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. 
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, [the chief constable
in Shiraz] 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. 
While the situation was steadily deteriorating in the
provinces, the bitter hostility of the people of Shíráz was rapidly moving
towards a climax. Ḥusayn 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 Áqásí, 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-Ḥamíd 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. 
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 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. 
Another famous advocate of the Cause of the Báb, even
fiercer in zeal than Vaḥíd, and almost as eminent in rank, was Mullá Muhammad-‘Alíy-i-Zánjání,
surnamed Hujjat. An Akhbárí, 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-Arba‘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. 
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. 
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 the course of the second interview Vaḥíd 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. 
The commotion had assumed such proportions that the Sháh,
unable any longer to ignore the situation, delegated the trusted Siyyid Yaḥyáy-i-Dárábí,
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. 
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 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.