The Dawning Light
Episode XXV: The Long Siege of Zanjan
In Zanjan, devotion and power met in a siege of uncommon length and terrible cost.
The Dawning Light
Episode XXV: The Long Siege of Zanjan
Two men in full armor, helmets on their heads, marched through the streets of Zanján at the head of a band of ruffians. Pahlaván Asadu’lláh and Pahlaván Safar-‘Alí – both notorious for their brutality and prodigious strength – had been promised a handsome reward to seize Hujjat and deliver him in handcuffs to the governor. The ‘ulamás had guaranteed this would end quietly. It did not end quietly.
Mír Salah, one of Hujjat’s most formidable supporters, stepped into their path with seven armed companions. He asked Asadu’lláh where he was going. He received an insult in reply. With the cry of “Yá Sáhibu’z-Zamán!” Mír Salah unsheathed his sword and struck the armored bravo in the forehead. The entire band fled in different directions.
That cry was heard for the first time in Zanján that day. It spread panic through the town. The governor, terrified by its force, demanded to know what it meant and whose voice had raised it. He was told it was the watchword of Hujjat’s companions – the cry with which they called for the assistance of the Qá’im in the hour of distress.
What kind of man could inspire this? And how had a scholar from Zanján become the center of the longest and fiercest upheaval of them all?
Mullá Muhammad-‘Alí was a man of independent mind, noted for extreme originality and freedom from all forms of traditional restraint. He denounced the entire hierarchy of ecclesiastical leaders in Persia, from the highest offices down to the humblest mullá. He despised their character and deplored their degeneracy. So fierce were his controversies with the divines of Zanján that only the personal intervention of the Sháh prevented bloodshed. When summoned to the capital and called to vindicate his claims before the assembled ‘ulamás of Tihrán and other cities, he established his superiority single-handed. His opponents were compelled to acknowledge his authority outwardly, even as they condemned him in their hearts.
Then the call from Shíráz reached him.
Hujjat deputed one of his most trusted disciples, Mullá Iskandar, to investigate the matter with explicit instructions to conduct a minute and independent inquiry. Mullá Iskandar attained the presence of the Báb and felt immediately the regenerating power of His influence. He remained forty days in Shíráz, then returned to Zanján – arriving at a time when all the leading ‘ulamás 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 of the Báb he had brought with him and said that whatever his master’s verdict might be, the same would he consider his obligation to follow.
“What!” Hujjat exclaimed in anger. “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 from Mullá Iskandar’s hand the copy of the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá. He read a single page. Then he fell prostrate upon the ground.
“I bear witness,” he declared, “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.”
With those words he terminated the proceedings of that gathering. The Báb surnamed him Hujjat.
From then on the old order moved against him. He was summoned to the capital. Several meetings were convened before the assembled ‘ulamás. At each, Hujjat set forth the claims of his Faith and confounded every argument raised against him. “Is not the following tradition recognised alike by shí’ah and sunní Islám,” he declared: “‘I leave amidst you my twin testimonies, the Book of God and my family’? I appeal to you to measure every claim that either of us shall advance, by the standard established in that Book.” When they demanded a miracle, he answered: “What greater miracle than that He should have enabled me to triumph, alone and unaided, by the simple power of my argument, over the combined forces of the mujtahids and ‘ulamás of Tihrán?”
Muhammad Sháh was won over. The entire company of ‘ulamás – from Zanján, from Tihrán – had declared Hujjat an infidel and condemned him to death. Yet the Sháh continued to bestow favors upon him.
But Hujjat was virtually a prisoner in the capital. He could not pass beyond the gates of Tihrán. He could not communicate freely with his companions. His sole consolation was his close association with Bahá’u’lláh, from whom he received the sustaining power that would enable him, in the time to come, to endure what was approaching.
When Muhammad Sháh died and the new reign began, the Amír-Nizám decided to make Hujjat’s imprisonment more rigorous and to seek a way to destroy him. On being warned of the danger, Hujjat left Tihrán in disguise and fled back to Zanján.
His arrival set off a tremendous demonstration. Men, women, and children flocked out to welcome him. The governor of Zanján, Majdu’d-Dawlih, the maternal uncle of Nasiri’d-Dín Sháh, was astounded by the spontaneity of that ovation. In his fury he ordered the tongue of Karbilá’í Valí-‘Attar – the man who had announced Hujjat’s return – to be immediately cut out. Then he pretended to be Hujjat’s friend and well-wisher. He visited often, showed unbounded consideration, and conspired secretly against his life.
The spark was almost nothing. A quarrel broke out between two children of Zanján. One belonged to a kinsman of one of Hujjat’s companions. The governor ordered that child arrested and placed in strict confinement.
Hujjat protested in writing: “That child is too young to be held responsible for his behaviour. If he deserves punishment, his father and not he should be made to suffer.”
The governor ignored the appeal. Hujjat renewed his protest and entrusted it to Mír Jalíl, father of Siyyid Ashraf, directing him to present it in person. The guards at the governor’s house refused Mír Jalíl entry. Indignant, he threatened to force his way through the gate and, by the mere threat of unsheathing his sword, compelled the infuriated governor to release the child.
That unconditional compliance enraged the ‘ulamás. They told the governor his surrender would embolden Hujjat’s followers to assume the reins of authority and exclude him from power. They induced him to consent to Hujjat’s arrest. They recruited their two champions – Pahlaván Asadu’lláh and Pahlaván Safar-‘Alí, clad in armor with helmets on their heads – and sent them with their band of ruffians.
And Mír Salah sent them running.
But the violence did not stop there. The remnants of that fleeing band encountered Shaykh Muhammad-i-Tub-Chí. Finding him unarmed, they fell upon him. One struck him with an axe and broke his head. They bore him to the governor. A mujtahid named Siyyid Abu’l-Qásim, who was present, leaped forward and stabbed him in the breast with a penknife. The governor himself unsheathed his sword and struck him in the mouth. His attendants finished the murder with whatever weapons they carried.
As the blows rained upon him, Shaykh Muhammad was heard to say: “I thank Thee, O my God, for having vouchsafed me the crown of martyrdom.”
He was the first among the believers of Zanján to lay down his life. His death fell on Friday, the fourth of Rajab, 1266 A.H. – forty-five days before the martyrdom of Vahíd, and fifty-five days before the martyrdom of the Báb.
What followed that day tore the city in two.
The enemies of Hujjat covenanted among themselves not to rest until they had extinguished what they called a shameless heresy. They compelled the governor to send a crier through Zanján with a proclamation: whoever was willing to endanger his life, forfeit his property, and expose his wife and children to misery and shame should throw in his lot with Hujjat. Whoever desired the well-being of his family should withdraw from Hujjat’s neighborhood and seek the sovereign’s protection.
That warning divided the inhabitants into two camps and tore apart every bond of family and kinship. Fathers separated from sons. Brothers turned against brothers. Cries of distress from divided families mingled with the blasphemous shouts of a threatening enemy. Shouts of exultation hailed those who tore themselves from their homes to enroll as supporters of Hujjat. Reinforcements poured in from surrounding villages at the governor’s command.
Hujjat ascended the pulpit. “The hand of Omnipotence has, in this day, separated truth from falsehood and divided the light of guidance from the darkness of error,” he declared. “I am unwilling that because of me you should suffer injury. The one aim of the governor and of the ‘ulamás who support him is to seize and kill me. They thirst for my blood and seek no one besides me. Whoever among you feels the least desire to safeguard his life against the perils with which we are beset, whoever is reluctant to offer his life for our Cause, let him, ere it is too late, betake himself from this place and return whence he came.”
Instead, Mír Salah and his companions urged Hujjat to move to the fort of ‘Alí-Mardán Khán, adjacent to his quarter. Hujjat gave consent and ordered the women, children, and provisions transferred. The occupants were persuaded to withdraw; in exchange they received the houses the companions had left behind.
What followed was not a rebellion. It was the defense of households under siege.
Hujjat drew the line from the beginning, and he never moved it. When Mír Rida, a siyyid of exceptional courage, asked permission to capture the governor and bring him as a prisoner to the fort, Hujjat refused. When three thousand companions could scatter the enemy’s forces with sudden sallies, he kept repeating the same instruction: “We are commanded not to wage holy war under any circumstances against the unbelievers, whatever be their attitude towards us.”
The governor was so overcome with fear at one point that he tried to leave Zanján entirely. A siyyid talked him out of it, then volunteered to attack the fort himself. He marched at the head of thirty men – and when two of the defenders happened to walk toward him with drawn swords, he fled home with his entire band, shut himself in his room for the rest of the day, and never spoke of it again. The two men, it turned out, had no hostile intention at all. They were simply on their way to fulfil a commission.
Then the imperial army arrived. The Amír-Nizám sent written orders to Sadru’d-Dawliy-i-Isfahaní, who was marching with two regiments for Ádhirbayján. “You have been commissioned by your sovereign to subjugate the band of mischief-makers in and around Zanján,” the Grand Vazír wrote. “So signal a service, at so critical a moment, will win for you the Sháh’s highest favour, no less than the applause and esteem of his people.”
Sadru’d-Dawlih marched on Zanján, organized the governor’s forces, and ordered a combined attack. The fighting raged for three days and three nights. The companions resisted with splendid daring. Undeterred by cannon fire, forgetful of sleep and hunger, they rushed in headlong charges out of the fort, shouting “Yá Sáhibu’z-Zamán!” and hurling themselves upon the enemy.
Nine months of sustained fighting followed. At the end Sadru’d-Dawlih had to confess that of all the men who had originally belonged to his two regiments, no more than thirty crippled soldiers remained. He was degraded from his rank and gravely reprimanded by the Sháh.
That defeat struck dismay into the people of Zanján. Few were willing to risk their lives after that. The companions, meanwhile, suffered want and privation inside the walls. Their only hope of food from outside lay in the efforts of a few women who managed, under various pretexts, to approach the fort and sell provisions at exorbitant prices.
Yet they maintained their defense. They erected no less than twenty-eight barricades, each entrusted to a group of nineteen companions. At each barricade, nineteen additional companions stood sentinel, watching and reporting the movements of the enemy.
And the enemy sent a crier to the neighborhood of the fort. “The governor of the province and the commander-in-chief are willing to forgive and extend safe passage to whoever will leave the fort and renounce his faith. Such a man will be amply rewarded by his sovereign.” To this call the besieged returned contemptuous and decisive replies.
Then there was Zaynab.
She was a village maiden, her home a tiny hamlet near Zanján. Comely and fair of face, fired with a lofty faith and endowed with intrepid courage. The sight of what her men companions endured stirred in her an irrepressible yearning to join them. She donned a tunic, put on a head-dress like those of her men companions, cut off her locks, girded on a sword, seized a musket and a shield, and introduced herself into the ranks.
No one suspected her of being a maid.
As soon as the enemy charged, she bared her sword and, raising the cry of “Yá Sáhibu’z-Zamán!” flung herself upon them with incredible audacity. Her enemies pronounced her the curse that an angry Providence had hurled upon them. They abandoned their barricades and fled in disgraceful rout.
Hujjat was watching from one of the turrets. He recognized her. “No man,” he said, as he watched her plunge into fire, “has shown himself capable of such vitality and courage.”
He ordered her brought back. When he asked the motive of her behavior, she burst into tears. “My heart ached with pity and sorrow when I beheld the toil and sufferings of my fellow-disciples. I advanced by an inner urge I could not resist. I was afraid lest you would deny me the privilege of throwing in my lot with my men companions.”
“You are surely the same Zaynab,” Hujjat asked, “who volunteered to join the occupants of the fort?”
“I am,” she replied. “I can confidently assure you that no one has hitherto discovered my sex. You alone have recognised me. I adjure you by the Báb not to withhold from me that inestimable privilege, the crown of martyrdom, the one desire of my life.”
Hujjat was profoundly impressed. He sought to calm the tumult of her soul, assured her of his prayers, and gave her the name Rustam-‘Alí. “This is the Day of Resurrection,” he told her, “the day when ‘all secrets shall be searched out.’ Not by their outward appearance, but by the character of their beliefs and the manner of their lives, does God judge His creatures, be they men or women. Though a maiden of tender age and immature experience, you have displayed such vitality and resource as few men could hope to surpass.”
He granted her request. And he warned her: “We are called upon to defend our lives against a treacherous assailant, and not to wage holy war against him.”
For five months Zaynab held the line. Disdainful of food and sleep, she toiled with fevered earnestness. Her sword stayed by her side. In her brief intervals of sleep she rested her head upon it, her shield covering her body. Every companion was assigned to a particular post. Zaynab alone was free to move wherever the danger was greatest.
As the end of her life approached, even her enemies discovered she was a woman. They continued to dread her influence and tremble at her approach. The shrill sound of her voice was sufficient to strike consternation into their hearts.
One day, seeing her companions suddenly enveloped by enemy forces, Zaynab ran to Hujjat and flung herself at his feet. “My life, I feel, is nearing its end,” she said, with tearful eyes. “I may myself fall beneath the sword of the assailant. Forgive, I entreat you, my trespasses, and intercede for me with my Master, for whose sake I yearn to lay down my life.”
Hujjat was too overcome with emotion to reply.
She took his silence as consent. She leaped out of the gate. Seven times she raised the cry “Yá Sáhibu’z-Zamán!” and rushed to stay the hand that had already slain her companions. “Why befoul by your deeds the fair name of Islám?” she shouted. “Why flee abjectly from before our face, if you be speakers of truth?” She routed the guards of the first three barricades. She was engaging the fourth when a shower of bullets brought her down.
Not a single voice among her opponents dared question her chastity or ignore the sublimity of her faith. After her death, no less than twenty women who had known her embraced the Cause of the Báb.
One night, messengers carried a new instruction to the guards of the barricades: repeat nineteen times, each night, the invocations of the Báb. “Alláh-u-Akbar.” “Alláh-u-‘Azam.” “Alláh-u-Ajmal.” “Alláh-u-Abhá.” “Alláh-u-Athar.”
The very first night, all the defenders raised those words simultaneously. The sound was so loud and compelling that the enemy camp woke in horror. Soldiers abandoned their posts and rushed toward the governor’s residence. A few were so shocked they dropped dead. Inhabitants of Zanján fled to adjoining villages. Many believed that stupendous uproar to be a sign heralding the Day of Judgment.
And then there was the contrast. While those in the fort invoked the name of God and prayed for guidance and mercy, their opponents – officers and men alike – had been absorbed in acts of debauchery. That night, the dissolute officers holding wine-glasses in their hands dropped them instantly and rushed out barefoot, as if stunned. Gambling tables overturned. Half-dressed and bareheaded, some ran into the wilderness. Others stumbled to the homes of the ‘ulamás and roused them from sleep. The clerics, alarmed and overawed, turned their fiercest invectives against one another for having kindled the fire of such mischief.
“What,” Hujjat remarked, when informed of the terror, “if I had been permitted by my Master to wage holy war against these cowardly miscreants! I am bidden by Him to instil into men’s hearts the ennobling principles of charity and love, and to refrain from all unnecessary violence.”
The enemy discovered the purpose of the invocations and posted marksmen to fire at whatever direction the voices might come from. Every night they killed companions at prayer. It made no difference. As the number of the besieged diminished, the prayer grew louder and acquired added poignancy. The imminence of death was powerless to stop it.
Among the defenders was Muhsin, whose function it was to sound the adhán. His voice carried a warmth and richness no man in the neighborhood could equal. Worshippers in surrounding villages heard him and expressed their indignation at the charges of heresy against Hujjat’s companions. Their protests reached the leading mujtahid of Zanján, who could not silence them. He went to the Amír-Tumán: “Day and night I strive to instil into their minds the conviction that that wretched band is the sworn enemy of the Prophet. The cry of that evil man, Muhsin, robs my words of their influence and nullifies my exertions. To exterminate that miserable wretch is surely your first obligation.”
The Amír refused at first. “You and your like are to be held responsible for having declared the necessity of waging holy war against them. We are but the servants of the government. If you seek to put an end to his life, you should be prepared to make the proper sacrifice.” The mujtahid understood. He sent a hundred túmáns.
The Amír ordered marksmen to lie in wait. At the hour of dawn, as Muhsin raised the cry of “Lá Iláh-á-Illa’lláh,” a bullet struck him in the mouth and killed him instantly.
Hujjat ordered another companion to ascend the turret and continue the prayer from where Muhsin had left off.
As the siege stretched on, Hujjat urged all those who were betrothed to celebrate their weddings. For each unmarried youth he chose a spouse. He sold all the jewels his wife Khadíjih possessed and, with the money, provided whatever could add to the comfort of the newly married. For more than three months these festivities continued, intermingled with the terrors of siege.
How often did the clamor of an advancing enemy drown the acclamations of joy with which bride and bridegroom greeted each other. How suddenly was merriment stilled by the cry of “Yá Sáhibu’z-Zamán!” that summoned the faithful to repulse the invader. With what tenderness would the bride entreat the bridegroom to tarry a little longer beside her before he rushed forth.
“I can spare no time,” he would answer. “I must hasten to obtain the crown of glory. We shall surely meet again on the shores of the great Beyond, the home of a blissful and eternal reunion.”
No less than two hundred youths were joined in wedlock in those months. Some tarried a month with their brides, others a few days, others a brief moment. Every one of them, as the beating of the drum announced the hour, responded joyously to the call. Every one of them eventually drank the cup of martyrdom.
Among the companions was Karbilá’í ‘Abdu’l-Báqí, the father of seven sons, five of whom Hujjat joined in wedlock. The ceremonies had hardly ended when the cry of terror announced a fresh offensive. The five sprang to their feet, forsook their brides, and rushed out to repulse the attack. All five fell in that encounter.
The eldest – a youth greatly esteemed for his intelligence, of renowned courage – was captured and brought before the Amír-Tumán. “Lay him upon the ground,” cried the infuriated Amír, “and kindle upon his breast, which dared nourish so great a love for Hujjat, a fire that shall consume it.”
“Wretched man,” the youth answered, “no flame that the hands of your men are able to kindle could destroy the love that glows in my heart.”
The praise of his Beloved lingered on his lips until the last moment of his life.
Hujjat addressed a written petition to Nasiri’d-Dín Sháh. He laid out the full sequence: his summoning to Tihrán, Muhammad Sháh’s satisfaction, the Amír-Nizám’s hostility, his flight to Zanján in self-defense, the governor Majdu’d-Dawlih’s treachery, the ‘ulamás’ instigation. “Your Majesty has until now refrained from extending his gracious assistance to us, who are the innocent victims of such ferocious cruelty,” he wrote. “Our enemies have even sought to represent our Cause as a conspiracy against the authority with which you have been invested. Surely every unbiased observer will readily admit that we cherish in our hearts no such intention.” He offered to travel to Tihrán and establish the soundness of his Cause before the Sháh and his chief opponents.
The messenger carrying those petitions was seized, brought before the governor, and immediately put to death. The governor destroyed the petitions. In their place he wrote letters loaded with abuse and insult, forged the signatures of Hujjat and his companions, and sent them to Tihrán.
The Sháh was so indignant after reading those forgeries that he ordered the immediate dispatch of two regiments equipped with guns and munitions to Zanján, commanding that not one supporter of Hujjat be allowed to survive.
Meanwhile, the news of the Báb’s martyrdom reached the besieged through Siyyid Hasan, brother of the Báb’s amanuensis. The enemy received the same news with shouts of wild delight. “For what reason will you henceforth be willing to sacrifice yourselves?” they cried. “He in whose path you long to lay down your lives has himself fallen a victim to the bullets of a triumphant foe. His body is even now lost both to his enemies and to his friends. Why persist in your stubbornness when a word is sufficient to deliver you from your woes?”
However much they tried, they could not induce the feeblest among the besieged either to desert the fort or to recant.
Open battle could not finish this community. So the Amír-Tumán, Muhammad Khán, arrived at the head of five regiments with considerable arms and munitions. Seventeen regiments of cavalry and infantry rallied to his standard. No less than fourteen guns were directed against the fort. Five additional regiments were recruited from the neighborhood.
The very night he arrived, he ordered the trumpets sounded. The artillery opened fire. The booming of cannons could be heard at a distance of fourteen farsangs. Hujjat ordered his companions to use the two guns they themselves had constructed. One was transported to a position commanding the Amír’s headquarters. A ball struck his tent and mortally wounded his steed.
The fighting was ferocious. The death of Farrukh Khán – son of Yahyá Khán, brother of Haji Sulaymán Khán – one of the Amír’s generals, aroused the indignation of the Amír-Nizám in Tihrán. “You have sullied the fair name of our country,” he wrote the commanding officer, “have demoralised the army, and have wasted the lives of its ablest officers.” He warned that if they could not force submission, he himself would march to Zanján and order a wholesale massacre of all inhabitants, regardless of belief.
The Amír-Tumán, in a frenzy of despair, summoned every headman and chief. Every able-bodied man in Zanján enlisted under his standard. Preceded by four regiments, a vast multitude marched to the sound of trumpets and drums against the fort. The companions raised the cry of “Yá Sáhibu’z-Zamán!” and poured out of the gates.
That encounter was the fiercest yet. The flower of Hujjat’s supporters fell. Sons were butchered under the eyes of their mothers. Sisters watched heads of brothers raised on spears. In the midst of it, the voices of women fighting alongside the men could be heard animating their companions. Disguised in the garb of men, some rushed forward to replace their fallen brothers. Others carried skins of water on their shoulders to revive the wounded. Three hundred companions drank the cup of martyrdom that day.
Then the Amír-Tumán reached for the weapon that had already worked at Mázindarán and Nayríz: treachery dressed as peace.
He called for the suspension of hostilities. He circulated reports that the Sháh had decided to abandon the enterprise. He drew up an appeal for peace, accompanied by a sealed copy of the Qur’án as testimony of his sacred pledge. “My sovereign has forgiven you,” he wrote. “This Book of God is my witness that if any of you decide to come out of the fort, you will be safe from any danger.”
Hujjat received the Qur’án with reverence. That night he gathered his chief companions and spoke plainly: “The treacheries of Mázindarán and of Nayríz are still vivid in our minds. That which was perpetrated against them, the same they purpose to perpetrate against us. In deference to the Qur’án, however, we shall respond to their invitation, and shall despatch to their camp a number of our companions, that thereby their deceitfulness may be exposed.”
He sent a delegation. Old men over eighty years of age. Nine children, none older than ten. Among the old men were Karbilá’í Mawlá-Qulí-Áqá-Dadash, Muhammad-Rahim, Muhammad, and at their head walked Darvísh-Salah – tall, white-bearded, of singular beauty, greatly esteemed for his honorable and just conduct. He had renounced all his honors after his conversion. Though far advanced in age, he had enrolled himself among the defenders. He marched in front, carrying the sealed Qur’án.
One of the children, Ustád Mihr-‘Alí, survived to tell what happened.
They reached the Amír-Tumán’s tent. They stood at the entrance awaiting orders. To their salute he gave no response. He kept them standing half an hour before he spoke, and then it was with severe reprimand: “A meaner and more shameless people than you has never been seen!”
One of the companions – the oldest and feeblest among them, though unlettered – asked to speak. “God knows that we are, and will ever remain, loyal and law-abiding subjects of our sovereign,” he pleaded. “We have been grievously misrepresented by our ill-wishers. No one was found to plead our Cause before him. Our enemies assailed us from every side, plundered our property, violated the honour of our wives and daughters, and captured our children. Undefended by our government and encompassed by our foes, we felt constrained to arise and defend our lives.”
The Amír-Tumán turned to his lieutenant and asked what he would advise. “I am at a loss as to the answer I should give this man,” the Amír admitted. “Were I at heart religious, I would unhesitatingly embrace his cause.”
“Nothing but the sword,” replied the lieutenant, “will deliver us from this abomination of heresy.”
“I still hold the Qur’án in my hand,” Darvísh-Salah interrupted, “and carry the declaration which you, of your own accord, chose to make. Are the words we have just heard our reward for having responded to your appeal?”
The Amír-Tumán, in a burst of fury, ordered Darvísh-Salah’s beard torn out. He and the old men were thrown into a dungeon. The children tried to escape. Raising the cry of “Yá Sáhibu’z-Zamán!” they ran toward the barricades. Some were overtaken and captured.
Young Mihr-‘Alí tore himself free from the man who had seized the hem of his garment and reached the gate of the fort in a state of utter exhaustion. As he arrived, he watched a companion named Iman-Qulí being savagely mutilated by the enemy – on the very day the cessation of hostilities had been proclaimed. Iman-Qulí had been betrayed by his own brother, who, on the pretext of wanting to speak with him, had handed him over to his persecutors.
Hujjat received the boy with love, wiped the dust from his face, clothed him in new garments, and seated him at his side. He listened as the child described everything.
“It is the tumult of the Day of Resurrection,” Hujjat said, “a tumult such as the world has never seen before. This is the day on which ‘man shall fly from his brother, and his mother and his father, and his wife and his children.’ This is the day when man, not content with having abandoned his brother, sacrifices his substance in order to shed the blood of his nearest kinsman.”
Then Hujjat went to the center of the open square, summoned his followers, and stood erect among them.
“I am well pleased with your unflinching endeavours, my beloved companions. Our enemies are bent upon our destruction. Their intention was to trick you into coming out of the fort, and then to slaughter you mercilessly. Finding that their treachery has been exposed, they have ill-treated and imprisoned the oldest and the youngest among you. Your continued presence in this fort will eventually cause you to be taken captive. Better is it for you to make your escape in the middle of the night and take your wives and children with you. Let each one seek a place of safety. I shall remain alone to face the enemy. It were better that my death should allay their thirst for revenge than that you should all perish.”
The companions were moved to their depths. With tears they declared their resolve: “We can never consent to abandon you to the mercy of a murderous enemy! Our lives are not more precious than your life, neither are our families of a more noble descent than that of your kinsmen. Whatever calamity may yet befall you is what we shall welcome for ourselves.”
All except a few remained.
The end came by weight of numbers, artillery, and mining.
The Amír-Tumán confessed to his remaining officers what his army could not achieve in the field: “I am weary of the grim resistance of this people. They are evidently animated by a spirit which no amount of encouragement from our sovereign can hope to call forth in our men. Such self-renunciation surely no one in the ranks of our army is able to manifest.”
So they dug underground passages from their camp to beneath the houses of Hujjat’s followers. For one full month they packed those tunnels with explosives while demolishing every standing house. The artillery was directed upon Hujjat’s own residence, the intervening buildings having been razed to clear the line of fire.
One day, while the bombardment continued, a bullet struck Hujjat in the right arm as he was performing his ablutions. He ordered his servant not to tell his wife. But the servant’s tears betrayed him. Khadíjih ran and found her husband absorbed in prayer, bleeding profusely, his face retaining its expression of undisturbed confidence.
“Pardon this people, O God,” he was heard to say, “for they know not what they do. Have mercy upon them, for they who have led them astray are alone responsible for the misdeeds the hands of this people have wrought.”
He sought to calm the agitation of his wife and relatives at the sight of his blood. “Rejoice,” he told them, “for I am still with you and desire you to be wholly resigned to God’s will. What you now behold is but a drop compared to the ocean of afflictions that will be poured forth at the hour of my death.”
When the companions heard he was wounded, they laid down their arms and rushed to his side. The enemy, seizing that moment, redoubled its attack and forced its way through the gate. That day they captured no less than a hundred of the women and children and plundered everything. Despite the severity of winter, these captives were left exposed in the open for fifteen days and nights to a biting cold such as Zanján had rarely experienced. Clad in the thinnest garments, with no covering but the gauze upon their heads, abandoned without food or shelter. Crowds of women flocked from the quarters of Zanján to pour contempt upon them: “You have now found your god and been rewarded abundantly by him.”
The capture of the fort robbed Hujjat’s companions of their chief instrument of defense but did not break them. The remaining companions, with the surviving women and children, crowded into the houses near Hujjat’s residence. They organized into five companies, each consisting of nineteen times nineteen companions. From each company, nineteen would rush forth together with one voice – “Yá Sáhibu’z-Zamán!” – and scatter the enemy’s forces. The uplifted voices of ninety-five companions alone proved sufficient to paralyze the assailants.
Officers began deserting their posts. Artillery captains abandoned their guns. The rank and file was demoralized and exhausted.
A section of Hujjat’s dwelling had already collapsed when he turned to Khadíjih, who was holding their baby Hádí, and warned her the day was approaching when she and the infant might be taken captive.
She was giving vent to her distress when a cannon-ball struck the room she occupied and killed her instantly. The child, whom she had been holding to her breast, fell into the brazier beside her. He died soon after of his injuries.
Hujjat, though filled with grief, refused to yield. “The day whereon I found Thy beloved One, O my God,” he cried, “and recognised in Him the Manifestation of Thy eternal Spirit, I foresaw the woes that I should suffer for Thee. Great as have been until now my sorrows, they can never compare with the agonies that I would willingly suffer in Thy name. How can this miserable life of mine, the loss of my wife and of my child, and the sacrifice of the band of my kindred and companions, compare with the blessings which the recognition of Thy Manifestation has bestowed on me! Would that a myriad lives were mine, would that I possessed the riches of the whole earth and its glory, that I might resign them all freely and joyously in Thy path.”
For nineteen days Hujjat endured the wound. Their number diminished. Their sufferings multiplied. The area within which they could feel secure shrank.
On the morning of the fifth of Rabí’u’l-Avval, 1267 A.H., Hujjat was in the act of prayer. He had fallen prostrate upon his face, invoking the name of the Báb, when he suddenly passed away.
Two of his companions – Dín-Muhammad-Vazír and Mír Riday-i-Sardár – undertook immediately, before the enemy could learn of his death, to inter his remains in secret. At midnight they bore the body to a room belonging to Dín-Muhammad-Vazír, buried it there, and demolished the room above it to ensure the remains would not be found.
More than five hundred women survived. Of the great multitude that had gathered under Hujjat’s standard, only two hundred vigorous men remained. The rest had either died or lay incapacitated by wounds.
Yet even now his companions continued to face the enemy with undiminished zeal. Animated by the beating of drums and sound of trumpets, the enemy launched a general attack fiercer than any before. The companions raised the cry one final time – “Yá Sáhibu’z-Zamán!” – and rushed forth until all of them had been slain or captured.
Then came the pillage. The ‘ulamás of Zanján, flushed with a victory that had cost them so much, incited the populace to every outrage. Neither the Amír-Tumán nor the governor could restrain the thirst for plunder and revenge.
The captives were gathered into a roofless enclosure, crowded like sheep, exposed to the cold of a severe winter, without furniture or food for days.
Then seventy-six surviving companions were delivered into the hands of three regiments with orders for immediate execution. They were conducted in procession, to the accompaniment of drums and trumpets, to the army camp. Armed with lances and spears, the soldiers flung themselves upon those seventy-six men, piercing and mutilating their bodies. Regiment vied with regiment in devising the most inventive cruelties.
They were preparing to swoop again when Haji Muhammad-Husayn, father of ‘Abá-Básir, sprang to his feet. Though in the hour of his death, he raised the call of the adhán. The words “Alláh-u-Akbar” pealed from his lips with such fervor and majesty that the entire Iráqí regiment immediately proclaimed their refusal to continue. They deserted their posts and fled, crying “Yá ‘Alí!” – “Accursed be the Amír-Tumán! That wretch has deceived us! He sought to convince us of this people’s disloyalty to the Imám ‘Alí and to his kindred. Never, though we all be slain, will we consent to assist in such criminal deeds.”
Others among the captives were blown from guns. Others were stripped naked, doused with ice-cold water, and lashed. Others were smeared with treacle and left to perish in the snow. Not one of them recanted. Not one uttered an angry word against his persecutors. Not even a whisper of discontent escaped their lips.
Even then the victors were not satisfied.
They searched for Hujjat’s body. The most inhuman tortures could not compel the surviving companions to reveal where it lay. The governor, exasperated, asked that Hujjat’s seven-year-old son Husayn be brought to him. “My son,” he said gently, caressing the boy, “I am filled with grief at all the afflictions that have been the lot of your parents. Not I, but the mujtahids of Zanján, should be held responsible. I am now willing to accord the remains of your father a befitting burial.”
By gentle insinuations, he got the child to reveal the secret.
The body was dragged with a rope, to the sound of drums and trumpets, through the streets of Zanján. For three days and three nights it lay exposed in the open square.
On the third night, it was reported that horsemen succeeded in carrying away the remains to a place of safety in the direction of Qazvín.
Hujjat’s surviving family was sent to Shíráz under orders from Tihrán, where the governor seized what little they had left and condemned them to shelter in a ruined house. His youngest son, Mihdí, died of the privations they were made to suffer, and was buried in the ruins that had served as his home.
Nine years later, a visitor came to Zanján. He stood among the ruins of the fort of ‘Alí-Mardán Khán and walked the ground that had been saturated with the blood of its defenders. On the gates and walls he could still discern traces of the carnage. Upon the very stones that had served as barricades, stains of blood that had been so profusely shed remained visible.
Others attempted to count the cost. The names and numbers were disputed. One companion who had undertaken to record the martyrdoms left a written statement: one thousand, five hundred and ninety-eight had fallen before Hujjat’s death. Two hundred and two had been martyred afterward.
Eighteen hundred souls.
That is the measure of Zanján. Not the longest of the upheavals only, but the most sustained proof that a community can be starved, shelled, deceived, frozen, widowed, and butchered – and still not surrender the inner law that governs it.
The artillery fell silent. The fort collapsed. The body was dragged through the streets. And still, at the hour of dawn, a voice rose from the turret to continue the prayer from where the last voice had been silenced.
That is what power could not reach.