Tághút," and whom the Báb had
extolled as the "Third Letter to believe in Him Whom God shall
make manifest." In his folly he had, furthermore, induced Mírzá
Áqá Ján to proceed to Núr, and there await a propitious moment
when he could make a successful attempt on the life of the sovereign.
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His shamelessness and effrontery had waxed so great as to lead him
to perpetrate himself, and permit Siyyid Muhammad to repeat after
him, an act so odious that Bahá'u'lláh characterized it as "a most
grievous betrayal," inflicting dishonor upon the Báb, and which
"overwhelmed all lands with sorrow." He even, as a further evidence
of the enormity of his crimes, ordered that the cousin of the Báb,
Mírzá `Alí-Akbar, a fervent admirer of Dayyán, be secretly put to
death--a command which was carried out in all its iniquity. As to
Siyyid Muhammad, now given free rein by his master, Mírzá Yahyá,
he had surrounded himself, as Nabíl who was at that time with him
in Karbilá categorically asserts, with a band of ruffians, whom he
allowed, and even encouraged, to snatch at night the turbans from
the heads of wealthy pilgrims who had congregated in Karbilá, to
steal their shoes, to rob the shrine of the Imám Husayn of its divans
and candles, and seize the drinking cups from the public fountains.
The depths of degradation to which these so-called adherents of the
Faith of the Báb had sunk could not but evoke in Nabíl the memory
of the sublime renunciation shown by the conduct of the companions
of Mullá Husayn, who, at the suggestion of their leader, had scornfully
cast by the wayside the gold, the silver and turquoise in their
possession, or shown by the behavior of Vahíd who refused to allow
even the least valuable amongst the treasures which his sumptuously
furnished house in Yazd contained to be removed ere it was pillaged
by the mob, or shown by the decision of Hujjat not to permit
his companions, who were on the brink of starvation, to lay
hands on the property of others, even though it were to save their
own lives.
Such was the audacity and effrontery of these demoralized and
misguided Bábís that no less than twenty-five persons, according to
`Abdu'l-Bahá's testimony, had the presumption to declare themselves
to be the Promised One foretold by the Báb! Such was the decline
in their fortunes that they hardly dared show themselves in public.
Kurds and Persians vied with each other, when confronting them in
the streets, in heaping abuse upon them, and in vilifying openly the
Cause which they professed. Little wonder that on His return to
Baghdád Bahá'u'lláh should have described the situation then existing
in these words: "We found no more than a handful of souls, faint
and dispirited, nay utterly lost and dead. The Cause of God had
ceased to be on any one's lips, nor was any heart receptive to its
message." Such was the sadness that overwhelmed Him on His arrival
that He refused for some time to leave His house, except for His
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visits to Kázimayn and for His occasional meeting with a few of
His friends who resided in that town and in Baghdád.
The tragic situation that had developed in the course of His two
years' absence now imperatively demanded His return. "From the
Mystic Source," He Himself explains in the Kitáb-i-Iqán, "there came
the summons bidding Us return whence We came. Surrendering Our
will to His, We submitted to His injunction." "By God besides Whom
there is none other God!" is His emphatic assertion to Shaykh Sultán,
as reported by Nabíl in his narrative, "But for My recognition of the
fact that the blessed Cause of the Primal Point was on the verge of
being completely obliterated, and all the sacred blood poured out in
the path of God would have been shed in vain, I would in no wise
have consented to return to the people of the Bayán, and would have
abandoned them to the worship of the idols their imaginations had
fashioned."
Mírzá Yahyá, realizing full well to what a pass his unrestrained
leadership of the Faith had brought him, had, moreover, insistently
and in writing, besought Him to return. No less urgent were the
pleadings of His own kindred and friends, particularly His twelve-year
old Son, `Abdu'l-Bahá, Whose grief and loneliness had so consumed
His soul that, in a conversation recorded by Nabíl in his
narrative, He had avowed that subsequent to the departure of
Bahá'u'lláh He had in His boyhood grown old.
Deciding to terminate the period of His retirement Bahá'u'lláh
bade farewell to the shaykhs of Sulamáníyyih, who now numbered
among His most ardent and, as their future conduct demonstrated,
staunchest admirers. Accompanied by Shaykh Sultán, He retraced
His steps to Baghdád, on "the banks of the River of Tribulations,"
as He Himself termed it, proceeding by slow stages, realizing, as He
declared to His fellow-traveler, that these last days of His retirement
would be "the only days of peace and tranquillity" left to Him,
"days which will never again fall to My lot."
On the 12th of Rajab 1272 A.H. (March 19, 1856) He arrived
in Baghdád, exactly two lunar years after His departure for Kurdistán.
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CHAPTER VIII
Bahá'u'lláh's Banishment to `Iráq
(Continued)
The return of Bahá'u'lláh from Sulamáníyyih to Baghdád marks
a turning point of the utmost significance in the history of the first
Bahá'í century. The tide of the fortunes of the Faith, having reached
its lowest ebb, was now beginning to surge back, and was destined
to roll on, steadily and mightily, to a new high water-mark, associated
this time with the Declaration of His Mission, on the eve of
His banishment to Constantinople. With His return to Baghdád a
firm anchorage was now being established, an anchorage such as the
Faith had never known in its history. Never before, except during
the first three years of its life, could that Faith claim to have possessed
a fixed and accessible center to which its adherents could turn for
guidance, and from which they could derive continuous and unobstructed
inspiration. No less than half of the Báb's short-lived
ministry was spent on the remotest border of His native country,
where He was concealed and virtually cut off from the vast majority
of His disciples. The period immediately after His martyrdom was
marked by a confusion that was even more deplorable than the isolation
caused by His enforced captivity. Nor when the Revelation
which He had foretold made its appearance was it succeeded by an
immediate declaration that could enable the members of a distracted
community to rally round the person of their expected Deliverer.
The prolonged self-concealment of Mírzá Yahyá, the center provisionally
appointed pending the manifestation of the Promised One;
the nine months' absence of Bahá'u'lláh from His native land, while
on a visit to Karbilá, followed swiftly by His imprisonment in the
Síyáh-Chál, by His banishment to `Iráq, and afterwards by His
retirement to Kurdistán--all combined to prolong the phase of instability
and suspense through which the Bábí community had to pass.
Now at last, in spite of Bahá'u'lláh's reluctance to unravel the
mystery surrounding His own position, the Bábís found themselves
able to center both their hopes and their movements round One Whom
they believed (whatever their views as to His station) capable of
insuring the stability and integrity of their Faith. The orientation
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which the Faith had thus acquired and the fixity of the center towards
which it now gravitated continued, in one form or another, to be its
outstanding features, of which it was never again to be deprived.
The Faith of the Báb, as already observed, had, in consequence of
the successive and formidable blows it had received, reached the
verge of extinction. Nor was the momentous Revelation vouchsafed
to Bahá'u'lláh in the Síyáh-Chál productive at once of any tangible
results of a nature that would exercise a stabilizing influence on a
well-nigh disrupted community. Bahá'u'lláh's unexpected banishment
had been a further blow to its members, who had learned to
place their reliance upon Him. Mírzá Yahyá's seclusion and inactivity
further accelerated the process of disintegration that had set in.
Bahá'u'lláh's prolonged retirement to Kurdistán seemed to have set
the seal on its complete dissolution.
Now, however, the tide that had ebbed in so alarming a measure
was turning, bearing with it, as it rose to flood point, those inestimable
benefits that were to herald the announcement of the Revelation
already secretly disclosed to Bahá'u'lláh.
During the seven years that elapsed between the resumption of
His labors and the declaration of His prophetic mission--years to
which we now direct our attention--it would be no exaggeration to
say that the Bahá'í community, under the name and in the shape of a
re-arisen Bábí community was born and was slowly taking shape,
though its Creator still appeared in the guise of, and continued to
labor as, one of the foremost disciples of the Báb. It was a period
during which the prestige of the community's nominal head steadily
faded from the scene, paling before the rising splendor of Him Who
was its actual Leader and Deliverer. It was a period in the course
of which the first fruits of an exile, endowed with incalculable
potentialities, ripened and were garnered. It was a period that will
go down in history as one during which the prestige of a recreated
community was immensely enhanced, its morals entirely reformed,
its recognition of Him who rehabilitated its fortunes enthusiastically
affirmed, its literature enormously enriched, and its victories over its
new adversaries universally acknowledged.
The prestige of the community, and particularly that of Bahá'u'lláh,
now began from its first inception in Kurdistán to mount in a
steadily rising crescendo. Bahá'u'lláh had scarcely gathered up again the
reins of the authority he had relinquished when the devout admirers
He had left behind in Sulamáníyyih started to flock to Baghdád,
with the name of "Darvísh Muhammad" on their lips, and the "house
+P129
of Mírzá Músá the Bábí" as their goal. Astonished at the sight of
so many `ulamás and Súfís of Kurdish origin, of both the Qádiríyyih
and Khalídíyyih Orders, thronging the house of Bahá'u'lláh, and
impelled by racial and sectarian rivalry, the religious leaders of the
city, such as the renowned Ibn-i-Álúsí, the Muftí of Baghdád, together
with Shaykh `Abdu's-Salám, Shaykh `Abdu'l-Qádir and Siyyid
Dáwúdí, began to seek His presence, and, having obtained completely
satisfying answers to their several queries, enrolled themselves among
the band of His earliest admirers. The unqualified recognition by
these outstanding leaders of those traits that distinguished the character
and conduct of Bahá'u'lláh stimulated the curiosity, and later
evoked the unstinted praise, of a great many observers of less conspicuous
position, among whom figured poets, mystics and notables,
who either resided in, or visited, the city. Government officials, foremost
among whom were `Abdu'lláh Páshá and his lieutenant Mahmúd
Áqá, and Mullá `Alí Mardán, a Kurd well-known in those circles,
were gradually brought into contact with Him, and lent their share
in noising abroad His fast-spreading fame. Nor could those distinguished
Persians, who either lived in Baghdád and its environs or
visited as pilgrims the holy places, remain impervious to the spell of
His charm. Princes of the royal blood, amongst whom were such
personages as the Ná'ibú'l-Íyálih, the Shuja'u'd-Dawlih, the Sayfu'd-Dawlih,
and Zaynu'l-'Ábidín Khán, the Fakhru'd-Dawlih, were,
likewise, irresistibly drawn into the ever-widening circle of His associates
and acquaintances.
Those who, during Bahá'u'lláh's two years' absence from Baghdád,
had so persistently reviled and loudly derided His companions and
kindred were, by now, for the most part, silenced. Not an inconsiderable
number among them feigned respect and esteem for Him,
a few claimed to be His defenders and supporters, while others professed
to share His beliefs, and actually joined the ranks of the
community to which He belonged. Such was the extent of the
reaction that had set in that one of them was even heard to boast
that, as far back as the year 1250 A.H.--a decade before the Báb's
Declaration--he had already perceived and embraced the truth of
His Faith!
Within a few years after Bahá'u'lláh's return from Sulamáníyyih
the situation had been completely reversed. The house of Sulaymán-i-Ghannam,
on which the official designation of the Bayt-i-A'zam
(the Most Great House) was later conferred, known, at that time,
as the house of Mírzá Músá, the Bábí, an extremely modest residence,
+P130
situated in the Karkh quarter, in the neighborhood of the western
bank of the river, to which Bahá'u'lláh's family had moved prior to
His return from Kurdistán, had now become the focal center of a
great number of seekers, visitors and pilgrims, including Kurds,
Persians, Arabs and Turks, and derived from the Muslim, the Jewish
and Christian Faiths. It had, moreover, become a veritable sanctuary
to which the victims of the injustice of the official representative of
the Persian government were wont to flee, in the hope of securing
redress for the wrongs they had suffered.
At the same time an influx of Persian Bábís, whose sole object
was to attain the presence of Bahá'u'lláh, swelled the stream of
visitors that poured through His hospitable doors. Carrying back, on
their return to their native country, innumerable testimonies, both
oral and written, to His steadily rising power and glory, they could
not fail to contribute, in a vast measure, to the expansion and
progress of a newly-reborn Faith. Four of the Báb's cousins and
His maternal uncle, Hájí Mírzá Siyyid Muhammad; a grand-daughter
of Fath-`Alí Sháh and fervent admirer of Táhirih, surnamed
Varáqatu'r-Ridván; the erudite Mullá Muhammad-i-Qá'iní, surnamed
Nabíl-i-Akbar; the already famous Mullá Sádiq-i-Khurasaní,
surnamed Ismu'lláhu'l-Asdaq, who with Quddús had been ignominiously
persecuted in Shíráz; Mullá Báqir, one of the Letters of the
Living; Siyyid Asadu'lláh, surnamed Dayyán; the revered Siyyid
Javád-i-Karbilá'í; Mírzá Muhammad-Hasan and Mírzá Muhammad-Husayn,
later immortalized by the titles of Sultánu'sh-Shuhadá and
Mahbúbu'sh-Shuhadá (King of Martyrs and Beloved of Martyrs)
respectively; Mírzá Muhammad-`Alíy-i-Nahrí, whose daughter, at
a later date, was joined in wedlock to `Abdu'l-Bahá; the immortal
Siyyid Ismá'íl-i-Zavari'í; Hájí Shaykh Muhammad, surnamed Nabíl
by the Báb; the accomplished Mírzá Aqáy-i-Munír, surnamed
Ismu'lláhu'l-Múníb; the long-suffering Hájí Muhammad-Taqí, surnamed
Ayyúb; Mullá Zaynu'l-'Ábidín, surnamed Zaynu'l-Muqarrabín, who
had ranked as a highly esteemed mujtahid--all these were numbered
among the visitors and fellow-disciples who crossed His threshold,
caught a glimpse of the splendor of His majesty, and communicated
far and wide the creative influences instilled into them through their
contact with His spirit. Mullá Muhammad-i-Zarandí, surnamed
Nabíl-i-A'zam, who may well rank as His Poet-Laureate, His chronicler
and His indefatigable disciple, had already joined the exiles,
and had launched out on his long and arduous series of journeys to
Persia in furtherance of the Cause of his Beloved.
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Even those who, in their folly and temerity had, in Baghdád, in
Karbilá, in Qum, in Káshán, in Tabríz and in Tihrán, arrogated to
themselves the rights, and assumed the title of "Him Whom God
shall make manifest" were for the most part instinctively led to seek
His presence, confess their error and supplicate His forgiveness. As
time went on, fugitives, driven by the ever-present fear of persecution,
sought, with their wives and children, the relative security
afforded them by close proximity to One who had already become the
rallying point for the members of a sorely-vexed community.
Persians of high eminence, living in exile, rejecting, in the face of
the mounting prestige of Bahá'u'lláh, the dictates of moderation and
prudence, sat, forgetful of their pride, at His feet, and imbibed,
each according to his capacity, a measure of His spirit and wisdom.
Some of the more ambitious among them, such as Abbás Mírzá,
a son of Muhammad Sháh, the Vazír-Nizám, and Mírzá Malkam
Khán, as well as certain functionaries of foreign governments, attempted,
in their short-sightedness, to secure His support and
assistance for the furtherance of the designs they cherished, designs
which He unhesitatingly and severely condemned. Nor was the then
representative of the British government, Colonel Sir Arnold Burrows
Kemball, consul-general in Baghdád, insensible of the position which
Bahá'u'lláh now occupied. Entering into friendly correspondence
with Him, he, as testified by Bahá'u'lláh Himself, offered Him the
protection of British citizenship, called on Him in person, and
undertook to transmit to Queen Victoria any communication He
might wish to forward to her. He even expressed his readiness to
arrange for the transfer of His residence to India, or to any place
agreeable to Him. This suggestion Bahá'u'lláh declined, choosing to
abide in the dominions of the Sultán of Turkey. And finally, during
the last year of His sojourn in Baghdád the governor Námiq-Pashá,
impressed by the many signs of esteem and veneration in which He
was held, called upon Him to pay his personal tribute to One Who
had already achieved so conspicuous a victory over the hearts and
souls of those who had met Him. So profound was the respect the
governor entertained for Him, Whom he regarded as one of the
Lights of the Age, that it was not until the end of three months,
during which he had received five successive commands from `Alí
Páshá, that he could bring himself to inform Bahá'u'lláh that it was
the wish of the Turkish government that He should proceed to the
capital. On one occasion, when `Abdu'l-Bahá and Aqáy-i-Kalím
had been delegated by Bahá'u'lláh to visit him, he entertained them
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with such elaborate ceremonial that the Deputy-Governor stated that
so far as he knew no notable of the city had ever been accorded by
any governor so warm and courteous a reception. So struck, indeed,
had the Sultán `Abdu'l-Majíd been by the favorable reports received
about Bahá'u'lláh from successive governors of Baghdád (this is the
personal testimony given by the Governor's deputy to Bahá'u'lláh
himself) that he consistently refused to countenance the requests of
the Persian government either to deliver Him to their representative
or to order His expulsion from Turkish territory.
On no previous occasion, since the inception of the Faith, not
even during the days when the Báb in Isfahán, in Tabríz and in
Chihríq was acclaimed by the ovations of an enthusiastic populace,
had any of its exponents risen to such high eminence in the public
mind, or exercised over so diversified a circle of admirers an influence
so far reaching and so potent. Yet unprecedented as was the sway
which Bahá'u'lláh held while, in that primitive age of the Faith, He
was dwelling in Baghdád, its range at that time was modest when
compared with the magnitude of the fame which, at the close of that
same age, and through the immediate inspiration of the Center of
His Covenant, the Faith acquired in both the European and American
continents.
The ascendancy achieved by Bahá'u'lláh was nowhere better
demonstrated than in His ability to broaden the outlook and transform
the character of the community to which He belonged. Though
Himself nominally a Bábí, though the provisions of the Bayán were
still regarded as binding and inviolable, He was able to inculcate a
standard which, while not incompatible with its tenets, was ethically
superior to the loftiest principles which the Bábí Dispensation had
established. The salutary and fundamental truths advocated by the
Báb, that had either been obscured, neglected or misrepresented, were
moreover elucidated by Bahá'u'lláh, reaffirmed and instilled afresh
into the corporate life of the community, and into the souls of the
individuals who comprised it. The dissociation of the Bábí Faith
from every form of political activity and from all secret associations
and factions; the emphasis placed on the principle of non-violence;
the necessity of strict obedience to established authority; the ban
imposed on all forms of sedition, on back-biting, retaliation, and
dispute; the stress laid on godliness, kindliness, humility and piety,
on honesty and truthfulness, chastity and fidelity, on justice, toleration,
sociability, amity and concord, on the acquisition of arts and
sciences, on self-sacrifice and detachment, on patience, steadfastness
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and resignation to the will of God--all these constitute the salient
features of a code of ethical conduct to which the books, treatises
and epistles, revealed during those years, by the indefatigable pen of
Bahá'u'lláh, unmistakably bear witness.
"By the aid of God and His divine grace and mercy," He Himself
has written with reference to the character and consequences of His
own labors during that period, "We revealed, as a copious rain, Our
verses, and sent them to various parts of the world. We exhorted all
men, and particularly this people, through Our wise counsels and
loving admonitions, and forbade them to engage in sedition, quarrels,
disputes or conflict. As a result of this, and by the grace of God,
waywardness and folly were changed into piety and understanding,
and weapons of war converted into instruments of peace." "Bahá'u'lláh,"
`Abdu'l-Bahá affirmed, "after His return (from Sulamáníyyih)
made such strenuous efforts in educating and training this
community, in reforming its manners, in regulating its affairs and in
rehabilitating its fortunes, that in a short while all these troubles and
mischiefs were quenched, and the utmost peace and tranquillity
reigned in men's hearts." And again: "When these fundamentals were
established in the hearts of this people, they everywhere acted in such
wise that, in the estimation of those in authority, they became famous
for the integrity of their character, the steadfastness of their hearts,
the purity of their motives, the praiseworthiness of their deeds, and
the excellence of their conduct."
The exalted character of the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh propounded
during that period is perhaps best illustrated by the following statement
made by Him in those days to an official who had reported to
Him that, because of the devotion to His person which an evildoer
had professed, he had hesitated to inflict upon that criminal the
punishment he deserved: "Tell him, no one in this world can claim
any relationship to Me except those who, in all their deeds and in
their conduct, follow My example, in such wise that all the peoples
of the earth would be powerless to prevent them from doing and
saying that which is meet and seemly." "This brother of Mine," He
further declared to that official, "this Mírzá Músá, who is from the
same mother and father as Myself, and who from his earliest childhood
has kept Me company, should he perpetrate an act contrary to
the interests of either the state or religion, and his guilt be established
in your sight, I would be pleased and appreciate your action were
you to bind his hands and cast him into the river to drown, and refuse
to consider the intercession of any one on his behalf." In another
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connection He, wishing to stress His strong condemnation of all acts
of violence, had written: "It would be more acceptable in My sight
for a person to harm one of My own sons or relatives rather than
inflict injury upon any soul."
"Most of those who surrounded Bahá'u'lláh," wrote Nabíl, describing
the spirit that animated the reformed Bábí community in
Baghdád, "exercised such care in sanctifying and purifying their souls,
that they would suffer no word to cross their lips that might not conform
to the will of God, nor would they take a single step that might
be contrary to His good-pleasure." "Each one," he relates, "had
entered into a pact with one of his fellow-disciples, in which they
agreed to admonish one another, and, if necessary, chastise one another
with a number of blows on the soles of the feet, proportioning the
number of strokes to the gravity of the offense against the lofty
standards they had sworn to observe." Describing the fervor of their
zeal, he states that "not until the offender had suffered the punishment
he had solicited, would he consent to either eat or drink."
The complete transformation which the written and spoken
word of Bahá'u'lláh had effected in the outlook and character of
His companions was equalled by the burning devotion which His
love had kindled in their souls. A passionate zeal and fervor, that
rivalled the enthusiasm that had glowed so fiercely in the breasts of
the Báb's disciples in their moments of greatest exaltation, had now
seized the hearts of the exiles of Baghdád and galvanized their entire
beings. "So inebriated," Nabíl, describing the fecundity of this tremendously
dynamic spiritual revival, has written, "so carried away
was every one by the sweet savors of the Morn of Divine Revelation
that, methinks, out of every thorn sprang forth heaps of blossoms,
and every seed yielded innumerable harvests." "The room of the
Most Great House," that same chronicler has recorded, "set apart for
the reception of Bahá'u'lláh's visitors, though dilapidated, and having
long since outgrown its usefulness, vied, through having been trodden
by the blessed footsteps of the Well Beloved, with the Most Exalted
Paradise. Low-roofed, it yet seemed to reach to the stars, and though
it boasted but a single couch, fashioned from the branches of palms,
whereon He Who is the King of Names was wont to sit, it drew to
itself, even as a loadstone, the hearts of the princes."
It was this same reception room which, in spite of its rude simplicity,
had so charmed the Shuja'u'd-Dawlih that he had expressed to
his fellow-princes his intention of building a duplicate of it in his
home in Kázimayn. "He may well succeed," Bahá'u'lláh is reported
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to have smilingly remarked when apprized of this intention, "in
reproducing outwardly the exact counterpart of this low-roofed room
made of mud and straw with its diminutive garden. What of his
ability to open onto it the spiritual doors leading to the hidden worlds
of God?" "I know not how to explain it," another prince, Zaynu'l-'Ábidín
Khán, the Fakhru'd-Dawlih, describing the atmosphere which
pervaded that reception-room, had affirmed, "were all the sorrows of
the world to be crowded into my heart they would, I feel, all vanish,
when in the presence of Bahá'u'lláh. It is as if I had entered Paradise
itself."
The joyous feasts which these companions, despite their extremely
modest earnings, continually offered in honor of their Beloved; the
gatherings, lasting far into the night, in which they loudly celebrated,
with prayers, poetry and song, the praises of the Báb, of Quddús
and of Bahá'u'lláh; the fasts they observed; the vigils they kept; the
dreams and visions which fired their souls, and which they recounted
to each other with feelings of unbounded enthusiasm; the eagerness
with which those who served Bahá'u'lláh performed His errands,
waited upon His needs, and carried heavy skins of water for His
ablutions and other domestic purposes; the acts of imprudence which,
in moments of rapture, they occasionally committed; the expressions
of wonder and admiration which their words and acts evoked in a
populace that had seldom witnessed such demonstrations of religious
transport and personal devotion--these, and many others, will forever
remain associated with the history of that immortal period, intervening
between the birth hour of Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation and its
announcement on the eve of His departure from `Iráq.
Numerous and striking are the anecdotes which have been recounted
by those whom duty, accident, or inclination had, in the
course of these poignant years, brought into direct contact with
Bahá'u'lláh. Many and moving are the testimonies of bystanders who
were privileged to gaze on His countenance, observe His gait, or
overhear His remarks, as He moved through the lanes and streets of
the city, or paced the banks of the river; of the worshippers who
watched Him pray in their mosques; of the mendicant, the sick, the
aged, and the unfortunate whom He succored, healed, supported and
comforted; of the visitors, from the haughtiest prince to the meanest
beggar, who crossed His threshold and sat at His feet; of the merchant,
the artisan, and the shopkeeper who waited upon Him and
supplied His daily needs; of His devotees who had perceived the
signs of His hidden glory; of His adversaries who were confounded
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or disarmed by the power of His utterance and the warmth of His
love; of the priests and laymen, the noble and learned, who besought
Him with the intention of either challenging His authority, or testing
His knowledge, or investigating His claims, or confessing their
shortcomings, or declaring their conversion to the Cause He had
espoused.
From such a treasury of precious memories it will suffice my
purpose to cite but a single instance, that of one of His ardent lovers,
a native of Zavárih, Siyyid Ismá'íl by name, surnamed Dhabíh
(the Sacrifice), formerly a noted divine, taciturn, meditative and
wholly severed from every earthly tie, whose self-appointed task, on
which he prided himself, was to sweep the approaches of the house
in which Bahá'u'lláh was dwelling. Unwinding his green turban, the
ensign of his holy lineage, from his head, he would, at the hour of
dawn, gather up, with infinite patience, the rubble which the footsteps
of his Beloved had trodden, would blow the dust from the
crannies of the wall adjacent to the door of that house, would collect
the sweepings in the folds of his own cloak, and, scorning to cast
his burden for the feet of others to tread upon, would carry it as far
as the banks of the river and throw it into its waters. Unable, at
length, to contain the ocean of love that surged within his soul, he,
after having denied himself for forty days both sleep and sustenance,
and rendering for the last time the service so dear to his heart,
betook himself, one day, to the banks of the river, on the road to
Kázimayn, performed his ablutions, lay down on his back, with his
face turned towards Baghdád, severed his throat with a razor, laid
the razor upon his breast, and expired. (1275 A.H.)
Nor was he the only one who had meditated such an act and
was determined to carry it out. Others were ready to follow suit,
had not Bahá'u'lláh promptly intervened, and ordered the refugees
living in Baghdád to return immediately to their native land. Nor
could the authorities, when it was definitely established that Dhabíh
had died by his own hand, remain indifferent to a Cause whose Leader
could inspire so rare a devotion in, and hold such absolute sway
over, the hearts of His lovers. Apprized of the apprehensions that
episode had evoked in certain quarters in Baghdád, Bahá'u'lláh is
reported to have remarked: "Siyyid Ismá'íl was possessed of such
power and might that were he to be confronted by all the peoples
of the earth, he would, without doubt, be able to establish his
ascendancy over them." "No blood," He is reported to have said
with reference to this same Dhabíh, whom He extolled as "King and
+P137
Beloved of Martyrs," "has, till now, been poured upon the earth as
pure as the blood he shed."
"So intoxicated were those who had quaffed from the cup of
Bahá'u'lláh's presence," is yet another testimony from the pen of
Nabíl, who was himself an eye-witness of most of these stirring
episodes, "that in their eyes the palaces of kings appeared more
ephemeral than a spider's web.... The celebrations and festivities
that were theirs were such as the kings of the earth had never dreamt
of." "I, myself with two others," he relates, "lived in a room which
was devoid of furniture. Bahá'u'lláh entered it one day, and, looking
about Him, remarked: `Its emptiness pleases Me. In My estimation
it is preferable to many a spacious palace, inasmuch as the beloved
of God are occupied in it with the remembrance of the Incomparable
Friend, with hearts that are wholly emptied of the dross of this
world.'" His own life was characterized by that same austerity,
and evinced that same simplicity which marked the lives of His
beloved companions. "There was a time in `Iráq," He Himself affirms,
in one of His Tablets, "when the Ancient Beauty ... had no change
of linen. The one shirt He possessed would be washed, dried and
worn again."
"Many a night," continues Nabíl, depicting the lives of those
self-oblivious companions, "no less than ten persons subsisted on no
more than a pennyworth of dates. No one knew to whom actually
belonged the shoes, the cloaks, or the robes that were to be found in
their houses. Whoever went to the bazaar could claim that the shoes
upon his feet were his own, and each one who entered the presence
of Bahá'u'lláh could affirm that the cloak and robe he then wore
belonged to him. Their own names they had forgotten, their hearts
were emptied of aught else except adoration for their Beloved....
O, for the joy of those days, and the gladness and wonder of those
hours!"
The enormous expansion in the scope and volume of Bahá'u'lláh's
writings, after His return from Sulamáníyyih, is yet another distinguishing
feature of the period under review. The verses that
streamed during those years from His pen, described as "a copious
rain" by Himself, whether in the form of epistles, exhortations, commentaries,
apologies, dissertations, prophecies, prayers, odes or specific
Tablets, contributed, to a marked degree, to the reformation and
progressive unfoldment of the Bábí community, to the broadening
of its outlook, to the expansion of its activities and to the enlightenment
of the minds of its members. So prolific was this period, that
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during the first two years after His return from His retirement,
according to the testimony of Nabíl, who was at that time living in
Baghdád, the unrecorded verses that streamed from His lips averaged,
in a single day and night, the equivalent of the Qur'án! As to those
verses which He either dictated or wrote Himself, their number was
no less remarkable than either the wealth of material they contained,
or the diversity of subjects to which they referred. A vast, and
indeed the greater, proportion of these writings were, alas, lost irretrievably
to posterity. No less an authority than Mírzá Áqá Ján,
Bahá'u'lláh's amanuensis, affirms, as reported by Nabíl, that by the
express order of Bahá'u'lláh, hundreds of thousands of verses, mostly
written by His own hand, were obliterated and cast into the river.
"Finding me reluctant to execute His orders," Mírzá Áqá Ján has
related to Nabíl, "Bahá'u'lláh would reassure me saying: `None is
to be found at this time worthy to hear these melodies.' ...Not
once, or twice, but innumerable times, was I commanded to repeat
this act." A certain Muhammad Karím, a native of Shíráz, who
had been a witness to the rapidity and the manner in which the
Báb had penned the verses with which He was inspired, has left the
following testimony to posterity, after attaining, during those days,
the presence of Bahá'u'lláh, and beholding with his own eyes what
he himself had considered to be the only proof of the mission of the
Promised One: "I bear witness that the verses revealed by Bahá'u'lláh
were superior, in the rapidity with which they were penned, in the
ease with which they flowed, in their lucidity, their profundity and
sweetness to those which I, myself saw pour from the pen of the
Báb when in His presence. Had Bahá'u'lláh no other claim to greatness,
this were sufficient, in the eyes of the world and its people, that
He produced such verses as have streamed this day from His pen."
Foremost among the priceless treasures cast forth from the billowing
ocean of Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation ranks the Kitáb-i-Iqán
(Book of Certitude), revealed within the space of two days and two
nights, in the closing years of that period (1278 A.H.--1862 A.D.).
It was written in fulfillment of the prophecy of the Báb, Who had
specifically stated that the Promised One would complete the text
of the unfinished Persian Bayán, and in reply to the questions addressed
to Bahá'u'lláh by the as yet unconverted maternal uncle of
the Báb, Hájí Mírzá Siyyid Muhammad, while on a visit, with his
brother, Hájí Mírzá Hasan-'Ali, to Karbilá. A model of Persian
prose, of a style at once original, chaste and vigorous, and remarkably
lucid, both cogent in argument and matchless in its irresistible eloquence,
+P139
this Book, setting forth in outline the Grand Redemptive
Scheme of God, occupies a position unequalled by any work in the entire
range of Bahá'í literature, except the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Bahá'u'lláh's
Most Holy Book. Revealed on the eve of the declaration of His
Mission, it proffered to mankind the "Choice Sealed Wine," whose
seal is of "musk," and broke the "seals" of the "Book" referred to by
Daniel, and disclosed the meaning of the "words" destined to remain
"closed up" till the "time of the end."
Within a compass of two hundred pages it proclaims unequivocally
the existence and oneness of a personal God, unknowable,
inaccessible, the source of all Revelation, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent
and almighty; asserts the relativity of religious truth and the
continuity of Divine Revelation; affirms the unity of the Prophets,
the universality of their Message, the identity of their fundamental
teachings, the sanctity of their scriptures, and the twofold character
of their stations; denounces the blindness and perversity of the divines
and doctors of every age; cites and elucidates the allegorical passages
of the New Testament, the abstruse verses of the Qur'án, and the
cryptic Muhammadan traditions which have bred those age-long
misunderstandings, doubts and animosities that have sundered and
kept apart the followers of the world's leading religious systems;
enumerates the essential prerequisites for the attainment by every
true seeker of the object of his quest; demonstrates the validity, the
sublimity and significance of the Báb's Revelation; acclaims the
heroism and detachment of His disciples; foreshadows, and prophesies
the world-wide triumph of the Revelation promised to the people
of the Bayán; upholds the purity and innocence of the Virgin Mary;
glorifies the Imáms of the Faith of Muhammad; celebrates the
martyrdom, and lauds the spiritual sovereignty, of the Imám Husayn;
unfolds the meaning of such symbolic terms as "Return," "Resurrection,"
"Seal of the Prophets" and "Day of Judgment"; adumbrates
and distinguishes between the three stages of Divine Revelation; and
expatiates, in glowing terms, upon the glories and wonders of the
"City of God," renewed, at fixed intervals, by the dispensation of
Providence, for the guidance, the benefit and salvation of all mankind.
Well may it be claimed that of all the books revealed by the
Author of the Bahá'í Revelation, this Book alone, by sweeping away
the age-long barriers that have so insurmountably separated the great
religions of the world, has laid down a broad and unassailable foundation
for the complete and permanent reconciliation of their followers.
Next to this unique repository of inestimable treasures must rank
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that marvelous collection of gem-like utterances, the "Hidden
Words" with which Bahá'u'lláh was inspired, as He paced, wrapped in
His meditations, the banks of the Tigris. Revealed in the year
1274 A.H., partly in Persian, partly in Arabic, it was originally
designated the "Hidden Book of Fátimih," and was identified by its
Author with the Book of that same name, believed by Shí'ah Islám
to be in the possession of the promised Qá'im, and to consist of words
of consolation addressed by the angel Gabriel, at God's command,
to Fátimih, and dictated to the Imám `Alí, for the sole purpose of
comforting her in her hour of bitter anguish after the death of her
illustrious Father. The significance of this dynamic spiritual leaven
cast into the life of the world for the reorientation of the minds of
men, the edification of their souls and the rectification of their conduct
can best be judged by the description of its character given in
the opening passage by its Author: "This is that which hath descended
from the Realm of Glory, uttered by the tongue of power and might,
and revealed unto the Prophets of old. We have taken the inner
essence thereof and clothed it in the garment of brevity, as a token
of grace unto the righteous, that they may stand faithful unto the
Covenant of God, may fulfill in their lives His trust, and in the realm
of spirit obtain the gem of Divine virtue."
To these two outstanding contributions to the world's religious
literature, occupying respectively, positions of unsurpassed preeminence
among the doctrinal and ethical writings of the Author of the
Bahá'í Dispensation, was added, during that same period, a treatise
that may well be regarded as His greatest mystical composition, designated
as the "Seven Valleys," which He wrote in answer to the questions
of Shaykh Muhyi'd-Dín, the Qádí of Khániqayn, in which He
describes the seven stages which the soul of the seeker must needs
traverse ere it can attain the object of its existence.
The "Four Valleys," an epistle addressed to the learned Shaykh
`Abdu'r-Rahmán-i-Kárkútí; the "Tablet of the Holy Mariner," in
which Bahá'u'lláh prophesies the severe afflictions that are to befall
Him; the "Lawh-i-Huríyyih" (Tablet of the Maiden), in which
events of a far remoter future are foreshadowed; the "Súriy-i-Sabr"
(Súrih of Patience), revealed on the first day of Ridván which
extols Vahíd and his fellow-sufferers in Nayríz; the commentary on
the Letters prefixed to the Súrihs of the Qur'án; His interpretation
of the letter Váv, mentioned in the writings of Shaykh Ahmad-i-Ahsá'í,
and of other abstruse passages in the works of Siyyid
Kázim-i-Rashtí; the "Lawh-i-Madínatu't-Tawhíd" (Tablet of the
+P141
City of Unity); the "Sahífiy-i-Shattíyyih"; the
"Musibat-i-Hurúfat-i-`Alíyat"; the "Tafsír-i-Hú"; the "Javáhiru'l-`Asrár" and
a host of other writings, in the form of epistles, odes, homilies, specific
Tablets, commentaries and prayers, contributed, each in its own way, to swell
the "rivers of everlasting life" which poured forth from the "Abode
of Peace" and lent a mighty impetus to the expansion of the Báb's
Faith in both Persia and `Iráq, quickening the souls and transforming
the character of its adherents.
The undeniable evidences of the range and magnificence of
Bahá'u'lláh's rising power; His rapidly waxing prestige; the miraculous
transformation which, by precept and example, He had effected
in the outlook and character of His companions from Baghdád to
the remotest towns and hamlets in Persia; the consuming love for
Him that glowed in their bosoms; the prodigious volume of writings
that streamed day and night from His pen, could not fail to fan
into flame the animosity which smouldered in the breasts of His
Shí'ah and Sunní enemies. Now that His residence was transferred
to the vicinity of the strongholds of Shí'ah Islám, and He Himself
brought into direct and almost daily contact with the fanatical
pilgrims who thronged the holy places of Najaf, Karbilá and Kázimayn,
a trial of strength between the growing brilliance of His glory
and the dark and embattled forces of religious fanaticism could no
longer be delayed. A spark was all that was required to ignite this
combustible material of all the accumulated hatreds, fears and jealousies
which the revived activities of the Bábís had inspired. This
was provided by a certain Shaykh `Abdu'l-Husayn, a crafty and
obstinate priest, whose consuming jealousy of Bahá'u'lláh was surpassed
only by his capacity to stir up mischief both among those of
high degree and also amongst the lowest of the low, Arab or Persian,
who thronged the streets and markets of Kázimayn, Karbilá and
Baghdád. He it was whom Bahá'u'lláh had stigmatized in His Tablets
by such epithets as the "scoundrel," the "schemer," the "wicked one,"
who "drew the sword of his self against the face of God," "in whose
soul Satan hath whispered," and "from whose impiety Satan flies,"
the "depraved one," "from whom originated and to whom will return
all infidelity, cruelty and crime." Largely through the efforts of the
Grand Vizir, who wished to get rid of him, this troublesome mujtahid
had been commissioned by the Sháh to proceed to Karbilá to repair
the holy sites in that city. Watching for his opportunity, he allied
himself with Mírzá Buzurg Khán, a newly-appointed Persian consul-general,
who being of the same iniquitous turn of mind as himself,
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a man of mean intelligence, insincere, without foresight or honor,
and a confirmed drunkard, soon fell a prey to the influence of that
vicious plotter, and became the willing instrument of his designs.
Their first concerted endeavor was to obtain from the governor
of Baghdád, Mustafá Páshá, through a gross distortion of the truth,
an order for the extradition of Bahá'u'lláh and His companions, an
effort which miserably failed. Recognizing the futility of any
attempt to achieve his purpose through the intervention of the local
authorities, Shaykh `Abdu'l-Husayn began, through the sedulous circulation
of dreams which he first invented and then interpreted, to
excite the passions of a superstitious and highly inflammable population.
The resentment engendered by the lack of response he met with
was aggravated by his ignominious failure to meet the challenge of
an interview pre-arranged between himself and Bahá'u'lláh. Mírzá
Buzurg Khán, on his part, used his influence in order to arouse the
animosity of the lower elements of the population against the common
Adversary, by inciting them to affront Him in public, in the
hope of provoking some rash retaliatory act that could be used as
a ground for false charges through which the desired order for
Bahá'u'lláh's extradition might be procured. This attempt too proved
abortive, as the presence of Bahá'u'lláh, Who, despite the warnings
and pleadings of His friends, continued to walk unescorted, both by
day and by night, through the streets of the city, was enough to
plunge His would-be molesters into consternation and shame. Well
aware of their motives, He would approach them, rally them on their
intentions, joke with them, and leave them covered with confusion
and firmly resolved to abandon whatever schemes they had in mind.
The consul-general had even gone so far as to hire a ruffian, a Turk,
named Ridá, for the sum of one hundred túmans, provide him with
a horse and with two pistols, and order him to seek out and kill
Bahá'u'lláh, promising him that his own protection would be fully
assured. Ridá, learning one day that his would-be-victim was attending
the public bath, eluded the vigilance of the Bábís in attendance,
entered the bath with a pistol concealed in his cloak, and confronted
Bahá'u'lláh in the inner chamber, only to discover that he lacked
the courage to accomplish his task. He himself, years later, related
that on another occasion he was lying in wait for Bahá'u'lláh, pistol
in hand, when, on Bahá'u'lláh's approach, he was so overcome with
fear that the pistol dropped from his hand; whereupon Bahá'u'lláh
bade Aqáy-i-Kalím, who accompanied Him, to hand it back to him,
and show him the way to his home.
+P143
Balked in his repeated attempts to achieve his malevolent purpose,
Shaykh `Abdu'l-Husayn now diverted his energies into a new
channel. He promised his accomplice he would raise him to the rank
of a minister of the crown, if he succeeded in inducing the government
to recall Bahá'u'lláh to Tihrán, and cast Him again into prison.
He despatched lengthy and almost daily reports to the immediate
entourage of the Sháh. He painted extravagant pictures of the
ascendancy enjoyed by Bahá'u'lláh by representing Him as having
won the allegiance of the nomadic tribes of `Iráq. He claimed that
He was in a position to muster, in a day, fully one hundred thousand
men ready to take up arms at His bidding. He accused Him of
meditating, in conjunction with various leaders in Persia, an insurrection
against the sovereign. By such means as these he succeeded in
bringing sufficient pressure on the authorities in Tihrán to induce
the Sháh to grant him a mandate, bestowing on him full powers,
and enjoining the Persian `ulamás and functionaries to render him
every assistance. This mandate the Shaykh instantly forwarded to
the ecclesiastics of Najaf and Karbilá, asking them to convene a
gathering in Kázimayn, the place of his residence. A concourse of
shaykhs, mullás and mujtahids, eager to curry favor with the sovereign,
promptly responded. Upon being informed of the purpose
for which they had been summoned, they determined to declare a
holy war against the colony of exiles, and by launching a sudden
and general assault on it to destroy the Faith at its heart. To their
amazement and disappointment, however, they found that the leading
mujtahid amongst them, the celebrated Shaykh Murtadáy-i-Ansárí,
a man renowned for his tolerance, his wisdom, his undeviating
justice, his piety and nobility of character, refused, when apprized
of their designs, to pronounce the necessary sentence against the
Bábís. He it was whom Bahá'u'lláh later extolled in the "Lawh-i-Sultán,"
and numbered among "those doctors who have indeed drunk
of the cup of renunciation," and "never interfered with Him," and
to whom `Abdu'l-Bahá referred as "the illustrious and erudite doctor,
the noble and celebrated scholar, the seal of seekers after truth."
Pleading insufficient knowledge of the tenets of this community, and
claiming to have witnessed no act on the part of its members at
variance with the Qur'án, he, disregarding the remonstrances of his
colleagues, abruptly left the gathering, and returned to Najaf, after
having expressed, through a messenger, his regret to Bahá'u'lláh for
what had happened, and his devout wish for His protection.
Frustrated in their designs, but unrelenting in their hostility, the
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assembled divines delegated the learned and devout Hájí Mullá
Hasan-i-`Ammú, recognized for his integrity and wisdom, to submit
various questions to Bahá'u'lláh for elucidation. When these were
submitted, and answers completely satisfactory to the messenger were
given, Hájí Mullá Hasan, affirming the recognition by the `ulamás
of the vastness of the knowledge of Bahá'u'lláh, asked, as an evidence
of the truth of His mission, for a miracle that would satisfy completely
all concerned. "Although you have no right to ask this,"
Bahá'u'lláh replied, "for God should test His creatures, and they
should not test God, still I allow and accept this request.... The
`ulamás must assemble, and, with one accord, choose one miracle, and
write that, after the performance of this miracle they will no longer
entertain doubts about Me, and that all will acknowledge and confess
the truth of My Cause. Let them seal this paper, and bring it
to Me. This must be the accepted criterion: if the miracle is performed,
no doubt will remain for them; and if not, We shall be
convicted of imposture." This clear, challenging and courageous
reply, unexampled in the annals of any religion, and addressed to
the most illustrious Shí'ah divines, assembled in their time-honored
stronghold, was so satisfactory to their envoy that he instantly arose,
kissed the knee of Bahá'u'lláh, and departed to deliver His message.
Three days later he sent word that that august assemblage had failed
to arrive at a decision, and had chosen to drop the matter, a decision
to which he himself later gave wide publicity, in the course of his visit
to Persia, and even communicated it in person to the then Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Mírzá Sa'íd Khán. "We have," Bahá'u'lláh is
reported to have commented, when informed of their reaction to
this challenge, "through this all-satisfying, all-embracing message
which We sent, revealed and vindicated the miracles of all the
Prophets, inasmuch as We left the choice to the `ulamás themselves,
undertaking to reveal whatever they would decide upon." "If we
carefully examine the text of the Bible," `Abdu'l-Bahá has written
concerning a similar challenge made later by Bahá'u'lláh in the
"Lawh-i-Sultán," "we see that the Divine Manifestation never said
to those who denied Him, `whatever miracle you desire, I am ready
to perform, and I will submit to whatever test you propose.' But
in the Epistle to the Sháh Bahá'u'lláh said clearly, `Gather the `ulamás
and summon Me, that the evidences and proofs may be established.'"
Seven years of uninterrupted, of patient and eminently successful
consolidation were now drawing to a close. A shepherdless community,
subjected to a prolonged and tremendous strain, from both
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within and without, and threatened with obliteration, had been
resuscitated, and risen to an ascendancy without example in the
course of its twenty years' history. Its foundations reinforced, its
spirit exalted, its outlook transformed, its leadership safeguarded, its
fundamentals restated, its prestige enhanced, its enemies discomfited,
the Hand of Destiny was gradually preparing to launch it on a new
phase in its checkered career, in which weal and woe alike were to
carry it through yet another stage in its evolution. The Deliverer,
the sole hope, and the virtually recognized leader of this community,
Who had consistently overawed the authors of so many plots to
assassinate Him, Who had scornfully rejected all the timid advice
that He should flee from the scene of danger, Who had firmly declined
repeated and generous offers made by friends and supporters
to insure His personal safety, Who had won so conspicuous a victory
over His antagonists--He was, at this auspicious hour, being impelled
by the resistless processes of His unfolding Mission, to transfer His
residence to the center of still greater preeminence, the capital city
of the Ottoman Empire, the seat of the Caliphate, the administrative
center of Sunní Islám, the abode of the most powerful potentate in
the Islamic world.
He had already flung a daring challenge to the sacerdotal order
represented by the eminent ecclesiastics residing in Najaf, Karbilá
and Kázimayn. He was now, while in the vicinity of the court of
His royal adversary, to offer a similar challenge to the recognized
head of Sunní Islám, as well as to the sovereign of Persia, the trustee
of the hidden Imám. The entire company of the kings of the earth,
and in particular the Sultán and his ministers, were, moreover, to
be addressed by Him, appealed to and warned, while the kings of
Christendom and the Sunní hierarchy were to be severely admonished.
Little wonder that the exiled Bearer of a newly-announced
Revelation should have, in anticipation of the future splendor of
the Lamp of His Faith, after its removal from `Iráq, uttered these
prophetic words: "It will shine resplendently within another globe,
as predestined by Him who is the Omnipotent, the Ancient of Days.
...That the Spirit should depart out of the body of `Iráq is indeed
a wondrous sign unto all who are in heaven and all who are on earth.
Erelong will ye behold this Divine Youth riding upon the steed of
victory. Then will the hearts of the envious be seized with
trembling."
The predestined hour of Bahá'u'lláh's departure from `Iráq having
now struck, the process whereby it could be accomplished was set
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in motion. The nine months of unremitting endeavor exerted by
His enemies, and particularly by Shaykh `Abdu'l-Husayn and his
confederate Mírzá Buzurg Khán, were about to yield their fruit.
Násiri'd-Dín Sháh and his ministers, on the one hand, and the Persian
Ambassador in Constantinople, on the other, were incessantly urged
to take immediate action to insure Bahá'u'lláh's removal from
Baghdád. Through gross misrepresentation of the true situation and
the dissemination of alarming reports a malignant and energetic
enemy finally succeeded in persuading the Sháh to instruct his foreign
minister, Mírzá Sa'íd Khán, to direct the Persian Ambassador at the
Sublime Porte, Mírzá Husayn Khán, a close friend of `Alí Páshá,
the Grand Vizir of the Sultán, and of Fu'ád Páshá, the Minister of
foreign affairs, to induce Sultán `Abdu'l-`Azíz to order the immediate
transfer of Bahá'u'lláh to a place remote from Baghdád, on the
ground that His continued residence in that city, adjacent to Persian
territory and close to so important a center of Shí'ah pilgrimage, constituted
a direct menace to the security of Persia and its government.
Mírzá Sa'íd Khán, in his communication to the Ambassador,
stigmatized the Faith as a "misguided and detestable sect," deplored
Bahá'u'lláh's release from the Síyáh-Chál, and denounced Him as
one who did not cease from "secretly corrupting and misleading
foolish persons and ignorant weaklings." "In accordance with the
royal command," he wrote, "I, your faithful friend, have been ordered
... to instruct you to seek, without delay, an appointment
with their Excellencies, the Sadr-i-A'zam and the Minister of Foreign
Affairs ... to request ... the removal of this source of mischief from
a center like Baghdád, which is the meeting-place of many different
peoples, and is situated near the frontiers of the provinces of Persia."
In that same letter, quoting a celebrated verse, he writes: "`I see
beneath the ashes the glow of fire, and it wants but little to burst
into a blaze,'" thus betraying his fears and seeking to instill them
into his correspondent.
Encouraged by the presence on the throne of a monarch who
had delegated much of his powers to his ministers, and aided by certain
foreign ambassadors and ministers in Constantinople, Mírzá
Husayn Khán, by dint of much persuasion and the friendly pressure
he brought to bear on these ministers, succeeded in securing the sanction
of the Sultán for the transfer of Bahá'u'lláh and His companions
(who had in the meantime been forced by circumstances to change
their citizenship) to Constantinople. It is even reported that the
first request the Persian authorities made of a friendly Power, after
+P147
the accession of the new Sultán to the throne, was for its active and
prompt intervention in this matter.
It was on the fifth of Naw-Rúz (1863), while Bahá'u'lláh was
celebrating that festival in the Mazrá'iy-i-Vashshásh, in the outskirts
of Baghdád, and had just revealed the "Tablet of the Holy Mariner,"
whose gloomy prognostications had aroused the grave apprehensions
of His Companions, that an emissary of Námiq Páshá arrived and
delivered into His hands a communication requesting an interview
between Him and the governor.
Already, as Nabíl has pointed out in his narrative, Bahá'u'lláh
had, in the course of His discourses, during the last years of His
sojourn in Baghdád, alluded to the period of trial and turmoil that
was inexorably approaching, exhibiting a sadness and heaviness of
heart which greatly perturbed those around Him. A dream which
He had at that time, the ominous character of which could not be
mistaken, served to confirm the fears and misgivings that had assailed
His companions. "I saw," He wrote in a Tablet, "the Prophets and
the Messengers gather and seat themselves around Me, moaning, weeping
and loudly lamenting. Amazed, I inquired of them the reason,
whereupon their lamentation and weeping waxed greater, and they
said unto me: `We weep for Thee, O Most Great Mystery, O Tabernacle
of Immortality!' They wept with such a weeping that I too
wept with them. Thereupon the Concourse on high addressed Me
saying: `...Erelong shalt Thou behold with Thine own eyes what
no Prophet hath beheld.... Be patient, be patient.'... They continued
addressing Me the whole night until the approach of dawn."
"Oceans of sorrow," Nabíl affirms, "surged in the hearts of the listeners
when the Tablet of the Holy Mariner was read aloud to them....
It was evident to every one that the chapter of Baghdád was about
to be closed, and a new one opened, in its stead. No sooner had that
Tablet been chanted than Bahá'u'lláh ordered that the tents which
had been pitched should be folded up, and that all His companions
should return to the city. While the tents were being removed He
observed: `These tents may be likened to the trappings of this world,
which no sooner are they spread out than the time cometh for them
to be rolled up.' From these words of His they who heard them
perceived that these tents would never again be pitched on that spot.
They had not yet been taken away when the messenger arrived
from Baghdád to deliver the afore-mentioned communication from
the governor."
By the following day the Deputy-Governor had delivered to
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Bahá'u'lláh in a mosque, in the neighborhood of the governor's house,
`Alí Páshá's letter, addressed to Námiq Páshá, couched in courteous
language, inviting Bahá'u'lláh to proceed, as a guest of the Ottoman
government, to Constantinople, placing a sum of money at His
disposal, and ordering a mounted escort to accompany Him for His
protection. To this request Bahá'u'lláh gave His ready assent, but
declined to accept the sum offered Him. On the urgent representations
of the Deputy that such a refusal would offend the authorities,
He reluctantly consented to receive the generous allowance set aside
for His use, and distributed it, that same day, among the poor.
The effect upon the colony of exiles of this sudden intelligence
was instantaneous and overwhelming. "That day," wrote an eyewitness,
describing the reaction of the community to the news of
Bahá'u'lláh's approaching departure, "witnessed a commotion associated
with the turmoil of the Day of Resurrection. Methinks, the
very gates and walls of the city wept aloud at their imminent separation
from the Abhá Beloved. The first night mention was made of
His intended departure His loved ones, one and all, renounced both
sleep and food.... Not a soul amongst them could be tranquillized.
Many had resolved that in the event of their being deprived of the
bounty of accompanying Him, they would, without hesitation, kill
themselves.... Gradually, however, through the words which He addressed
them, and through His exhortations and His loving-kindness,
they were calmed and resigned themselves to His good-pleasure."
For every one of them, whether Arab or Persian, man or woman,
child or adult, who lived in Baghdád, He revealed during those days,
in His own hand, a separate Tablet. In most of these Tablets He
predicted the appearance of the "Calf" and of the "Birds of the
Night," allusions to those who, as anticipated in the Tablet of the
Holy Mariner, and foreshadowed in the dream quoted above, were
to raise the standard of rebellion and precipitate the gravest crisis in
the history of the Faith.
Twenty-seven days after that mournful Tablet had been so unexpectedly
revealed by Bahá'u'lláh, and the fateful communication,
presaging His departure to Constantinople had been delivered into
His hands, on a Wednesday afternoon (April 22, 1863), thirty-one
days after Naw-Rúz, on the third of Dhi'l-Qádih, 1279 A.H., He
set forth on the first stage of His four months' journey to the capital
of the Ottoman Empire. That historic day, forever after designated
as the first day of the Ridván Festival, the culmination of innumerable
farewell visits which friends and acquaintances of every class
+P149
and denomination, had been paying him, was one the like of which
the inhabitants of Baghdád had rarely beheld. A concourse of people
of both sexes and of every age, comprising friends and strangers
Arabs, Kurds and Persians, notables and clerics, officials and merchants,
as well as many of the lower classes, the poor, the orphaned,
the outcast, some surprised, others heartbroken, many tearful and
apprehensive, a few impelled by curiosity or secret satisfaction,
thronged the approaches of His house, eager to catch a final glimpse
of One Who, for a decade, had, through precept and example, exercised
so potent an influence on so large a number of the heterogeneous
inhabitants of their city.
Leaving for the last time, amidst weeping and lamentation, His
"Most Holy Habitation," out of which had "gone forth the breath
of the All-Glorious," and from which had poured forth, in "ceaseless
strains," the "melody of the All-Merciful," and dispensing on His
way with a lavish hand a last alms to the poor He had so faithfully
befriended, and uttering words of comfort to the disconsolate who
besought Him on every side, He, at length, reached the banks of the
river, and was ferried across, accompanied by His sons and amanuensis,
to the Najíbíyyih Garden, situated on the opposite shore.
"O My companions," He thus addressed the faithful band that surrounded
Him before He embarked, "I entrust to your keeping this
city of Baghdád, in the state ye now behold it, when from the eyes
of friends and strangers alike, crowding its housetops, its streets and
markets, tears like the rain of spring are flowing down, and I depart.
With you it now rests to watch lest your deeds and conduct dim the
flame of love that gloweth within the breasts of its inhabitants."
The muezzin had just raised the afternoon call to prayer when
Bahá'u'lláh entered the Najíbíyyih Garden, where He tarried twelve
days before His final departure from the city. There His friends
and companions, arriving in successive waves, attained His presence
and bade Him, with feelings of profound sorrow, their last farewell.
Outstanding among them was the renowned Álúsí, the Muftí of
Baghdád, who, with eyes dimmed with tears, execrated the name of
Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, whom he deemed to be primarily responsible for
so unmerited a banishment. "I have ceased to regard him," he openly
asserted, "as Násiri'd-Dín (the helper of the Faith), but consider
him rather to be its wrecker." Another distinguished visitor was the
governor himself, Námiq Páshá, who, after expressing in the most
respectful terms his regret at the developments which had precipitated
Bahá'u'lláh's departure, and assuring Him of his readiness to
+P150
aid Him in any way he could, handed to the officer appointed to
accompany Him a written order, commanding the governors of the
provinces through which the exiles would be passing to extend to
them the utmost consideration. "Whatever you require," he, after
profuse apologies, informed Bahá'u'lláh, "you have but to command.
We are ready to carry it out." "Extend thy consideration to Our
loved ones," was the reply to his insistent and reiterated offers, "and
deal with them with kindness"--a request to which he gave his
warm and unhesitating assent.
Small wonder that, in the face of so many evidences of deep-seated
devotion, sympathy and esteem, so strikingly manifested by
high and low alike, from the time Bahá'u'lláh announced His contemplated
journey to the day of His departure from the Najíbíyyih
Garden--small wonder that those who had so tirelessly sought to
secure the order for His banishment, and had rejoiced at the success
of their efforts, should now have bitterly regretted their act. "Such
hath been the interposition of God," `Abdu'l-Bahá, in a letter written
by Him from that garden, with reference to these enemies, affirms,
"that the joy evinced by them hath been turned to chagrin and sorrow,
so much so that the Persian consul-general in Baghdád regrets
exceedingly the plans and plots the schemers had devised. Námiq
Páshá himself, on the day he called on Him (Bahá'u'lláh) stated:
`Formerly they insisted upon your departure. Now, however, they
are even more insistent that you should remain.'"
+P151
CHAPTER IX
The Declaration of Bahá'u'lláh's Mission and His
Journey to Constantinople
The arrival of Bahá'u'lláh in the Najíbíyyih Garden, subsequently
designated by His followers the Garden of Ridván, signalizes
the commencement of what has come to be recognized as the holiest
and most significant of all Bahá'í festivals, the festival commemorating
the Declaration of His Mission to His companions. So momentous
a Declaration may well be regarded both as the logical consummation
of that revolutionizing process which was initiated by Himself upon
His return from Sulamáníyyih, and as a prelude to the final proclamation
of that same Mission to the world and its rulers from Adrianople.
Through that solemn act the "delay," of no less than a decade,
divinely interposed between the birth of Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation in
the Síyáh-Chál and its announcement to the Báb's disciples, was at
long last terminated. The "set time of concealment," during which
as He Himself has borne witness, the "signs and tokens of a divinely-appointed
Revelation" were being showered upon Him, was fulfilled.
The "myriad veils of light," within which His glory had been wrapped,
were, at that historic hour, partially lifted, vouchsafing to mankind
"an infinitesimal glimmer" of the effulgence of His "peerless, His
most sacred and exalted Countenance." The "thousand two hundred
and ninety days," fixed by Daniel in the last chapter of His Book, as
the duration of the "abomination that maketh desolate" had now
elapsed. The "hundred lunar years," destined to immediately precede
that blissful consummation (1335 days), announced by Daniel in
that same chapter, had commenced. The nineteen years, constituting
the first "Vahíd," preordained in the Persian Bayán by the pen of
the Báb, had been completed. The Lord of the Kingdom, Jesus Christ
returned in the glory of the Father, was about to ascend His throne,
and assume the sceptre of a world-embracing, indestructible sovereignty.
The community of the Most Great Name, the "companions
of the Crimson Colored Ark," lauded in glowing terms in the
Qayyúmu'l-Asmá', had visibly emerged. The Báb's own prophecy
regarding the "Ridván," the scene of the unveiling of Bahá'u'lláh's
transcendent glory, had been literally fulfilled.
+P152
Undaunted by the prospect of the appalling adversities which, as
predicted by Himself, were soon to overtake Him; on the eve of a
second banishment which would be fraught with many hazards and
perils, and would bring Him still farther from His native land, the
cradle of His Faith, to a country alien in race, in language and in
culture; acutely conscious of the extension of the circle of His
adversaries, among whom were soon to be numbered a monarch more
despotic than Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, and ministers no less unyielding in
their hostility than either Hájí Mírzá Aqásí or the Amír-Nizám;
undeterred by the perpetual interruptions occasioned by the influx
of a host of visitors who thronged His tent, Bahá'u'lláh chose in that
critical and seemingly unpropitious hour to advance so challenging a
claim, to lay bare the mystery surrounding His person, and to
assume, in their plenitude, the power and the authority which were
the exclusive privileges of the One Whose advent the Báb had
prophesied.
Already the shadow of that great oncoming event had fallen
upon the colony of exiles, who awaited expectantly its consummation.
As the year "eighty" steadily and inexorably approached, He
Who had become the real leader of that community increasingly
experienced, and progressively communicated to His future followers,
the onrushing influences of its informing force. The festive, the
soul-entrancing odes which He revealed almost every day; the Tablets,
replete with hints, which streamed from His pen; the allusions which,
in private converse and public discourse, He made to the approaching
hour; the exaltation which in moments of joy and sadness alike flooded
His soul; the ecstasy which filled His lovers, already enraptured by
the multiplying evidences of His rising greatness and glory; the
perceptible change noted in His demeanor; and finally, His adoption
of the táj (tall felt head-dress), on the day of His departure from
His Most Holy House--all proclaimed unmistakably His imminent
assumption of the prophetic office and of His open leadership of the
community of the Báb's followers.
"Many a night," writes Nabíl, depicting the tumult that had
seized the hearts of Bahá'u'lláh's companions, in the days prior to the
declaration of His mission, "would Mírzá Áqá Ján gather them
together in his room, close the door, light numerous camphorated
candles, and chant aloud to them the newly revealed odes and Tablets
in his possession. Wholly oblivious of this contingent world,
completely immersed in the realms of the spirit, forgetful of the
necessity for food, sleep or drink, they would suddenly discover
+P153
that night had become day, and that the sun was approaching its
zenith."
Of the exact circumstances attending that epoch-making Declaration
we, alas, are but scantily informed. The words Bahá'u'lláh actually
uttered on that occasion, the manner of His Declaration, the
reaction it produced, its impact on Mírzá Yahyá, the identity of those
who were privileged to hear Him, are shrouded in an obscurity which
future historians will find it difficult to penetrate. The fragmentary
description left to posterity by His chronicler Nabíl is one of the
very few authentic records we possess of the memorable days He
spent in that garden. "Every day," Nabíl has related, "ere the hour
of dawn, the gardeners would pick the roses which lined the four
avenues of the garden, and would pile them in the center of the floor
of His blessed tent. So great would be the heap that when His companions
gathered to drink their morning tea in His presence, they
would be unable to see each other across it. All these roses Bahá'u'lláh
would, with His own hands, entrust to those whom He dismissed
from His presence every morning to be delivered, on His behalf, to
His Arab and Persian friends in the city." "One night," he continues,
"the ninth night of the waxing moon, I happened to be one of
those who watched beside His blessed tent. As the hour of midnight
approached, I saw Him issue from His tent, pass by the places where
some of His companions were sleeping, and begin to pace up and
down the moonlit, flower-bordered avenues of the garden. So loud
was the singing of the nightingales on every side that only those who
were near Him could hear distinctly His voice. He continued to
walk until, pausing in the midst of one of these avenues, He observed:
`Consider these nightingales. So great is their love for these roses, that
sleepless from dusk till dawn, they warble their melodies and commune
with burning passion with the object of their adoration. How
then can those who claim to be afire with the rose-like beauty of the
Beloved choose to sleep?' For three successive nights I watched and
circled round His blessed tent. Every time I passed by the couch
whereon He lay, I would find Him wakeful, and every day, from
morn till eventide, I would see Him ceaselessly engaged in conversing
with the stream of visitors who kept flowing in from Baghdád. Not
once could I discover in the words He spoke any trace of dissimulation."
As to the significance of that Declaration let Bahá'u'lláh Himself
reveal to us its import. Acclaiming that historic occasion as the
"Most Great Festival," the "King of Festivals," the "Festival of God,"
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He has, in His Kitáb-i-Aqdas, characterized it as the Day whereon
"all created things were immersed in the sea of purification," whilst
in one of His specific Tablets, He has referred to it as the Day whereon
"the breezes of forgiveness were wafted over the entire creation."
"Rejoice, with exceeding gladness, O people of Bahá!", He, in another
Tablet, has written, "as ye call to remembrance the Day of supreme
felicity, the Day whereon the Tongue of the Ancient of Days hath
spoken, as He departed from His House proceeding to the Spot from
which He shed upon the whole of creation the splendors of His Name,
the All-Merciful... Were We to reveal the hidden secrets of that
Day, all that dwell on earth and in the heavens would swoon away
and die, except such as will be preserved by God, the Almighty, the
All-Knowing, the All-Wise. Such is the inebriating effect of the
words of God upon the Revealer of His undoubted proofs that His
pen can move no longer." And again: "The Divine Springtime is
come, O Most Exalted Pen, for the Festival of the All-Merciful is
fast approaching.... The Day-Star of Blissfulness shineth above the
horizon of Our Name, the Blissful, inasmuch as the Kingdom of the
Name of God hath been adorned with the ornament of the Name of
Thy Lord, the Creator of the heavens.... Take heed lest anything
deter Thee from extolling the greatness of this Day--the Day whereon
the Finger of Majesty and Power hath opened the seal of the Wine of
Reunion, and called all who are in the heavens and all who are on
earth.... This is the Day whereon the unseen world crieth out:
`Great is thy blessedness, O earth, for thou hast been made the footstool
of thy God, and been chosen as the seat of His mighty throne'
...Say ... He it is Who hath laid bare before you the hidden and
treasured Gem, were ye to seek it. He it is who is the One Beloved of
all things, whether of the past or of the future." And yet again:
"Arise, and proclaim unto the entire creation the tidings that He who
is the All-Merciful hath directed His steps towards the Ridván and
entered it. Guide, then, the people unto the Garden of Delight which
God hath made the Throne of His Paradise... Within this Paradise,
and from the heights of its loftiest chambers, the Maids of Heaven
have cried out and shouted: `Rejoice, ye dwellers of the realms above,
for the fingers of Him Who is the Ancient of Days are ringing, in the
name of the All-Glorious, the Most Great Bell, in the midmost heart
of the heavens. The hands of bounty have borne round the cups of
everlasting life. Approach, and quaff your fill.'" And finally:
"Forget the world of creation, O Pen, and turn Thou towards the
face of Thy Lord, the Lord of all names. Adorn, then, the world
+P155
with the ornament of the favors of Thy Lord, the King of everlasting
days. For We perceive the fragrance of the Day whereon He Who is
the Desire of all nations hath shed upon the kingdoms of the unseen
and of the seen the splendors of the light of His most excellent names,
and enveloped them with the radiance of the luminaries of His most
gracious favors, favors which none can reckon except Him Who is
the Omnipotent Protector of the entire creation."
The departure of Bahá'u'lláh from the Garden of Ridván, at
noon, on the 14th of Dhi'l-Qádih 1279 A.H. (May 3, 1863), witnessed
scenes of tumultuous enthusiasm no less spectacular, and even
more touching, than those which greeted Him when leaving His
Most Great House in Baghdád. "The great tumult," wrote an eyewitness,
"associated in our minds with the Day of Gathering, the Day
of Judgment, we beheld on that occasion. Believers and unbelievers
alike sobbed and lamented. The chiefs and notables who had congregated
were struck with wonder. Emotions were stirred to such
depths as no tongue can describe, nor could any observer escape
their contagion."
Mounted on His steed, a red roan stallion of the finest breed,
the best His lovers could purchase for Him, and leaving behind Him a
bowing multitude of fervent admirers, He rode forth on the first
stage of a journey that was to carry Him to the city of Constantinople.
"Numerous were the heads," Nabíl himself a witness of that memorable
scene, recounts, "which, on every side, bowed to the dust at
the feet of His horse, and kissed its hoofs, and countless were those
who pressed forward to embrace His stirrups." "How great the
number of those embodiments of fidelity," testifies a fellow-traveler,
"who, casting themselves before that charger, preferred death to
separation from their Beloved! Methinks, that blessed steed trod upon
the bodies of those pure-hearted souls." "He (God) it was," Bahá'u'lláh
Himself declares, "Who enabled Me to depart out of the city
(Baghdád), clothed with such majesty as none, except the denier and
the malicious, can fail to acknowledge." These marks of homage and
devotion continued to surround Him until He was installed in
Constantinople. Mírzá Yahyá, while hurrying on foot, by his own
choice, behind Bahá'u'lláh's carriage, on the day of His arrival in
that city, was overheard by Nabíl to remark to Siyyid Muhammad:
"Had I not chosen to hide myself, had I revealed my identity, the
honor accorded Him (Bahá'u'lláh) on this day would have been
mine too."
The same tokens of devotion shown Bahá'u'lláh at the time of
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His departure from His House, and later from the Garden of Ridván,
were repeated when, on the 20th of Dhi'l-Qádih (May 9, 1863),
accompanied by members of His family and twenty-six of His
disciples, He left Firayját, His first stopping-place in the course of
that journey. A caravan, consisting of fifty mules, a mounted guard
of ten soldiers with their officer, and seven pairs of howdahs, each
pair surmounted by four parasols, was formed, and wended its way,
by easy stages, and in the space of no less than a hundred and ten
days, across the uplands, and through the defiles, the woods, valleys
and pastures, comprising the picturesque scenery of eastern Anatolia,
to the port of Sámsun, on the Black Sea. At times on horseback, at
times resting in the howdah reserved for His use, and which was
oftentimes surrounded by His companions, most of whom were on
foot, He, by virtue of the written order of Námiq Páshá, was accorded,
as He traveled northward, in the path of spring, an enthusiastic
reception by the valís, the mutisárrifs, the qá'im-maqáms, the mudírs,
the shaykhs, the muftís and qádís, the government officials and
notables belonging to the districts through which He passed. In
Kárkúk, in Irbíl, in Mosul, where He tarried three days, in Nisíbín,
in Mardín, in Díyár-Bakr, where a halt of a couple of days was
made, in Khárpút, in Sívas, as well as in other villages and hamlets,
He would be met by a delegation immediately before His arrival,
and would be accompanied, for some distance, by a similar delegation
upon His departure. 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 Baghdád had shown Him on so many occasions.
"As we passed that morning through the town of Mardín," that
same fellow-traveler relates, "we were preceded by a mounted escort
of government soldiers, carrying their banners, and beating their
drums in welcome. The mutisárrif, together with officials and notables,
accompanied us, while men, women and children, crowding the housetops
and filling the streets, awaited our arrival. With dignity and
pomp we traversed that town, and resumed our journey, the mutisárrif
and those with him escorting us for a considerable distance."
"According to the unanimous testimony of those we met in the course
of that journey," Nabíl has recorded in his narrative, "never before
had they witnessed along this route, over which governors and
mushírs continually passed back and forth between Constantinople
and Baghdád, any one travel in such state, dispense such hospitality
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to all, and accord to each so great a share of his bounty." Sighting
from His howdah the Black Sea, as He approached the port of Sámsun,
Bahá'u'lláh, at the request of Mírzá Áqá Ján, revealed a Tablet,
designated Lawh-i-Hawdaj (Tablet of the Howdah), which by such
allusions as the "Divine Touchstone," "the grievous and tormenting
Mischief," reaffirmed and supplemented the dire predictions recorded
in the recently revealed Tablet of the Holy Mariner.
In Sámsun the Chief Inspector of the entire province, extending
from Baghdád to Constantinople, accompanied by several páshás,
called on Him, showed Him the utmost respect, and was entertained
by Him at luncheon. But seven days after His arrival, He, as foreshadowed
in the Tablet of the Holy Mariner, was put on board a
Turkish steamer and three days later was disembarked, at noon,
together with His fellow-exiles, at the port of Constantinople, on
the first of Rabí'u'l-Avval 1280 A.H. (August 16, 1863). In two
special carriages, which awaited Him at the landing-stage He and
His family drove to the house of Shamsí Big, the official who had
been appointed by the government to entertain its guests, and who
lived in the vicinity of the Khirqiy-i-Sharíf mosque. Later they
were transferred to the more commodious house of Vísí Páshá, in
the neighborhood of the mosque of Sultán Muhammad.
With the arrival of Bahá'u'lláh at Constantinople, the capital of
the Ottoman Empire and seat of the Caliphate (acclaimed by the
Muhammadans as "the Dome of Islam," but stigmatized by Him as
the spot whereon the "throne of tyranny" had been established) the
grimmest and most calamitous and yet the most glorious chapter in
the history of the first Bahá'í century may be said to have opened.
A period in which untold privations and unprecedented trials were
mingled with the noblest spiritual triumphs was now commencing.
The day-star of Bahá'u'lláh's ministry was about to reach its zenith.
The most momentous years of the Heroic Age of His Dispensation
were at hand. The catastrophic process, foreshadowed as far back
as the year sixty by His Forerunner in the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá', was
beginning to be set in motion.
Exactly two decades earlier the Bábí Revelation had been born in
darkest Persia, in the city of Shíráz. Despite the cruel captivity to
which its Author had been subjected, the stupendous claims He had
voiced had been proclaimed by Him before a distinguished assemblage
in Tabríz, the capital of Ádhirbayján. In the hamlet of
Badasht the Dispensation which His Faith had ushered in had been
fearlessly inaugurated by the champions of His Cause. In the midst
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of the hopelessness and agony of the Síyáh-Chál of Tihrán, nine
years later, that Revelation had, swiftly and mysteriously been
brought to sudden fruition. The process of rapid deterioration in
the fortunes of that Faith, which had gradually set in, and was
alarmingly accelerated during the years of Bahá'u'lláh's withdrawal
to Kurdistán, had, in a masterly fashion after His return from
Sulamáníyyih, been arrested and reversed. The ethical, the moral
and doctrinal foundations of a nascent community had been subsequently,
in the course of His sojourn in Baghdád, unassailably
established. And finally, in the Garden of Ridván, on the eve of
His banishment to Constantinople, the ten-year delay, ordained by
an inscrutable Providence, had been terminated through the Declaration
of His Mission and the visible emergence of what was to become
the nucleus of a world-embracing Fellowship. What now remained
to be achieved was the proclamation, in the city of Adrianople, of
that same Mission to the world's secular and ecclesiastical leaders, to
be followed, in successive decades, by a further unfoldment, in the
prison-fortress of `Akká, of the principles and precepts constituting
the bedrock of that Faith, by the formulation of the laws and
ordinances designed to safeguard its integrity, by the establishment,
immediately after His ascension, of the Covenant designed to preserve
its unity and perpetuate its influence, by the prodigious and
world-wide extension of its activities, under the guidance of `Abdu'l-Bahá,
the Center of that Covenant, and lastly, by the rise, in the
Formative Age of that Faith, of its Administrative Order, the
harbinger of its Golden Age and future glory.
This historic Proclamation was made at a time when the Faith
was in the throes of a crisis of extreme violence, and it was in the
main addressed to the kings of the earth, and to the Christian and
Muslim ecclesiastical leaders who, by virtue of their immense prestige,
ascendancy and authority, assumed an appalling and inescapable responsibility
for the immediate destinies of their subjects and followers.
The initial phase of that Proclamation may be said to have opened
in Constantinople with the communication (the text of which we,
alas, do not possess) addressed by Bahá'u'lláh to Sultán `Abdu'l-`Azíz
himself, the self-styled vicar of the Prophet of Islám and the absolute
ruler of a mighty empire. So potent, so august a personage was the
first among the sovereigns of the world to receive the Divine Summons,
and the first among Oriental monarchs to sustain the impact of
God's retributive justice. The occasion for this communication was
provided by the infamous edict the Sultán had promulgated, less than
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four months after the arrival of the exiles in his capital, banishing
them, suddenly and without any justification whatsoever, in the
depth of winter, and in the most humiliating circumstances, to
Adrianople, situated on the extremities of his empire.
That fateful and ignominious decision, arrived at by the Sultán
and his chief ministers, `Alí Páshá and Fu'ád Páshá, was in no small
degree attributable to the persistent intrigues of the Mushíru'd-Dawlih,
Mírzá Husayn Khán, the Persian Ambassador to the Sublime
Porte, denounced by Bahá'u'lláh as His "calumniator," who awaited
the first opportunity to strike at Him and the Cause of which He
was now the avowed and recognized leader. This Ambassador was
pressed continually by his government to persist in the policy of
arousing against Bahá'u'lláh the hostility of the Turkish authorities.
He was encouraged by the refusal of Bahá'u'lláh to follow the invariable
practice of government guests, however highly placed, of calling
in person, upon their arrival at the capital, on the Shaykhu'l-Islám,
on the Sadr-i-A'zam, and on the Foreign Minister--Bahá'u'lláh did
not even return the calls paid Him by several ministers, by Kamál
Páshá and by a former Turkish envoy to the court of Persia. He
was not deterred by Bahá'u'lláh's upright and independent attitude
which contrasted so sharply with the mercenariness of the Persian
princes who were wont, on their arrival, to "solicit at every door such
allowances and gifts as they might obtain." He resented Bahá'u'lláh's
unwillingness to present Himself at the Persian Embassy, and to
repay the visit of its representative; and, being seconded, in his efforts,
by his accomplice, Hájí Mírzá Hasan-i-Safá, whom he instructed to
circulate unfounded reports about Him, he succeeded through his
official influence, as well as through his private intercourse with
ecclesiastics, notables and government officials, in representing Bahá'u'lláh
as a proud and arrogant person, Who regarded Himself as
subject to no law, Who entertained designs inimical to all established
authority, and Whose forwardness had precipitated the grave differences
that had arisen between Himself and the Persian Government.
Nor was he the only one who indulged in these nefarious schemes.
Others, according to `Abdu'l-Bahá, "condemned and vilified" the
exiles, as "a mischief to all the world," as "destructive of treaties and
covenants," as "baleful to all lands" and as "deserving of every
chastisement and punishment."
No less a personage than the highly-respected brother-in-law of
the Sadr-i-A'zam was commissioned to apprize the Captive of the
edict pronounced against Him--an edict which evinced a virtual
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coalition of the Turkish and Persian imperial governments against a
common adversary, and which in the end brought such tragic consequences
upon the Sultanate, the Caliphate and the Qájár dynasty.
Refused an audience by Bahá'u'lláh that envoy had to content himself
with a presentation of his puerile observations and trivial arguments
to `Abdu'l-Bahá and Aqáy-i-Kalím, who were delegated to see him,
and whom he informed that, after three days, he would return to
receive the answer to the order he had been bidden to transmit.
That same day a Tablet, severely condemnatory in tone, was
revealed by Bahá'u'lláh, was entrusted by Him, in a sealed envelope,
on the following morning, to Shamsí Big, who was instructed to
deliver it into the hands of `Alí Páshá, and to say that it was sent
down from God. "I know not what that letter contained," Shamsí
Big subsequently informed Aqáy-i-Kalím, "for no sooner had the
Grand Vizir perused it than he turned the color of a corpse, and
remarked: `It is as if the King of Kings were issuing his behest to
his humblest vassal king and regulating his conduct.' So grievous was
his condition that I backed out of his presence." "Whatever action,"
Bahá'u'lláh, commenting on the effect that Tablet had produced, is
reported to have stated, "the ministers of the Sultán took against Us,
after having become acquainted with its contents, cannot be regarded
as unjustifiable. The acts they committed before its perusal, however,
can have no justification."
That Tablet, according to Nabíl, was of considerable length,
opened with words directed to the sovereign himself, severely censured
his ministers, exposed their immaturity and incompetence, and
included passages in which the ministers themselves were addressed, in
which they were boldly challenged, and sternly admonished not to
pride themselves on their worldly possessions, nor foolishly seek the
riches of which time would inexorably rob them.
Bahá'u'lláh was on the eve of His departure, which followed
almost immediately upon the promulgation of the edict of His banishment,
when, in a last and memorable interview with the aforementioned
Hájí Mírzá Hasan-i-Safá, He sent the following message
to the Persian Ambassador: "What did it profit thee, and such as
are like thee, to slay, year after year, so many of the oppressed, and
to inflict upon them manifold afflictions, when they have increased
a hundredfold, and ye find yourselves in complete bewilderment,
knowing not how to relieve your minds of this oppressive thought.
...His Cause transcends any and every plan ye devise. Know this
much: Were all the governments on earth to unite and take My life
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and the lives of all who bear this Name, this Divine Fire would never
be quenched. His Cause will rather encompass all the kings of the
earth, nay all that hath been created from water and clay.... Whatever
may yet befall Us, great shall be our gain, and manifest the loss
wherewith they shall be afflicted."
Pursuant to the peremptory orders issued for the immediate departure
of the already twice banished exiles, Bahá'u'lláh, His family,
and His companions, some riding in wagons, others mounted on pack
animals, with their belongings piled in carts drawn by oxen, set out,
accompanied by Turkish officers, on a cold December morning,
amidst the weeping of the friends they were leaving behind, on their
twelve-day journey, across a bleak and windswept country, to a city
characterized by Bahá'u'lláh as "the place which none entereth
except such as have rebelled against the authority of the sovereign."
"They expelled Us," is His own testimony in the Súriy-i-Mulúk,
"from thy city (Constantinople) with an abasement with which no
abasement on earth can compare." "Neither My family, nor those who
accompanied Me," He further states, "had the necessary raiment to
protect them from the cold in that freezing weather." And again:
"The eyes of Our enemies wept over Us, and beyond them those of
every discerning person." "A banishment," laments Nabíl, "endured
with such meekness that the pen sheddeth tears when recounting it,
and the page is ashamed to bear its description." "A cold of such
intensity," that same chronicler records, "prevailed that year, that
nonagenarians could not recall its like. In some regions, in both
Turkey and Persia, animals succumbed to its severity and perished
in the snows. The upper reaches of the Euphrates, in Ma'dan-Nuqrih,
were covered with ice for several days--an unprecedented phenomenon--
while in Díyár-Bakr the river froze over for no less than forty
days." "To obtain water from the springs," one of the exiles of
Adrianople recounts, "a great fire had to be lighted in their immediate
neighborhood, and kept burning for a couple of hours before
they thawed out."
Traveling through rain and storm, at times even making night
marches, the weary travelers, after brief halts at Kúchík-Chakmáchih,
Búyúk-Chakmachih, Salvárí, Birkás, and Bábá-Iskí, arrived at their
destination, on the first of Rajab 1280 A.H. (December 12, 1863),
and were lodged in the Khán-i-`Arab, a two-story caravanserai, near
the house of `Izzat-Áqá. Three days later, Bahá'u'lláh and His family
were consigned to a house suitable only for summer habitation, in
the Murádíyyih quarter, near the Takyíy-i-Mawlaví, and were moved
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again, after a week, to another house, in the vicinity of a mosque
in that same neighborhood. About six months later they transferred
to more commodious quarters, known as the house of Amru'lláh
(House of God's command) situated on the northern side of the
mosque of Sultán Salím.
Thus closes the opening scene of one of the most dramatic episodes
in the ministry of Bahá'u'lláh. The curtain now rises on what is
admittedly the most turbulent and critical period of the first Bahá'í
century--a period that was destined to precede the most glorious
phase of that ministry, the proclamation of His Message to the world
and its rulers.
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CHAPTER X
The Rebellion of Mírzá Yahyá and the Proclamation
of Bahá'u'lláh's Mission in Adrianople
A twenty-year-old Faith had just begun to recover from a series
of successive blows when a crisis of the first magnitude overtook it
and shook it to its roots. Neither the tragic martyrdom of the Báb
nor the ignominious attempt on the life of the sovereign, nor its
bloody aftermath, nor Bahá'u'lláh's humiliating banishment from
His native land, nor even His two-year withdrawal to Kurdistán,
devastating though they were in their consequences, could compare
in gravity with this first major internal convulsion which seized a
newly rearisen community, and which threatened to cause an irreparable
breach in the ranks of its members. More odious than the
unrelenting hostility which Abú-Jahl, the uncle of Muhammad, had
exhibited, more shameful than the betrayal of Jesus Christ by His
disciple, Judas Iscariot, more perfidious than the conduct of the sons
of Jacob towards Joseph their brother, more abhorrent than the deed
committed by one of the sons of Noah, more infamous than even
the criminal act perpetrated by Cain against Abel, the monstrous
behavior of Mírzá Yahyá, one of the half-brothers of Bahá'u'lláh, the
nominee of the Báb, and recognized chief of the Bábí community,
brought in its wake a period of travail which left its mark on the
fortunes of the Faith for no less than half a century. This
supreme crisis Bahá'u'lláh Himself designated as the AyyÁM-i-Shidád
(Days of Stress), during which "the most grievous veil" was torn
asunder, and the "most great separation" was irrevocably effected. It
immensely gratified and emboldened its external enemies, both civil
and ecclesiastical, played into their hands, and evoked their unconcealed
derision. It perplexed and confused the friends and supporters
of Bahá'u'lláh, and seriously damaged the prestige of the Faith in the
eyes of its western admirers. It had been brewing ever since the
early days of Bahá'u'lláh's sojourn in Baghdád, was temporarily suppressed
by the creative forces which, under His as yet unproclaimed
leadership, reanimated a disintegrating community, and finally broke
out, in all its violence, in the years immediately preceding the proclamation
of His Message. It brought incalculable sorrow to Bahá'u'lláh,
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visibly aged Him, and inflicted, through its repercussions, the heaviest
blow ever sustained by Him in His lifetime. It was engineered
throughout by the tortuous intrigues and incessant machinations of
that same diabolical Siyyid Muhammad, that vile whisperer who, disregarding
Bahá'u'lláh's advice, had insisted on accompanying Him
to Constantinople and Adrianople, and was now redoubling his
efforts, with unrelaxing vigilance, to bring it to a head.
Mírzá Yahyá had, ever since the return of Bahá'u'lláh from
Sulamáníyyih, either chosen to maintain himself in an inglorious
seclusion in his own house, or had withdrawn, whenever danger
threatened, to such places of safety as Hillih and Basra. To the
latter town he had fled, disguised as a Baghdád Jew, and become a
shoe merchant. So great was his terror that he is reported to have
said on one occasion: "Whoever claims to have seen me, or to have
heard my voice, I pronounce an infidel." On being informed of
Bahá'u'lláh's impending departure for Constantinople, he at first hid
himself in the garden of Huvaydar, in the vicinity of Baghdád,
meditating meanwhile on the advisability of fleeing either to Abyssinia,
India or some other country. Refusing to heed Bahá'u'lláh's
advice to proceed to Persia, and there disseminate the writings of
the Báb, he sent a certain Hájí Muhammad Kázim, who resembled
him, to the government-house to procure for him a passport in the
name of Mírzá Alíy-i-Kirmánsháhí, and left Baghdád, abandoning
the writings there, and proceeded in disguise, accompanied by an
Arab Bábí, named Záhir, to Mosul, where he joined the exiles who
were on their way to Constantinople.
A constant witness of the ever deepening attachment of the exiles
to Bahá'u'lláh and of their amazing veneration for Him; fully aware
of the heights to which his Brother's popularity had risen in Baghdád,
in the course of His journey to Constantinople, and later through
His association with the notables and governors of Adrianople; incensed
by the manifold evidences of the courage, the dignity, and
independence which that Brother had demonstrated in His dealings
with the authorities in the capital; provoked by the numerous Tablets
which the Author of a newly-established Dispensation had been
ceaselessly revealing; allowing himself to be duped by the enticing
prospects of unfettered leadership held out to him by Siyyid Muhammad,
the Antichrist of the Bahá'í Revelation, even as Muhammad
Sháh had been misled by the Antichrist of the Bábí Revelation, Hájí
Mírzá Aqásí; refusing to be admonished by prominent members of
the community who advised him, in writing, to exercise wisdom and
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restraint; forgetful of the kindness and counsels of Bahá'u'lláh, who,
thirteen years his senior, had watched over his early youth and manhood;
emboldened by the sin-covering eye of his Brother, Who, on
so many occasions, had drawn a veil over his many crimes and follies,
this arch-breaker of the Covenant of the Báb, spurred on by his
mounting jealousy and impelled by his passionate love of leadership,
was driven to perpetrate such acts as defied either concealment or
toleration.
Irremediably corrupted through his constant association with Siyyid
Muhammad, that living embodiment of wickedness, cupidity
and deceit, he had already in the absence of Bahá'u'lláh from Baghdád,
and even after His return from Sulamáníyyih, stained the annals
of the Faith with acts of indelible infamy. His corruption, in scores
of instances, of the text of the Báb's writings; the blasphemous addition
he made to the formula of the adhán by the introduction of a
passage in which he identified himself with the Godhead; his insertion
of references in those writings to a succession in which he nominated
himself and his descendants as heirs of the Báb; the vacillation and
apathy he had betrayed when informed of the tragic death which his
Master had suffered; his condemnation to death of all the Mirrors
of the Bábí Dispensation, though he himself was one of those Mirrors;
his dastardly act in causing the murder of Dayyán, whom he feared
and envied; his foul deed in bringing about, during the absence of
Bahá'u'lláh from Baghdád, the assassination of Mírzá `Alí-Akbar,
the Báb's cousin; and, most heinous of all, his unspeakably repugnant
violation, during that same period, of the honor of the Báb Himself--
all these, as attested by Aqáy-i-Kalím, and reported by Nabíl in his
Narrative, were to be thrown into a yet more lurid light by further
acts the perpetration of which were to seal irretrievably his doom.
Desperate designs to poison Bahá'u'lláh and His companions, and
thereby reanimate his own defunct leadership, began, approximately
a year after their arrival in Adrianople, to agitate his mind. Well
aware of the erudition of his half-brother, Aqáy-i-Kalím, in matters
pertaining to medicine, he, under various pretexts, sought enlightenment
from him regarding the effects of certain herbs and poisons,
and then began, contrary to his wont, to invite Bahá'u'lláh to his
home, where, one day, having smeared His tea-cup with a substance
he had concocted, he succeeded in poisoning Him sufficiently to
produce a serious illness which lasted no less than a month, and which
was accompanied by severe pains and high fever, the aftermath of
which left Bahá'u'lláh with a shaking hand till the end of His life.
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So grave was His condition that a foreign doctor, named Shíshmán,
was called in to attend Him. The doctor was so appalled by His livid
hue that he deemed His case hopeless, and, after having fallen at
His feet, retired from His presence without prescribing a remedy.
A few days later that doctor fell ill and died. Prior to his death
Bahá'u'lláh had intimated that doctor Shíshmán had sacrificed his
life for Him. To Mírzá Áqá Ján, sent by Bahá'u'lláh to visit him,
the doctor had stated that God had answered his prayers, and that
after his death a certain Dr. Chupán, whom he knew to be reliable,
should, whenever necessary, be called in his stead.
On another occasion this same Mírzá Yahyá had, according to
the testimony of one of his wives, who had temporarily deserted him
and revealed the details of the above-mentioned act, poisoned the well
which provided water for the family and companions of Bahá'u'lláh,
in consequence of which the exiles manifested strange symptoms of
illness. He even had, gradually and with great circumspection, disclosed
to one of the companions, Ustád Muhammad-`Alíy-i-Salmání,
the barber, on whom he had lavished great marks of favor, his wish
that he, on some propitious occasion, when attending Bahá'u'lláh in
His bath, should assassinate Him. "So enraged was Ustád Muhammad-`Alí,"
Aqáy-i-Kalím, recounting this episode to Nabíl in Adrianople,
has stated, "when apprized of this proposition, that he felt a strong
desire to kill Mírzá Yahyá on the spot, and would have done so but
for his fear of Bahá'u'lláh's displeasure. I happened to be the first
person he encountered as he came out of the bath weeping.... I
eventually succeeded, after much persuasion, in inducing him to
return to the bath and complete his unfinished task." Though ordered
subsequently by Bahá'u'lláh not to divulge this occurrence to
any one, the barber was unable to hold his peace and betrayed the
secret, plunging thereby the community into great consternation.
"When the secret nursed in his (Mírzá Yahyá) bosom was revealed
by God," Bahá'u'lláh Himself affirms, "he disclaimed such an intention,
and imputed it to that same servant (Ustád Muhammad-`Alí)."
The moment had now arrived for Him Who had so recently,
both verbally and in numerous Tablets, revealed the implications of
the claims He had advanced, to acquaint formally the one who was
the nominee of the Báb with the character of His Mission. Mírzá
Áqá Ján was accordingly commissioned to bear to Mírzá Yahyá the
newly revealed Súriy-i-`Amr, which unmistakably affirmed those
claims, to read aloud to him its contents, and demand an unequivocal
and conclusive reply. Mírzá Yahyá's request for a one day respite,
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during which he could meditate his answer, was granted. The only
reply, however, that was forthcoming was a counter-declaration,
specifying the hour and the minute in which he had been made the
recipient of an independent Revelation, necessitating the unqualified
submission to him of the peoples of the earth in both the East and
the West.
So presumptuous an assertion, made by so perfidious an adversary
to the envoy of the Bearer of so momentous a Revelation was the
signal for the open and final rupture between Bahá'u'lláh and Mírzá
Yahyá--a rupture that marks one of the darkest dates in Bahá'í
history. Wishing to allay the fierce animosity that blazed in the
bosom of His enemies, and to assure to each one of the exiles a complete
freedom to choose between Him and them, Bahá'u'lláh withdrew
with His family to the house of Ridá Big (Shavval 22, 1282
A.H.), which was rented by His order, and refused, for two months,
to associate with either friend or stranger, including His own companions.
He instructed Aqáy-i-Kalím to divide all the furniture,
bedding, clothing and utensils that were to be found in His home,
and send half to the house of Mírzá Yahyá; to deliver to him certain
relics he had long coveted, such as the seals, rings, and manuscripts
in the handwriting of the Báb; and to insure that he received his
full share of the allowance fixed by the government for the maintenance
of the exiles and their families. He, moreover, directed Aqáy-i-Kalím
to order to attend to Mírzá Yahyá's shopping, for several hours
a day, any one of the companions whom he himself might select, and
to assure him that whatever would henceforth be received in his name
from Persia would be delivered into his own hands.
"That day," Aqáy-i-Kalím is reported to have informed Nabíl,
"witnessed a most great commotion. All the companions lamented
in their separation from the Blessed Beauty." "Those days," is the
written testimony of one of those companions, "were marked by
tumult and confusion. We were sore-perplexed, and greatly feared
lest we be permanently deprived of the bounty of His presence."
This grief and perplexity were, however, destined to be of short
duration. The calumnies with which both Mírzá Yahyá and Siyyid
Muhammad now loaded their letters, which they disseminated in
Persia and `Iráq, as well as the petitions, couched in obsequious language,
which the former had addressed to Khurshíd Páshá, the
governor of Adrianople, and to his assistant Azíz Páshá, impelled
Bahá'u'lláh to emerge from His retirement. He was soon after informed
that this same brother had despatched one of his wives to the
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government house to complain that her husband had been cheated
of his rights, and that her children were on the verge of starvation--
an accusation that spread far and wide and, reaching Constantinople,
became, to Bahá'u'lláh's profound distress, the subject of excited discussion
and injurious comment in circles that had previously been
greatly impressed by the high standard which His noble and dignified
behavior had set in that city. Siyyid Muhammad journeyed to the
capital, begged the Persian Ambassador, the Mushíru'd-Dawlih, to
allot Mírzá Yahyá and himself a stipend, accused Bahá'u'lláh of sending
an agent to assassinate Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, and spared no effort
to heap abuse and calumny on One Who had, for so long and so
patiently, forborne with him, and endured in silence the enormities
of which he had been guilty.
After a stay of about one year in the house of Ridá Big Bahá'u'lláh
returned to the house He had occupied before His withdrawal
from His companions, and thence, after three months, He transferred
His residence to the house of `Izzat Áqá, in which He continued
to live until His departure from Adrianople. It was in this
house, in the month of Jamádiyu'l-Avval 1284 A.H. (Sept. 1867)
that an event of the utmost significance occurred, which completely
discomfited Mírzá Yahyá and his supporters, and proclaimed to friend
and foe alike Bahá'u'lláh's triumph over them. A certain Mír Muhammad,
a Bábí of Shíráz, greatly resenting alike the claims and
the cowardly seclusion of Mírzá Yahyá, succeeded in forcing Siyyid
Muhammad to induce him to meet Bahá'u'lláh face to face, so that
a discrimination might be publicly effected between the true and the
false. Foolishly assuming that his illustrious Brother would never
countenance such a proposition, Mírzá Yahyá appointed the mosque
of Sultán Salím as the place for their encounter. No sooner had
Bahá'u'lláh been informed of this arrangement than He set forth, on
foot, in the heat of midday, and accompanied by this same Mír
Muhammad, for the afore-mentioned mosque, which was situated in
a distant part of the city, reciting, as He walked, through the streets
and markets, verses, in a voice and in a manner that greatly astonished
those who saw and heard Him.
"O Muhammad!", are some of the words He uttered on that
memorable occasion, as testified by Himself in a Tablet, "He Who
is the Spirit hath, verily, issued from His habitation, and with Him
have come forth the souls of God's chosen ones and the realities of
His Messengers. Behold, then, the dwellers of the realms on high
above Mine head, and all the testimonies of the Prophets in My grasp.
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Say: Were all the divines, all the wise men, all the kings and rulers
on earth to gather together, I, in very truth, would confront them,
and would proclaim the verses of God, the Sovereign, the Almighty,
the All-Wise. I am He Who feareth no one, though all who are in
heaven and all who are on earth rise up against me.... This is Mine
hand which God hath turned white for all the worlds to behold.
This is My staff; were We to cast it down, it would, of a truth,
swallow up all created things." Mír Muhammad, who had been sent
ahead to announce Bahá'u'lláh's arrival, soon returned, and informed
Him that he who had challenged His authority wished, owing to unforeseen
circumstances, to postpone for a day or two the interview.
Upon His return to His house Bahá'u'lláh revealed a Tablet, wherein
He recounted what had happened, fixed the time for the postponed
interview, sealed the Tablet with His seal, entrusted it to Nabíl, and
instructed him to deliver it to one of the new believers, Mullá
Muhammad-i-Tabrízí, for the information of Siyyid Muhammad,
who was in the habit of frequenting that believer's shop. It was
arranged to demand from Siyyid Muhammad, ere the delivery of that
Tablet, a sealed note pledging Mírzá Yahyá, in the event of failing
to appear at the trysting-place, to affirm in writing that his claims
were false. Siyyid Muhammad promised that he would produce the
next day the document required, and though Nabíl, for three successive
days, waited in that shop for the reply, neither did the Siyyid
appear, nor was such a note sent by him. That undelivered Tablet,
Nabíl, recording twenty-three years later this historic episode in
his chronicle, affirms was still in his possession, "as fresh as the day
on which the Most Great Branch had penned it, and the seal of the
Ancient Beauty had sealed and adorned it," a tangible and irrefutable
testimony to Bahá'u'lláh's established ascendancy over a routed
opponent.
Bahá'u'lláh's reaction to this most distressful episode in His ministry
was, as already observed, characterized by acute anguish. "He
who for months and years," He laments, "I reared with the hand of
loving-kindness hath risen to take My life." "The cruelties inflicted
by My oppressors," He wrote, in allusion to these perfidious enemies,
"have bowed Me down, and turned My hair white. Shouldst thou
present thyself before My throne, thou wouldst fail to recognize the
Ancient Beauty, for the freshness of His countenance is altered, and
its brightness hath faded, by reason of the oppression of the infidels."
"By God!" He cries out, "No spot is left on My body that hath not
been touched by the spears of thy machinations." And again: "Thou
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hast perpetrated against thy Brother what no man hath perpetrated
against another." "What hath proceeded from thy pen," He, furthermore,
has affirmed, "hath caused the Countenances of Glory to be
prostrated upon the dust, hath rent in twain the Veil of Grandeur
in the Sublime Paradise, and lacerated the hearts of the favored ones
established upon the loftiest seats." And yet, in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas,
a forgiving Lord assures this same brother, this "source of perversion,"
"from whose own soul the winds of passion had risen and
blown upon him," to "fear not because of thy deeds," bids him "return
unto God, humble, submissive and lowly," and affirms that "He will
put away from thee thy sins," and that "thy Lord is the Forgiving,
the Mighty, the All-Merciful."
The "Most Great Idol" had at the bidding and through the power
of Him Who is the Fountain-head of the Most Great Justice been cast
out of the community of the Most Great Name, confounded,
abhorred and broken. Cleansed from this pollution, delivered from
this horrible possession, God's infant Faith could now forge ahead,
and, despite the turmoil that had convulsed it, demonstrate its
capacity to fight further battles, capture loftier heights, and win
mightier victories.
A temporary breach had admittedly been made in the ranks of
its supporters. Its glory had been eclipsed, and its annals stained forever.
Its name, however, could not be obliterated, its spirit was far
from broken, nor could this so-called schism tear its fabric asunder.
The Covenant of the Báb, to which reference has already been made,
with its immutable truths, incontrovertible prophecies, and repeated
warnings, stood guard over that Faith, insuring its integrity, demonstrating
its incorruptibility, and perpetuating its influence.
Though He Himself was bent with sorrow, and still suffered from
the effects of the attempt on His life, and though He was well aware
a further banishment was probably impending, yet, undaunted by
the blow which His Cause had sustained, and the perils with which
it was encompassed, Bahá'u'lláh arose with matchless power, even
before the ordeal was overpast, to proclaim the Mission with which
He had been entrusted to those who, in East and West, had the reins
of supreme temporal authority in their grasp. The day-star of His
Revelation was, through this very Proclamation, destined to shine in
its meridian glory, and His Faith manifest the plenitude of its divine
power.
A period of prodigious activity ensued which, in its repercussions,
outshone the vernal years of Bahá'u'lláh's ministry. "Day and night,"
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an eye-witness has written, "the Divine verses were raining down in
such number that it was impossible to record them. Mírzá Áqá Ján
wrote them as they were dictated, while the Most Great Branch was
continually occupied in transcribing them. There was not a moment
to spare." "A number of secretaries," Nabíl has testified, "were busy
day and night and yet they were unable to cope with the task.
Among them was Mírzá Báqir-i-Shirází.... He alone transcribed
no less than two thousand verses every day. He labored during six
or seven months. Every month the equivalent of several volumes
would be transcribed by him and sent to Persia. About twenty
volumes, in his fine penmanship, he left behind as a remembrance
for Mírzá Áqá Ján." Bahá'u'lláh, Himself, referring to the verses
revealed by Him, has written: "Such are the outpourings ... from
the clouds of Divine Bounty that within the space of an hour the
equivalent of a thousand verses hath been revealed." "So great is
the grace vouchsafed in this day that in a single day and night, were
an amanuensis capable of accomplishing it to be found, the equivalent
of the Persian Bayán would be sent down from the heaven of
Divine holiness." "I swear by God!" He, in another connection has
affirmed, "In those days the equivalent of all that hath been sent down
aforetime unto the Prophets hath been revealed." "That which hath
already been revealed in this land (Adrianople)," He, furthermore,
referring to the copiousness of His writings, has declared, "secretaries
are incapable of transcribing. It has, therefore, remained for the most
part untranscribed."
Already in the very midst of that grievous crisis, and even before
it came to a head, Tablets unnumbered were streaming from the pen
of Bahá'u'lláh, in which the implications of His newly-asserted claims
were fully expounded. The Súriy-i-`Amr, the Lawh-i-Nuqtih, the
Lawh-i-Ahmad, the Súriy-i-Ashab, the Lawh-i-Sáyyah, the Súriy-i-Damm,
the Súriy-i-Hájj, the Lawhu'r-Rúh, the Lawhu'r-Ridván,
the Lawhu't-Tuqá were among the Tablets which His pen had already
set down when He transferred His residence to the house of `Izzat
Áqá. Almost immediately after the "Most Great Separation" had
been effected, the weightiest Tablets associated with His sojourn in
Adrianople were revealed. The Súriy-i-Mulúk, the most momentous
Tablet revealed by Bahá'u'lláh (Súrih of Kings) in which He, for
the first time, directs His words collecti