Chapter 14

When word of this spread throughout Tihran, the Government hunted for her high and low; nevertheless, the friends kept arriving to see her, in a steady stream, and Tahirih, seated behind a curtain, would converse with them. One day the great Siyyid Yahya, surnamed Vahid, was present there. As he sat without, Tahirih listened to him from behind the veil. I was then a child, and was sitting on her lap. With eloquence and fervor, Vahid was discoursing on the signs and verses that bore witness to the advent of the new Manifestation. She suddenly interrupted him and, raising her voice, vehemently declared: "O Yahya! Let deeds, not words, testify to thy faith, if thou art a man of true learning. Cease idly repeating the traditions of the past, for the day of service, of steadfast action, is come. Now is the time to show forth the true signs of God, to rend asunder the veils of idle fancy, to promote the Word of God, and to sacrifice ourselves in His path. Let deeds, not words, be our adorning!"

The Blessed Beauty made elaborate arrangements for Tahirih's journey to Bada_sh_t and sent her off with an equipage and retinue. His own party left for that region some days afterward.

In Bada_sh_t, there was a great open field. Through its center a stream flowed, and to its right, left, and rear there were three gardens, the envy of Paradise. One of those gardens was assigned to Quddus,(127) but this was kept a secret. Another was set apart for Tahirih, and in a third was raised the pavilion of Baha'u'llah. On the field amidst the three gardens, the believers pitched their tents. Evenings, Baha'u'llah, Quddus and Tahirih would come together. In those days the fact that the Bab was the Qa'im had not yet been proclaimed; it was the Blessed Beauty, with Quddus, Who arranged for the proclamation of a universal Advent and the abrogation and repudiation of the ancient laws.

Then one day, and there was a wisdom in it, Baha'u'llah fell ill; that is, the indisposition was to serve a vital purpose. On a sudden, in the sight of all, Quddus came out of his garden, and entered the pavilion of Baha'u'llah. But Tahirih sent him a message, to say that their Host being ill, Quddus should visit her garden instead. His answer was: "This garden is preferable. Come, then, to this one." Tahirih, with her face unveiled, stepped from her garden, advancing to the pavilion of Baha'u'llah; and as she came, she shouted aloud these words: "The Trumpet is sounding! The great Trump is blown! The universal Advent is now proclaimed!"(128) The believers gathered in that tent were panic struck, and each one asked himself, "How can the Law be abrogated? How is it that this woman stands here without her veil?"

"Read the Surih of the Inevitable,"(129) said Baha'u'llah; and the reader began: "When the Day that must come shall have come suddenly... Day that shall abase! Day that shall exalt!..." and thus was the new Dispensation announced and the great Resurrection made manifest. At the start, those who were present fled away, and some forsook their Faith, while some fell a prey to suspicion and doubt, and a number, after wavering, returned to the presence of Baha'u'llah. The Conference of Bada_sh_t broke up, but the universal Advent had been proclaimed.

Afterward, Quddus hastened away to the Fort of Tabarsi(130) and the Blessed Beauty, with provisions and equipment, journeyed to Niyala, having the intention of going on from there by night, making His way through the enemy encampment and entering the Fort. But Mirza Taqi, the Governor of Amul, got word of this, and with seven hundred riflemen arrived in Niyala. Surrounding the village by night, he sent Baha'u'llah with eleven riders back to Amul, and those calamities and tribulations, told of before, came to pass.

As for Tahirih, after the breakup at Bada_sh_t she was captured, and the oppressors sent her back under guard to Tihran. There she was imprisoned in the house of Mahmud _Kh_an, the Kalantar. But she was aflame, enamored, restless, and could not be still. The ladies of Tihran, on one pretext or another, crowded to see and listen to her. It happened that there was a celebration at the Mayor's house for the marriage of his son; a nuptial banquet was prepared, and the house adorned. The flower of Tihran's ladies were invited, the princesses, the wives of vazirs and other great. A splendid wedding it was, with instrumental music and vocal melodies--by day and night the lute, the bells and songs. Then Tahirih began to speak; and so bewitched were the great ladies that they forsook the cithern and the drum and all the pleasures of the wedding feast, to crowd about Tahirih and listen to the sweet words of her mouth.

Thus she remained, a helpless captive. Then came the attempt on the life of the _Sh_ah;(131) a farman was issued; she was sentenced to death. Saying she was summoned to the Prime Minister's, they arrived to lead her away from the Kalantar's house. She bathed her face and hands, arrayed herself in a costly dress, and scented with attar of roses she came out of the house.

They brought her into a garden, where the headsmen waited; but these wavered and then refused to end her life. A slave was found, far gone in drunkenness; besotted, vicious, black of heart. And he strangled Tahirih. He forced a scarf between her lips and rammed it down her throat. Then they lifted up her unsullied body and flung it in a well, there in the garden, and over it threw down earth and stones. But Tahirih rejoiced; she had heard with a light heart the tidings of her martyrdom; she set her eyes on the supernal Kingdom and offered up her life.

Salutations be unto her, and praise. Holy be her dust, as the tiers of light come down on it from Heaven.

FOOTNOTES

1 For the author of The Dawn-Breakers, see Nabil-i-Zarandi.

2 Cf. Nabil, The Dawn-Breakers, p. 395, note 1.

3 Cf. Qur'an 19:98.

4 Qur'an 3:91.

5 Qur'an 54:55.

6 1849-1850.

7 1853; 1892.

8 Aqa Jan. Cf. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 189.

9 Siyyid Muhammad, the Antichrist of the Baha'i Revelation. Cf. Ibid., pp. 164 and 189.

10 The Afnan are the kindred of the Bab. Ibid., pp. 239; 328.

11 Herald of the Prophet Muhammad.

12 Qur'an 68:4.

13 This wine, Rumi says elsewhere, comes from the jar of "Yea verily." That is, it symbolizes the Primal Covenant established between God and man on the day of "Am I not your Lord?" On that day, the Creator summoned posterity out of the loins of Adam and said to the generations unborn, "Am I not your Lord?" Whereupon they answered, "Yea, verily, Thou art." Cf. Qur'an 7:171.

14 The Turkish para was one-ninth of a cent. Cf. Webster, New International Dictionary.

15 Nabil, author of The Dawn-Breakers, is Baha'u'llah's "Poet-Laureate, His chronicler and His indefatigable disciple." Cf. God Passes By, p. 130.

16 Mirza Yahya, the community's "nominal head," was the "center provisionally appointed pending the manifestation of the Promised One." Ibid., p. 127-28.

17 A reference to Islamic symbolism, according to which good is protected from evil: the angels repel such evil spirits as attempt to spy on Paradise, by hurling shooting stars at them. Cf. Qur'an 15:18, 37:10 and 67:5.

18 A reference to the declaration of Baha'u'llah's advent in 1863, as the Promised One of the Bab. The Bab's own advent had taken place in the "year sixty"--1844.

19 Baha'i writings emphasize that the "divinity attributed to so great a Being and the complete incarnation of the names and attributes of God in so exalted a Person should, under no circumstances, be misconceived or misinterpreted ... that invisible yet rational God ... however much we extol the divinity of His Manifestations on earth, can in no wise incarnate His infinite, His unknowable, His incorruptible and all-embracing Reality in ... a mortal being." Cf. Shoghi Effendi, The Dispensation of Baha'u'llah.

20 According to the abjad reckoning, the letters of "_sh_idad" total 309. 1892, the date of Baha'u'llah's ascension, was 1309 A.H.

_ 21 Gh_ariq. The letters composing this word total 1310, which Hijra year began July 26, 1892.

22 Terms used by the Sufis.

23 Sidq, truth.

24 Qur'an 54:55.

25 This word has a number of meanings, including truthful, loyal and just.

26 Ya _Sh_afi.

27 Qur'an 76:5.

28 Nabil of Qa'in was his title.

29 Qur'an 5:59.

30 The kran was 20 _sh_ahis, or almost 8 cents. Cf. Webster, op. cit.

31 Mirza Mihdi, the son of Baha'u'llah who, praying one evening on the barracks roof, fell to his death. Cf. God Passes By, p. 188.

32 Cf. Qur'an 13:28; 2:99; 3:67.

33 Yazid (son of Mu'aviyyih), Ummayad Caliph by whose order the Imam Husayn was martyred. Proverbial for cruelty. Cf. S. Haim, New Persian-English Dictionary, s.v.

34 The rebellion of Mirza Yahya, who had been named provisional chief of the Babi community. The Bab had never appointed a successor or viceregent, instead referring His disciples to the imminent advent of His Promised One. In the interim a virtual unknown was, for security reasons, made the ostensible leader. Following His declaration in 1863 as the Promised One of the Bab, Baha'u'llah withdrew for a time, in Adrianople, to allow the exiles a free choice as between Him and this unworthy half brother, whose crimes and follies had threatened to destroy the infant Faith. Terrified at being challenged to face Baha'u'llah in a public debate, Mirza Yahya refused, and was completely discredited. As Baha'i history has repeatedly demonstrated, this crisis too, however grievous, resulted in still greater victories for the Faith--including the rallying of prominent disciples to Baha'u'llah, and the global proclamation of Baha'u'llah's mission, in His Tablets to the Pope and Kings. Cf. God Passes By, p. 28, Chapter X and passim.

35 Mirza Yahya had not been banished from Persia. Now, however, he was being exiled from Adrianople to Cyprus, and 'Abdu'l-_Gh_affar was one of the four companions condemned to go with him. Cf. Baha'u'llah's Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 166, and God Passes By, p. 182.

36 Cf. Qur'an 11:101; 11:100; 76:5; 76:22; 17:20.

37 Cf. God Passes By, p. 108.

38 Cf. God Passes By, pp. 186; 193; 196.

39 Qur'an 54:55.

40 This reference to two worlds, du jihan, may indicate the saying: Isfahan is half the world--Isfahan nisf-i-jihan.

41 For this definition of the Manifestation of God, see God Passes By, p. 119.

42 These "twin shining lights" were two brothers, famous merchants of Isfahan. Because he owed them a large sum of money, the leading priest--Imam Jum'ih--of the city brought about their martyrdom. See Baha'u'llah's Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, and God Passes By, pp. 200-201 and 219.

43 Qur'an 89:27-30.

44 Qur'an 24:35.

45 Qur'an 89:27-30.

46 Cf. Qur'an 13:28: "Truly in the remembrance of God are the hearts set at rest."

47 Qur'an 76:5.

48 Qur'an 13:28.

49 Qur'an 3:91.

50 Qur'an 29:19; 53:48; 56:62.

51 Mirza Musa.

52 Cf. God Passes By, p. 186.

53 Some four hundred miles northwest of Ba_gh_dad.

_ 54 Sh_ikastih--broken--a cursive or half-shorthand script, is thought to have been invented at the close of the seventeenth century, in Hirat.

55 Gawhar _Kh_anum's marriage to Baha'u'llah took place in Ba_gh_dad. She remained with her brother in that city when Baha'u'llah left 'Iraq and later proceeded to Akka at His instruction. While traveling from Ba_gh_dad to Mosul, she was made captive together with other believers, among them Zaynu'l-Muqarrabin. Baha'u'llah makes reference to this captivity in His Tablet to the _Sh_ah.

Gawhar _Kh_anum broke the Covenant of Baha'u'llah following His passing. She passed away during the ministry of 'Abdu'l-Baha.

56 Qur'an 76:9.

57 A famed calligrapher who lived and wrote at the court of _Sh_ah-'Abbas, the Safavi (1557-1628).

58 Mi_sh_k is musk. Mi_sh_kin-Qalam means either musk-scented pen, or jet black pen.

59 Qur'an 61:4.

60 In some of this artist's productions, the writing was so arranged as to take the forms of birds. When E. G. Browne was in Persia, he was told that "these would be eagerly sought after by Persians of all classes, were it not that they all bore, as the signature of the penman, the following verse:

Dar diyar-i-_kh_att _sh_ah-i-sahib-'alam Bandiy-i-bab-i-Baha, Mi_sh_kin-Qalam."

Cf. A Year Amongst the Persians, p. 227. The verse might be translated:

Lord of calligraphy, my banner goes before; But to Baha'u'llah, a bondsman at the door, Naught else I am, Mi_sh_kin-Qalam.

Note the wordplay on door, which makes possible the inclusion of the Bab's name as well as Baha'u'llah's.

61 Ustad is a master, one who is skilled in an art or profession.

62 Qur'an 6:127.

63 Qur'an 3:28.

64 Qur'an 2:266, 267.

65 For some of these Arabic phrases, see Qur'an 3:170; 4:12, 175; 5:16, 17; 11:100, 101; 28:79; 41:35.

66 The Ba_gh_dad period in Baha'i history was from April 8, 1853 to May 3, 1863. According to various estimates the tuman of the day ranged from $1.08 to $1.60.

67 This was in accord with the law of Islam. Cf. Qur'an 4:12.

68 Qur'an 7:171.

69 For the tribulations following Baha'u'llah's departure see God Passes By, chapter XV.

70 Persia's Hercules.

71 Qur'an 89:27.

72 Qur'an 4:71.

73 Cf. God Passes By, p. 180.

74 Qur'an 89:27-30.

75 The Afnan are the Bab's kindred.

76 Qur'an 7:171.

77 Qur'an 39:69.

78 The Promised One of the Bab.

79 Islamic symbolism: Satan is the "stoned one"; with shooting stars for stones, the angels repel demons from Paradise. Qur'an 3:31, 15:17, 34; 37:7; 67:5.

80 Qur'an 2:17.

81 Qur'an 4:71.

82 The Prime Minister.

83 Qum is the shrine city of Fatimih, "the Immaculate." Sister of the eighth Imam, Imam Rida, she was buried here in 816 A.D.

84 The remainder of the verse is: "Let us split the roof of Heaven and draw a new design."

85 Qur'an 52:4.

86 Cf. Qur'an 13:28.

87 Qur'an 3:190.

88 Cf. Qur'an 39:68.

89 Qur'an 7:171.

90 Manqul va ma'qul: "desumed" versus "excogitated" knowledge.

91 Qur'an 3:190.

92 Baha'u'llah was accompanied by members of His family and twenty-six disciples. The convoy included a mounted guard of ten soldiers with their officer, a train of fifty mules, and seven pairs of howdahs, each pair surmounted by four parasols. The journey to Constantinople lasted from May 3, 1863 to August 16. Cf. God Passes By, p. 156.

93 Qur'an 26:119; 36:41.

94 Cf. Qur'an 5:59.

95 Qur'an 39:68-69: "And there shall be a blast on the trumpet, and all who are in the heavens and all who are in the earth shall swoon away, save those whom God shall vouchsafe to live. Then shall there be another blast on it, and lo! arising they shall gaze around them: and the earth shall shine with the light of her Lord..."

96 In _Sh_ay_kh_i terminology, the Fourth Support or Fourth Pillar was the perfect man or channel of grace, always to be sought. Haji Muhammad-Karim _Kh_an regarded himself as such. Cf. Baha'u'llah, Kitab-i-Iqan (The Book of Certitude), p. 184, and 'Abdu'l-Baha, A Traveller's Narrative, p. 4.

97 The promised Twelfth Imam.

98 Allamiy-i-Hilli, "the Very Erudite Doctor," title of the famed _Sh_i'ih theologian, Jamalu'd-Din Hasan ibn-i-Yusuf ibn-i-'Ali of Hilla (1250-1325 A.D.).

99 The Turkish _gh_uru_sh_ or piaster of the time was forty paras, the para one-ninth of a cent. These figures are approximate only.

100 Accent the first syllable: FA-teh-meh

101 Gibbon writes of the Imam Husayn's martyrdom and the fate of his Household, that "in a distant age and climate the tragic scene ... will awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader."

102 The Sadratu'l-Muntaha, translated inter alia as the Sidrah Tree which marks the boundary, and the Lote-Tree of the extremity. Cf. Qur'an 53:14. It is said to stand at the loftiest point in Paradise, and to mark the place beyond which neither men nor angels can pass. In Baha'i terminology it refers to the Manifestation of God.

103 This prayer was revealed by 'Abdu'l-Baha for the Consort of the King of Martyrs.

104 Qur'an 76:5.

105 Pronounced _Sh_ams-oz-Zoha.

106 A forerunner of the Bab, and co-founder of the _Sh_ay_kh_i School. See glossary.

107 His daughter, at a later date, became the consort of 'Abdu'l-Baha. Cf. God Passes By, p. 130, and The Dawn-Breakers, p. 461.

108 "Gate of the Gate", a title of Mulla Husayn, the first to believe in the Bab. For an account of his sister, cf. The Dawn-Breakers, p. 383, note.

109 "Solace of the Eyes."

110 Persian women of the day went heavily veiled in public.

111 Qur'an 7:7; 14:42; 21:48; 57:25, etc

112 Cf. Nabil, The Dawn-Breakers, chapter XV.

113 The reference is to Muhammad's daughter, Fatimih, "the bright and fair of face, the Lady of Light."

114 Eldest son of the _Sh_ah and ruler over more than two-fifths of the kingdom. He ratified the death sentence. Soon after these events, he fell into disgrace. Cf. God Passes By, p. 200; 232.

115 The eighth Imam, poisoned by order of the Caliph Ma'mum, A.H. 203, after the Imam had been officially designated as the Caliph's heir apparent. His shrine, with its golden dome, has been called the glory of the _Sh_i'ih world. "A part of My body is to be buried in _Kh_urasan", the Prophet traditionally said.

116 Pronounced TA-heh-reh.

117 Cf. The Dawn-Breakers, p. 81, note 2, and p. 285, note 2. Certain lines, there translated by Shoghi Effendi, are incorporated here.

118 A forerunner of the Bab, and first of the two founders of the _Sh_ay_kh_i School. See glossary.

119 Qur'an 17:1; 30:56; 50:19; etc

120 The sixth Imam.

121 The "Ahsanu'l-Qisas," the Bab's commentary on the Surih of Joseph, was called the Qur'an of the Babis, and was translated from Arabic into Persian by Tahirih. Cf. God Passes By, p. 23.

122 Qur'an 3:54: "Then will we invoke and lay the malison of God on those that lie!" The ordeal was by imprecation.

123 Qur'an 21:48; 19:37, etc. In Islam the Bridge of Sirat, sharp as a sword and finer than a hair, stretches across Hell to Heaven.

124 Cf. The Dawn-Breakers, p. 276. The murderer was not a Babi, but a fervent admirer of the _Sh_ay_kh_i leaders, the Twin Luminous Lights.

125 Cf. The Dawn-Breakers, p. 278.

126 This refers to the doctrine that there are three ways to God: the Law (_sh_ari'at), the Path (tariqat), and the Truth (haqiqat). That is, the law of the orthodox, the path of the dervish, and the truth. Cf. R. A. Nicholson, Commentary on the Ma_th_navi of Rumi, s.v.

127 The eighteenth Letter of the Living, martyred with unspeakable cruelty in the market place at Barfuru_sh_, when he was twenty-seven. Baha'u'llah conferred on him a station second only to that of the Bab Himself. Cf. The Dawn-Breakers, pp. 408-415.

128 Cf. Qur'an 74:8 and 6:73. Also Isaiah 27:13 and Zechariah 9:14.

129 Qur'an, Surih 56.

130 A systematic campaign against the new Faith had been launched in Persia by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities combined. The believers, cut down wherever they were isolated, banded together when they could, for protection against the Government, the clergy, and the people. Betrayed and surrounded as they passed through the forest of Mazindaran, some 300 believers, mostly students and recluses, built the Fort of _Sh_ay_kh_ Tabarsi and held out against the armies of Persia for eleven months. Cf. The Dawn-Breakers, chapters XIX and XX; God Passes By, p. 37 et seq.

131 On August 15, 1852, a half-crazed Babi youth wounded the _Sh_ah with shot from a pistol. The assailant was instantly killed, and the authorities carried out a wholesale massacre of the believers, its climax described by Renan as "a day perhaps unparalleled in the history of the world." Cf. Lord Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, pp. 501-2, and God Passes By, p. 62 et seq.