The Bab's captivity in a remote corner of A_dh_irbayjan, immortalized by
the proceedings of the Conference of Bada_sh_t, 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
Baha'i Era.
The momentous happenings associated with the Bab's incarceration in Mah-Ku
and _Ch_ihriq, 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
_Kh_an, or even Haji Mirza Aqasi, 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 _Sh_iraz or Isfahan. 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 Bab of the authority of the promised Qa'im,
in such dramatic circumstances and in so challenging a tone, before a
distinguished gathering of eminent _Sh_i'ah 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 Bab'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 _Sh_ah, at so
perilous an hour, was meanwhile rapidly sinking under the weight of his
physical infirmities. The shallow-minded Haji Mirza Aqasi, 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 'ulamas;
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 Qa'im?
What of the Major and Minor Occultations? What of the cities of Jabulqa
and Jabulsa? How are we to explain the sayings of Husayn-ibn-Ruh, and what
interpretation should be given to the authenticated traditions ascribed to
Ibn-i-Mihriyar? 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 Qa'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 Sufyan and his
dominion?" "Are we," they noisily remonstrated, "are we to account as a
dead letter the indubitable, the unnumbered traditions of our holy Imams,
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 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 Imams, in the spiritual sovereignty
of the Sahibu'z-Zaman (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 Imam
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 _Sh_ah finally succumbed to his illness, precipitating by his
death the downfall of his favorite and all-powerful minister, Haji Mirza
Aqasi, who, soon stripped of the treasures he had amassed, fell into
disgrace, was expelled from the capital, and sought refuge in Karbila. The
seventeen year old Nasiri'd-Din Mirza ascended the throne, leaving the
direction of affairs to the obdurate, the iron-hearted Amir-Nizam, Mirza
Taqi _Kh_an, who, without consulting his fellow-ministers, decreed that
immediate and condign punishment be inflicted on the hapless Babis.
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 Baha'u'llah in the Siyah-_Ch_al of
Tihran and His subsequent banishment to 'Iraq. 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 _Sh_ay_kh_ Tabarsi, in the south in Nayriz, in the west in
Zanjan, and 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 Mulla Husayn who, at the command of the Bab, 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 Quddus in the
Jaziriy-i-_Kh_adra (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 Mazindaran. Its heroes were the flower of the
Bab's disciples. Its martyrs comprised no less than half of the Letters of
the Living, not excluding Quddus and Mulla 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 Baha'u'llah. 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 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 Mulla 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 Barfuru_sh_ 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 Mulla Husayn,
demonstrated by his resolve to persevere in sounding the a_dh_an, while
besieged in the caravanserai of Sabsih-Maydan, 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 Badi, 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 Ni_sh_apur; that led Mirza
Muhammad-Taqiy-i-Juvayni 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 Mihdi-Quli Mirza, the commander of
the army of Mazindaran and a brother of Muhammad _Sh_ah, had left behind
in his headlong flight from his camp. We cannot but esteem the passionate
sincerity with which Mulla 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 _Sh_ah 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'idu'l-'Ulama', 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 Islam had fallen,
implored his congregation to fly to arms and cut down the approaching
band. We are struck with wonder as we contemplate the super-human prowess
of Mulla 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 Baha'u'llah at the Fort, and the indefinable joy it imparted to Mulla
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 Quddus, 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 Quddus, 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 Sad of
Samad, to which he had already, while in Sari, devoted a treatise thrice
as voluminous as the Qur'an 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!" Mulla Husayn, accompanied by two hundred and two of the
beleaguered and sorely-distressed companions, and preceded by Quddus,
emerged before daybreak from the Fort, and, raising the shout of "Ya
Sahibu'z-Zaman!", 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 Mulla Husayn's earthly life,
when, soon after midnight, having performed his ablutions, clothed himself
in new garments, and attired his head with the Bab'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 "Ya
Sahibu'z-Zaman!", 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, 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 Abbas-Quli
_Kh_an-i-Larijani 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 Abbas-Quli _Kh_an,
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, Mulla 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 surih of the Qur'an, 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 Quddus were assembled
in the camp of the enemy, were stripped of their possessions, and sold as
slaves, 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. Quddus,
their beloved leader, was by yet another shameful act of the intimidated
Prince surrendered into the hands of the diabolical Sa'idu'l-'Ulama' 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 Barfuru_sh_, 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 Fars,
not far from the city where the dawning light of the Faith had broken.
Nayriz and its environs were made to sustain the impact of this fresh
ordeal in all its fury. The Fort of _Kh_ajih, in the vicinity of the
_Ch_inar-Su_kh_tih 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
Yahyay-i-Darabi, better known as Vahid. Foremost among his perfidious
adversaries, who kindled and fed the fire of this conflagration was the
base and fanatical governor of Nayriz, Zaynu'l-Abidin _Kh_an, seconded by
'Abdu'llah _Kh_an, the _Sh_uja'u'l-Mulk, and reinforced by Prince Firuz
Mirza, the governor of _Sh_iraz. Of a much briefer duration than the
Mazindaran 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 and
impassioned, and in demonstrations of religious enthusiasm almost as
vehement and dramatic, as those which had ushered in the Mazindaran
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 Babis, 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 Vahid 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 _Sh_iraz, while his body was abandoned to the mercy of the
infuriated women of Nayriz, 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 Babis, 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 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 Zanjan 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 Mulla Muhammad-'Aliy-i-Zanjani, 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 Amir Arslan _Kh_an, the
Majdu'd-Dawlih, a maternal uncle of Nasiri'd-Din _Sh_ah, and his
associates, the Sadru'd-Dawliy-i-Isfahani and Muhammad _Kh_an, the
Amir-Tuman, who were assisted, on the one hand, by substantial military
reinforcements dispatched by order of the Amir-Nizam, and aided, on the
other, by the enthusiastic moral support of the entire ecclesiastical body
in Zanjan. 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 'Ali-Mardan _Kh_an, which at one time sheltered no less
than three thousand Babis, 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 Zanjan
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 Mazindaran, that their victory consisted solely in sacrificing
their all on the altar of the Cause of the Sahibu'z-Zaman, 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 the ferocious
onslaught launched by the Sadru'd-Dawlih, who eventually was obliged to
confess his abject failure, was reprimanded by the _Sh_ah 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 Ya Sahibu'z-Zaman!" 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 Bab, 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 'ulamas--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 _Sh_ah, 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 Tihran; 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 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'an 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 Zanjan, and be exposed,
for three days and three nights, to unspeakable injuries. These, and other
similar incidents connected with the epic story of the Zanjan 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 Baha'u'llah.
To the tide of calamity which, during the concluding years of the Bab'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 Bab's
martyrdom Tihran in its turn was to participate, to a lesser degree and
under less dramatic 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 Bab'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 Amir-Nizam, supported by Mahmud
_Kh_an-i-Kalantar, and aided by a certain Husayn, one of the 'ulamas of
Ka_sh_an. The heroes of that tragedy were the Seven Martyrs of Tihran, 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 taqiyyih, _Sh_i'ah Islam 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 Haji Mirza
Siyyid 'Ali, the Bab's maternal uncle--affluent merchants of _Sh_iraz and
Tihran were eager to offer as ransom, nor the impassioned pleas of state
officials on behalf of another--the pious and highly esteemed dervish,
Mirza Qurban-'Ali--nor even the personal intervention of the Amir-Nizam,
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-Maydan, during which time thousands of
so-called devout _Sh_i'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 Tihran, a tragedy which
stands out as one of the grimmest scenes witnessed in the course of the
early unfoldment of the Faith of Baha'u'llah. Little wonder that the Bab,
bowed down by the weight of His accumulated sorrows in the Fortress of
_Ch_ihriq, should have acclaimed and glorified them, in the pages 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 Qa'im, and whose death was to
precede the impending martyrdom of their true Shepherd.