This eminent man had high ambitions and aims. He was to a supreme degree
constant, loyal and firmly rooted in his faith, and he was among the
earliest and greatest of the believers. At the very dawn of the new Day of
Guidance he became enamored of the Bab and began to teach. From morning
till dark he worked at his craft, and almost every night he entertained
the friends at supper. Being host in this way to friends in the spirit, he
guided many seekers to the Faith, attracting them with the melody of the
love of God. He was amazingly constant, energetic, and persevering.
Then the perfume-laden air began to stir from over the gardens of the
All-Glorious, and he caught fire from the newly kindled flame. His
illusions and fancies were burned away and he arose to proclaim the Cause
of Baha'u'llah. Every night there was a meeting, a gathering that rivaled
the flowers in their beds. The verses were read, the prayers chanted, the
good news of the greatest of Advents was shared. He spent most of his time
in showing kindness to friend and stranger alike; he was a magnanimous
being, with open hand and heart.
The day came when he set out for the Most Great Prison, and arrived with
his family at the Akka fortress. He had been afflicted with many a
hardship on his journey, but his longing to see Baha'u'llah was such that
he found the calamities easy to endure; and so he measured off the miles,
looking for a home in God's sheltering grace.
At first he had means; life was comfortable and pleasant. Later on,
however, he was destitute and subjected to terrible ordeals. Most of the
time his food was bread, nothing else; instead of tea, he drank from a
running brook. Still, he remained happy and content. His great joy was to
enter the presence of Baha'u'llah; reunion with his Beloved was bounty
enough; his food was to look upon the beauty of the Manifestation; his
wine, to be with Baha'u'llah. He was always smiling, always silent; but at
the same time, his heart shouted, leapt and danced.
Often, he was in the company of 'Abdu'l-Baha. He was an excellent friend
and comrade, happy, delightful; favored by Baha'u'llah, respected by the
friends, shunning the world, trusting in God. There was no fickleness in
him, his inner condition was always the same: stable, constant, firmly
rooted as the hills.
Whenever I call him to mind, and remember that patience and serenity, that
loyalty, that contentment, involuntarily I find myself asking God to shed
His bounties upon Aqa 'Ali. Misfortunes and calamities were forever
descending on that estimable man. He was always ill, continually subjected
to unnumbered physical afflictions. The reason was that when at home and
serving the Faith in Qazvin, he was caught by the malevolent and they beat
him so brutally over the head that the effects stayed with him till his
dying hour. They abused and tormented him in many ways and thought it
permissible to inflict every kind of cruelty upon him; yet his only crime
was to have become a believer, and his only sin, to have loved God. As the
poet has written, in lines that illustrate the plight of Aqa 'Ali:
By owls the royal falcon is beset.
They rend his wings, though he is free of sin.
"Why"--so they mock--"do you remember yet
That royal wrist, that palace you were in?"
He is a kingly bird: this crime he did commit.
Except for beauty, what was Joseph's sin?
Briefly, that great man spent his time in the Akka prison, praying,
supplicating, turning his face toward God. Infinite bounty enfolded him;
he was favored by Baha'u'llah, much of the time admitted to His presence
and showered with endless grace. This was his joy and his delight, his
great good fortune, his dearest wish.
Then the fixed hour was upon him, the daybreak of his hopes, and it came
his turn to soar away, into the invisible realm. Sheltered under the
protection of Baha'u'llah, he went swiftly forth to that mysterious land.
To him be salutations and praise and mercy from the Lord of this world and
the world to come. May God light up his resting-place with rays from the
Companion on high. Aqa Muhammad-Baqir and Aqa Muhammad-Isma'il, the Tailor
These were two brothers who, in the path of God, captives along with the
rest, were shut in the Akka fortress. They were brothers of the late
Pahlavan Rida. They left Persia and emigrated to Adrianople, hastening to
the loving-kindness of Baha'u'llah; and under His protection, they came to
Akka.
Pahlavan Rida--God's mercy and blessings and splendors be upon him; praise
and salutations be unto him--was a man to outward seeming untutored, devoid
of learning. He was a tradesman, and like the others who came in at the
start, he cast everything away out of love for God, attaining in one leap
the highest reaches of knowledge. He is of those from the earlier time. So
eloquent did he suddenly become that the people of Ka_sh_an were
astounded. For example this man, to all appearances unschooled, betook
himself to Haji Muhammad-Karim _Kh_an in Ka_sh_an and propounded this
question:
"Sir, are you the Fourth Pillar? I am a man who thirsts after spiritual
truth and I yearn to know of the Fourth Pillar."(96)
Since a number of political and military leaders were present, the Haji
replied: "Perish the thought! I shun all those who consider me the Fourth
Pillar. Never have I made such a claim. Whoever says I have, speaks
falsehood; may God's curse be on him!"
A few days later Pahlavan Rida again sought out the Haji and told him:
"Sir, I have just finished your book, Ir_sh_adu'l-'Avam (Guidance unto the
Ignorant); I have read it from cover to cover; in it you say that one is
obligated to know the Fourth Pillar or Fourth Support; indeed, you account
him a fellow knight of the Lord of the Age.(97) Therefore I long to
recognize and know him. I am certain that you are informed of him. Show
him to me, I beg of you."
The Haji was wrathful. He said: "The Fourth Pillar is no figment. He is a
being plainly visible to all. Like me, he has a turban on his head, he
wears an 'aba, and carries a cane in his hand." Pahlavan Rida smiled at
him. "Meaning no discourtesy," he said, "there is, then, a contradiction
in Your Honor's teaching. First you say one thing, then you say another."
Furious, the Haji replied: "I am busy now. Let us discuss this matter some
other time. Today I must ask to be excused."
The point is that Rida, a man considered to be unlettered, was able, in an
argument, to best such an erudite "Fourth Pillar." In the phrase of
Allamiy-i-Hilli, he downed him with the Fourth Support.(98)
Whenever that lionhearted champion of knowledge began to speak, his
listeners marveled; and he remained, till his last breath, the protector
and helper of all seekers after truth. Ultimately he became known far and
wide as a Baha'i, was turned into a vagrant, and ascended to the Abha
Kingdom.
As for his two brothers: through the grace of the Blessed Beauty, after
they were taken captive by the tyrants, they were shut in the Most Great
Prison, where they shared the lot of these homeless wanderers. Here,
during the early days at Akka, with complete detachment, with ardent love,
they hastened away to the all-glorious Realm. For our ruthless oppressors,
as soon as we arrived, imprisoned all of us inside the fortress in the
soldiers' barracks, and they closed up every issue, so that none could
come and go. At that time the air of Akka was poisonous, and every
stranger, immediately following his arrival, would be taken ill.
Muhammad-Baqir and Muhammad-Isma'il came down with a violent ailment and
there was neither doctor nor medicine to be had; and those two embodied
lights died on the same night, wrapped in each other's arms. They rose up
to the undying Kingdom, leaving the friends to mourn them forever. There
was none there but wept that night.
When morning came we wished to carry their sanctified bodies away. The
oppressors told us: "You are forbidden to go out of the fortress. You must
hand over these two corpses to us. We will wash them, shroud them and bury
them. But first you must pay for it." It happened that we had no money.
There was a prayer carpet which had been placed under the feet of
Baha'u'llah. He took up this carpet and said, "Sell it. Give the money to
the guards." The prayer carpet was sold for 170 piasters(99) and that sum
was handed over. But the two were never washed for their burial nor
wrapped in their winding sheets; the guards only dug a hole in the ground
and thrust them in, as they were, in the clothes they had on; so that even
now, their two graves are one, and just as their souls are joined in the
Abha Realm, their bodies are together here, under the earth, each holding
the other in his close embrace.
The Blessed Beauty showered His blessings on these two brothers. In life,
they were encompassed by His grace and favor; in death, they were
memorialized in His Tablets. Their grave is in Akka. Greetings be unto
them, and praise. The glory of the All-Glorious be upon them, and God's
mercy, and His benediction.