Bah’u’llah’s contributions to the Cause of the Báb

Bahá’u’lláh alone was the object and the center of the cryptic allusions, the glowing eulogies, the fervid prayers, the joyful announcements and the dire warnings recorded in both the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá’ and the Bayán, designed to be respectively the first and last written testimonials to the glory with which God was soon to invest Him.

• It was He Who, through His correspondence with the Author of the newly founded Faith, and His intimate association with the most distinguished amongst its disciples, such as Vahíd, Hujjat, Quddús, Mullá Husayn and Táhirih, was able to foster its growth, elucidate its principles, reinforce its ethical foundations, fulfill its urgent requirements, avert some of the immediate dangers threatening it and participate effectually in its rise and consolidation.
• It was to Him, “the one Object of our adoration and love” that the Prophet-pilgrim, on His return to Búshihr, alluded when, dismissing Quddús from His presence, He announced to him the double joy of attaining the presence of their Beloved and of quaffing the cup of martyrdom.
• He it was Who, in the hey-day of His life, flinging aside every consideration of earthly fame, wealth and position, careless of danger, and risking the obloquy of His caste, arose to identify Himself, first in Tihrán and later in His native province of Mázindarán, with the cause of an obscure and proscribed sect; won to its support a large number of the officials and notables of Núr, not excluding His own associates and relatives; fearlessly and persuasively expounded its truths to the disciples of the illustrious mujtahid, Mullá Muhammad; enlisted under its banner the mujtahid’s appointed representatives; secured, in consequence of this act, the unreserved loyalty of a considerable number of ecclesiastical dignitaries, government officers, peasants and traders; and succeeded in challenging, in the course of a memorable interview, the mujtahid himself.

Bahá’u’lláh received the Revelation of the Báb “three months after the Faith was born”, and “instantly acclaimed its truth, and arose to champion its cause”

He it was Who, scarce three months after the Faith was born, received, through the envoy of the Báb, Mullá Husayn, the scroll which bore to Him the first tidings of a newly announced Revelation, Who instantly acclaimed its truth, and arose to champion its cause. It was to His native city and dwelling place that the steps of that envoy were first directed, as the place which enshrined “a Mystery of such transcendent holiness as neither Hijáz nor Shíráz can hope to rival.” It was Mullá Husayn’s report of the contact thus established which had been received with such exultant joy by the Báb, and had brought such reassurance to His heart as to finally decide Him to undertake His contemplated pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 5, God Passes By)

“in the eyes of a vigilant enemy” Bahá’u’lláh’s “seizure and death had now become imperative”

During those somber and agonizing days when the Báb was no more, when the luminaries that had shone in the firmament of His Faith had been successively extinguished, when His nominee, a “bewildered fugitive, in the guise of a dervish, with kashkúl (alms-basket) in hand” roamed the mountains and plains in the neighborhood of Rasht, Bahá’u’lláh, by reason of the acts He had performed, appeared in the eyes of a vigilant enemy as its most redoubtable adversary and as the sole hope of an as yet unextirpated heresy. His seizure and death had now become imperative. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 5, God Passes By)

The hand that was stretched to deal so grievous a blow to the adherents of a sorely-tried Faith… had even the temerity to lift itself against the towering figure of Bahá’u’lláh”

The hand that was stretched to deal so grievous a blow to the adherents of a sorely-tried Faith did not confine itself to the rank and file of the Báb’s persecuted followers. It was raised with equal fury and determination against, and struck down with equal force, the few remaining leaders who had survived the winnowing winds of adversity that had already laid low so vast a number of the supporters of the Faith. Táhirih, that immortal heroine who had already shed imperishable luster alike on her sex and on the Cause she had espoused, was swept into, and ultimately engulfed by, the raging storm. Siyyid Husayn, the amanuensis of the Báb, the companion of His exile, the trusted repository of His last wishes, and the witness of the prodigies attendant upon His martyrdom, fell likewise a victim of its fury. That hand had even the temerity to lift itself against the towering figure of Bahá’u’lláh. But though it laid hold of Him it failed to strike Him down. It imperilled His life, it imprinted on His body indelible marks of a pitiless cruelty, but was impotent to cut short a career that was destined not only to keep alive the fire which the Spirit of the Báb had kindled, but to produce a conflagration that would at once consummate and outshine the glories of His Revelation. !” 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 5, God Passes By)

The indescribable cruelty shown towards the Bábí victims caused an Austrian officer, Captain von Goumoens, who at the time was in the employ of the Sháh, to tendered his resignation: - here is his report

An Austrian officer, Captain von Goumoens, in the employ of the Sháh at that time, was, it is reliably stated, so horrified at the cruelties he was compelled to witness that he tendered his resignation. “Follow me, my friend,” is the Captain’s own testimony in a letter he wrote two weeks after the attempt in question, which was published in the “Soldatenfreund,” “you who lay claim to a heart and European ethics, follow me to the unhappy ones who, with gouged-out eyes, must eat, on the scene of the deed, without any sauce, their own amputated ears; or whose teeth are torn out with inhuman violence by the hand of the executioner; or whose bare skulls are simply crushed by blows from a hammer; or where the bazaar is illuminated with unhappy victims, because on right and left the people dig deep holes in their breasts and shoulders, and insert burning wicks in the wounds. I saw some dragged in chains through the bazaar, preceded by a military band, in whom these wicks had burned so deep that now the fat flickered convulsively in the wound like a newly extinguished lamp. Not seldom it happens that the unwearying ingenuity of the Oriental leads to fresh tortures. They will skin the soles of the Bábí’s feet, soak the wounds in boiling oil, shoe the foot like the hoof of a horse, and compel the victim to run. No cry escaped from the victim’s breast; the torment is endured in dark silence by the numbed sensation of the fanatic; now he must run; the body cannot endure what the soul has endured; he falls. Give him the coup de grâce! Put him out of his pain! No! The executioner swings the whip, and—I myself have had to witness it—the unhappy victim of hundredfold tortures runs! This is the beginning of the end. As for the end itself, they hang the scorched and perforated bodies by their hands and feet to a tree head downwards, and now every Persian may try his marksmanship to his heart’s content from a fixed but not too proximate distance on the noble quarry placed at his disposal. I saw corpses torn by nearly one hundred and fifty bullets.” “When I read over again,” he continues, “what I have written, I am overcome by the thought that those who are with you in our dearly beloved Austria may doubt the full truth of the picture, and accuse me of exaggeration. Would to God that I had not lived to see it! But by the duties of my profession I was unhappily often, only too often, a witness of these abominations. At present I never leave my house, in order not to meet with fresh scenes of horror … Since my whole soul revolts against such infamy … I will no longer maintain my connection with the scene of such crimes.” Little wonder that a man as far-famed as Renan should, in his “Les Apôtres” have characterized the hideous butchery perpetrated in a single day, during the great massacre of Ṭihrán, as “a day perhaps unparalleled in the history of the world!” 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 5, God Passes By)

The unimaginable bravery the martyrs publicly displayed

Women and children could be seen led down the streets by their executioners, their flesh in ribbons, with candles burning in their wounds, singing with ringing voices before the silent spectators: “Verily from God we come, and unto Him we return!” As some of the children expired on the way their tormentors would fling their bodies under the feet of their fathers and sisters who, proudly treading upon them, would not deign to give them a second glance. A father, according to the testimony of a distinguished French writer, rather than abjure his faith, preferred to have the throats of his two young sons, both already covered with blood, slit upon his breast, as he lay on the ground, whilst the elder of the two, a lad of fourteen, vigorously pressing his right of seniority, demanded to be the first to lay down his life. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 5, God Passes By)

The “fiendish cruelty of the populace” towards Bábí victims

Others had their eyes gouged out, were sawn asunder, strangled, blown from the mouths of cannons, chopped in pieces, hewn apart with hatchets and maces, shod with horse shoes, bayoneted and stoned. Torture-mongers vied with each other in running the gamut of brutality, while the populace, into whose hands the bodies of the hapless victims were delivered, would close in upon their prey, and would so mutilate them as to leave no trace of their original form. The executioners, though accustomed to their own gruesome task, would themselves be amazed at the fiendish cruelty of the populace. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 5, God Passes By)

The brutal punishment of the three Bábís directly involved in the attempted assassination of the Sháh

The first to suffer on that calamitous day was the ill-fated Sádiq, who was instantly slain on the scene of his attempted crime. His body was tied to the tail of a mule and dragged all the way to Tihrán, where it was hewn into two halves, each of which was suspended and exposed to the public view, while the Tihránís were invited by the city authorities to mount the ramparts and gaze upon the mutilated corpse. Molten lead was poured down the throat of his accomplice, after having subjected him to the torture of red-hot pincers and limb-rending screws. A comrade of his, Hájí Qásim, was stripped of his clothes, lighted candles were thrust into holes made in his flesh, and was paraded before the multitude who shouted and cursed him. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 5, 'God Passes By')

The impact on the entire body of the Bábí community: - “The reign of terror which ensued was revolting beyond description”

The reign of terror which ensued was revolting beyond description. The spirit of revenge that animated those who had unleashed its horrors seemed insatiable. Its repercussions echoed as far as the press of Europe, branding with infamy its bloodthirsty participants. The Grand Vizir, wishing to reduce the chances of blood revenge, divided the work of executing those condemned to death among the princes and nobles, his principal fellow-ministers, the generals and officers of the Court, the representatives of the sacerdotal and merchant classes, the artillery and the infantry. Even the Sháh himself had his allotted victim, though, to save the dignity of the crown, he delegated the steward of his household to fire the fatal shot on his behalf. Ardishír Mírzá, on his part, picketed the gates of the capital, and ordered the guards to scrutinize the faces of all those who sought to leave it. Summoning to his presence the kalantar, the dárúghih and the kadkhudás he bade them search out and arrest every one suspected of being a Bábí. A youth named ‘Abbás, a former servant of a well-known adherent of the Faith, was, on threat of inhuman torture, induced to walk the streets of Tihrán, and point out every one he recognized as being a Bábí. He was even coerced into denouncing any individual whom he thought would be willing and able to pay a heavy bribe to secure his freedom. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 5, God Passes By)

The impact of the attempted assassination of the Sháh on the entire body of the Bábí community

No sooner had this act been perpetrated than its shadow fell across the entire body of the Bábí community. A storm of public horror, disgust and resentment, heightened by the implacable hostility of the mother of the youthful sovereign, swept the nation, casting aside all possibility of even the most elementary inquiry into the origins and the instigators of the attempt. A sign, a whisper, was sufficient to implicate the innocent and loose upon him the most abominable afflictions. An army of foes—ecclesiastics, state officials and people, united in relentless hate, and watching for an opportunity to discredit and annihilate a dreaded adversary—had, at long last, been afforded the pretext for which it was longing. Now it could achieve its malevolent purpose. Though the Faith had, from its inception, disclaimed any intention of usurping the rights and prerogatives of the state; though its exponents and disciples had sedulously avoided any act that might arouse the slightest suspicion of a desire to wage a holy war, or to evince an aggressive attitude, yet its enemies, deliberately ignoring the numerous evidences of the marked restraint exercised by the followers of a persecuted religion, proved themselves capable of inflicting atrocities as barbarous as those which will ever remain associated with the bloody episodes of Mázindarán, Nayríz and Zanján. To what depths of infamy and cruelty would not this same enemy be willing to descend now that an act so treasonable, so audacious had been committed? What accusations would it not be prompted to level at, and what treatment would it not mete out to, those who, however unjustifiably, could be associated with so heinous a crime against one who, in his person, combined the chief magistracy of the realm and the trusteeship of the Hidden Imám? 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 5, God Passes By)

The immediate impact of the attempted assassination of the Sháh on the whole area of Níyávarán and Tihrán

The whole of Níyávarán where the imperial court and troops had congregated was, as a result of this assault, plunged into an unimaginable tumult. The ministers of the state, headed by Mírzá Áqá Khán-i-Núrí, the I‘timádu’d-Dawlih, the successor of the Amír-Nizám, rushed horror-stricken to the side of their wounded sovereign. The fanfare of the trumpets, the rolling of the drums and the shrill piping of the fifes summoned the hosts of His Imperial Majesty on all sides. The Sháh’s attendants, some on horseback, others on foot, poured into the palace grounds. Pandemonium reigned in which every one issued orders, none listened, none obeyed, nor understood anything. Ardishír Mírzá, the governor of Tihrán, having in the meantime already ordered his troops to patrol the deserted streets of the capital, barred the gates of the citadel as well as of the city, charged his batteries and feverishly dispatched a messenger to ascertain the veracity of the wild rumors that were circulating amongst the populace, and to ask for special instructions. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 5, God Passes By)

August 15, 1852: A round of shot was fired at the Sháh in Níyávarán, north of Tihran

Obsessed by the bitter tragedy of the martyrdom of his beloved Master, driven by a frenzy of despair to avenge that odious deed, and believing the author and instigator of that crime to be none other than the Sháh himself, a certain Sádiq-i-Tabrízí, an assistant in a confectioner’s shop in Tihrán, proceeded on an August day (August 15, 1852), together with his accomplice, an equally obscure youth named Fathu’lláh-i-Qumí, to Níyávarán where the imperial army had encamped and the sovereign was in residence, and there, waiting by the roadside, in the guise of an innocent bystander, fired a round of shot from his pistol at the Sháh, shortly after the latter had emerged on horseback from the palace grounds for his morning promenade. The weapon the assailant employed demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt the folly of that half-demented youth, and clearly indicated that no man of sound judgment could have possibly instigated so senseless an act. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 5, God Passes By)

The “shameful act of a fanatical and irresponsible Bábí” caused the Faith of the Báb to experience “the oppressive load of a fresh calamity, unprecedented in its gravity, disgraceful in its character, and devastating in its immediate consequences”

Such a severe ordeal the Faith of the Báb, still in the earliest stages of its infancy, was now beginning to experience. Maligned and hounded from the moment it was born, deprived in its earliest days of the sustaining strength of the majority of its leading supporters, stunned by the tragic and sudden removal of its Founder, reeling under the cruel blows it had successively sustained in Mázindarán, Tihrán, Nayríz and Zanján, a sorely persecuted Faith was about to be subjected through the shameful act of a fanatical and irresponsible Bábí, to a humiliation such as it had never before known. To the trials it had undergone was now added the oppressive load of a fresh calamity, unprecedented in its gravity, disgraceful in its character, and devastating in its immediate consequences. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 5, God Passes By)

“portentous, God-sent upheavals”: - “Invariably sudden, often unexpected, seemingly fatal to both its spirit and its life”

The Faith that had stirred a whole nation to its depth, for whose sake thousands of precious and heroic souls had been immolated and on whose altar He Who had been its Author had sacrificed His life, was now being subjected to the strain and stress of yet another crisis of extreme violence and far-reaching consequences. It was one of those periodic crises which, occurring throughout a whole century, succeeded in momentarily eclipsing the splendor of the Faith and in almost disrupting the structure of its organic institutions. Invariably sudden, often unexpected, seemingly fatal to both its spirit and its life, these inevitable manifestations of the mysterious evolution of a world Religion, intensely alive, challenging in its claims, revolutionizing in its tenets, struggling against overwhelming odds, have either been externally precipitated by the malice of its avowed antagonists or internally provoked by the unwisdom of its friends, the apostasy of its supporters, or the defection of some of the most highly placed amongst the kith and kin of its founders. No matter how disconcerting to the great mass of its loyal adherents, however much trumpeted by its adversaries as symptoms of its decline and impending dissolution, these admitted setbacks and reverses, from which it has time and again so tragically suffered, have, as we look back upon them, failed to arrest its march or impair its unity. Heavy indeed has been the toll which they exacted, unspeakable the agonies they engendered, widespread and paralyzing for a time the consternation they provoked. Yet, viewed in their proper perspective, each of them can be confidently pronounced a blessing in disguise, affording a providential means for the release of a fresh outpouring of celestial strength, a miraculous escape from imminent and still more dreadful calamities, an instrument for the fulfillment of age-old prophecies, an agency for the purification and revitalization of the life of the community, an impetus for the enlargement of its limits and the propagation of its influence, and a compelling evidence of the indestructibility of its cohesive strength. Sometimes at the height of the crisis itself, more often when the crisis was past, the significance of these trials has manifested itself to men’s eyes, and the necessity of such experiences has been demonstrated, far and wide and beyond the shadow of a doubt, to both friend and foe. Seldom, if indeed at any time, has the mystery underlying these portentous, God-sent upheavals remained undisclosed, or the profound purpose and meaning of their occurrence been left hidden from the minds of men. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 5, God Passes By)

A broad outline of factors initiated and associated with the Cause of the Báb

• The clarion-call addressed to the “concourse of kings and of the sons of kings,” marking the inception of a process which, accelerated by Bahá’u’lláh’s subsequent warnings to the entire company of the monarchs of East and West, was to produce so widespread a revolution in the fortunes of royalty, had been raised in the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá’.
• The “Order,” whose foundation the Promised One was to establish in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, and the features of which the Center of the Covenant was to delineate in His Testament, and whose administrative framework the entire body of His followers are now erecting, had been categorically announced in the Persian Bayán.
• The laws which were designed, on the one hand, to abolish at a stroke the privileges and ceremonials, the ordinances and institutions of a superannuated Dispensation, and to bridge, on the other, the gap between an obsolete system and the institutions of a world-encompassing Order destined to supersede it, had been clearly formulated and proclaimed.
• The Covenant which, despite the determined assaults launched against it, succeeded, unlike all previous Dispensations, in preserving the integrity of the Faith of its Author, and in paving the way for the advent of the One Who was to be its Center and Object, had been firmly and irrevocably established.
• The light which, throughout successive periods, was to propagate itself gradually from its cradle as far as Vancouver in the West and the China Sea in the East, and to diffuse its radiance as far as Iceland in the North and the Tasman Sea in the South, had broken.
• The forces of darkness, at first confined to the concerted hostility of the civil and ecclesiastical powers of Shí‘ah Persia, gathering momentum, at a later stage, through the avowed and persistent opposition of the Caliph of Islám and the Sunní hierarchy in Turkey, and destined to culminate in the fierce antagonism of the sacerdotal orders associated with other and still more powerful religious systems, had launched their initial assault.
• The nucleus of the divinely ordained, world-embracing Community—a Community whose infant strength had already plucked asunder the fetters of Shí‘ah orthodoxy, and which was, with every expansion in the range of its fellowship, to seek and obtain a wider and still more significant recognition of its claims to be the world religion of the future, had been formed and was slowly crystallizing.
• And, lastly, the seed, endowed by the Hand of Omnipotence with such vast potentialities, though rudely trampled under foot and seemingly perished from the face of the earth, had, through this very process, been vouchsafed the opportunity to germinate and remanifest itself, in the shape of a still more compelling Revelation—a Revelation destined to blossom forth, in a later period into the flourishing institutions of a world-wide administrative System, and to ripen, in the Golden Age as yet unborn, into mighty agencies functioning in consonance with the principles of a world-unifying, world-redeeming Order. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

References to the Báb and His Dispensation in previous Dispensations

• He the “Qá’im” (He Who ariseth) promised to the Shí‘ahs,
• the “Mihdí” (One Who is guided) awaited by the Sunnís,
• the “Return of John the Baptist” expected by the Christians,
• the “Úshídar-Máh” referred to in the Zoroastrian scriptures,
• the “Return of Elijah” anticipated by the Jews, Whose Revelation was to show forth “the signs and tokens of all the Prophets”, Who was to “manifest the perfection of Moses, the radiance of Jesus and the patience of Job” had appeared, proclaimed His Cause, been mercilessly persecuted and died gloriously.
• The “Second Woe,” spoken of in the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine, had, at long last, appeared, and
• the first of the two “Messengers,” Whose appearance had been prophesied in the Qur’án, had been sent down.
• The first “Trumpet-Blast”, destined to smite the earth with extermination, announced in the latter Book, had finally been sounded.
• “The Inevitable,” “The Catastrophe,” “The Resurrection,” “The Earthquake of the Last Hour,” foretold by that same Book, had all come to pass.
• The “clear tokens” had been “sent down,” and the “Spirit” had “breathed,” and the “souls” had “waked up,” and the “heaven” had been “cleft,” and the “angels” had “ranged in order,” and the “stars” had been “blotted out,” and the “earth” had “cast forth her burden,” and “Paradise” had been “brought near,” and “hell” had been “made to blaze,” and the “Book” had been “set,” and the “Bridge” had been “laid out,” and the “Balance” had been “set up,” and the “mountains scattered in dust.”
• The “cleansing of the Sanctuary,” prophesied by Daniel and confirmed by Jesus Christ in His reference to “the abomination of desolation,” had been accomplished.
• The “day whose length shall be a thousand years,” foretold by the Apostle of God in His Book, had terminated.
• The “forty and two months,” during which the “Holy City,” as predicted by St. John the Divine, would be trodden under foot, had elapsed.
• The “time of the end” had been ushered in, and
• the first of the “two Witnesses” into Whom, “after three days and a half the Spirit of Life from God” would enter, had arisen and had “ascended up to heaven in a cloud.”
• The “remaining twenty and five letters to be made manifest,” according to Islamic tradition, out of the “twenty and seven letters” of which Knowledge has been declared to consist, had been revealed.
• The “Man Child,” mentioned in the Book of Revelation, destined to “rule all nations with a rod of iron,” had released, through His coming, the creative energies which, reinforced by the effusions of a swiftly succeeding and infinitely mightier Revelation, were to instill into the entire human race the capacity to achieve its organic unification, attain maturity and thereby reach the final stage in its age-long evolution. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

The Báb “as affirmed by Himself”

He, as affirmed by Himself,

• “the Primal Point from which have been generated all created things,”
• “one of the sustaining pillars of the Primal Word of God,”
• the “Mystic Fane,”
• the “Great Announcement,”
• the “Flame of that supernal Light that glowed upon Sinai,”
• the “Remembrance of God” concerning Whom “a separate Covenant hath been established with each and every Prophet” had,
• through His advent, at once fulfilled the promise of all ages and ushered in the consummation of all Revelations. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

The Báb “in the words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá”

He Who was, in the words of ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá,

• the “Morn of Truth” and
• “Harbinger of the Most Great Light,”
• Whose advent at once signalized the termination of the “Prophetic Cycle” and the inception of the “Cycle of Fulfillment,”
• had simultaneously through His Revelation banished the shades of night that had descended upon His country, and
• proclaimed the impending rise of that Incomparable Orb Whose radiance was to envelop the whole of mankind. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

“The Báb, acclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh”

The Báb, acclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh as

• the “Essence of Essences,”
• the “Sea of Seas,”
• the “Point round Whom the realities of the Prophets and Messengers revolve,”
• “from Whom God hath caused to proceed the knowledge of all that was and shall be,”
• Whose “rank excelleth that of all the Prophets,” and
• Whose “Revelation transcendeth the comprehension and understanding of all their chosen ones,” had delivered His Message and discharged His mission.

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

“the chief adversaries of Jesus Christ” vs. “the forces arrayed against the Báb”

Nor should the important fact be overlooked that, whereas the chief adversaries of Jesus Christ, in His lifetime, were the Jewish rabbis and their associates, the forces arrayed against the Báb represented the combined civil and ecclesiastical powers of Persia, which, from the moment of His declaration to the hour of His death, persisted, unitedly and by every means at their disposal, in conspiring against the upholders and in vilifying the tenets of His Revelation. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

The Báb: “the independent Author of a divinely revealed Dispensation”, “the Herald of a new Era”, and “the Inaugurator of a great universal prophetic cycle”

It should be remembered, however, that apart from the miracle associated with the Báb’s execution, He, unlike the Founder of the Christian religion, is not only to be regarded as the independent Author of a divinely revealed Dispensation, but must also be recognized as the Herald of a new Era and the Inaugurator of a great universal prophetic cycle. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

“The passion of Jesus Christ, and indeed His whole public ministry… offer a parallel to the Mission and death of the Báb”

 It would indeed be no exaggeration to say that nowhere in the whole compass of the world’s religious literature, except in the Gospels, do we find any record relating to the death of any of the religion-founders of the past comparable to the martyrdom suffered by the Prophet of Shíráz. So strange, so inexplicable a phenomenon, attested by eye-witnesses, corroborated by men of recognized standing, and acknowledged by government as well as unofficial historians among the people who had sworn undying hostility to the Bábí Faith, may be truly regarded as the most marvelous manifestation of the unique potentialities with which a Dispensation promised by all the Dispensations of the past had been endowed. The passion of Jesus Christ, and indeed His whole public ministry, alone offer a parallel to the Mission and death of the Báb, a parallel which no student of comparative religion can fail to perceive or ignore.

• In the youthfulness and meekness of the Inaugurator of the Bábí Dispensation;
•  in the extreme brevity and turbulence of His public ministry;
• in the dramatic swiftness with which that ministry moved towards its climax;
• in the apostolic order which He instituted, and the primacy which He conferred on one of its members;
• in the boldness of His challenge to the time-honored conventions, rites and laws which had been woven into the fabric of the religion He Himself had been born into;
• in the role which an officially recognized and firmly entrenched religious hierarchy played as chief instigator of the outrages which He was made to suffer;
• in the indignities heaped upon Him;
• in the suddenness of His arrest;
• in the interrogation to which He was subjected;
• in the derision poured, and the scourging inflicted, upon Him;
• in the public affront He sustained; and, finally,
• in His ignominious suspension before the gaze of a hostile multitude—

in all these we cannot fail to discern a remarkable similarity to the distinguishing features of the career of Jesus Christ. 

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

19th century: Some examples of European interests in the Cause of the Báb

“Many persons from all parts of the world,” is ‘Abdu’l Bahá’s written assertion, “set out for Persia and began to investigate wholeheartedly the matter.” The Czar of Russia, a contemporary chronicler has written, had even, shortly before the Báb’s martyrdom, instructed the Russian Consul in Tabríz to fully inquire into, and report the circumstances of so startling a Movement, a commission that could not be carried out in view of the Báb’s execution. In countries as remote as those of Western Europe an interest no less profound was kindled, and spread with great rapidity to literary, artistic, diplomatic and intellectual circles. “All Europe,” attests the above-mentioned French publicist, “was stirred to pity and indignation … Among the littérateurs of my generation, in the Paris of 1890, the martyrdom of the Báb was still as fresh a topic as had been the first news of His death. We wrote poems about Him. Sarah Bernhardt entreated Catulle Mendès for a play on the theme of this historic tragedy.” A Russian poetess, member of the Philosophic, Oriental and Bibliological Societies of St. Petersburg, published in 1903 a drama entitled “The Báb,” which a year later was played in one of the principal theatres of that city, was subsequently given publicity in London, was translated into French in Paris, and into German by the poet Fiedler, was presented again, soon after the Russian Revolution, in the Folk Theatre in Leningrad, and succeeded in arousing the genuine sympathy and interest of the renowned Tolstoy, whose eulogy of the poem was later published in the Russian press. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

Some testimonies by European scholars about the Báb

So momentous an event could hardly fail to arouse widespread and keen interest even beyond the confines of the land in which it had occurred. “C’est un des plus magnifiques exemples de courage qu’il ait été donné à l’humanité de contempler,” is the testimony recorded by a Christian scholar and government official, who had lived in Persia and had familiarized himself with the life and teachings of the Báb, “et c’est aussi une admirable preuve de l’amour que notre héros portait à ses concitoyens. Il s’est sacrifié pour l’humanité: pour elle il a donné son corps et son âme, pour elle il a subi les privations, les affronts, les injures, la torture et le martyre. Il a scellé de son sang le pacte de la fraternité universelle, et comme Jésus il a payé de sa vie l’annonce du règne de la concorde, de l’équité et de l’amour du prochain.” “Un fait étrange, unique dans les annales de l’humanité,” is a further testimony from the pen of that same scholar commenting on the circumstances attending the Báb’s martyrdom. “A veritable miracle,” is the pronouncement made by a noted French Orientalist. “A true God-man,” is the verdict of a famous British traveler and writer. “The finest product of his country,” is the tribute paid Him by a noted French publicist. “That Jesus of the age … a prophet, and more than a prophet,” is the judgment passed by a distinguished English divine. “The most important religious movement since the foundation of Christianity,” is the possibility that was envisaged for the Faith the Báb had established by that far-famed Oxford scholar, the late Master of Balliol. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

“the most heroic phase of the Heroic Age of the Bahá’í Dispensation”

Thus ended a life [that of the Báb] which posterity will recognize as standing at the confluence of two universal prophetic cycles, the Adamic Cycle stretching back as far as the first dawnings of the world’s recorded religious history and the Bahá’í Cycle destined to propel itself across the unborn reaches of time for a period of no less than five thousand centuries. The apotheosis in which such a life attained its consummation marks, as already observed, the culmination of the most heroic phase of the Heroic Age of the Bahá’í Dispensation. It can, moreover, be regarded in no other light except as the most dramatic, the most tragic event transpiring within the entire range of the first Bahá’í century. Indeed it can be rightly acclaimed as unparalleled in the annals of the lives of all the Founders of the world’s existing religious systems. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

Following ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá’s instructions the remains were finally laid to rest in the Holy Land

…from whence [Imám-Zádih-Hasan in Tihrán] they were removed to different places, until the time when, in pursuance of ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá’s instructions, they were transferred to the Holy Land, and were permanently and ceremoniously laid to rest by Him in a specially erected mausoleum on the slopes of Mt. Carmel. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

In accordance with Bahá’u’lláh’s instruction the remains were transferred to Tihrán

No sooner had the news of the transfer of the remains of the Báb and of His fellow-sufferer been communicated to Bahá’u’lláh than He ordered that same Sulaymán Khán to bring them to Tihrán, where they were taken to the Imám-Zádih-Hasan,… 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

The claims of the clergy concerning the disappearance of the body of the Báb

Meanwhile the mullás were boastfully proclaiming from the pulpits that, whereas the holy body of the Immaculate Imám would be preserved from beasts of prey and from all creeping things, this man’s body had been devoured by wild animals. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

Middle of night of the second day after the execution: - the remains were collected by a follower of the Báb

In the middle of the following night a follower of the Báb, Hájí Sulaymán Khán, succeeded, through the instrumentality of a certain Hájí Alláh-Yár, in removing the bodies to the silk factory owned by one of the believers of Mílán, and laid them, the next day, in a specially made wooden casket, which he later transferred to a place of safety. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

The day after the execution: - “a drawing of the remains as they lay beside the moat” was made by a Russian artist

On the following morning the Russian Consul in Tabríz visited the spot, and ordered the artist who had accompanied him to make a drawing of the remains as they lay beside the moat. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

The same day of execution: - a total of forty guards took turns watching over the remains

Four companies, each consisting of ten sentinels, were ordered to keep watch in turn over them. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

The Báb’s execution took place during His seventh year of ministry when He was 31 years old

On the evening of the very day of the Báb’s execution, which fell on the ninth of July 1850 (28th of Sha‘bán 1266 A.H.), during the thirty-first year of His age and the seventh of His ministry, the mangled bodies were transferred from the courtyard of the barracks to the edge of the moat outside the gate of the city. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

1852: Death of Persia’s Prime Minister responsible for ordering the execution of the Báb

The prime instigator of the Báb’s death, the implacable Amír-Niẓám, together with his brother, his chief accomplice, met their death within two years of that savage act. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

1852 & 1855: Death of all seven hundred and fifty soldiers who participated in the execution of the Báb

In that same year no less than two hundred and fifty of the firing squad, that had replaced Sám Khán’s regiment, met their death, together with their officers, in a terrible earthquake, while the remaining five hundred suffered, three years later, as a punishment for their mutiny, the same fate as that which their hands had inflicted upon the Báb. To insure that none of them had survived, they were riddled with a second volley, after which their bodies, pierced with spears and lances, were exposed to the gaze of the people of Tabríz. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

1852: Two years after the execution of the Báb Shiraz experienced an earthquake “foreshadowed in no less weighty a Book than the Revelation of St. John”

In Shíráz an “earthquake,” foreshadowed in no less weighty a Book than the Revelation of St. John, occurred in 1268 A.H. which threw the whole city into turmoil and wrought havoc amongst its people, a havoc that was greatly aggravated by the outbreak of cholera, by famine and other afflictions. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

Mother nature’s instant reaction to the execution of the Báb

Nor was this all. The very moment the shots were fired a gale of exceptional violence arose and swept over the city. From noon till night a whirlwind of dust obscured the light of the sun, and blinded the eyes of the people. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

The Báb’s “last words… to the gazing multitude”

“O wayward generation!” were the last words of the Báb to the gazing multitude, as the regiment prepared to fire its volley, “Had you believed in Me every one of you would have followed the example of this youth, who stood in rank above most of you, and would have willingly sacrificed himself in My path. The day will come when you will have recognized Me; that day I shall have ceased to be with you.” 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

A Muslim colonel “volunteered” to replace Sám Khán

Áqá Ján-i-Khamsih, colonel of the body-guard, volunteered to replace him. On the same wall and in the same manner the Báb and His companion were again suspended, while the new regiment formed in line and opened fire upon them. This time, however, their breasts were riddled with bullets, and their bodies completely dissected, with the exception of their faces which were but little marred. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

The Christian Sám Khán, the colonel of the Armenian regiment refused to participate in the second attempt to execute the Báb

Sám Khán, likewise, remembering, with feelings of awe and wonder, the reassuring words addressed to him by the Báb, ordered his men to leave the barracks immediately, and swore, as he left the courtyard, never again, even at the cost of his life, to repeat that act. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

The Báb gave His permission for execution to proceed

He [the Báb] was found, unhurt and unruffled, in the very room He had occupied the night before, engaged in completing His interrupted conversation with His amanuensis. “I have finished My conversation with Siyyid Husayn” were the words with which the Prisoner, so providentially preserved, greeted the appearance of the farrásh-báshí, “Now you may proceed to fulfill your intention.” Recalling the bold assertion his Prisoner had previously made, and shaken by so stunning a revelation, the farrásh-báshí quitted instantly the scene, and resigned his post. 

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

The first attempt to execute the Báb failed

Sám Khán accordingly set out to discharge his duty. A spike was driven into a pillar which separated two rooms of the barracks facing the square. Two ropes were fastened to it from which the Báb and one of his disciples, the youthful and devout Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí-i-Zunúzí, surnamed Anís, who had previously flung himself at the feet of his Master and implored that under no circumstances he be sent away from Him, were separately suspended. The firing squad ranged itself in three files, each of two hundred and fifty men. Each file in turn opened fire until the whole detachment had discharged its bullets. So dense was the smoke from the seven hundred and fifty rifles that the sky was darkened. As soon as the smoke had cleared away the astounded multitude of about ten thousand souls, who had crowded onto the roof of the barracks, as well as the tops of the adjoining houses, beheld a scene which their eyes could scarcely believe.

The Báb had vanished from their sight! Only his companion remained, alive and unscathed, standing beside the wall on which they had been suspended. The ropes by which they had been hung alone were severed. “The Siyyid-i-Báb has gone from our sight!” cried out the bewildered spectators. A frenzied search immediately ensued. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

The occurrence of “two highly significant incidents… that cast an illuminating light on the mysterious circumstances surrounding” the Báb’s martyrdom

Immediately before and soon after this humiliating treatment meted out to the Báb two highly significant incidents occurred, incidents that cast an illuminating light on the mysterious circumstances surrounding the opening phase of His martyrdom. The farrásh-báshí had abruptly interrupted the last conversation which the Báb was confidentially having in one of the rooms of the barracks with His amanuensis Siyyid Ḥusayn, and was drawing the latter aside, and severely rebuking him, when he was thus addressed by his Prisoner: “Not until I have said to him all those things that I wish to say can any earthly power silence Me. Though all the world be armed against Me, yet shall it be powerless to deter Me from fulfilling, to the last word, My intention.” To the Christian Sám Khán—the colonel of the Armenian regiment ordered to carry out the execution—who, seized with fear lest his act should provoke the wrath of God, had begged to be released from the duty imposed upon him, the Báb gave the following assurance: “Follow your instructions, and if your intention be sincere, the Almighty is surely able to relieve you of your perplexity.” 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

The authorization formalities “were hastily and easily completed”

The usual formalities designed to secure the necessary authorization from the leading mujtahids of Tabríz were hastily and easily completed. Neither Mullá Muḥammad-i-Mamáqání, however, who had penned the Báb’s death-warrant on the very day of His examination in Tabríz, nor Ḥájí Mírzá Báqir, nor Mullá Murtaḍá-Qulí, to whose houses their Victim was ignominiously led by the farrásh-báshí, by order of the Grand Vizir, condescended to meet face to face their dreaded Opponent. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)

The governor of Ádhirbáyján refused the Prime Minister’s order to execute the Báb

Confronted with a flat refusal by the indignant Prince to perform what he regarded as a flagitious crime, the Amír-Niẓám commissioned his own brother, Mírzá Ḥasan Khán, to execute his orders. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Chapter 4, God Passes By)