Prime Minister of Persia issued “an explicit order from his sovereign” to the governor of Ádhirbáyján… to execute the Báb” in Tabriz

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 Ádhirbáyján, instructing him to execute the Báb. Fearing lest the infliction of such condign punishment in the capital of the realm would set in motion forces he might be powerless to control, he ordered that his Captive be taken to Tabríz, and there be done to death. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, 'God Passes By')

Prime Minister of Persia felt a “more drastic and still more exemplary punishment… must now be administered” to the Báb: - execution of the Báb

While the convulsions of Mázindarán 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 Áqásí, 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.

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, 'God Passes By')

The Báb had “foreshadowed His own approaching death”: - “the sixth Naw-Rúz after the declaration of His mission would be the last He was destined to celebrate on earth.”

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 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 Aḥmad, who was to deliver them to Bahá’u’lláh in Tihrán. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

Táhirih

Táhirih, though still alive, was courageously pursuing a course that was to lead her inevitably to her doom. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

The Letters of the Living – Half martyred before the Báb’s Martyrdom

No less than half of His chosen disciples, the Letters of the Living, had already preceded Him in the field of martyrdom. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

The Báb’s maternal uncle – The Báb’s “shield and support and the trusted guardian of both His mother and His wife”

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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

Hujjat – A “champion of conspicuous audacity, of unsubduable will, of remarkable originality and vehement zeal”

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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

Vahíd – The “unique and peerless figure of his age”

Vahíd, pronounced in the Kitáb-i-Íqán 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 Mázindarán. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

Mullá Husayn: Station

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-Íqán 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

Quddús: - Station & tragic death

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-Ta‘ám 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 Váhíds 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 Bárfurúsh, a death which even Jesus Christ, as attested by Bahá’u’lláh, had not faced in the hour of His greatest agony. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

The impact of the “waves of dire tribulation” suffered by the Bábís on the Báb: - “For no less than six months…was unable to either write or dictate”; “for nine days…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”

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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

The “tragedy of the Seven Martyrs of Tihrán”: - “one of the grimmest scenes witnessed in the course of the early unfoldment 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 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-Niẓám, supported by Mahmud Khán-i-Kalantar, and aided by a certain Husayn, one of the ‘ulamás of Kashán. The heroes of that tragedy were the Seven Martyrs of Ṭihrán, 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 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, God Passes By)

The “epic story of the Zanján”: - “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.”

[The contrast between the atmosphere at the Fort and the army camp]

• 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.

[Appeal by Hujjat to the Shah; Interception of Hujjat’s messages by the governor and their alteration]

• 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 role of “female occupants of the Fort” in Zanján episode]

• 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;

1850: Zanán’s “ghastly tragedy” - “certain outstanding features” and “high lights” of that “mournful episode” and “bloody contest”

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 Mázindarán, 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 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

Fort of ‘Alí-Mardán Khán 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

“The chief figures mainly responsible for… this ghastly tragedy” in Zanján

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-Túmán, 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

Zanján’s “violent tempest”: “Hujjat… together with no less than eighteen hundred of his fellow-disciples, drained the cup of martyrdom”

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 Muḥammad-‘Alíy-i-Zanjání, surnamed Ḥujjat, 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

The “fierce onslaught on the defenseless Bábís” of Nayriz

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 which strings were passed, and by which they were led through the streets before the gaze of an irate and derisive multitude. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

The tragic fate of Vahíd

It sealed the fate of Vaḥíd 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

How the commotion at Nayriz originated and ended

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 Mázindarán 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’) 

The upheaval at Nayriz – its hero: Vahíd – that “unique and peerless figure of his age”

This stirring episode, [Fort Tabarsi] 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-Súkhtih 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 Yaḥyáy-i-Dárábí, better known as Vaḥíd. 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 Mázindarán 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

The fate of Quddús

Quddús, their beloved leader, was by yet another shameful act of the intimidated Prince surrendered into the hands of the diabolical Sa‘idu’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 Bárfurúsh, 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

The fate of a number of “betrayed companions of Quddús”

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, 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

The “irrevocable oath” of the “impotent and discredited Prince” at Fort Tabarsi

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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

Some awe-inspiring “salient features” of the dawn-breakers at Fort Tabarsi

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 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 Bárfurúsh 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 Níshápúr; 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 Mázindarán and a brother of Muhammad Sháh, had left behind in his headlong flight from his camp.

What the tragic episode of Fort Tabarsi demonstrated

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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

The eleven-month contest at Fort Tabarsi

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 Mázindarán. 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

First systematic campaign against the Faith by civil and ecclesiastical powers together

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 Ṭabarsí, in the south in Nayríz, in the west in Zanján, 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

Ascension to throne by seventeen year old Násiri’d-Dín Shah and the immediate punishment inflicted on the hapless Bábís by his Prime minister Mírzá Taqí Khán

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 Áqásí, 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

The Bábis wrote “treatises, commentaries and refutations” substantiating their Faith

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 Muḥammad, in the legitimacy of the Imáms, in the spiritual sovereignty of the Ṣáḥibu’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 Ḥusayn 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

Severe opposition by the clerics and their misguided justifications

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 Jábulqá and Jábulsá? How are we to explain the sayings of Ḥusayn-ibn-Rúḥ, 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 Sufyán 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?” 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

The condition of the government of Persia at the time of the Báb’s “formal assumption… of the authority of the promised Qá’im”

Muhammad Sháh, at so perilous an hour, was meanwhile rapidly sinking under the weight of his physical infirmities. The shallow-minded Hájí Mírzá Áqásí, 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

The effects of the “formal assumption by the Báb of the authority of the promised Qá’im”

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 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)

A “period of ceaseless and unprecedented commotion” and Baha’u’llah’s “dual function of saving a sorely-stricken Faith from annihilation, and of ushering in the Dispensation destined to supersede it.”

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 Áqásí, 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. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 3, ‘God Passes By’)