The Dawning Light
Episode XI: The City Turns Hostile
As pressure closed around the believers in Shiraz, every attempt to contain the Cause only deepened the trial.
The Dawning Light
Episode XI: The City Turns Hostile
The moment Mullá Husayn set foot in Shíráz again, the city turned against him. The people knew he had never stopped meeting with the Báb. The fear was specific: he had come back to raise the standard of revolt, to mount a fiercer onslaught against every institution they held sacred. The anger of the crowd grew dangerous enough that the Báb intervened. He instructed Mullá Husayn to leave Shíráz by way of Yazd and return to his native Khurásán. He dismissed the rest of His companions and sent them to Isfahán. Only one remained, Mullá ‘Abdu’l-Karím, assigned the sole task of transcribing His writings.
To anyone watching, the Báb had just emptied Shíráz of His own movement. Every disciple who had gathered around Him was now walking toward some other city.
But those disciples carried the message with them. Wherever they went, they proclaimed what they had witnessed. The fame of the Báb spread beyond the limits of Fárs and reached the ears of the highest authorities in the capital and across the provinces. A wave of passionate inquiry swept through leaders and masses alike. Dignitaries of state and church either came themselves or sent their ablest representatives to investigate this movement that refused to be contained.
Muhammad Sháh himself decided to act.
He chose his most trusted instrument: Siyyid Yahyáy-i-Darábí, the most learned, most eloquent, and most influential of his subjects. So commanding was Vahíd’s reputation that at whatever gathering he appeared, no matter how many ecclesiastical leaders sat in attendance, he was invariably the chief speaker. None dared assert a view in his presence. They sat silent before him and testified to his sagacity, his unsurpassed knowledge, his mature wisdom.
In those days Vahíd was living in Tihrán, in the house of Mírzá Lutf-‘Alí, Master of Ceremonies to the Sháh, as an honored guest of His Imperial Majesty. Through Mírzá Lutf-‘Alí, the Sháh made his wishes known. “Inasmuch as we repose the utmost confidence in his integrity,” the sovereign commanded, “and admire his moral and intellectual standards, and regard him as the most suitable among the divines of our realm, we expect him to proceed to Shíráz, to enquire thoroughly into the episode of the Siyyid-i-Báb, and to inform us of the results of his investigations. We shall then know what measures it behoves us to take.”
Vahíd had wanted to go. Adverse circumstances had stopped him until now. The Sháh’s message broke the last obstacle. He set out for Shíráz at once, and along the way he composed in his mind the questions he believed would expose or confirm the Báb’s claim.
When he arrived in Shíráz, he met Mullá Shaykh ‘Alí, surnamed Azím, a man he had known in Khurásán. He asked Azím whether he was satisfied with his own meeting with the Báb. Azím gave him a careful answer: “You should meet Him, and seek independently to acquaint yourself with His Mission. As a friend, I would advise you to exercise the utmost consideration in your conversations with Him, lest you, too, in the end should be obliged to deplore any act of discourtesy towards Him.”
Vahíd met the Báb at the home of Hají Mírzá Siyyid ‘Alí. For about two hours he directed the Báb’s attention to the most abstruse and bewildering themes in the metaphysical teachings of Islám, the obscurest passages of the Qur’án, the mysterious traditions and prophecies of the Imáms. He did not hold back. He deployed his learning at full force.
The Báb listened. He noted every question. Then He began to answer, each reply brief, persuasive, and precise. The conciseness and lucidity overpowered Vahíd. His sense of superiority collapsed. As he rose to leave, he admitted openly: “Please God, I shall, in the course of my next audience with You, submit the rest of my questions and with them shall conclude my enquiry.”
He went straight to Azím and told him what had happened. “I have in His presence expatiated unduly upon my own learning. He was able in a few words to answer my questions and to resolve my perplexities. I felt so abased before Him that I hurriedly begged leave to retire.”
Azím reminded him of his counsel. He begged him not to forget a second time.
At the second interview, something stranger happened. Every question Vahíd had prepared vanished from his mind. He could not remember them. He found himself speaking of matters that seemed irrelevant to the purpose of his visit. And then, to his astonishment, the Báb began answering the very questions he had forgotten, with the same clarity and precision as before.
“I seemed to have fallen fast asleep,” Vahíd later said. “His words, His answers to questions which I had forgotten to ask, reawakened me. A voice still kept whispering in my ear: ‘Might not this, after all, have been an accidental coincidence?’” He was too shaken to continue. He begged leave to retire again.
When he found Azím afterward, the man received him with cold indifference. His words were severe: “Would that schools had been utterly abolished, and that neither of us had entered one! Through our little-mindedness and conceit, we are withholding from ourselves the redeeming grace of God, and are causing pain to Him who is the Fountain thereof. Will you not this time beseech God to grant that you may be enabled to attain His presence with becoming humility and detachment, that perchance He may graciously relieve you from the oppression of uncertainty and doubt?”
Vahíd resolved. He formed a private test and sealed it in his heart: he would ask for nothing aloud. In his inmost being, he requested the Báb to reveal a commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar. If the Báb produced it unasked, in a manner immediately distinguishable from the prevailing standards of Qur’ánic commentary, Vahíd would believe. If not, he would walk away.
As soon as he entered the Báb’s presence, fear seized him. He could not explain it. His limbs trembled. He, who had been introduced on repeated occasions into the presence of the Sháh and had never felt the slightest trace of timidity, could not remain standing. The Báb rose, took his hand, and seated him beside Him. “Seek from Me,” He said, “whatever is your heart’s desire. I will readily reveal it to you.”
Vahíd could not speak. Like an infant who can neither understand nor utter a word, he sat powerless.
The Báb smiled. “Were I to reveal for you the commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar, would you acknowledge that My words are born of the Spirit of God? Would you recognise that My utterance can in no wise be associated with sorcery or magic?”
Tears streamed from Vahíd’s eyes. All he could manage was a verse of the Qur’án: “O our Lord, with ourselves have we dealt unjustly: if Thou forgive us not and have not pity on us, we shall surely be of those who perish.”
It was still early afternoon. The Báb asked Hají Mírzá Siyyid ‘Alí to bring His pen-case and paper. Then He began to write. The speed was extraordinary. The soft, gentle murmur of His voice accompanied the pen. Verse after verse poured out, the force of the style, the swiftness of the hand, the beauty of the language. He did not pause until the entire commentary on the Súrih of Kawthar was completed, near sunset.
He laid down the pen and asked for tea. Then He picked up the commentary and read it aloud. Vahíd’s heart leaped as the words poured out in accents of sweetness that he later called inexpressible. Three times he nearly fainted. The Báb had rose-water sprinkled on his face to revive him.
When the recital was finished, the Báb rose and entrusted Vahíd to the care of His uncle. “He is to be your guest,” He said, “until the time when he, in collaboration with Mullá ‘Abdu’l-Karím, shall have finished transcribing this newly revealed commentary, and shall have verified the correctness of the transcribed copy.” The two men gave three days and three nights to the task, reading aloud to each other in turn, verifying every tradition in the text. Every one proved accurate.
“Such was the state of certitude to which I had attained,” Vahíd declared, “that if all the powers of the earth were to be leagued against me they would be powerless to shake my confidence in the greatness of His Cause.”
Since arriving in Shíráz, Vahíd had been living at the home of Husayn Khán, the governor of Fárs. His prolonged absence had already excited suspicion. When he returned, Husayn Khán was eager to know whether he had fallen victim to the Báb’s influence.
“No one but God,” Vahíd answered, “who alone can change the hearts of men, is able to captivate the heart of Siyyid Yahyá. Whoso can ensnare his heart is of God, and His word unquestionably the voice of Truth.”
The governor said nothing more to his face. But in his letters to others he wrote that Vahíd had become a hopeless victim. He sent word to Muhammad Sháh himself, complaining that during his stay in Shíráz Vahíd had refused all contact with the clergy. “Though nominally my guest,” Husayn Khán wrote, “he frequently absents himself for consecutive days and nights. That he has become a Bábí, that he has been heart and soul enslaved by the will of the Siyyid-i-Báb, I have ceased to entertain any doubt.”
At a state function in the capital, Muhammad Sháh addressed his own Grand Vazír: “We have been lately informed that Siyyid Yahyáy-i-Darábí has become a Bábí. If this be true, it behoves us to cease belittling the cause of that siyyid.”
Then the Sháh issued an imperial command: “It is strictly forbidden to any one of our subjects to utter such words as would tend to detract from the exalted rank of Siyyid Yahyay-i-Darábí. He is of noble lineage, a man of great learning, of perfect and consummate virtue. He will under no circumstances incline his ear to any cause unless he believes it to be conducive to the advancement of the best interests of our realm and to the well-being of the Faith of Islám.”
The crown of Persia had just told its own government to stop belittling a man, because his conversion was making the Cause impossible to dismiss.
Another figure entered by a different road.
Mullá Muhammad-‘Alí, a native of Zanján, the man the Báb would name Hujjat, was unlike anyone the clergy had dealt with. Independent in mind, ferocious in his rejection of authority he deemed corrupt, he denounced the entire hierarchy of ecclesiastical leaders from the highest to the humblest. He despised their character, deplored their degeneracy, and expatiated upon their vices. He had even dismissed Shaykh Ahmad and Siyyid Kázim with careless contempt. He was so horrified by what he saw in the history of Shí’ah Islám that no one associated with it, however learned, earned his respect. His disputes with the divines of Zanján had grown so fierce that only the personal intervention of the Sháh had prevented bloodshed. Summoned to the capital, he stood alone against representatives of the ecclesiastical heads of Tihrán and other cities, established his superiority, and silenced their protests. They dissented in their hearts but were compelled to acknowledge his authority outright.
When the call from Shíráz reached him, Hujjat did not come himself. He sent his trusted disciple, Mullá Iskandar, with explicit instructions to conduct a minute and independent inquiry. Mullá Iskandar reached Shíráz, attained the Báb’s presence, and felt at once the regenerating power of His influence. He remained forty days, then returned to Zanján carrying the Báb’s writings.
He arrived at a moment when all the leading clergy of the city had assembled in Hujjat’s presence. Hujjat asked him directly: did he believe or reject the new Revelation? Mullá Iskandar submitted the writings and said that whatever his master judged, the same he would follow.
Hujjat erupted. “What! But for the presence of this distinguished company, I would have chastised you severely. How dare you consider matters of belief to be dependent upon the approbation or rejection of others?”
He took the copy of the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá from his messenger’s hand. He read a single page. He fell prostrate. Then he spoke:
“I bear witness that these words which I have read proceed from the same Source as that of the Qur’án. Whoso has recognised the truth of that sacred Book must needs testify to the Divine origin of these words, and must needs submit to the precepts inculcated by their Author. I take you, members of this assembly, as my witnesses: I pledge such allegiance to the Author of this Revelation that should He ever pronounce the night to be the day, and declare the sun to be a shadow, I would unreservedly submit to His judgment, and would regard His verdict as the voice of Truth. Whoso denies Him, him will I regard as the repudiator of God Himself.”
One page. That was all it took to break a man who had never bent to anyone.
Meanwhile, the expelled believers carried the Cause into the provinces.
Quddús traveled from Kirmán to Yazd, then onward through Ardikán, Nayin, Ardistán, Isfahán, Káshán, Qum, and Tihrán. In Kirmán he stayed at the home of Hají Siyyid Javád-i-Kirmání, a man of recognized scholarship whom he had known in Karbilá. At every gathering in that house, the host placed Quddús in the seat of honor and treated him with extreme deference. This favoritism toward so young and seemingly ordinary a visitor inflamed the disciples of Hají Mírzá Karím Khán. They whispered warnings: if Quddús remained in Hají Siyyid Javád’s company, he would fashion the man into an instrument for disrupting their master’s authority. The cowardly Hají Mírzá Karím Khán appealed to the governor, who called on Hají Siyyid Javád to end the association. But the siyyid exploded with indignation: “How often have I advised you to ignore the whisperings of this evil plotter!” He catalogued Hají Mírzá Karím Khán’s corruptions, threatened to have the worst elements of the city expel him, and sent the governor away apologizing.
In the privacy of his home, Hají Siyyid Javád heard from Quddús the full account of his conversion and his pilgrimage with the Báb. The story kindled faith in his heart. He chose to conceal his belief, hoping to guard the community more effectively from within. “Your noble resolve,” Quddús told him, “will in itself be regarded as a notable service rendered to the Cause of God.”
In Tihrán, Quddús was admitted into the presence of Bahá’u’lláh. Áqáy-i-Kalím, the brother of Bahá’u’lláh, later described what he saw: “The charm of his person, his extreme affability, combined with a dignity of bearing, appealed to even the most careless observer. We watched him one day perform his ablutions, and were struck by the gracefulness which distinguished him from the rest of the worshippers in the performance of so ordinary a rite. He seemed, in our eyes, to be the very incarnation of purity and grace.”
From Tihrán, Quddús went home to Barfurúsh in Mázindarán. His father had remarried, and his stepmother loved him with a tenderness no natural mother could surpass. She longed to see his wedding and feared she would carry that unfulfilled wish to her grave. Quddús answered her with words whose meaning she could not yet understand: “The day of my wedding is not yet come. That day will be unspeakably glorious. Not within the confines of this house, but out in the open air, under the vault of heaven, in the midst of the Sabzih-Maydán, before the gaze of the multitude, there shall I celebrate my nuptials and witness the consummation of my hopes.”
Three years later, when she learned the circumstances of his martyrdom in the Sabzih-Maydán, she understood.
Mullá Sádiq, traveling to Yazd after his expulsion from Shíráz, found that Mírzá Ahmad-i-Azghandí was residing in the city. Mírzá Ahmad had spent years in seclusion compiling a massive volume of Islamic traditions and prophecies relating to the promised Dispensation, more than twelve thousand traditions of the most explicit character, their authenticity universally recognized. He had come to Yazd at the invitation of his uncle, Siyyid Husayn-i-Azghandí, the foremost mujtahid of the city, who needed help combating the pernicious influence of Hají Mírzá Karím Khán. While there, a certain Mírzá Taqí, ambitious, newly returned from Najaf with the rank of mujtahid, asked to borrow the book. He never returned it. When Mírzá Ahmad sent a messenger to reclaim it, the reply was insolent: after satisfying himself as to its mischievous character, Mírzá Taqí had thrown it into the pond.
Twelve thousand traditions, compiled over years, destroyed in a night by a man who could not tolerate what they pointed toward.
Mullá Sádiq went straight to the masjid where Siyyid Husayn led prayer and Mírzá Ahmad preached. He took a seat in the first row, joined the congregation, then rose and publicly embraced Siyyid Husayn. Uninvited, he mounted the pulpit. The mujtahid, startled but curious, motioned his nephew to let him speak.
Mullá Sádiq opened with one of the Báb’s homilies and then addressed the congregation directly: “Render thanks to God, O people of learning, for, behold, the Gate of Divine Knowledge, which you deem to have been closed, is now wide open. The River of everlasting life has streamed forth from the city of Shíráz, and is conferring untold blessings upon the people of this land.”
The congregation rose against him. Cries of “Blasphemy!” rang through the masjid. Siyyid Husayn’s voice cut through the uproar: “Descend from the pulpit!” The crowd rushed Mullá Sádiq and beat him. Siyyid Husayn intervened, seized his hand, pulled him free, and warned the congregation that he would take personal custody and investigate. Stripped of his cloak and turban, deprived of his sandals and staff, bruised and shaken, Mullá Sádiq was conducted to the mujtahid’s home.
Every city. The same pattern. The message arrives, the authorities react, the messenger is beaten, and the Cause takes root anyway.
While Vahíd was still in Shíráz, Hají Siyyid Javád-i-Karbilá’í arrived and was introduced by the Báb’s uncle into His presence. In a Tablet addressed to both Vahíd and Hají Siyyid Javád, the Báb extolled their faith and stressed the unalterable character of their devotion. Hají Siyyid Javád had known the Báb before the declaration and had been a fervent admirer of those extraordinary traits visible since His childhood. At a later time this same man, walking calmly through a street in Tihrán, came face to face with the Sháh on horseback. Undisturbed, he approached and greeted the sovereign. His venerable figure and dignity so pleased the Sháh that he invited him to visit. The courtiers, seething with envy, protested: “Does not Your Imperial Majesty realize that this man is a Bábí?” The Sháh rebuked them. “How strange!” he exclaimed. “Whoever is distinguished by the uprightness of his conduct and the courtesy of his manners, my people forthwith denounce him as a Bábí and regard him as an object worthy of my condemnation!”
Shaykh Sultan-i-Karbilá’í, whose ancestors ranked among the leading scholars of Karbilá and who had been an intimate companion of Siyyid Kázim, also reached Shíráz in those days. He arrived too ill to meet the Báb. One night, a message came: the Báb would visit him about two hours after sunset. The Ethiopian servant was ordered to walk ahead at a distance, carrying a lantern to clear the way, and to extinguish it upon arrival. The Báb instructed Shaykh Sultan to put out his own lamp before He entered.
In total darkness, the Báb came to his bedside. Shaykh Sultan clung to the hem of His garment and begged: “Fulfil my desire, O Beloved of my heart, and allow me to sacrifice myself for Thee; for no one else except Thee is able to confer upon me this favour.”
The Báb answered: “O Shaykh! I too yearn to immolate Myself upon the altar of sacrifice. It behoves us both to cling to the garment of the Best-Beloved and to seek from Him the joy and glory of martyrdom in His path. Rest assured I will, in your behalf, supplicate the Almighty to enable you to attain His presence. Remember Me on that Day, a Day such as the world has never seen before.”
As the hour of parting came, He placed a gift in Shaykh Sultan’s hand. Shaykh Sultan refused. The Báb pressed him. He accepted. The Báb rose and left.
For years afterward, the allusion to “the Best-Beloved” puzzled Shaykh Sultan. He sometimes thought it meant Táhirih. He sometimes thought it meant another. It was not until he reached Karbilá and stood in the presence of Bahá’u’lláh that the mystery resolved. He understood then who alone could have drawn such devotion from the Báb.
The second Naw-Rúz since the declaration, the twenty-first of Rabí’u’l-Avval, 1262, found the Báb still in Shíráz, still able for a brief season to enjoy undisturbed fellowship with His family. Quietly and without ceremony, He celebrated the festival at home. He conferred upon His mother and His wife the marks of His affection. He counseled them. He comforted their hearts. He dispelled their fears.
Then He arranged His affairs. He bequeathed all His possessions and transferred the title to His property into their names. In a document He Himself wrote and signed, He directed that His house, its furnishings, and the rest of His estate should belong exclusively to His mother and His wife, and that upon His mother’s death, her share should revert to His wife.
His mother did not yet perceive the magnitude of what her Son had set in motion. That understanding would come later, near the end of her life, through the guidance of Bahá’u’lláh.
His wife was different. From the earliest dawn of His Revelation she perceived its glory and felt the intensity of its force. No woman of her generation surpassed her in the spontaneity of her devotion, except Táhirih. To her alone the Báb confided the secret of His coming sufferings. He unfolded before her eyes the events that would unfold. He counseled her not to share these things with His mother, and to be patient and resigned to the will of God. He gave her a special prayer, written in His own hand. “In the hour of your perplexity,” He told her, “recite this prayer ere you go to sleep. I Myself will appear to you and will banish your anxiety.”
She kept that prayer all her life. Every time she turned to it, the light of His guidance found her.
After settling the affairs of His household, the Báb moved from His own home to the house of His uncle, Hají Mírzá Siyyid ‘Alí. He knew what was coming. He sent Mullá ‘Abdu’l-Karím, Shaykh Hasan-i-Zunúzí, and Siyyid Husayn-i-Yazdí to Isfahán to await further instruction. And He waited.
Husayn Khán had never stopped watching. His secret agents tracked every visitor, every meeting, every movement. The fire of his hostility only grew hotter as he learned that the Báb continued to associate with companions and enjoy the fellowship of His family. One night his chief informant reported that the crowds coming to see the Báb now surpassed the number that thronged every day before the gates of the governor’s own seat of government. “Among them are men celebrated alike for their exalted rank and extensive learning,” the agent warned. He offered to raid the Báb’s home at midnight. Husayn Khán refused the subordinate’s plan. “I can tell better than you what the interests of the State require. Watch me from a distance; I shall know how to deal with him.”
That very moment, the governor summoned ‘Abdu’l-Hamíd Khán, the chief constable of the city. “Proceed immediately to the house of Hají Mírzá Siyyid ‘Alí. Quietly and unobserved, scale the wall and ascend to the roof, and from there suddenly enter his home. Arrest the Siyyid-i-Báb immediately, and conduct him to this place together with any of the visitors who may be present with him. Confiscate whatever books and documents you are able to find. I swear by the imperial diadem of Muhammad Sháh that this very night I shall have the Siyyid-i-Báb executed together with his wretched companions. Their ignominious death will quench the flame they have kindled.”
‘Abdu’l-Hamíd Khán and his men broke into the house. They found the Báb in the company of His uncle and Siyyid Kázim-i-Zanjání, who would later be martyred in Mázindarán, and whose brother, Siyyid Murtadá, would become one of the Seven Martyrs of Tihrán. The constable arrested them, collected every document he could find, ordered the uncle to remain in his house, and set out through the city with his prisoners toward the seat of government.
The Báb, undaunted and self-possessed, was heard repeating a verse of the Qur’án: “That with which they are threatened is for the morning. Is not the morning near?”
Then ‘Abdu’l-Hamíd Khán reached the marketplace, and stopped.
People were fleeing in every direction. A long train of coffins rushed through the streets, each followed by processions of men and women shrieking in agony. The constable stood paralyzed by what he was seeing. He asked what had happened. He was told that since the hour of midnight a plague of exceptional virulence had broken out. Already it had extinguished the lives of over a hundred people. Every household was in alarm. The people were abandoning their homes and crying out to God for mercy.
He ran to Husayn Khán’s house. An old man at the gate told him the governor had fled. Two of his Ethiopian maids and a man-servant were dead. Members of his family were dangerously ill. In despair, Husayn Khán had abandoned his home, leaving the dead unburied, and escaped to the Bágh-i-Takht.
‘Abdu’l-Hamíd Khán brought the Báb to his own home instead. As he approached, he heard the sound of weeping inside. His son had been struck by the plague and was near death.
He threw himself at the Báb’s feet. He wept. He begged forgiveness for everything he had done. “I adjure you,” he pleaded, clinging to the hem of His garment, “by Him who has elevated you to this exalted position, to intercede in my behalf and to offer a prayer for the recovery of my son. Suffer not that he, in the prime of youth, be taken away from me. Punish him not for the guilt which his father has committed. I repent of what I have done, and at this moment resign my post. I solemnly pledge my word that never again will I accept such a position even though I perish of hunger.”
The Báb was in the act of performing His ablutions, preparing for the prayer of dawn. He told the constable to take some of the water with which He was washing His face to his son, and to have the boy drink it.
The boy recovered.
‘Abdu’l-Hamíd Khán wrote at once to Husayn Khán: “Have pity on yourself, as well as on those whom Providence has committed to your care. Should the fury of this plague continue its fatal course, no one in this city, I fear, will by the end of this day have survived the horror of its attack.”
Husayn Khán, now terrified beyond any thought of execution, ordered the Báb released immediately.
When the account of these events reached Tihrán, the Sháh issued an imperial edict dismissing Husayn Khán from office. From the day of his dismissal, misfortune consumed him. He could not earn his daily bread. No one came to help. Years later, after Bahá’u’lláh had been exiled to Baghdád, Husayn Khán wrote to Him, expressed repentance, and promised to atone for everything, if only he could have his position back. Bahá’u’lláh did not answer. He languished until his death.
The Báb, still at the constable’s home, sent Siyyid Kázim to request His uncle. When Hají Mírzá Siyyid ‘Alí arrived, the Báb entrusted His mother and His wife to his care. He asked him to convey to each the expression of His love and the assurance of God’s unfailing assistance. “Wherever they may be,” He said, “God’s all-encompassing love and protection will surround them.”
Then He told His uncle where the road was leading.
“I will again meet you amid the mountains of Ádhirbayján, from whence I will send you forth to obtain the crown of martyrdom. I Myself will follow you, together with one of My loyal disciples, and will join you in the realm of eternity.”
The farewell was exact. He named the place. He named the outcome. He was not describing a fear. He was describing a plan, and it was not His own.
Every instrument the authorities could summon, the governor’s rage, the clergy’s alarm, the Sháh’s own investigation, the secret agents, the midnight raid, the threat of execution, had failed to accomplish the one thing it was designed to do. The Cause had not been contained in Shíráz. It had reached the court through Vahíd, the pulpit through Mullá Sádiq, the provinces through Quddús, the fearless critic through Hujjat. It had survived the scourge of the lash, the hostility of Kirmán, the mob at Yazd. And from the darkened sickroom of a man who clung to the hem of a prisoner’s garment, it had broken the nerve of the governor who thought he could end it in a single night.
The Báb left Shíráz with the road to martyrdom already named and the crown already promised.
He did not look back.