- 1889-09-08 —
Hájí Muhammad Ridáy-i-Isfahání was martyred in `Ishqábád. He had been on of the most prominent Bahá'ís and acted as the agent for the Afnan family Ishqabad. The murder had been orchestrated by the clergy who had brought ruffians from Khurasan for this purpose. They were bold, thinking that they were acting with impunity because the victim was a Bahá'í but the authorities intervened and arrested nine of the perpetrators. Some 70 fled to Iran. The plan had been to incite a general attack on the Bahá'í community.
[BBRXXIX, 296–7; GPB202; The Baha'i Community Of Ashkhabad; Its Social Basis And Importance In Baha'i History by Mojan Momen p283; The Memoirs of Shamsi Sedaghat p27]
"In the city of 'Ishqábád the newly established Shí'ah community, envious of the rising prestige of the followers of Bahá'u'lláh who were living in their midst, instigated two ruffians to assault the seventy-year old Hájí Muhammad-Ridáy-i-Isfáhání, whom, in broad day and in the midst of the bazaar, they stabbed in no less than thirty-two places, exposing his liver, lacerating his stomach and tearing open his breast. A military court dispatched by the Czar to 'Ishqábád established, after prolonged investigation, the guilt of the Shí'ahs, sentencing two to death and banishing six others - a sentence which neither Násir'd-Dín Sháh, nor the 'ulamás of Tihrán, of Mashad and of Tabríz, who were appealed to, could mitigate, but which the representatives of the aggrieved community, through their magnanimous intercession which greatly surprised the Russian authorities, succeeded in having commuted to a lighter punishment." [GPB202-203]
- Pior to this time the Shi'i and the Bahá'í had lived side by side more or less peacefully. After this incident they were more segregated.
- Czar Alexander III sent a military commission from St Petersburg to conduct the trial of those accused of the murder. [AB109; GPB202]
- Mírzá Abu'l-Fadl served as chief Bahá'í spokesman at the trial that took place in November 1890[AB109]
- Two were found guilty and sentenced to death, six others were ordered to be transported to Siberia. [AB109; BBR297; GPB203]
- Bahá'u'lláh attached importance to the action as being the first time Shí'ís received judicial punishment for an attack on Bahá'ís. [BBRSM91]
- The Bahá'í community interceded on behalf of the culprits and had the death sentences commuted to transportation to Siberia. [AB109; BBR297; GPB203]
- For Western accounts of the episode see BBR296–300.
- See as well The Martyrdom of Haji Muhammad-Rida by Mirza Abu'l-Fadl Gulpaygani, translated by Ahang Rabbani.
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