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 partic.i.p.ants. The Grand Vizir, wishing to reduce the chances of blood revenge, divided the work of executing those condemned to death among the princes and n.o.bles, his princ.i.p.al fellow-ministers, the generals and officers of the Court, the representatives of the sacerdotal and merchant cla.s.ses, the artillery and the infantry. Even the _Sh_ah 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. Ardi_sh_ir Mirza, 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 daru_gh_ih and the kad_kh_udas he bade them search out and arrest every one suspected of being a Babi. A youth named Abbas, a former servant of a well-known adherent of the Faith, was, on threat of inhuman torture, induced to walk the streets of ?ihran, and point out every one he recognized as being a Babi. 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.
The first to suffer on that calamitous day was the ill-fated ?adiq, 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 ?ihran, where it was hewn into two halves, each of which was suspended and exposed to the public view, while the ?ihranis 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, ?aji Qasim, was stripped of his clothes, lighted candles were thrust into holes made in his flesh, and was paraded before the mult.i.tude who shouted and cursed him. 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. 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 G.o.d 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.
An Austrian officer, Captain Von Goumoens, in the employ of the _Sh_ah 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 Babi"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 grace! 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 n.o.ble 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 G.o.d 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 Apotres" have characterized the hideous butchery perpetrated in a single day, during the great ma.s.sacre of ?ihran, as "a day perhaps unparalleled in the history of the world!"
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 Bab"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. Tahirih, that immortal heroine who had already shed imperishable l.u.s.ter alike on her s.e.x and on the Cause she had espoused, was swept into, and ultimately engulfed by, the raging storm. Siyyid ?usayn, the amanuensis of the Bab, 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 Baha"u"llah. 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 Bab had kindled, but to produce a conflagration that would at once consummate and outshine the glories of His Revelation.
During those somber and agonizing days when the Bab 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 ka_sh_kul (alms-basket) in hand" roamed the mountains and plains in the neighborhood of Ra_sh_t, Baha"u"llah, 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. He it was Who, scarce three months after the Faith was born, received, through the envoy of the Bab, Mulla ?usayn, 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 ?ijaz nor _Sh_iraz can hope to rival." It was Mulla ?usayn"s report of the contact thus established which had been received with such exultant joy by the Bab, and had brought such rea.s.surance to His heart as to finally decide Him to undertake His contemplated pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina.
Baha"u"llah 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 Qayyumu"l-Asma and the Bayan, designed to be respectively the first and last written testimonials to the glory with which G.o.d was soon to invest Him. It was He Who, through His correspondence with the Author of the newly founded Faith, and His intimate a.s.sociation with the most distinguished amongst its disciples, such as Vahid, Hujjat, Quddus, Mulla ?usayn and Tahirih, 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 partic.i.p.ate 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 Bu_sh_ihr, alluded when, dismissing Quddus 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 ?ihran and later in His native province of Mazindaran, with the cause of an obscure and proscribed sect; won to its support a large number of the officials and notables of Nur, not excluding His own a.s.sociates and relatives; fearlessly and persuasively expounded its truths to the disciples of the ill.u.s.trious mujtahid, Mulla Mu?ammad; 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. It was solely due to the potency of the written message entrusted by Him to Mulla Mu?ammad Mihdiy-i-Kandi and delivered to the Bab while in the neighborhood of the village of Kulayn, that the soul of the disappointed Captive was able to rid itself, at an hour of uncertainty and suspense, of the anguish that had settled upon it ever since His arrest in _Sh_iraz. He it was Who, for the sake of Tahirih and her imprisoned companions, willingly submitted Himself to a humiliating confinement, lasting several days-the first He was made to suffer-in the house of one of the kad-_kh_udas of ?ihran. It was to His caution, foresight and ability that must be ascribed her successful escape from Qazvin, her deliverance from her opponents, her safe arrival in His home, and her subsequent removal to a place of safety in the vicinity of the capital from whence she proceeded to _Kh_urasan. It was into His presence that Mulla ?usayn was secretly ushered upon his arrival in ?ihran, after which interview he traveled to a_dh_irbayjan on his visit to the Bab then confined in the fortress of Mah-Ku. He it was Who un.o.btrusively and unerringly directed the proceedings of the Conference of Bada_sh_t; Who entertained as His guests Quddus, Tahirih and the eighty-one disciples who had gathered on that occasion; Who revealed every day a Tablet and bestowed on each of the partic.i.p.ants a new name; Who faced unaided the a.s.sault of a mob of more than five hundred villagers in Niyala; Who shielded Quddus from the fury of his a.s.sailants; Who succeeded in restoring a part of the property which the enemy had plundered and Who insured the protection and safety of the continually hara.s.sed and much abused Tahirih. Against Him was kindled the anger of Mu?ammad _Sh_ah who, as a result of the persistent representations of mischief-makers, was at last induced to order His arrest and summon Him to the capital-a summons that was destined to remain unfulfilled as a result of the sudden death of the sovereign. It was to His counsels and exhortations, addressed to the occupants of _Sh_ay_kh_ Tabarsi, who had welcomed Him with such reverence and love during His visit to that Fort, that must be attributed, in no small measure, the spirit evinced by its heroic defenders, while it was to His explicit instructions that they owed the miraculous release of Quddus and his consequent a.s.sociation with them in the stirring exploits that have immortalized the Mazindaran upheaval. It was for the sake of those same defenders, whom He had intended to join, that He suffered His second imprisonment, this time in the masjid of amul to which He was led, amidst the tumult raised by no less than four thousand spectators,-for their sake that He was bastinadoed in the namaz-_kh_anih of the mujtahid of that town until His feet bled, and later confined in the private residence of its governor; for their sake that He was bitterly denounced by the leading mulla, and insulted by the mob who, besieging the governor"s residence, pelted Him with stones, and hurled in His face the foulest invectives. He alone was the One alluded to by Quddus who, upon his arrival at the Fort of _Sh_ay_kh_ Tabarsi, uttered, as soon as he had dismounted and leaned against the shrine, the prophetic verse "The Baqiyyatu"llah (the Remnant of G.o.d) will be best for you if ye are of those who believe." He alone was the Object of that prodigious eulogy, that masterly interpretation of the Sad of Samad, penned in part, in that same Fort by that same youthful hero, under the most distressing circ.u.mstances, and equivalent in dimensions to six times the volume of the Qur"an. It was to the date of His impending Revelation that the Law?-i-Hurufat, revealed in _Ch_ihriq by the Bab, in honor of Dayyan, abstrusely alluded, and in which the mystery of the "Musta_gh_a_th_" was unraveled. It was to the attainment of His presence that the attention of another disciple, Mulla Baqir, one of the Letters of the Living, was expressly directed by none other than the Bab Himself. It was exclusively to His care that the doc.u.ments of the Bab, His pen-case, His seals, and agate rings, together with a scroll on which He had penned, in the form of a pentacle, no less than three hundred and sixty derivatives of the word Baha, were delivered, in conformity with instructions He Himself had issued prior to His departure from _Ch_ihriq.
It was solely due to His initiative, and in strict accordance with His instructions, that the precious remains of the Bab were safely transferred from Tabriz to the capital, and were concealed and safeguarded with the utmost secrecy and care throughout the turbulent years following His martyrdom. And finally, it was He Who, in the days preceding the attempt on the life of the _Sh_ah, had been instrumental, while sojourning in Karbila, in spreading, with that same enthusiasm and ability that had distinguished His earlier exertions in Mazindaran, the teachings of His departed Leader, in safeguarding the interests of His Faith, in reviving the zeal of its grief-stricken followers, and in organizing the forces of its scattered and bewildered adherents.
Such a man, with such a record of achievements to His credit, could not, indeed did not, escape either the detection or the fury of a vigilant and fully aroused enemy. Afire from the very beginning with an uncontrollable enthusiasm for the Cause He had espoused; conspicuously fearless in His advocacy of the rights of the downtrodden; in the full bloom of youth; immensely resourceful; matchless in His eloquence; endowed with inexhaustible energy and penetrating judgment; possessed of the riches, and enjoying, in full measure, the esteem, power and prestige a.s.sociated with an enviably high and n.o.ble position, and yet contemptuous of all earthly pomp, rewards, vanities and possessions; closely a.s.sociated, on the one hand, through His regular correspondence with the Author of the Faith He had risen to champion, and intimately acquainted, on the other, with the hopes and fears, the plans and activities of its leading exponents; at one time advancing openly and a.s.suming a position of acknowledged leadership in the forefront of the forces struggling for that Faith"s emanc.i.p.ation, at another deliberately drawing back with consummate discretion in order to remedy, with greater efficacy, an awkward or dangerous situation; at all times vigilant, ready and indefatigable in His exertions to preserve the integrity of that Faith, to resolve its problems, to plead its cause, to galvanize its followers, and to confound its antagonists, Baha"u"llah, at this supremely critical hour in its fortunes, was at last stepping into the very center of the stage so tragically vacated by the Bab-a stage on which He was destined, for no less a period than forty years, to play a part unapproached in its majesty, pathos and splendor by any of the great Founders of the world"s historic religions.
Already so conspicuous and towering a figure had, through the accusations levelled against Him, kindled the wrath of Mu?ammad _Sh_ah, who, after having heard what had transpired in Bada_sh_t, had ordered His arrest, in a number of farmans addressed to the _kh_ans of Mazindaran, and expressed his determination to put Him to death. ?aji Mirza Aqasi, previously alienated from the Vazir (Baha"u"llah"s father), and infuriated by his own failure to appropriate by fraud an estate that belonged to Baha"u"llah, had sworn eternal enmity to the One Who had so brilliantly succeeded in frustrating his evil designs. The Amir-Nizam, moreover, fully aware of the pervasive influence of so energetic an opponent, had, in the presence of a distinguished gathering, accused Him of having inflicted, as a result of His activities, a loss of no less than five kururs upon the government, and had expressly requested Him, at a critical moment in the fortunes of the Faith, to temporarily transfer His residence to Karbila. Mirza aqa _Kh_an-i-Nuri, who succeeded the Amir-Nizam, had endeavored, at the very outset of his ministry, to effect a reconciliation between his government and the One Whom he regarded as the most resourceful of the Bab"s disciples. Little wonder that when, later, an act of such gravity and temerity was committed, a suspicion as dire as it was unfounded, should at once have crept into the minds of the _Sh_ah, his government, his court, and his people against Baha"u"llah. Foremost among them was the mother of the youthful sovereign, who, inflamed with anger, was openly denouncing Him as the would-be murderer of her son.
Baha"u"llah, when that attempt had been made on the life of the sovereign, was in Lavasan, the guest of the Grand Vizir, and was staying in the village of Af_ch_ih when the momentous news reached Him. Refusing to heed the advice of the Grand Vizir"s brother, Ja"far-Quli _Kh_an, who was acting as His host, to remain for a time concealed in that neighborhood, and dispensing with the good offices of the messenger specially dispatched to insure His safety, He rode forth, the following morning, with cool intrepidity, to the headquarters of the Imperial army which was then stationed in Niyavaran, in the _Sh_imiran district. In the village of Zarkandih He was met by, and conducted to the home of, His brother-in-law, Mirza Majid, who, at that time, was acting as secretary to the Russian Minister, Prince Dolgorouki, and whose house adjoined that of his superior. Apprised of Baha"u"llah"s arrival the attendants of the ?ajibu"d-Dawlih, ?aji "Ali _Kh_an, straightway informed their master, who in turn brought the matter to the attention of his sovereign. The _Sh_ah, greatly amazed, dispatched his trusted officers to the Legation, demanding that the Accused be forthwith delivered into his hands. Refusing to comply with the wishes of the royal envoys, the Russian Minister requested Baha"u"llah to proceed to the home of the Grand Vizir, to whom he formally communicated his wish that the safety of the Trust the Russian government was delivering into his keeping should be insured. This purpose, however, was not achieved because of the Grand Vizir"s apprehension that he might forfeit his position if he extended to the Accused the protection demanded for Him.
Delivered into the hands of His enemies, this much-feared, bitterly arraigned and ill.u.s.trious Exponent of a perpetually hounded Faith was now made to taste of the cup which He Who had been its recognized Leader had drained to the dregs. From Niyavaran He was conducted "on foot and in chains, with bared head and bare feet," exposed to the fierce rays of the midsummer sun, to the Siyah-_Ch_al of ?ihran. On the way He several times was stripped of His outer garments, was overwhelmed with ridicule, and pelted with stones. As to the subterranean dungeon into which He was thrown, and which originally had served as a reservoir of water for one of the public baths of the capital, let His own words, recorded in His "Epistle to the Son of the Wolf," bear testimony to the ordeal which He endured in that pestilential hole. "We were consigned for four months to a place foul beyond comparison.... Upon Our arrival We were first conducted along a pitch-black corridor, from whence We descended three steep flights of stairs to the place of confinement a.s.signed to Us. The dungeon was wrapped in thick darkness, and Our fellow-prisoners numbered nearly one hundred and fifty souls: thieves, a.s.sa.s.sins and highwaymen. Though crowded, it had no other outlet than the pa.s.sage by which We entered. No pen can depict that place, nor any tongue describe its loathsome smell.
Most of those men had neither clothes nor bedding to lie on. G.o.d alone knoweth what befell Us in that most foul-smelling and gloomy place!"
Baha"u"llah"s feet were placed in stocks, and around His neck were fastened the Qara-Guhar chains of such galling weight that their mark remained imprinted upon His body all the days of His life. "A heavy chain," "Abdu"l-Baha Himself has testified, "was placed about His neck by which He was chained to five other Babis; these fetters were locked together by strong, very heavy, bolts and screws. His clothes were torn to pieces, also His headdress. In this terrible condition He was kept for four months." For three days and three nights, He was denied all manner of food and drink. Sleep was impossible to Him. The place was chill and damp, filthy, fever-stricken, infested with vermin, and filled with a noisome stench. Animated by a relentless hatred His enemies went even so far as to intercept and poison His food, in the hope of obtaining the favor of the mother of their sovereign, His most implacable foe-an attempt which, though it impaired His health for years to come, failed to achieve its purpose. ""Abdu"l-Baha," Dr. J. E. Esslemont records in his book, "tells how, one day, He was allowed to enter the prison yard to see His beloved Father, where He came out for His daily exercise. Baha"u"llah was terribly altered, so ill He could hardly walk, His hair and beard unkempt, His neck galled and swollen from the pressure of a heavy steel collar, His body bent by the weight of His chains."
While Baha"u"llah was being so odiously and cruelly subjected to the trials and tribulations inseparable from those tumultuous days, another luminary of the Faith, the valiant Tahirih, was swiftly succ.u.mbing to their devastating power. Her meteoric career, inaugurated in Karbila, culminating in Bada_sh_t, was now about to attain its final consummation in a martyrdom that may well rank as one of the most affecting episodes in the most turbulent period of Baha"i history.
A scion of the highly reputed family of ?aji Mulla ?ali?-i-Baraqani, whose members occupied an enviable position in the Persian ecclesiastical hierarchy; the namesake of the ill.u.s.trious Fatimih; designated as Zarrin-Taj (Crown of Gold) and Zakiyyih (Virtuous) by her family and kindred; born in the same year as Baha"u"llah; regarded from childhood, by her fellow-townsmen, as a prodigy, alike in her intelligence and beauty; highly esteemed even by some of the most haughty and learned "ulamas of her country, prior to her conversion, for the brilliancy and novelty of the views she propounded; acclaimed as Qurrat-i-"Ayni (solace of my eyes) by her admiring teacher, Siyyid Kazim; ent.i.tled Tahirih (the Pure One) by the "Tongue of Power and Glory;" and the only woman enrolled by the Bab as one of the Letters of the Living; she had, through a dream, referred to earlier in these pages, established her first contact with a Faith which she continued to propagate to her last breath, and in its hour of greatest peril, with all the ardor of her unsubduable spirit. Undeterred by the vehement protests of her father; contemptuous of the anathemas of her uncle; unmoved by the earnest solicitations of her husband and her brothers; undaunted by the measures which, first in Karbila and subsequently in Ba_gh_dad, and later in Qazvin, the civil and ecclesiastical authorities had taken to curtail her activities, with eager energy she urged the Babi Cause. Through her eloquent pleadings, her fearless denunciations, her dissertations, poems and translations, her commentaries and correspondence, she persisted in firing the imagination and in enlisting the allegiance of Arabs and Persians alike to the new Revelation, in condemning the perversity of her generation, and in advocating a revolutionary transformation in the habits and manners of her people.
She it was who while in Karbila-the foremost stronghold of _Sh_i"ah Islam-had been moved to address lengthy epistles to each of the "ulamas residing in that city, who relegated women to a rank little higher than animals and denied them even the possession of a soul-epistles in which she ably vindicated her high purpose and exposed their malignant designs.
She it was who, in open defiance of the customs of the fanatical inhabitants of that same city, boldly disregarded the anniversary of the martyrdom of the Imam ?usayn, commemorated with elaborate ceremony in the early days of Muharram, and celebrated instead the anniversary of the birthday of the Bab, which fell on the first day of that month. It was through her prodigious eloquence and the astounding force of her argument that she confounded the representative delegation of _Sh_i"ah, of Sunni, of Christian and Jewish notables of Ba_gh_dad, who had endeavored to dissuade her from her avowed purpose of spreading the tidings of the new Message. She it was who, with consummate skill, defended her faith and vindicated her conduct in the home and in the presence of that eminent jurist, _Sh_ay_kh_ Ma?mud-i-alusi, the Mufti of Ba_gh_dad, and who later held her historic interviews with the princes, the "ulamas and the government officials residing in Kirman_sh_ah, in the course of which the Bab"s commentary on the Surih of Kaw_th_ar was publicly read and translated, and which culminated in the conversion of the Amir (the governor) and his family. It was this remarkably gifted woman who undertook the translation of the Bab"s lengthy commentary on the Surih of Joseph (the Qayyumu"l-Asma) for the benefit of her Persian co-religionists, and exerted her utmost to spread the knowledge and elucidate the contents of that mighty Book. It was her fearlessness, her skill, her organizing ability and her unquenchable enthusiasm which consolidated her newly won victories in no less inimical a center than Qazvin, which prided itself on the fact that no fewer than a hundred of the highest ecclesiastical leaders of Islam dwelt within its gates. It was she who, in the house of Baha"u"llah in ?ihran, in the course of her memorable interview with the celebrated Vahid, suddenly interrupted his learned discourse on the signs of the new Manifestation, and vehemently urged him, as she held "Abdu"l-Baha, then a child, on her lap, to arise and demonstrate through deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice the depth and sincerity of his faith. It was to her doors, during the height of her fame and popularity in ?ihran, that the flower of feminine society in the capital flocked to hear her brilliant discourses on the matchless tenets of her Faith. It was the magic of her words which won the wedding guests away from the festivities, on the occasion of the marriage of the son of Ma?mud _Kh_an-i-Kalantar-in whose house she was confined-and gathered them about her, eager to drink in her every word. It was her pa.s.sionate and unqualified affirmation of the claims and distinguishing features of the new Revelation, in a series of seven conferences with the deputies of the Grand Vizir commissioned to interrogate her, which she held while confined in that same house, which finally precipitated the sentence of her death.
It was from her pen that odes had flowed attesting, in unmistakable language, not only her faith in the Revelation of the Bab, but also her recognition of the exalted and as yet undisclosed mission of Baha"u"llah.
And last but not least it was owing to her initiative, while partic.i.p.ating in the Conference of Bada_sh_t, that the most challenging implications of a revolutionary and as yet but dimly grasped Dispensation were laid bare before her fellow-disciples and the new Order permanently divorced from the laws and inst.i.tutions of Islam. Such marvelous achievements were now to be crowned by, and attain their final consummation in, her martyrdom in the midst of the storm that was raging throughout the capital.
One night, aware that the hour of her death was at hand, she put on the attire of a bride, and annointed herself with perfume, and, sending for the wife of the Kalantar, she communicated to her the secret of her impending martyrdom, and confided to her her last wishes. Then, closeting herself in her chambers, she awaited, in prayer and meditation, the hour which was to witness her reunion with her Beloved. She was pacing the floor of her room, chanting a litany expressive of both grief and triumph, when the farra_sh_es of Aziz _Kh_an-i-Sardar arrived, in the dead of night, to conduct her to the il_kh_ani garden, which lay beyond the city gates, and which was to be the site of her martyrdom. When she arrived the Sardar was in the midst of a drunken debauch with his lieutenants, and was roaring with laughter; he ordered offhand that she be strangled at once and thrown into a pit. With that same silken kerchief which she had intuitively reserved for that purpose, and delivered in her last moments to the son of Kalantar who accompanied her, the death of this immortal heroine was accomplished. Her body was lowered into a well, which was then filled with earth and stones, in the manner she herself had desired.
Thus ended the life of this great Babi heroine, the first woman suffrage martyr, who, at her death, turning to the one in whose custody she had been placed, had boldly declared: "You can kill me as soon as you like, but you cannot stop the emanc.i.p.ation of women." Her career was as dazzling as it was brief, as tragic as it was eventful. Unlike her fellow-disciples, whose exploits remained, for the most part unknown, and unsung by their contemporaries in foreign lands, the fame of this immortal woman was noised abroad, and traveling with remarkable swiftness as far as the capitals of Western Europe, aroused the enthusiastic admiration and evoked the ardent praise of men and women of divers nationalities, callings and cultures. Little wonder that "Abdu"l-Baha should have joined her name to those of Sarah, of asiyih, of the Virgin Mary and of Fatimih, who, in the course of successive Dispensations, have towered, by reason of their intrinsic merits and unique position, above the rank and file of their s.e.x. "In eloquence," "Abdu"l-Baha Himself has written, "she was the calamity of the age, and in ratiocination the trouble of the world." He, moreover, has described her as "a brand afire with the love of G.o.d" and "a lamp aglow with the bounty of G.o.d."
Indeed the wondrous story of her life propagated itself as far and as fast as that of the Bab Himself, the direct Source of her inspiration. "Prodige de science, mais aussi prodige de beaute" is the tribute paid her by a noted commentator on the life of the Bab and His disciples. "The Persian Joan of Arc, the leader of emanc.i.p.ation for women of the Orient ... who bore resemblance both to the mediaeval Heloise and the neo-platonic Hypatia," thus was she acclaimed by a noted playwright whom Sarah Bernhardt had specifically requested to write a dramatized version of her life. "The heroism of the lovely but ill-fated poetess of Qazvin, Zarrin-Taj (Crown of Gold) ..." testifies Lord Curzon of Kedleston, "is one of the most affecting episodes in modern history." "The appearance of such a woman as Qurratu"l-"Ayn," wrote the well-known British Orientalist, Prof. E. G. Browne, "is, in any country and any age, a rare phenomenon, but in such a country as Persia it is a prodigy-nay, almost a miracle.
...Had the Babi religion no other claim to greatness, this were sufficient ... that it produced a heroine like Qurratu"l-"Ayn." "The harvest sown in Islamic lands by Qurratu"l-"Ayn," significantly affirms the renowned English divine, Dr. T. K. Cheyne, in one of his books, "is now beginning to appear ... this n.o.ble woman ... has the credit of opening the catalogue of social reforms in Persia..." "a.s.suredly one of the most striking and interesting manifestations of this religion" is the reference to her by the noted French diplomat and brilliant writer, Comte de Gobineau. "In Qazvin," he adds, "she was held, with every justification, to be a prodigy." "Many people," he, moreover has written, "who knew her and heard her at different periods of her life have invariably told me ... that when she spoke one felt stirred to the depths of one"s soul, was filled with admiration, and was moved to tears." "No memory," writes Sir Valentine Chirol, "is more deeply venerated or kindles greater enthusiasm than hers, and the influence which she wielded in her lifetime still inures to her s.e.x." "O Tahirih!" exclaims in his book on the Babis the great author and poet of Turkey, Sulayman n.a.z.im Bey, "you are worth a thousand Na?iri"d-Din _Sh_ahs!" "The greatest ideal of womanhood has been Tahirih" is the tribute paid her by the mother of one of the Presidents of Austria, Mrs.
Marianna Hainisch, "... I shall try to do for the women of Austria what Tahirih gave her life to do for the women of Persia."
Many and divers are her ardent admirers who, throughout the five continents, are eager to know more about her. Many are those whose conduct has been enn.o.bled by her inspiring example, who have committed to memory her matchless odes, or set to music her poems, before whose eyes glows the vision of her indomitable spirit, in whose hearts is enshrined a love and admiration that time can never dim, and in whose souls burns the determination to tread as dauntlessly, and with that same fidelity, the path she chose for herself, and from which she never swerved from the moment of her conversion to the hour of her death.
The fierce gale of persecution that had swept Baha"u"llah into a subterranean dungeon and snuffed out the light of Tahirih also sealed the fate of the Bab"s distinguished amanuensis, Siyyid ?usayn-i-Yazdi, surnamed Aziz, who had shared His confinement in both Mah-Ku and _Ch_ihriq. A man of rich experience and high merit, deeply versed in the teachings of his Master, and enjoying His unqualified confidence, he, refusing every offer of deliverance from the leading officials of ?ihran, yearned unceasingly for the martyrdom which had been denied him on the day the Bab had laid down His life in the barrack-square of Tabriz. A fellow-prisoner of Baha"u"llah in the Siyah-_Ch_al of ?ihran, from Whom he derived inspiration and solace as he recalled those precious days spent in the company of his Master in a_dh_irbayjan, he was finally struck down, in circ.u.mstances of shameful cruelty, by that same Aziz _Kh_an-i-Sardar who had dealt the fatal blow to Tahirih.
Another victim of the frightful tortures inflicted by an unyielding enemy was the high-minded, the influential and courageous ?aji Sulayman _Kh_an.
So greatly was he esteemed that the Amir-Nizam had felt, on a previous occasion, constrained to ignore his connection with the Faith he had embraced and to spare his life. The turmoil that convulsed ?ihran as a result of the attempt on the life of the sovereign, however, precipitated his arrest and brought about his martyrdom. The _Sh_ah, having failed to induce him through the ?ajibu"d-Dawlih to recant, commanded that he be put to death in any way he himself might choose. Nine holes, at his express wish, were made in his flesh, in each of which a lighted candle was placed. As the executioner shrank from performing this gruesome task, he attempted to s.n.a.t.c.h the knife from his hand that he might himself plunge it into his own body. Fearing lest he should attack him the executioner refused, and bade his men tie the victim"s hands behind his back, whereupon the intrepid sufferer pleaded with them to pierce two holes in his breast, two in his shoulders, one in the nape of his neck, and four others in his back-a wish they complied with. Standing erect as an arrow, his eyes glowing with stoic fort.i.tude, unperturbed by the howling mult.i.tude or the sight of his own blood streaming from his wounds, and preceded by minstrels and drummers, he led the concourse that pressed round him to the final place of his martyrdom. Every few steps he would interrupt his march to address the bewildered bystanders in words in which he glorified the Bab and magnified the significance of his own death. As his eyes beheld the candles flickering in their b.l.o.o.d.y sockets, he would burst forth in exclamations of unrestrained delight. Whenever one of them fell from his body he would with his own hand pick it up, light it from the others, and replace it. "Why dost thou not dance?" asked the executioner mockingly, "since thou findest death so pleasant?" "Dance?"
cried the sufferer, "In one hand the wine-cup, in one hand the tresses of the Friend. Such a dance in the midst of the market-place is my desire!"
He was still in the bazaar when the flowing of a breeze, fanning the flames of the candles now burning deep in his flesh, caused it to sizzle, whereupon he burst forth addressing the flames that ate into his wounds: "You have long lost your sting, O flames, and have been robbed of your power to pain me. Make haste, for from your very tongues of fire I can hear the voice that calls me to my Beloved." In a blaze of light he walked as a conqueror might have marched to the scene of his victory. At the foot of the gallows he once again raised his voice in a final appeal to the mult.i.tude of onlookers. He then prostrated himself in the direction of the shrine of the Imam-Zadih ?asan, murmuring some words in Arabic. "My work is now finished," he cried to the executioner, "come and do yours." Life still lingered in him as his body was sawn into two halves, with the praise of his Beloved still fluttering from his dying lips. The scorched and b.l.o.o.d.y remnants of his corpse were, as he himself had requested, suspended on either side of the Gate of Naw, mute witnesses to the unquenchable love which the Bab had kindled in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of His disciples.
The violent conflagration kindled as a result of the attempted a.s.sa.s.sination of the sovereign could not be confined to the capital. It overran the adjoining provinces, ravaged Mazindaran, the native province of Baha"u"llah, and brought about in its wake, the confiscation, the plunder and the destruction of all His possessions. In the village of Takur, in the district of Nur, His sumptuously furnished home, inherited from His father, was, by order of Mirza Abu-Talib _Kh_an, nephew of the Grand Vizir, completely despoiled, and whatever could not be carried away was ordered to be destroyed, while its rooms, more stately than those of the palaces of ?ihran, were disfigured beyond repair. Even the houses of the people were leveled with the ground, after which the entire village was set on fire.
The commotion that had seized ?ihran and had given rise to the campaign of outrage and spoliation in Mazindaran spread even as far as Yazd, Nayriz and _Sh_iraz, rocking the remotest hamlets, and rekindling the flames of persecution. Once again greedy governors and perfidious subordinates vied with each other in despoiling the innocent, in ma.s.sacring the guiltless, and in dishonoring the n.o.blest of their race. A carnage ensued which repeated the atrocities already perpetrated in Nayriz and Zanjan. "My pen," writes the chronicler of the b.l.o.o.d.y episodes a.s.sociated with the birth and rise of our Faith, "shrinks in horror in attempting to describe what befell those valiant men and women.... What I have attempted to recount of the horrors of the siege of Zanjan ... pales before the glaring ferocity of the atrocities perpetrated a few years later in Nayriz and _Sh_iraz." The heads of no less than two hundred victims of these outbursts of ferocious fanaticism were impaled on bayonets, and carried triumphantly from _Sh_iraz to abadih. Forty women and children were charred to a cinder by being placed in a cave, in which a vast quant.i.ty of firewood had been heaped up, soaked with naphtha and set alight. Three hundred women were forced to ride two by two on bare-backed horses all the way to _Sh_iraz. Stripped almost naked they were led between rows of heads hewn from the lifeless bodies of their husbands, sons, fathers and brothers. Untold insults were heaped upon them, and the hardships they suffered were such that many among them perished.
Thus drew to a close a chapter which records for all time the bloodiest, the most tragic, the most heroic period of the first Baha"i century. The torrents of blood that poured out during those crowded and calamitous years may be regarded as const.i.tuting the fertile seeds of that World Order which a swiftly succeeding and still greater Revelation was to proclaim and establish. The tributes paid the n.o.ble army of the heroes, saints and martyrs of that Primitive Age, by friend and foe alike, from Baha"u"llah Himself down to the most disinterested observers in distant lands, and from the moment of its birth until the present day, bear imperishable witness to the glory of the deeds that immortalize that Age.
"The whole world," is Baha"u"llah"s matchless testimony in the Kitab-i-iqan, "marveled at the manner of their sacrifice.... The mind is bewildered at their deeds, and the soul marveleth at their fort.i.tude and bodily endurance.... Hath any age witnessed such momentous happenings?"
And again: "Hath the world, since the days of Adam, witnessed such tumult, such violent commotion?... Methinks, patience was revealed only by virtue of their fort.i.tude, and faithfulness itself was begotten only by their deeds." "Through the blood which they shed," He, in a prayer, referring more specifically to the martyrs of the Faith, has significantly affirmed, "the earth hath been impregnated with the wondrous revelations of Thy might and the gem-like signs of Thy glorious sovereignty. Ere-long shall she tell out her tidings, when the set time is come."
To whom else could these significant words of Mu?ammad, the Apostle of G.o.d, quoted by Quddus while addressing his companions in the Fort of _Sh_ay_kh_ Tabarsi, apply if not to those heroes of G.o.d who, with their life-blood, ushered in the Promised Day? "O how I long to behold the countenance of My brethren, my brethren who will appear at the end of the world! Blessed are We, blessed are they; greater is their blessedness than ours." Who else could be meant by this tradition, called Hadi_th_-i-Jabir, recorded in the Kafi, and authenticated by Baha"u"llah in the Kitab-i-iqan, which, in indubitable language, sets forth the signs of the appearance of the promised Qa"im? "His saints shall be abased in His time, and their heads shall be exchanged as presents, even as the heads of the Turk and the Daylamite are exchanged as presents; they shall be slain and burned, and shall be afraid, fearful and dismayed; the earth shall be dyed with their blood, and lamentation and wailing shall prevail amongst their women; these are My saints indeed."
"Tales of magnificent heroism," is the written testimony of Lord Curzon of Kedleston, "illumine the blood-stained pages of Babi history.... The fires of Smithfield did not kindle a n.o.bler courage than has met and defied the more refined torture-mongers of ?ihran. Of no small account, then, must be the tenets of a creed that can awaken in its followers so rare and beautiful a spirit of self-sacrifice. The heroism and martyrdom of His (the Bab) followers will appeal to many others who can find no similar phenomena in the contemporaneous records of Islam." "Babism," wrote Prof.
J. Darmesteter, "which diffused itself in less than five years from one end of Persia to another, which was bathed in 1852 in the blood of its martyrs, has been silently progressing and propagating itself. If Persia is to be at all regenerate it will be through this new Faith." "Des milliers de martyrs," attests Renan in his "Les Apotres," "sont accourus pour lui (the Bab) avec allegresse au devant de la mort. Un jour sans pareil peut-etre dans l"histoire du monde fut celui de la grande boucherie qui se fit des Babis a Teheran." "One of those strange outbursts,"
declares the well-known Orientalist Prof. E. G. Browne, "of enthusiasm, faith, fervent devotion and indomitable heroism ... the birth of a Faith which may not impossibly win a place amidst the great religions of the world." And again: "The spirit which pervades the Babis is such that it can hardly fail to affect most powerfully all subjected to its influence.... Let those who have not seen disbelieve me if they will, but, should that spirit once reveal itself to them, they will experience an emotion which they are not likely to forget." "J"avoue meme," is the a.s.sertion made by Comte de Gobineau in his book, "que, si je voyais en Europe une secte d"une nature a.n.a.logue au Babysme se presenter avec des avantages tels que les siens, foi aveugle, enthousiasme extreme, courage et devouement eprouves, respect inspire aux indifferents, terreur profonde inspiree aux adversaires, et de plus, comme je l"ai dit, un proselytisme qui ne s"arrete pas, et donc les succes sont constants dans toutes les cla.s.ses de la societe; si je voyais, dis-je, tout cela exister en Europe, je n"hesiterais pas a predire que, dans un temps donne, la puissance et le sceptre appartiendront de toute necessite aux possesseurs de ces grands avantages."
"The truth of the matter," is the answer which Abbas-Quli _Kh_an-i-Larijani, whose bullet was responsible for the death of Mulla ?usayn, is reported to have given to a query addressed to him by Prince A?mad Mirza in the presence of several witnesses, "is that any one who had not seen Karbila would, if he had seen Tabarsi, not only have comprehended what there took place, but would have ceased to consider it; and had he seen Mulla ?usayn of Bu_sh_ruyih, he would have been convinced that the Chief of Martyrs (Imam ?usayn) had returned to earth; and had he witnessed my deeds, he would a.s.suredly have said: "This is _Sh_imr come back with sword and lance..." In truth, I know not what had been shown to these people, or what they had seen, that they came forth to battle with such alacrity and joy.... The imagination of man cannot conceive the vehemence of their courage and valor."
What, in conclusion, we may well ask ourselves, has been the fate of that flagitious crew who, actuated by malice, by greed or fanaticism, sought to quench the light which the Bab and His followers had diffused over their country and its people? The rod of Divine chastis.e.m.e.nt, swiftly and with unyielding severity, spared neither the Chief Magistrate of the realm, nor his ministers and counselors, nor the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the religion with which his government was indissolubly connected, nor the governors who acted as his representatives, nor the chiefs of his armed forces who, in varying degrees, deliberately or through fear or neglect, contributed to the appalling trials to which an infant Faith was so undeservedly subjected. Mu?ammad _Sh_ah himself, a sovereign at once bigoted and irresolute who, refusing to heed the appeal of the Bab to receive Him in the capital and enable Him to demonstrate the truth of His Cause, yielded to the importunities of a malevolent minister, succ.u.mbed, at the early age of forty, after sustaining a sudden reverse of fortune, to a complication of maladies, and was condemned to that "h.e.l.l-fire"
which, "on the Day of Resurrection," the Author of the Qayyumu"l-Asma had sworn would inevitably devour him. His evil genius, the omnipotent ?aji Mirza Aqasi, the power behind the throne and the chief instigator of the outrages perpetrated against the Bab, including His imprisonment in the mountains of a_dh_irbayjan, was, after the lapse of scarcely a year and six months from the time he interposed himself between the _Sh_ah and his Captive, hurled from power, deprived of his ill-gotten riches, was disgraced by his sovereign, was driven to seek shelter from the rising wrath of his countrymen in the shrine of _Sh_ah "Abdu"l-"A?im, and was later ignominiously expelled to Karbila, falling a prey to disease, poverty and gnawing sorrow-a piteous vindication of that denunciatory Tablet in which his Prisoner had foreshadowed his doom and denounced his infamy. As to the low-born and infamous Amir-Nizam, Mirza Taqi _Kh_an, the first year of whose short-lived ministry was stained with the ferocious onslaught against the defenders of the Fort of Tabarsi, who authorized and encouraged the execution of the Seven Martyrs of ?ihran, who unleashed the a.s.sault against Vahid and his companions, who was directly responsible for the death-sentence of the Bab, and who precipitated the great upheaval of Zanjan, he forfeited, through the unrelenting jealousy of his sovereign and the vindictiveness of court intrigue, all the honors he had enjoyed, and was treacherously put to death by the royal order, his veins being opened in the bath of the Palace of Fin, near Ka_sh_an. "Had the Amir-Nizam," Baha"u"llah is reported by Nabil to have stated, "been aware of My true position, he would certainly have laid hold on Me. He exerted the utmost effort to discover the real situation, but was unsuccessful.
G.o.d wished him to be ignorant of it." Mirza aqa _Kh_an, who had taken such an active part in the unbridled cruelties perpetrated as a result of the attempt on the life of the sovereign, was driven from office, and placed under strict surveillance in Yazd, where he ended his days in shame and despair.
?usayn _Kh_an, the governor of _Sh_iraz, stigmatized as a "wine-bibber"
and a "tyrant," the first who arose to ill-treat the Bab, who publicly rebuked Him and bade his attendant strike Him violently in the face, was compelled not only to endure the dreadful calamity that so suddenly befell him, his family, his city and his province, but afterwards to witness the undoing of all his labors, and to lead in obscurity the remaining days of his life, till he tottered to his grave abandoned alike by his friends and his enemies. ?ajibu"d-Dawlih, that bloodthirsty fiend, who had strenuously hounded down so many innocent and defenseless Babis, fell in his turn a victim to the fury of the turbulent Lurs, who, after despoiling him of his property, cut off his beard, and forced him to eat it, saddled and bridled him, and rode him before the eyes of the people, after which they inflicted under his very eyes shameful atrocities upon his womenfolk and children. The Sa"idu"l-"Ulama", the fanatical, the ferocious and shameless mujtahid of Barfuru_sh_, whose unquenchable hostility had heaped such insults upon, and caused such sufferings to, the heroes of Tabarsi, fell, soon after the abominations he had perpetrated, a prey to a strange disease, provoking an unquenchable thirst and producing such icy chills that neither the furs he wrapped himself in, nor the fire that continually burned in his room could alleviate his sufferings. The spectacle of his ruined and once luxurious home, fallen into such ill use after his death as to become the refuse-heap of the people of his town, impressed so profoundly the inhabitants of Mazindaran that in their mutual vituperations they would often invoke upon each other"s home the same fate as that which had befallen that accursed habitation. The false-hearted and ambitious Ma?mud _Kh_an-i-Kalantar, into whose custody Tahirih had been delivered before her martyrdom, incurred, nine years later, the wrath of his royal master, was dragged feet first by ropes through the bazaars to a place outside the city gates, and there hung on the gallows. Mirza ?asan _Kh_an, who carried out the execution of the Bab under orders from his brother, the Amir-Nizam, was, within two years of that unpardonable act, subjected to a dreadful punishment which ended in his death. The _Sh_ay_kh_u"l-Islam of Tabriz, the insolent, the avaricious and tyrannical Mirza "Ali As_gh_ar, who, after the refusal of the bodyguard of the governor of that city to inflict the bastinado on the Bab, proceeded to apply eleven times the rods to the feet of his Prisoner with his own hand, was, in that same year, struck with paralysis, and, after enduring the most excruciating ordeal, died a miserable death-a death that was soon followed by the abolition of the function of the _Sh_ay_kh_u"l-Islam in that city. The haughty and perfidious Mirza Abu-Talib _Kh_an who, disregarding the counsels of moderation given him by Mirza aqa _Kh_an, the Grand Vizir, ordered the plunder and burning of the village of Takur, as well as the destruction of the house of Baha"u"llah, was, a year later, stricken with plague and perished wretchedly, shunned by even his nearest kindred. Mihr-"Ali _Kh_an, the _Sh_uja"u"l-Mulk, who, after the attempt on the _Sh_ah"s life, so savagely persecuted the remnants of the Babi community in Nayriz, fell ill, according to the testimony of his own grandson, and was stricken with dumbness, which was never relieved till the day of his death. His accomplice, Mirza Na"im, fell into disgrace, was twice heavily fined, dismissed from office, and subjected to exquisite tortures. The regiment which, scorning the miracle that warned Sam _Kh_an and his men to dissociate themselves from any further attempt to destroy the life of the Bab, volunteered to take their place and riddled His body with its bullets, lost, in that same year, no less than two hundred and fifty of its officers and men, in a terrible earthquake between Ardibil and Tabriz; two years later the remaining five hundred were mercilessly shot in Tabriz for mutiny, and the people, gazing on their exposed and mutilated bodies, recalled their savage act, and indulged in such expressions of condemnation and wonder as to induce the leading mujtahids to chastise and silence them. The head of that regiment, aqa Jan Big, lost his life, six years after the Bab"s martyrdom, during the bombardment of Mu?ammarih by the British naval forces.
The judgment of G.o.d, so rigorous and unsparing in its visitations on those who took a leading or an active part in the crimes committed against the Bab and His followers, was not less severe in its dealings with the ma.s.s of the people-a people more fanatical than the Jews in the days of Jesus-a people notorious for their gross ignorance, their ferocious bigotry, their willful perversity and savage cruelty, a people mercenary, avaricious, egotistical and cowardly. I can do no better than quote what the Bab Himself has written in the Dala"il-i-Sab"ih (Seven Proofs) during the last days of His ministry: "Call thou to remembrance the early days of the Revelation. How great the number of those who died of cholera! That was indeed one of the prodigies of the Revelation, and yet none recognized it!
During four years the scourge raged among _Sh_i"ah Muslims without any one grasping its significance!" "As to the great ma.s.s of its people (Persia),"
Nabil has recorded in his immortal narrative, "who watched with sullen indifference the tragedy that was being enacted before their eyes, and who failed to raise a finger in protest against the hideousness of those cruelties, they fell, in their turn, victims to a misery which all the resources of the land and the energy of its statesmen were powerless to alleviate.... From the very day the hand of the a.s.sailant was stretched forth against the Bab ... visitation upon visitation crushed the spirit out of that ungrateful people, and brought them to the very brink of national bankruptcy. Plagues, the very names of which were almost unknown to them except for a cursory reference in the dust-covered books which few cared to read, fell upon them with a fury that none could escape. That scourge scattered devastation wherever it spread. Prince and peasant alike felt its sting and bowed to its yoke. It held the populace in its grip, and refused to relax its hold upon them. As malignant as the fever which decimated the province of Gilan, these sudden afflictions continued to lay waste the land. Grievous as were these calamities, the avenging wrath of G.o.d did not stop at the misfortunes that befell a perverse and faithless people. It made itself felt in every living being that breathed on the surface of that stricken land. It afflicted the life of plants and animals alike, and made the people feel the magnitude of their distress. Famine added its horrors to the stupendous weight of afflictions under which the people were groaning. The gaunt spectre of starvation stalked abroad amidst them, and the prospect of a slow and painful death haunted their vision.... People and government alike sighed for the relief which they could nowhere obtain. They drank the cup of woe to its dregs, utterly unregardful of the Hand which had brought it to their lips, and of the Person for Whose sake they were made to suffer."
SECOND PERIOD: THE MINISTRY OF BAHa"U"LLaH 18531892
Chapter VI: The Birth of The Baha"i Revelation
The train of dire events that followed in swift succession the calamitous attempt on the life of Na?iri"d-Din _Sh_ah mark, as already observed, the termination of the Babi Dispensation and the closing of the initial, the darkest and bloodiest chapter of the history of the first Baha"i century.
A phase of measureless tribulation had been ushered in by these events, in the course of which the fortunes of the Faith proclaimed by the Bab sank to their lowest ebb. Indeed ever since its inception trials and vexations, setbacks and disappointments, denunciations, betrayals and ma.s.sacres had, in a steadily rising crescendo, contributed to the decimation of the ranks of its followers, strained to the utmost the loyalty of its stoutest upholders, and all but succeeded in disrupting the foundations on which it rested.
From its birth, government, clergy and people had risen as one man against it and vowed eternal enmity to its cause. Mu?ammad _Sh_ah, weak alike in mind and will, had, under pressure, rejected the overtures made to him by the Bab Himself, had declined to meet Him face to face, and even refused Him admittance to the capital. The youthful Na?iri"d-Din _Sh_ah, of a cruel and imperious nature, had, both as crown prince and as reigning sovereign, increasingly evinced the bitter hostility which, at a later stage in his reign, was to blaze forth in all its dark and ruthless savagery. The powerful and sagacious Mu"tamid, the one solitary figure who could have extended Him the support and protection He so sorely needed, was taken from Him by a sudden death. The Sherif of Mecca, who through the mediation of Quddus had been made acquainted with the new Revelation on the occasion of the Bab"s pilgrimage to Mecca, had turned a deaf ear to the Divine Message, and received His messenger with curt indifference. The prearranged gathering that was to have taken place in the holy city of Karbila, in the course of the Bab"s return journey from ?ijaz, had, to the disappointment of His followers who had been eagerly awaiting His arrival, to be definitely abandoned. The eighteen Letters of the Living, the princ.i.p.al bastions that b.u.t.tressed the infant strength of the Faith, had for the most part fallen. The "Mirrors," the "Guides," the "Witnesses"
comprising the Babi hierarchy had either been put to the sword, or hounded from their native soil, or bludgeoned into silence. The program, whose essentials had been communicated to the foremost among them, had, owing to their excessive zeal, remained for the most part unfulfilled. The attempts which two of those disciples had made to establish the Faith in Turkey and India had signally failed at the very outset of their mission. The tempests that had swept Mazindaran, Nayriz and Zanjan had, in addition to blasting to their roots the promising careers of the venerated Quddus, the lion-hearted Mulla ?usayn, the erudite Vahid, and the indomitable Hujjat, cut short the lives of an alarmingly large number of the most resourceful and most valiant of their fellow-disciples. The hideous outrages a.s.sociated with the death of the Seven Martyrs of ?ihran had been responsible for the extinction of yet another living symbol of the Faith, who, by reason of his close kinship to, and intimate a.s.sociation with, the Bab, no less than by virtue of his inherent qualities, would if spared have decisively contributed to the protection and furtherance of a struggling Cause.
The storm which subsequently burst, with unexampled violence, on a community already beaten to its knees, had, moreover, robbed it of its greatest heroine, the incomparable Tahirih, still in the full tide of her victories, had sealed the doom of Siyyid ?usayn, the Bab"s trusted amanuensis and chosen repository of His last wishes, had laid low Mulla "Abdu"l-Karim-i-Qazvini, admittedly one of the very few who could claim to possess a profound knowledge of the origins of the Faith, and had plunged into a dungeon Baha"u"llah, the sole survivor among the towering figures of the new Dispensation. The Bab-the Fountainhead from whence the vitalizing energies of a newborn Revelation had flowed-had Himself, ere the outburst of that hurricane, succ.u.mbed, in harrowing circ.u.mstances, to the volleys of a firing squad leaving behind, as t.i.tular head of a well-nigh disrupted community, a mere figurehead, timid in the extreme, good-natured yet susceptible to the slightest influence, devoid of any outstanding qualities, who now (loosed from the controlling hand of Baha"u"llah, the real Leader) was seeking, in the guise of a dervish, the protection afforded by the hills of his native Mazindaran against the threatened a.s.saults of a deadly enemy. The voluminous writings of the Founder of the Faith-in ma.n.u.script, dispersed, uncla.s.sified, poorly transcribed and ill-preserved, were in part, owing to the fever and tumult of the times, either deliberately destroyed, confiscated, or hurriedly dispatched to places of safety beyond the confines of the land in which they were revealed. Powerful adversaries, among whom towered the figure of the inordinately ambitious and hypocritical ?aji Mirza Karim _Kh_an, who at the special request of the _Sh_ah had in a treatise viciously attacked the new Faith and its doctrines, had now raised their heads, and, emboldened by the reverses it had sustained, were heaping abuse and calumnies upon it. Furthermore, under the stress of intolerable circ.u.mstances, a few of the Babis were constrained to recant their faith, while others went so far as to apostatize and join the ranks of the enemy.
And now to the sum of these dire misfortunes a monstrous calumny, arising from the outrage perpetrated by a handful of irresponsible enthusiasts, was added, branding a holy and innocent Faith with an infamy that seemed indelible, and which threatened to loosen it from its foundations.