Episode XIX: The Grievous Mountain

The first prison had failed. Máh-Kú was supposed to bury the Báb in silence, and instead it became a place of pilgrimage. The jailer softened. The villagers turned reverent. The visitors kept coming. So the Grand Vazír, Hájí Mírzá Áqásí, did what frightened men in power always do, he tried the same thing harder.

Near the end of the month of Sha’bán, in the year 1264, the Báb was transferred to the castle of Chihríq and placed in the custody of a new jailer: Yahyá Khán-i-Kurd, a man whose sister was the wife of Muhammad Sháh himself, the mother of the Nayibu’s-Saltanih. The instructions from the Grand Vazír were strict and explicit. No one was to be admitted into the Prisoner’s presence. And Yahyá Khán was specifically warned not to follow the example of ‘Alí Khán-i-Máh-Kú’í, who had gradually been led to disregard every order he had received.

This was a deliberate escalation. The Kurds who lived around Chihríq were notorious for their fanaticism, their hostility to the Shí’ahs. Their hatred surpassed even the aversion of the people of Máh-Kú. The authorities were banking on that hostility. Surely these Kurds would show no warmth to a Prisoner from Shíráz.

It did not work.

Yahyá Khán fell first. At the very outset, the love of the Báb penetrated his heart and claimed his entire being. He forgot, as soon as he came into contact with that spirit, the duty he was expected to perform. And then the Kurds themselves, those same Kurds chosen precisely because they were thought to be immune, were subjected to the same transforming influence.

Every morning, before they started for their daily work, they directed their steps toward the prison. They gazed from afar at the castle that held their Prisoner. They invoked His name. They prostrated themselves on the ground. They sought to refresh their souls with remembrance of Him. And to one another, freely, they related the wonders of His power and glory. They recounted dreams that bore witness to the force of His influence.

Yahyá Khán refused admittance to no one. So many visitors flocked to the gates that Chihríq itself could not accommodate them. They had to find lodgings in Iski-Shahr, the old Chihríq, an hour’s walk from the castle. Whatever provisions the Báb required were purchased in that old town and carried up to His prison.

The cage was open again.

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One day the Báb asked that some honey be purchased for Him. When it arrived, He looked at the price and refused it. The honey was not worth what had been paid. And then He did something that tells you everything about how He carried Himself, even in captivity.

He taught.

“Honey of a superior quality could no doubt have been purchased at a lower price,” He said. “I who am your example have been a merchant by profession. It behoves you in all your transactions to follow in My way. You must neither defraud your neighbour nor allow him to defraud you. Such was the way of your Master. The shrewdest and ablest of men were unable to deceive Him, nor did He on His part choose to act ungenerously towards the meanest and most helpless of creatures.”

He insisted the attendant return the honey and bring back a better one, superior in quality and cheaper in price.

This was a Man in prison. A Man under the explicit threat of state power. And He was correcting a grocery purchase on principle. Not because the sum mattered. Because the discipline mattered. Because integrity does not sleep when the world turns hostile.

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The government had feared exactly this kind of influence. And the fear was justified. In Khúy, the nearest city of consequence, men of rank, learning, and office were embracing the Cause of the Prisoner. Among them were Mírzá Muhammad-‘Alí and his brother Buyuk-Áqá, both siyyids of distinguished merit, who had risen with fevered earnestness to proclaim their Faith to all conditions of people among their countrymen. A continuous stream of seekers and confirmed believers now flowed back and forth between Khúy and Chihríq.

And then came a conversion that shook the authorities more than any other.

A prominent official of high literary ability named Mírzá Asadu’lláh had been, until this point, a fierce opponent. His vehement denunciations of the Báb’s message had baffled everyone who tried to convert him. He was exactly the kind of man the establishment wanted on its side.

Then he dreamed a dream.

When he awoke, he told no one what he had seen. Instead, he devised a silent test. He fixed his choice on two specific verses of the Qur’án, and sent a written request to the Báb through Mírzá Muhammad-‘Alí. It said only this: “I have conceived three definite things in my mind. I request you to reveal to me their nature.”

A few days later, a reply arrived, penned in the Báb’s own handwriting. It set forth in their entirety the circumstances of that dream and revealed the exact texts of those two verses.

The accuracy of that reply broke Mírzá Asadu’lláh. Though unused to walking, he set out at once on foot along the steep and stony path that led from Khúy to the castle of Chihríq. His friends tried to persuade him to go on horseback. He refused. He climbed on foot. And his meeting with the Báb confirmed him in his belief and kindled a fiery ardour he carried to the end of his life.

That same year, the Báb expressed His desire that forty of His companions should each compose a treatise, drawing on verses and traditions to establish the validity of His Mission. His wishes were instantly obeyed. The results were submitted to His presence. And of all forty treatises, the one by Mírzá Asadu’lláh ranked highest. It won the Báb’s unqualified admiration. He bestowed on its author the name Dayyán and revealed in his honour the Lawh-i-Hurúfát, in which He made an extraordinary statement: “Had the Point of the Bayán no other testimony with which to establish His truth, this were sufficient, that He revealed a Tablet such as this, a Tablet such as no amount of learning could produce.”

But Dayyán’s conversion sent a tremor back through the power structure. His own father, an intimate friend of Hájí Mírzá Áqásí, reported the circumstances of his son’s conversion to the Grand Vazír. He informed him how so able a servant of the government had risen with such eagerness to serve a new Master, and how successful his efforts had been.

The very institutions meant to suppress the Cause were hemorrhaging their own officers into it.

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Then another witness arrived, from farther away, and from a direction no one expected.

A dervish came from India. He arrived at Chihríq, met the Báb, and immediately acknowledged the truth of His Mission. The Báb named him Qahru’lláh. During his time at Iski-Shahr, all who encountered him felt the warmth of his enthusiasm and the tenacity of his conviction. An increasing number of people became captivated by his personality and willingly acknowledged the power of his Faith. So deep was his influence that a few believers were inclined to regard him as an exponent of Divine Revelation, though he altogether disclaimed such pretensions.

He was often heard to tell his own story:

“In the days when I occupied the exalted position of a navváb in India, the Báb appeared to me in a vision. He gazed at me and won my heart completely. I arose, and had started to follow Him, when He looked at me intently and said: ‘Divest yourself of your gorgeous attire, depart from your native land, and hasten on foot to meet Me in Ádhirbayján. In Chihríq you will attain your heart’s desire.’ I followed His directions and have now reached my goal.”

A navváb. A man of rank and wealth. Who stripped himself bare and walked from India to a Kurdish mountain prison because of a face he saw in a dream. And every person he met in Chihríq could feel the force of what had compelled him.

The news of the turmoil this lowly dervish had raised among the Kurdish leaders reached Tabríz and was communicated to Tihrán. The government’s response was immediate: transfer the Báb again. Move Him to Tabríz. Break the pattern before it grows beyond control.

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But before the transfer order even arrived at Chihríq, the Báb had already sent His instructions outward. He was not reacting to the government. He was ahead of it.

He charged Azím to carry a series of commands. Qahru’lláh was to return to India, alone and on foot. “With the same ardour and detachment with which he performed his pilgrimage to this country,” the Báb said, “he must now repair to his native land and unceasingly labour to advance the interests of the Cause.”

Mírzá ‘Abdu’l-Vahháb-i-Turshízí, who was living in Khúy, was to proceed immediately to Urúmíyyih, where the Báb said He would soon join him.

Azím himself was directed to leave for Tabríz and inform Siyyid Ibráhím-i-Khalíl of the Báb’s approaching arrival. And then the Báb added a sentence that carried the weight of prophecy: “Tell him that the fire of Nimrod will shortly be kindled in Tabríz, but despite the intensity of its flame no harm will befall our friends.”

The fire of Nimrod. The ancient fire of persecution. The Báb was not hoping to avoid what was coming. He was naming it. And He was promising that His people would survive it.

At the same time, He instructed Shaykh Hasan-i-Zunúzí to collect all the Tablets He had revealed during His incarceration in both Máh-Kú and Chihríq, and to deliver them into the hands of Siyyid Ibráhím-i-Khalíl in Tabríz, urging him to conceal and preserve them with the utmost care.

The Prisoner was securing His legacy. Not because He feared the prison, but because He knew what came after it.

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Qahru’lláh received the message from his Master and arose at once. To anyone who wished to accompany him, he said: “You can never endure the trials of this journey. Abandon the thought of coming with me. You would surely perish on your way, inasmuch as the Báb has commanded me to return alone to my native land.”

The force of that reply silenced everyone who begged to go with him. He refused to accept either money or clothing from anyone. Alone, clad in the meanest attire, staff in hand, he walked all the way back to India.

No one knows what ultimately befell him.

That single sentence sits in the record like a door closing on a road that vanishes into distance. A man of rank who became a wanderer, who crossed mountains and borders on foot for the sake of a vision, who carried fire in his chest all the way back to where he came from, and then disappeared from history. His obedience was total. His trace is gone.

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But there was one more soul seized by these events, and his story has not yet ended. It would not end for years. And when it did, it would end in fire.

Muhammad-‘Alíy-i-Zunúzí, later known as Anís, was among those who heard in Tabríz of the message from the Báb, and was set ablaze with longing to reach Chihríq and attain His presence. Those words kindled in him an irrepressible desire to sacrifice himself in the Báb’s path.

His stepfather, Siyyid ‘Alíy-i-Zunúzí, a notable of Tabríz, strenuously objected. When persuasion failed, he locked the young man in his house and set a strict watch over him.

Anís languished in confinement. Shaykh Hasan-i-Zunúzí, who was then in Tabríz delivering those Tablets, was related to the family and often visited. Every time he came, he heard the stepfather’s bitter complaints: “He seems to have lost his reason. He has, by his behaviour, brought reproach and shame upon me. Try to calm the agitation of his heart and induce him to conceal his convictions.”

And every day Shaykh Hasan visited, he witnessed the tears that continually rained from the young man’s eyes.

Then the Báb was taken to Tabríz for His examination, and afterward returned to Chihríq. And one day, when Shaykh Hasan came to see Anís, he found something had changed entirely.

The young man’s handsome face was wreathed in smiles. He stepped forward with joy and gladness shining from his countenance. He embraced Shaykh Hasan and said:

“The eyes of my Beloved have beheld this face, and these eyes have gazed upon His countenance.”

And then he told what had happened. After the Báb had been taken back to Chihríq, Anís lay confined in his cell. He turned his heart toward the Báb and cried out:

“Thou beholdest, O my Best-Beloved, my captivity and helplessness, and knowest how eagerly I yearn to look upon Thy face. Dispel the gloom that oppresses my heart, with the light of Thy countenance.”

He wept until he seemed to lose consciousness. And then, suddenly, he heard a voice. The voice of the Báb, calling him.

He beheld the majesty of the Báb’s countenance as He appeared before him. The Báb smiled as He looked into his eyes. Anís rushed forward and flung himself at His feet.

“Rejoice,” the Báb said. “The hour is approaching when, in this very city, I shall be suspended before the eyes of the multitude and shall fall a victim to the fire of the enemy. I shall choose no one except you to share with Me the cup of martyrdom. Rest assured that this promise which I give you shall be fulfilled.”

Anís told Shaykh Hasan that when he recovered from that vision, he found himself immersed in an ocean of joy, a joy whose radiance all the sorrows of the world could never obscure. That voice kept ringing in his ears. That vision haunted him day and night. The memory of that ineffable smile had dissipated the loneliness of his confinement.

“I am firmly convinced,” he said, “that the hour at which His pledge is to be fulfilled can no longer be delayed.”

Shaykh Hasan urged patience. He urged concealment. Anís promised not to divulge the secret. He promised to exercise forbearance toward his stepfather. Shaykh Hasan went to the father and obtained the young man’s release.

And from that day forward, Muhammad-‘Alíy-i-Zunúzí moved through Tabríz in a state of complete serenity and joy. He lived among his parents and kinsmen as if nothing had changed. His behaviour was so gentle, so steady, so unremarkable that when the day finally came, when he laid down his life beside the One who had promised him that cup, the people of Tabríz, all of them, wept and bewailed him.

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Chihríq was supposed to end this. A harsher castle, a Kurdish jailer, a hostile population, strict orders from the highest authority in the land. Every instrument of suppression the state could muster, short of execution.

And instead: the jailer fell in love with his Prisoner. The Kurds prostrated themselves at dawn. Officials abandoned their posts. A fierce opponent walked barefoot up a mountain to surrender. A nobleman from India arrived on foot from a vision. A young man locked in a room received a promise of shared martyrdom, and carried it in silence until the hour arrived.

The prison could not hold what it was trying to contain. And the men who ordered the containment were being driven, step by step, toward the only option they had left.

A public trial. In Tabríz. Where the Báb would stand before the assembled powers of Ádhirbayján and say exactly who He was.

The fire of Nimrod was about to be kindled.