The Dawning Light
Episode XVII: Tahirih Unbound
Pressed by enemies and hemmed in on every side, Tahirih moved toward Khurasan beneath gathering peril and unseen protection.
The Dawning Light
Episode XVII: Tahirih Unbound
A woman is locked in a room in Qazvín. Her companions have been dragged to the capital in chains. The man who confined her has just inherited his dead father’s pulpit and is using it to call for her execution. She has nine days. She chose the number herself. If her God is real, she told her captor, He will deliver her before the ninth day passes. If He does not, her enemies may do what they will.
That is where this story arrives. But it did not begin in a locked room. It began with a summons.
While the Báb languished in the mountains of Ádhirbáyján, cut off from His followers by royal decree, two forces were being drawn toward the heart of Persia from opposite ends of the earth. From the east, in the province of Khurásán, Quddús had kindled a fire in the breasts of the people of Mashhad. And from the west, beyond the borders of Persia itself, another light was burning, in Karbilá, in the person of Táhirih.
The summons came in the form of a Tablet from the Báb, addressed to all the believers of Persia: hasten to the land of Khurásán. The news spread with what witnesses called marvelous rapidity and aroused universal enthusiasm. Both Quddús and Táhirih were being called toward the same center. Toward the same figure. Toward Bahá’u’lláh.
But Táhirih had a long road ahead of her, and enemies at every turn.
She had never met the Báb in person. She did not need to. From Karbilá, without warning or invitation, she had recognized His Revelation the moment its light broke over Shíráz. She wrote to Him. He answered. That answer deepened a courage that was already formidable.
In Karbilá, she taught openly. She denounced the corruption and perversity of her generation. She called for nothing less than a fundamental revolution in the habits and manners of her people. And she did this not from the safety of obscurity but in the full view of the most powerful clerical establishment in the Shí’ih world.
All who met her were ensnared by her eloquence. None could resist her argument. Few could escape the contagion of her belief.
She won to the Cause the revered widow of Siyyid Kázim, a woman born in Shíráz and the first among the women of Karbilá to recognize the truth of the new Revelation. Shaykh Sultan, who knew them both, described how the widow became so attached to Táhirih that she could hardly bear to let her leave the room for an hour. That devotion quickened the faith of every woman, Persian and Arab, who visited that household. In the first year of her acceptance, the widow suddenly fell ill, and after three days, as had been the case with her own husband Siyyid Kázim, she died.
Among the men who embraced the Cause through Táhirih was Shaykh Salih, an Arab of Karbilá. She praised him so highly that a few suspected he might be equal in rank to Quddús. Remember that name. Shaykh Salih would become the first believer to shed his blood for the Faith on Persian soil.
Shaykh Sultan, too, fell under her spell. So did Shaykh Muhammad-i-Shibl, father of Muhammad-Mustafa, an Arab of Baghdád who ranked among the most distinguished clerics of that city. With this band of supporters, Táhirih fired the imagination and enlisted the allegiance of a considerable number of Persian and Arab inhabitants of ‘Iráq. Most of them would eventually join forces with the believers in Persia who were soon to be called upon to seal with their blood the triumph of the Cause.
When the Báb’s appeal to hasten to Khurásán reached ‘Iráq, Táhirih responded at once. A large number of her admirers declared their readiness to travel with her.
The clerics of Karbilá tried to stop her. She saw through them immediately. To each of these men she addressed a lengthy letter, setting forth her motives and exposing their dissimulation.
From Karbilá she moved to Baghdád. There, a delegation unlike any she had yet faced assembled to meet her, the ablest leaders of the Shí’ih, Sunní, Christian, and Jewish communities of that city. They came to convince her of the folly of her journey. She silenced them all. Disillusioned and confused, they withdrew, deeply conscious of their own impotence.
In Kirmansháh, the religious scholars received her with respect and presented her with tokens of their esteem and admiration.
In Hamadán, the reaction was divided. A few clerics worked in secret to provoke the people and undermine her standing. Others mounted their own pulpits and praised her openly. “It behoves us to follow her noble example,” they declared, “and reverently to ask her to unravel for us the mysteries of the Qur’án and to resolve the intricacies of the holy Book. For our highest attainments are but a drop compared to the immensity of her knowledge.”
While she was still in Hamadán, messengers arrived, sent by her father, Haji Mullá Salih, from Qazvín, urging her to visit her native town. She reluctantly agreed.
Before she left, she directed those companions who had traveled with her from ‘Iráq to return to their own lands. Shaykh Sultan, Shaykh Muhammad-i-Shibl and his son Muhammad-Mustafa, and others were sent home. Those who had been living in Persia, such as Siyyid Muhammad-i-Gulpaygání, the poet she had styled Fata’l-Malih, were also told to return.
Only two companions stayed at her side: Shaykh Salih and Mullá Ibráhím-i-Gulpaygání. Both of them would drink the cup of martyrdom, Shaykh Salih in Tihrán, Mullá Ibráhím in Qazvín. Of her own family, her brother-in-law Mírzá Muhammad-‘Alí, one of the Letters of the Living, and Siyyid ‘Abdu’l-Hádí, who had been betrothed to her daughter, traveled with her the whole way from Karbilá.
She entered Qazvín. And the chapter darkened.
Her cousin Mullá Muhammad, the haughty, false-hearted son of Mullá Taqí, esteemed himself, next to his father and uncle, the most accomplished religious authority in all of Persia. He sent women of his own household to persuade Táhirih to leave her father’s house and transfer her residence to his.
Her reply was devastating.
“Say to my presumptuous and arrogant kinsman: If your desire had really been to be a faithful mate and companion to me, you would have hastened to meet me in Karbilá and would on foot have guided my howdah all the way to Qazvín. I would, while journeying with you, have aroused you from your sleep of heedlessness and would have shown you the way of truth. But this was not to be. Three years have elapsed since our separation. Neither in this world nor in the next can I ever be associated with you. I have cast you out of my life for ever.”
That reply left no room for reconciliation. It roused both Mullá Muhammad and his father, Mullá Taqí, to a fury. They pronounced her a heretic on the spot. Day and night they labored to undermine her position and destroy her name.
Táhirih fought back. She defended herself with force and persisted in exposing the depravity of their character. Her father, a peace-loving and fair-minded man, tried to reconcile them. He failed.
Into this atmosphere of hatred walked a stranger.
His name was Mullá ‘Abdu’lláh, a native of Shíráz. He was a fervent admirer of Shaykh Ahmad and Siyyid Kázim, but, as he himself later testified under oath, he had never been a convinced Bábí. He was passing through Qazvín on his way to visit the Báb in the mountain prison of Máh-Kú and investigate His Cause.
What he found in Qazvín stopped him in his tracks.
He arrived at the beginning of Ramadán in the year 1263. The town was in turmoil. In the marketplace, he saw a crowd of men who had stripped a man of his headdress and shoes, wound his turban around his neck, and were dragging him through the streets. An angry mob followed, tormenting the man with threats, blows, and curses.
Mullá ‘Abdu’lláh asked what the man had done.
The answer: he had dared to praise Shaykh Ahmad and Siyyid Kázim in public. For this, Mullá Taqí, the Hujjatu’l-Islám of Qazvín, had pronounced him a heretic and ordered him driven from the city.
Mullá ‘Abdu’lláh was stunned. Since when was a Shaykhí a heretic? He went directly to Mullá Taqí’s school and asked whether the sentence was real.
“Yes,” Mullá Taqí said. “The god whom the late Shaykh Ahmad worshipped is a god in whom I can never believe. Him as well as his followers I regard as the very embodiments of error.”
Mullá ‘Abdu’lláh wanted to strike him in the face right there, in front of his students. He held himself back. But he made a vow: God willing, he would pierce those lips so they could never speak such blasphemy again.
He went to the market. He bought a dagger and a spear-head of the sharpest, finest steel. He concealed them in his clothes and waited.
One night, he entered the mosque where Mullá Taqí led the congregation in prayer. He waited until dawn. An old woman entered and spread a rug over the floor of the prayer niche. Then Mullá Taqí came in alone. He walked to the niche and began to pray.
Mullá ‘Abdu’lláh followed him. Quietly. When Mullá Taqí was prostrate on the floor, he rushed forward, drew the spear-head, and drove it into the back of his neck. The cleric screamed. Mullá ‘Abdu’lláh threw him on his back, drew the dagger, and plunged it hilt-deep into his mouth. He struck him several more times in the breast and side. Then he left him bleeding in the prayer niche.
He climbed to the roof of the mosque and watched.
Below, a crowd rushed in. They placed Mullá Taqí on a litter and carried him to his house. Unable to find the attacker, the people of Qazvín turned on each other. They rushed at one another’s throats, made wild accusations before the governor, attacked and arrested innocent people by the score.
When Mullá ‘Abdu’lláh saw how many blameless men were suffering for his act, his conscience drove him to confess. He went to the governor. “If I deliver the murderer into your hands,” he said, “will you release the innocent men you have imprisoned?”
The governor agreed. Mullá ‘Abdu’lláh confessed. The governor did not believe him at first. He summoned the old woman who had spread the rug. Still he was not convinced. Finally Mullá ‘Abdu’lláh was brought to the bedside of Mullá Taqí, who was dying. The moment Mullá Taqí saw him, he recognized the face. In his agitation, he pointed at Mullá ‘Abdu’lláh with his finger. He signaled that the man be taken away.
Shortly after, Mullá Taqí died.
Mullá ‘Abdu’lláh was arrested and convicted. The governor broke his promise. The prisoners were not released.
Now understand what happened next, because this is where the machinery of vengeance was set in motion, and it was aimed at Táhirih.
The heirs of Mullá Taqí did not care that the actual killer had confessed. They wanted blood, and they wanted it from the believers. They placed Táhirih under the strictest confinement in her father’s house. They selected women to guard her and gave orders: she was not to leave her room for any reason except to perform her daily ablutions. They charged her with ordering the assassination. “No one else but you is guilty of the murder of our father,” they said. “You issued the order for his assassination.”
They arrested her companions and dragged them to Tihrán. In the capital, the prisoners were locked in the house of a kad-khudá, a city official. The heirs of Mullá Taqí spread through the streets, denouncing the captives as enemies of Islám and demanding immediate execution.
Bahá’u’lláh was living in Tihrán at this time. He learned of the prisoners’ condition. He knew the kad-khudá personally, and went to visit them and intervene on their behalf.
That official, avaricious and deceitful, saw an opportunity. Knowing Bahá’u’lláh’s extreme generosity, he grossly exaggerated the prisoners’ misery in hopes of extracting money. “They are destitute,” he pleaded. “They hunger for food. Their clothing is wretchedly scanty.”
Bahá’u’lláh gave immediate financial assistance. He urged the kad-khudá to ease the severity of their confinement. The official consented to unchain a few who could not bear the weight of their fetters, and did what he could for the rest. But then, prompted by greed, the kad-khudá reported to his superiors that Bahá’u’lláh was regularly supplying food and money to the prisoners.
Those superiors wanted their share. They summoned Bahá’u’lláh, protested against His actions, and accused Him of complicity in the murder. Bahá’u’lláh answered them directly: “The kad-khudá pleaded their cause before Me and enlarged upon their sufferings and needs. He himself bore witness to their innocence and appealed to Me for help. In return for the aid which, in response to his invitation, I was impelled to extend, you now charge Me with a crime of which I am innocent.”
They were unmoved. They refused to let Him return home. They hoped to intimidate Him with the threat of punishment.
This was the first imprisonment Bahá’u’lláh suffered in the path of the Cause. The first time He was confined for the sake of His loved ones.
He remained in captivity for several days. Then Ja’far-Qulí Khán, the brother of a man who would later become Grand Vazír, along with other friends intervened. They confronted the kad-khudá in severe language and secured Bahá’u’lláh’s release. The officials who had confined Him had dreamed of receiving a thousand túmans in exchange for His freedom. Instead, they were forced to surrender their Captive with profuse apologies and the utmost regret, without a single coin.
Meanwhile, the heirs of Mullá Taqí pressed their case all the way to Muhammad Sháh.
The Sháh refused them. His answer was sharp: “Your father surely could not have claimed to be superior to the Imám ‘Alí, the Commander of the Faithful. Did not ‘Alí instruct his own followers that if he should fall to the sword of Ibn-i-Muljam, the murderer alone should pay with his life, and no one else should be put to death? Why should the murder of your father be avenged any differently? Name the killer, and I will deliver him to you.”
Blocked by the Sháh’s refusal, the heirs changed their accusation. They declared Shaykh Salih to be the murderer.
Shaykh Salih, the first man Táhirih had praised with such devotion in Karbilá, the one she extolled until some thought he was equal in rank to Quddús.
They arrested him. They put him to death.
He was the first to shed his blood on Persian soil for the Cause of God.
As he was led to the gallows, his face glowed with joy. He walked to the place of his execution as though greeting a lifelong friend. Words of triumph fell from his lips until the very end. “I discarded the hopes and the beliefs of men,” he cried, “from the moment I recognized Thee, Thou who art my Hope and my Belief!”
His remains were buried in the courtyard of the shrine of the Imám-Zádih Zayd in Tihrán.
The killing of Shaykh Salih did not satisfy them. Nothing would.
The heirs of Mullá Taqí appealed next to Haji Mírzá Aqásí, the Grand Vazír. He refused. The Sáhib-Diván had already convinced him of the treachery behind their campaign. Undeterred, they turned to the Sadr-i-Ardibílí, a man notorious for his arrogance, one of the most presumptuous ecclesiastical leaders in Persia.
They played on his fear. “Are you truly incapable of avenging the blood of a slaughtered minister of the Prophet of God? If you tolerate this crime, will it not embolden the enemies of Islám? Will not your own life be endangered?”
The Sadr-i-Ardibílí was afraid. He could not act openly, so he moved by deception. He petitioned Muhammad Sháh: let the prisoners accompany the heirs back to Qazvín, where the family would publicly forgive them and set them free. A magnanimous gesture. It would enhance their standing.
The Sháh, unaware of the trap, agreed, but on one condition. A written statement must be sent to him afterward confirming that the prisoners were safe and unharmed.
The moment the captives were handed over, the slaughter began.
On the first night, Haji Asadu’lláh, a merchant of Qazvín known for his piety, the brother of Haji Alláh-Vardí and uncle of Muhammad-Hádí and Muhammad-Javád-i-Farhádí, was killed in secret at midnight. The next morning, his murderers announced that illness had been the cause of death. His friends and neighbors, natives of Qazvín, buried him with full honors, never suspecting the crime.
The rest were not even granted that disguise. Mullá Táhir-i-Shírází and Mullá Ibráhím-i-Mahallati, both highly esteemed for their learning and character, were put to death the moment they arrived in Qazvín. The population had been worked into a frenzy beforehand. A mob armed with knives, swords, spears, and axes fell upon them and tore them to pieces. They mutilated the bodies with such savagery that no fragment could be found for burial.
This happened in Qazvín, a city that boasted no fewer than a hundred of the highest-ranking clerics in all of Islám within its gates. Not one of them raised his voice.
When the news reached Tihrán, even the Grand Vazír was appalled. “In what passage of the Qur’án,” Haji Mírzá Aqásí demanded, “in which tradition of Muhammad, has the massacre of many been justified to avenge the murder of one?”
Muhammad Sháh condemned the treachery of the Sadr-i-Ardibílí. He banished him from the capital and sentenced him to a life of obscurity in Qum. But the Sháh’s government did not punish the men who had actually wielded the knives.
And so the killers were emboldened. They turned their attention to the one target they had wanted all along.
Táhirih.
She was still locked in her father’s house. Her companions were dead or scattered. Her enemies had the governor, the clerics, and the mob behind them. Mullá Muhammad, who had inherited his father’s position as the Imám-Jum’ih of Qazvín, moved to finish what the family had started.
And from inside that locked room, Táhirih sent him a message.
She quoted the Qur’án: “Fain would they put out God’s light with their mouths: but God only desireth to perfect His light, albeit the infidels abhor it.”
Then she added her own words: “If my Cause be the Cause of Truth, if the Lord whom I worship be none other than the one true God, He will, ere nine days have elapsed, deliver me from the yoke of your tyranny. Should He fail to achieve my deliverance, you are free to act as you desire. You will have irrevocably established the falsity of my belief.”
Nine days. She set the clock herself.
Mullá Muhammad could not accept the challenge openly. To do so would acknowledge her as worthy of engagement. He ignored her message and worked by other means to accomplish her death.
Before those nine days expired, Bahá’u’lláh acted.
He summoned Muhammad-Hádíy-i-Farhádí and entrusted him with the rescue. The plan was precise. Muhammad-Hádí was to deliver a sealed letter to his wife, Khátún-Ján. She was to disguise herself as a beggar and go to the house where Táhirih was held. She was to place the letter in Táhirih’s hands, then wait at the entrance until Táhirih came out to join her. Then they were to move immediately.
Bahá’u’lláh told the emissary: “As soon as Táhirih has joined you, start immediately for Tihrán. This very night, I shall despatch to the neighbourhood of the gate of Qazvín an attendant, with three horses, that you will take with you and station at a place outside the walls of Qazvín. You will conduct Táhirih to that spot, will mount the horses, and will, by an unfrequented route, endeavour to reach at daybreak the outskirts of the capital. As soon as the gates are opened, you must enter the city and proceed immediately to My house.”
He added: “You should exercise the utmost caution lest her identity be disclosed. The Almighty will assuredly guide your steps and will surround you with His unfailing protection.”
Muhammad-Hádí set out at once.
The sealed letter reached Khátún-Ján. She disguised herself as a beggar and went to the house of confinement. The letter was placed in Táhirih’s hands. Táhirih slipped out. Under cover of night, they moved to the horses waiting beyond the walls of Qazvín. By an unfrequented route, they rode through the darkness. At dawn, they reached the outskirts of Tihrán. When the gates opened, they entered the city and went straight to the house of Bahá’u’lláh.
It was done.
Behind them, Qazvín erupted. Her captors searched the houses all night and found nothing. Her sudden, impossible disappearance stunned friend and foe alike.
The fulfilment of her nine-day prediction shook even the most skeptical. A few were forced to recognize that the Faith she served carried a power beyond ordinary explanation, and they submitted to its claims.
Her own brother, Mírzá ‘Abdu’l-Vahháb, acknowledged the truth of the Revelation that very day.
And Táhirih herself, she knew exactly where she had arrived and in whose presence she now stood. She was profoundly aware of the sacredness of what had been given to her. Just as she had recognized the Báb without ever meeting Him, so she perceived through her own intuitive knowledge the future station of Bahá’u’lláh. Years earlier, while still in Karbilá, she had written in her own hand an ode that contained this verse: “The effulgence of the Abhá Beauty hath pierced the veil of night; behold the souls of His lovers dancing, moth-like, in the light that has flashed from His face!”
It was this immovable faith that had given her the courage to fling her nine-day challenge in the face of men who wanted her dead. Nothing less could have induced her, in the darkest hour of her captivity, to stake everything on the promise of deliverance.
A few days later, Bahá’u’lláh decided to send her onward to Khurásán, in the company of believers preparing to leave for that province. He Himself intended to follow a few days behind.
He summoned Áqáy-i-Kalím and gave him the task of getting Táhirih and her attendant, Qanitih, safely out of the capital. The danger was real: guards at every gate had orders to refuse the passage of any woman without a permit. If Táhirih were identified, the escape from Qazvín would be undone.
Áqáy-i-Kalím later recalled what happened: “Putting our trust in God, we rode out, Táhirih, her attendant, and I, to a place in the vicinity of the capital. None of the guards who were stationed at the gate of Shimírán raised the slightest objection, nor did they enquire regarding our destination.”
Two farsangs from Tihrán, they stopped at an orchard at the foot of a mountain, abundantly watered, with a house at its center that appeared deserted. Áqáy-i-Kalím found an old man watering his plants, who explained that a dispute between the owner and his tenants had emptied the property. He had been left to guard it. Áqáy-i-Kalím asked him to share their meal, and when it was time to return to the capital, the old man agreed to watch over Táhirih and her attendant until help arrived.
Back in Tihrán, Áqáy-i-Kalím sent Mullá Báqir, one of the Letters of the Living, along with an attendant to join Táhirih at the orchard. When he reported her safe departure to Bahá’u’lláh, He was greatly pleased.
Bahá’u’lláh named that orchard Bagh-i-Jannat, the Garden of Paradise. “That house,” He said, “has been providentially prepared for your reception, that you may entertain in it the loved ones of God.”
Táhirih stayed seven days. Then she set out toward Khurásán, accompanied by Muhammad-Hasan-i-Qazvíní, surnamed Fata, and a few others. Áqáy-i-Kalím arranged her departure and provided everything needed for the journey, on Bahá’u’lláh’s command.
So this is the arc of the chapter: from summons to slander, from slander to murder, from murder to massacre, from massacre to a locked room and a nine-day wager with God.
Táhirih entered Qazvín at her father’s request. Her companions were falsely accused, chained, transferred, deceived, and butchered. Shaykh Salih walked to the gallows singing. The clerics of a city with a hundred religious leaders could not produce one voice of protest. The Sháh himself was outmaneuvered by men who claimed to serve the law of God.
And yet.
The chapter ends where Táhirih’s enemies feared most it would end. Not with her broken. Not with her silenced. Not with her dead in Qazvín beside the others.
It ends with her on the road again. Under Bahá’u’lláh’s shelter. Moving east. Moving toward the next field of action in Khurásán, where the forces gathering across Persia were about to collide.
The woman they locked in a room is riding toward the horizon. And the men who locked her there are searching empty houses in the dark.