The Dawning Light
Episode XXVII: The Black Pit Opens
A desperate act against the Shah opened the way to one of the fiercest persecutions the believers had yet faced.
The Dawning Light
Episode XXVII: The Black Pit Opens
Two young men load their pistols with shot so absurd that no one with any judgment would have allowed them to carry out the act. They fire at the king of Persia. They wound him slightly. And then the state, which has already martyred the Báb, already buried the defenders of Tabarsí, already drowned Nayríz and Zanján in blood, that state turns the full weight of its fury not on the guilty, but on the innocent. What follows will drive Bahá’u’lláh into the worst dungeon in Tihrán, scatter the last of the Báb’s companions, and bring an entire community to what looks, from the outside, like the edge of extinction.
This is how empires answer a pistol shot they did not need to fear. Not with justice. With annihilation.
The eighth Naw-Rúz after the Declaration of the Báb found Bahá’u’lláh still in ‘Iráq. The Báb was dead. Mullá Husayn was dead. Quddús was dead. Vahíd was dead. Hujjat was dead. The flower of the Báb’s companions had been mown down. The community they left behind was scattered, bewildered, and broken.
One figure held them together. Bahá’u’lláh alone was able to revive their energies, organize their forces, and prepare them for the burden they were destined to bear. He was the sole light amid the darkness that encompassed them.
Then the political ground shifted. In a public bath in Fín, near Káshán, Mírzá Taqí Khán, the Amír-Nizám, Grand Vazír of Nasiri’d-Dín Sháh, met his death. Three years of rule had stained his hands with the blood of Tabarsí, the Seven Martyrs of Tihrán, Nayríz, the Báb’s execution, and Zanján. His fame perished with him. The influence of the life he had tried to extinguish did not.
His successor, Mírzá Áqá Khán-i-Núrí, attempted something no Grand Vazír had tried before: reconciliation. He sent Bahá’u’lláh a warm letter requesting His return to Tihrán. Even before that letter arrived, Bahá’u’lláh had already decided to leave ‘Iráq for Persia.
He arrived in the capital in the month of Rajab. The Grand Vazír’s brother, Ja’far-Qulí Khán, had been specially directed to go forth and receive Him. For one whole month, Bahá’u’lláh was the honoured guest of the Grand Vazír. So many notables and dignitaries flocked to meet Him that He found Himself unable to return to His own home.
During that time, Bahá’u’lláh met Azím. What passed between them was later recounted by Áqáy-i-Kalím. In the most emphatic terms, Bahá’u’lláh advised Azím to abandon the plan he had conceived. He condemned his designs. He dissociated Himself entirely from the act Azím intended. He warned that such an attempt would precipitate fresh disasters of unprecedented magnitude.
Azím did not listen.
Bahá’u’lláh moved on to Lavásán, staying in the village of Afchih, property of the Grand Vazír, with Ja’far-Qulí Khán still acting as His host. It was there that the news reached Him.
Toward the end of the month of Shavvál, 1268, two obscure young men struck. Their names were Sadiq-i-Tabrízí and Fathu’lláh-i-Qumí. Both earned their livelihood in Tihrán. In a frenzy of despair, they arose to avenge the blood of their slaughtered brethren. And the folly of their act was betrayed by what they carried: pistols charged with shot that no reasonable person would ever think of using for such a purpose. Had anyone of judgment instigated this, he would never have allowed them to attempt it with such ridiculously ineffective instruments.
The deed was not heroic. It was wild, reckless, and condemned, condemned by Bahá’u’lláh before it ever happened.
But condemnation no longer mattered to those hungry for vengeance.
Ja’far-Qulí Khán, in Shimírán when the attempt was made, immediately wrote to Bahá’u’lláh. His letter carried an urgent warning: “The Sháh’s mother is inflamed with anger. She is denouncing you openly before the court and people as the ‘would-be murderer’ of her son. She is also trying to involve Mírzá Áqá Khán in this affair, and accuses him of being your accomplice.” He urged Bahá’u’lláh to remain concealed until the passion of the populace subsided. He sent an old and experienced messenger to be at His disposal, ready to accompany Him to whatever place of safety He desired.
Bahá’u’lláh refused. He ignored the messenger and rejected the offer.
The next morning, with calm confidence, He rode out from Lavásán toward the headquarters of the imperial army, then stationed in Níyávarán, in the Shimírán district. At the village of Zarkandih, the seat of the Russian legation, one maydán from Níyávarán, He was met by Mírzá Majíd, His brother-in-law, who served as secretary to the Russian minister, and was invited to stay at his home.
The attendants of Haji ‘Alí Khán, the Hajíbu’d-Dawlih, recognized Him and went straightway to inform their master, who brought the matter to the attention of the Sháh.
The news greatly surprised the officers of the imperial army. Nasiri’d-Dín Sháh himself was amazed. The man accused of instigating the attempt on his life had ridden openly to his camp. He sent a trusted officer to the legation, demanding the Accused be delivered into his hands. The Russian minister refused. He requested Bahá’u’lláh to proceed instead to the home of the Grand Vazír, and formally communicated his desire that the utmost care be exercised to ensure the safety and protection of the Trust his government was delivering into the Grand Vazír’s keeping. He warned that he would hold him responsible should he fail to honour that obligation.
As Bahá’u’lláh was leaving Zarkandih, the Russian minister’s daughter, greatly distressed at the dangers surrounding Him, was so overcome that she could not restrain her tears. “Of what use,” she said to her father, “is the authority with which you have been invested, if you are powerless to extend your protection to a guest whom you have received in your house?” The minister, moved by his daughter’s tears, sought to comfort her with assurances that he would do everything in his power.
Mírzá Áqá Khán received Bahá’u’lláh with every mark of respect. But he was too apprehensive for the safety of his own position to accord his Guest the treatment he was expected to extend. The promises given to the Russian minister had already begun to break.
That day the army of Nasiri’d-Dín Sháh was thrown into violent tumult. The agitation spread to Tihrán and fanned into fury the hatred the enemies of the Cause still nursed. A word of denunciation, a sign, a whisper, any of these was sufficient to subject the innocent to persecution. Security of life and property vanished completely. The highest religious authorities in the capital joined hands with the most powerful members of the government. For eight years this Faith had shaken the peace of the land. No cunning or violence had silenced it. Now, they believed, the moment had come to strike the final blow.
And Bahá’u’lláh, now that the Báb was no more, appeared in their eyes to be the arch-foe. To them He was the reincarnation of the Spirit the Báb had so powerfully manifested. The precautions the Russian minister had taken, and the warning he had uttered, failed to stay the hand outstretched against that precious life.
From Shimírán to Tihrán, Bahá’u’lláh was several times stripped of His garments. Overwhelmed with abuse and ridicule, He was compelled to cover on foot, barefooted, bareheaded, the whole distance under the fierce rays of the midsummer sun. All along the route, crowds pelted and vilified Him. His enemies had convinced them He was the sworn enemy of their sovereign, the wrecker of the realm.
As He approached the dungeon, an old and decrepit woman emerged from the midst of the crowd, a stone in her hand. Her eyes glowed with a determination and fanaticism of which few women of her age were capable. Her whole frame shook with rage as she stepped forward and raised her hand to hurl her missile at His face.
“By the Siyyidu’sh-Shuhadá, I adjure you,” she pleaded, running to overtake the guards. “Give me a chance to fling my stone in his face!”
Bahá’u’lláh saw her hastening behind Him. His words to the guards were these: “Suffer not this woman to be disappointed. Deny her not what she regards as a meritorious act in the sight of God.”
The Síyáh-Chál. A former water reservoir for one of the public baths of Tihrán. A subterranean dungeon where criminals of the worst type were confined. The darkness, the filth, the character of the prisoners combined to make it the most abominable place to which human beings could be condemned.
His feet were placed in stocks. Around His neck were fastened the Qará-Guhar chains, infamous throughout Persia for their galling weight. For three days and three nights, no food or drink was given to Him. Rest and sleep were impossible. The place was infested with vermin. The stench was enough to crush the spirits of anyone condemned to endure it.
Even one of the executioners watching over Him was moved to pity. Several times this man tried to bring Him tea, smuggling it in under the cover of his garments. Bahá’u’lláh refused to drink it. His family pleaded with the guards to let them carry in the food they had prepared. At first no amount of pleading could relax the severity of that discipline. Gradually the guards yielded, but no one could be certain whether the food would reach Him, or whether He would consent to eat it while a number of His fellow-prisoners were starving before His eyes.
For four months He bore the burden of those chains. The marks of that cruelty remained imprinted upon His body all the days of His life.
Years later, Bahá’u’lláh Himself described what happened in that dungeon.
“We were all huddled together in one cell, our feet in stocks, and around our necks fastened the most galling of chains. The air we breathed was laden with the foulest impurities, while the floor on which we sat was covered with filth and infested with vermin. No ray of light was allowed to penetrate that pestilential dungeon or to warm its icy coldness.”
“We had taught them to repeat certain verses which, every night, they chanted with extreme fervour. ‘God is sufficient unto me; He verily is the All-sufficing!’ one row would intone, while the other would reply: ‘In Him let the trusting trust.’ The chorus of these gladsome voices would continue to peal out until the early hours of the morning. Their reverberation would fill the dungeon, and, piercing its massive walls, would reach the ears of Nasiri’d-Dín Sháh, whose palace was not far distant from the place where we were imprisoned. ‘What means this sound?’ he was reported to have exclaimed. ‘It is the anthem the Bábís are intoning in their prison,’ they replied. The Sháh made no further remarks.”
“One day, there was brought to Our prison a tray of roasted meat, which they informed Us the Sháh had ordered to be distributed among the prisoners. ‘We return this gift to you,’ We replied; ‘we can well dispense with this offer.’ Despite the hunger with which Our companions were afflicted, only one among them showed any desire to eat of the food the sovereign had chosen to spread before us. With a fortitude that was truly heroic, Our fellow-prisoners submitted, without a murmur, to endure the piteous plight to which they were reduced. Praise of God, instead of complaint, fell unceasingly from their lips.”
“Every day Our gaolers, entering Our cell, would call the name of one of Our companions, bidding him arise and follow them to the foot of the gallows. With what eagerness would the owner of that name respond to that solemn call! Relieved of his chains, he would spring to his feet and, in a state of uncontrollable delight, would approach and embrace Us. We would seek to comfort him with the assurance of an everlasting life in the world beyond, and, filling his heart with hope and joy, would send him forth to win the crown of glory. He would embrace, in turn, the rest of his fellow-prisoners and then proceed to die as dauntlessly as he had lived.”
One night, before dawn, Mírzá ‘Abdu’l-Vahháb-i-Shírází, who had followed Bahá’u’lláh from Kázímayn to Tihrán, where he was arrested and chained beside Him, woke and asked if Bahá’u’lláh was awake. He described a dream: “I have this night been soaring into a space of infinite vastness and beauty. I seemed to be uplifted on wings that carried me wherever I desired to go. A feeling of rapturous delight filled my soul.”
Bahá’u’lláh replied: “Today it will be your turn to sacrifice yourself for this Cause. May you remain firm and steadfast to the end. You will then find yourself soaring in that same limitless space of which you dreamed, traversing with the same ease and swiftness the realm of immortal sovereignty, and gazing with that same rapture upon the Infinite Horizon.”
That morning the gaoler entered and called the name of ‘Abdu’l-Vahháb. He threw off his chains. He sprang to his feet. He embraced each of his fellow-prisoners. He took Bahá’u’lláh into his arms and pressed Him to his heart. At that moment Bahá’u’lláh saw that he had no shoes to wear. He gave him His own. He spoke a last word of encouragement, and sent him forth.
Later, the executioner came back, praising the spirit the youth had shown.
Around that dungeon, Tihrán lost its moral balance.
Each day of terror witnessed the martyrdom of two companions, one slain in Tihrán, the other in Shimírán. Both subjected to the same manner of torture, both handed over to the public. The arrested were distributed among various classes of people, whose messengers would visit the dungeon each day and claim their victim. They would conduct him to the scene of his death, give the signal, and men and women would close upon their prey, tear his body to pieces, and mutilate it until no trace of its original form remained. Such ruthlessness amazed even the most brutal executioners, whose hands, though accustomed to slaughter, had never perpetrated such atrocities.
Innocence meant nothing. Procedure vanished. A word, a sign, a whisper was enough to destroy a household.
The child ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, eight years old, later recalled those days. He had taken shelter in the house of His uncle, Mírzá Ismá’íl. Sometimes He ventured out to cross the street. “I would hardly cross the threshold,” He said, “when boys of My age would crowd around Me crying, ‘Bábí! Bábí!’” He would quietly steal away. One day a band of them ran after Him, pelting Him with stones, shouting menacingly. He turned back and rushed toward them with such determination that they fled in distress. “The little Bábí is fast pursuing us!” they cried. “He will surely overtake and slay us all!” A man watching from the street shouted: “Well done, you brave and fearless child! No one of your age would ever have been able, unaided, to withstand their attack.” From that day, no boy in the streets molested Him again.
That was the Tihrán these children inherited. A city where an eight-year-old had to learn, overnight, how to walk through hatred.
As for the assailants themselves: Sadiq-i-Tabrízí was seized at the moment he rushed toward the Sháh, hoping to strike him with a sword after throwing him from his horse. The attendants fell upon him and, without attempting to learn who he was, slew him on the spot. They hewed his body in two and suspended the halves at the entrances to the gates of Shimírán and Sháh-‘Abdu’l-‘Azím.
Fathu’lláh, though suffering unspeakable cruelties, obstinately refused to answer any question put to him. The silence he maintained in the face of manifold tortures induced his persecutors to believe he was devoid of the power of speech. Exasperated by the failure of their efforts, they poured molten lead down his throat. That ended his suffering.
Haji Qásim-i-Nayrízí was stripped, and lighted candles were thrust into holes driven into his flesh, paraded before a multitude that yelled and cursed him.
But the persecution lingered longest over those who had no part in the crime.
Haji Sulaymán Khán. The son of Yahyá Khán, an officer in the service of the crown. A man who from his earliest years had shown a marked disinclination to rank and office. He had journeyed to Karbilá, sat at the feet of Siyyid Kázim, and embraced the Message of the Báb with enthusiasm. He had tried to join the defenders of Tabarsí and arrived too late. He had been present in Tihrán when the Seven Martyrs were killed, men he knew intimately, and even then, so influential were he and his father that no official dared demand his arrest. Even in Tabríz, where he had journeyed to save the life of the Báb, not one inhabitant dared lift a finger against him.
Now, amid the general confusion, he was seized and thrown into prison.
The Hajíbu’d-Dawlih investigated his case on the Sháh’s orders. He was found innocent. He was told: if he recanted, his life would be spared. If he refused, he could choose the manner of his death.
His answer came at once, and it came with joy.
“Never, so long as my life-blood continues to pulsate in my veins, shall I be willing to recant my faith in my Beloved! This world which the Commander of the Faithful has likened to carrion will never allure me from my heart’s Desire.”
He chose.
“Pierce holes in my flesh, and in each wound place a candle. Let nine candles be lighted all over my body, and in this state conduct me through the streets of Tihrán. Summon the multitude to witness the glory of my martyrdom, so that the memory of my death may remain imprinted in their hearts and help them, as they recall the intensity of my tribulation, to recognise the Light I have embraced. After I have reached the foot of the gallows and have uttered the last prayer of my earthly life, cleave my body in twain and suspend my limbs on either side of the gate of Tihrán, that the multitude passing beneath it may witness to the love which the Faith of the Báb has kindled in the hearts of His disciples, and may look upon the proofs of their devotion.”
The Hajíbu’d-Dawlih instructed his men to abide by his wishes. As they handed him the candles and prepared to thrust their knives into his breast, Haji Sulaymán Khán made a sudden attempt to seize the weapon from the executioner’s trembling hands and plunge it himself into his own flesh.
“Why fear and hesitate?” he cried, stretching out his arm. “Let me myself perform the deed and light the candles.”
They tied his hands behind his back. He pleaded: “Let me point out with my fingers the places into which I wish them to thrust their dagger, for I have no other request to make besides this.”
Two holes in his breast. Two in his shoulders. One in the nape of his neck. Four in his back. With stoic calm he endured it all. Steadfastness glowed in his eyes as he maintained a mysterious and unbroken silence. Neither the howling of the crowd nor the sight of blood streaming over his body could break it. All nine candles were placed and lighted.
Then he stood. Erect as an arrow, that same unflinching fortitude gleaming on his face, he stepped forward to lead the concourse to the place of his execution.
Every few steps he would stop and gaze at the bewildered bystanders. “What greater pomp and pageantry than those which this day accompany my progress to win the crown of glory! Glorified be the Báb, who can kindle such devotion in the breasts of His lovers, and can endow them with a power greater than the might of kings!”
At times, as if carried beyond himself, he cried: “The Abraham of a bygone age, as He prayed God in the hour of bitter agony, heard the voice of the Unseen proclaim: ‘O fire! Be thou cold, and to Abraham a safety!’ But this Sulaymán is crying out from the depths of his ravaged heart: ‘Lord, Lord, let Thy fire burn unceasingly within me, and suffer its flame to consume my being.’”
As the wax flickered in his wounds, he burst forth in delight: “Would that He whose hand has enkindled my soul were here to behold my state!”
“Think me not to be intoxicated with the wine of this earth!” he cried to the throng standing aghast. “It is the love of my Beloved that has filled my soul and made me feel endowed with a sovereignty which even kings might envy!”
In the bazaar, a breeze excited the burning of the candles set upon his breast. As they melted, their flames reached the level of the wounds. Those following a few steps behind could hear distinctly the sizzling of his flesh. The sight of gore and fire, instead of silencing his voice, appeared to heighten his unquenchable enthusiasm. He could still be heard, this time addressing the flames: “You have long lost your sting, O flames, and have been robbed of your power to pain me. Make haste, for from your very tongues of fire I can hear the voice that calls me to my Beloved!”
At the foot of the gallows, he raised his voice one last time: “Did not this Sulaymán whom you now see before you a prey to fire and blood, enjoy until recently all the favours and riches the world can bestow? What could have caused him to renounce this earthly glory and accept in return such great degradation and suffering?”
He prostrated himself in the direction of the shrine of the Imám-Zádih Hasan and murmured words in Arabic.
“My work is now finished!” he cried to the executioner. “Come and do yours!”
He was still alive when his body was hewn in two with a hatchet. The praise of his Beloved lingered on his lips until the last moment of his life.
When the account was later related at a gathering of notables and dignitaries, the Nizámu’l-‘Ulamá, who had listened intently to every detail, wrung his hands in horror and despair. “How strange, how very strange, is this Cause!” he exclaimed. Without another word, he arose and departed.
And then Táhirih.
The wife of the Kalántar, in whose home she had been confined, later described what happened. Táhirih had reached the height of her influence. The house was besieged by women admirers who thronged her doors. Among them, the wife of the Kalántar distinguished herself by her devotion, introducing the flower of womanhood in Tihrán into Táhirih’s presence.
One night, the wife of the Kalántar was summoned to Táhirih’s room, and found her fully adorned, dressed in a gown of snow-white silk. The room was redolent with the choicest perfume.
“I am preparing to meet my Beloved,” Táhirih said, “and wish to free you from the cares and anxieties of my imprisonment.”
The wife of the Kalántar wept. Táhirih sought to reassure her: “Weep not. The time of your lamentation is not yet come.”
Then she laid out her last wishes. She asked that the Kalántar’s son be allowed to accompany her to the scene of her death. She asked that the guards and executioner not compel her to remove her attire. She asked that her body be thrown into a pit, and the pit filled with earth and stones. She said that three days after her death a woman would come, and the wife of the Kalántar should give her a certain package.
“From now until the time when I shall be summoned to leave this house, let no one be allowed to disturb my devotions. This day I intend to fast, a fast which I shall not break until I am brought face to face with my Beloved.”
She bade the wife of the Kalántar lock the door and not open it until the hour of her departure should strike.
That night, the wife of the Kalántar lay sleepless. Several times she crept to the threshold of Táhirih’s room and stood silently at the door. She was enchanted by the melody of a voice intoning the praise of the Beloved. She could hardly remain standing, so great was her agitation.
Four hours after sunset, a knocking came at the door. The farráshes of Azíz Khán-i-Sardár stood at the gate, demanding Táhirih be delivered into their hands.
The wife of the Kalántar tottered to the door with trembling hands and unlocked it. She found Táhirih veiled and prepared to leave, pacing the floor, chanting a litany expressive of both grief and triumph. Táhirih approached and kissed her. She placed in her hand the key to a chest, saying she had left a few things as a remembrance. “Whenever you open this chest and behold the things it contains, you will, I hope, remember me and rejoice in my gladness.”
She bade her last farewell. Accompanied by the Kalántar’s son, she disappeared into the night.
They rode to the Ílkhání garden, outside the gate of the city. There the Kalántar’s son found the Sardár and his lieutenants absorbed in acts of debauchery, flushed with wine, roaring with laughter. Táhirih dismounted and asked the young man to act as her intermediary.
“They apparently wish to strangle me,” she said. “I set aside, long ago, a silken kerchief which I hoped would be used for this purpose. I deliver it into your hands and wish you to induce that dissolute drunkard to use it as a means whereby he can take my life.”
The Sardár was in a state of wretched intoxication. “Interrupt not the gaiety of our festival!” he shouted. “Let that miserable wretch be strangled and her body be thrown into a pit!”
The silk kerchief was wound around her neck and made the instrument of her martyrdom. The Kalántar’s son found an unfinished well, and with the help of a few others lowered her into it, filling it with earth and stones in the manner she herself had wished.
Those who saw her in her last moments were profoundly affected. With downcast eyes and rapt in silence, they mournfully dispersed, leaving their victim, who had shed so imperishable a lustre upon their country, buried beneath the stones they had heaped upon her with their own hands.
She was born Fátimih. She was thirty-six years old.
When the wife of the Kalántar opened her chest, she found a small vial of the choicest perfume, a rosary, a coral necklace, and three rings, mounted with turquoise, cornelian, and ruby. On the third day after the martyrdom, the woman whose coming Táhirih had promised arrived. The wife of the Kalántar delivered the package into her hands. She had never met her before. She never saw her again.
Siyyid Husayn-i-Yazdí, the Báb’s own amanuensis, who had been at His side in both Máh-Kú and Chihríq, also perished in this storm. He had lain in the Síyáh-Chál, longing for a death like his Master’s. Many leading officials tried to deliver him from prison, offering release. He steadfastly refused. Tears flowed unceasingly from his eyes, tears born of longing to see again the face whose radiance had shone amid the darkness of Ádhirbayján. In the gloom of his cell, the one who came to banish his anguish was Bahá’u’lláh Himself. In His company Siyyid Husayn remained until the hour of his death. The hand that struck him down was the same hand that had killed Táhirih: Azíz Khán-i-Sardár.
All this suffering failed to appease the Sháh’s mother. Day and night she demanded Bahá’u’lláh’s execution. “Deliver him to the executioner!” she cried. “What greater humiliation than this, that I, who am the mother of the Sháh, should be powerless to inflict upon that criminal the punishment so dastardly an act deserves!”
Her cry for vengeance was doomed to remain unanswered.
Meanwhile, Abbás, a former servant of Haji Sulaymán Khán, who knew the names, the number, and the dwelling places of the Báb’s disciples, was arrested and compelled to betray them. He was taken through the streets and directed to point out everyone he recognized. People he had never met were delivered into the hands of the Hajíbu’d-Dawlih’s men, people who had no connection with the Báb at all. They recovered their freedom only after paying heavy bribes. So great was the greed that the attendants requested Abbás to salute, as a sign of betrayal, every person he thought would be willing and able to pay large sums for his deliverance.
Abbás was brought to the Síyáh-Chál and introduced to Bahá’u’lláh, whom he had met before in the company of his master. They promised that the Sháh’s mother would amply reward him for identifying Bahá’u’lláh. But every time he was taken into His presence, Abbás would stand a few moments, gaze upon His face, and leave, emphatically denying he had ever seen Him.
When betrayal failed, they turned to poison. They intercepted the food Bahá’u’lláh was permitted to receive from His home and mixed it with what they hoped would be fatal. This measure impaired His health for years. It did not kill Him.
The case against Bahá’u’lláh finally broke.
The Russian minister, watching through his agents, addressed a strongly worded message to the Grand Vazír: send a messenger to the Síyáh-Chál. Let Azím, now recognized as the leader of the attempt, declare publicly his opinion of Bahá’u’lláh’s position. Whatever he says should be recorded and serve as the basis for final judgment.
The Grand Vazír agreed.
When Azím was questioned, his answer was clear: “The Leader of this community was none other than the Siyyid-i-Báb, who was slain in Tabríz, and whose martyrdom induced me to arise and avenge His death. I alone conceived this plan and endeavoured to execute it.”
The words were taken down by both the Russian minister’s interpreter and the Grand Vazír’s representative. The documents placed in the Grand Vazír’s hands were chiefly responsible for Bahá’u’lláh’s release.
The Grand Vazír sent his trusted representative, a man named Haji ‘Alí, to the Síyáh-Chál with the order for release.
The sight that met him filled him with grief and surprise. He wept as he saw Bahá’u’lláh chained to a floor infested with vermin, His neck weighed down by galling chains, His face laden with sorrow, ungroomed and dishevelled, breathing the pestilential atmosphere of the worst dungeon in the empire.
“Accursed be Mírzá Áqá Khán!” he burst out, as his eyes recognized Bahá’u’lláh in the gloom. “God knows I had never imagined that you could have been subjected to so humiliating a captivity. I should never have thought that the Grand Vazír could have dared commit so heinous an act.”
He removed the mantle from his shoulders and presented it to Bahá’u’lláh, entreating Him to wear it before the minister. Bahá’u’lláh refused. Wearing the dress of a prisoner, He proceeded to the seat of the imperial government.
The first word the Grand Vazír addressed to Him was this: “Had you chosen to take my advice, and had you dissociated yourself from the faith of the Siyyid-i-Báb, you would never have suffered the pains and indignities that have been heaped upon you.”
Bahá’u’lláh replied: “Had you, in your turn, followed my counsels, the affairs of the government would not have reached so critical a stage.”
The Grand Vazír was immediately reminded of a conversation at the time of the Báb’s execution. Words He had spoken then flashed through the minister’s mind: “the flame that has been kindled will blaze forth more fiercely than ever.” The Grand Vazír said: “The warning you uttered has, alas, been fulfilled. What is it that you advise me now to do?”
Bahá’u’lláh’s answer came instantly: “Command the governors of the realm to cease shedding the blood of the innocent, to cease plundering their property, to cease dishonouring their women and injuring their children. Let them cease the persecution of the Faith of the Báb; let them abandon the idle hope of wiping out its followers.”
That same day, a circular went out to every governor in the realm. “What you have done is enough,” the Grand Vazír wrote. “Cease arresting and punishing the people. Disturb no longer the peace and tranquillity of your countrymen.”
The persecutions were ordered to stop. Then the state completed its answer: within one month, Bahá’u’lláh, with His family, was expected to leave Tihrán for a place beyond the confines of Persia.
The Russian minister, learning of this, offered to take Bahá’u’lláh under his protection and invited Him to go to Russia. He refused. He chose instead to leave for ‘Iráq.
On the first day of the month of Rabí’u’th-Thání, 1269, nine months after His return from Karbilá, Bahá’u’lláh set out from Tihrán for Baghdád. With Him went His family, among them ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Áqáy-i-Kalím, escorted by a member of the imperial bodyguard and an official representing the Russian legation.
A small caravan, moving through the snows of winter, crossing the mountains that separated Persia from ‘Iráq.
Never had the fortunes of the Faith sunk to a lower ebb. The Cause for which the Báb had given His life, for which Bahá’u’lláh had toiled and suffered, seemed on the very verge of extinction. Its force appeared spent. Its resistance broken. Discouragements and disasters had succeeded one another with bewildering rapidity, sapping its vitality, dimming the hope of its stoutest supporters.
To a dispassionate observer, the whole story from its very beginning would have appeared to be nothing but a recital of reverses and massacres, humiliations and disappointments, each more devastating than the last, culminating in banishment. The life of the Báb, that short and heroic career, which, swift as a meteor, had flashed across the firmament of Persia, seemed plunged at last into an abyss of darkness.
Of all those capable of carrying on the work the Báb had handed down, Bahá’u’lláh alone remained. All the rest had fallen. Mullá Husayn. Quddús. Vahíd. Hujjat. Táhirih. The Letters of the Living, dead, imprisoned, or leading obscure lives in remote corners of the realm. The Báb’s voluminous writings, obliterated, torn, burned, corrupted, seized, or scattered as undeciphered manuscripts precariously hidden among the survivors.
Nasiri’d-Dín Sháh, sitting beneath the shadow of his palace, was already priding himself on being the wrecker of this Cause. To him it appeared, at that supreme moment, that the spell was broken, that the tide sweeping over his country was at last turning. The Báb was dead. The pillars of the Faith were crushed to dust. Bahá’u’lláh had been driven into exile, and had Himself chosen to go toward ‘Iráq, the very neighbourhood of the stronghold of shí’ah fanaticism. The spectre that had haunted Nasiri’d-Dín Sháh since his coronation had vanished for ever, or so he believed.
How vast his delusion.
The Cause he imagined crushed was still living. It was passing through the fiery tests of a transition destined to carry it further than anything the Báb Himself had proclaimed. The seed His hand had sown, though subjected to a storm of unexampled violence and then transplanted to foreign soil, would continue to grow, into a Tree destined to spread its shelter over all the peoples of the earth.
And the first glimmerings of that dawning Revelation could already be discerned amid the gloom that encircled Bahá’u’lláh in the Síyáh-Chál of Tihrán. The force that would later encompass the globe was already pulsating in His veins as He lay exposed to the sword of His executioner. A still voice, inaudible to the monarch already preparing to celebrate the extinction of the Faith, announced to the Prisoner the Revelation of which He was chosen to be the Bearer.
The imprisonment that was meant to brand Him with infamy became the scene of that Revelation’s first stirrings. The banishment that was meant to silence Him carried Him to the city from which He would proclaim His mission, first to Baghdád, then from the prison-city of ‘Akká to the Sháh himself, and to the rulers and crowned heads of the world.
The crime came from a few disordered hands.
The state answered with exile.
And exile carried the prisoner beyond the reach of every power that had tried to destroy Him, into the open field of history, where the thing they feared most was only beginning.
We have moved through declaration and denial, through siege and slaughter, through the deaths of heroes and the cruelty of thrones. Every force the empire could bring to bear, its armies, its clergy, its prisons, its executioners, was brought to bear. The Báb was killed. His companions were broken. His Cause was scattered to the winds.
And still, from the floor of the darkest dungeon in Persia, chained and poisoned and stripped of everything, Bahá’u’lláh walked out alive. He walked out wearing a prisoner’s clothes. He walked into exile. And He carried with Him something no chain, no edict, and no empire could touch.
The Dawning Light was not extinguished. It had only just begun to rise.