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Updated: May 15, 2025
He had already twice suffered imprisonment for the Cause, and on one occasion had undergone the torture of the bastinado, when in August 1852, an event occurred fraught with terrible consequences for the Bábís.
God alone knoweth what befell Us in that most foul-smelling and gloomy place!” Bahá’u’lláh’s feet were placed in stocks, and around His neck were fastened the Qará-Guhar chains of such galling weight that their mark remained imprinted upon His body all the days of His life. “A heavy chain,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself has testified, “was placed about His neck by which He was chained to five other Bábís; these fetters were locked together by strong, very heavy, bolts and screws.
To this young man the Bab sent his rings and other personal possessions, authorized him to add to his writings and in general to inherit his influence and continue his work. This young man was recognized with practical unanimity by the Babis as their spiritual head.
“Tales of magnificent heroism,” is the written testimony of Lord Curzon of Kedleston, “illumine the blood-stained pages of Bábí history.... The fires of Smithfield did not kindle a nobler courage than has met and defied the more refined torture-mongers of Ṭihrán. Of no small account, then, must be the tenets of a creed that can awaken in its followers so rare and beautiful a spirit of self-sacrifice. The heroism and martyrdom of His (the Báb) followers will appeal to many others who can find no similar phenomena in the contemporaneous records of Islám.” “Bábism,” wrote Prof. J. Darmesteter, “which diffused itself in less than five years from one end of Persia to another, which was bathed in 1852 in the blood of its martyrs, has been silently progressing and propagating itself. If Persia is to be at all regenerate it will be through this new Faith.” “Des milliers de martyrs,” attests Renan in his “Les Apôtres,” “sont accourus pour lui (the Báb) avec allegressé au devant de la mort. Un jour sans pareil peut-être dans l’histoire du monde fut celui de la grande boucherie qui se fit des Bábís
T. K. Cheyne, in one of his books, “is now beginning to appear ... this noble woman ... has the credit of opening the catalogue of social reforms in Persia...” “Assuredly one of the most striking and interesting manifestations of this religion” is the reference to her by the noted French diplomat and brilliant writer, Comte de Gobineau. “In Qazvín,” he adds, “she was held, with every justification, to be a prodigy.” “Many people,” he, moreover has written, “who knew her and heard her at different periods of her life have invariably told me ... that when she spoke one felt stirred to the depths of one’s soul, was filled with admiration, and was moved to tears.” “No memory,” writes Sir Valentine Chirol, “is more deeply venerated or kindles greater enthusiasm than hers, and the influence which she wielded in her lifetime still inures to her sex.” “O Táhirih!” exclaims in his book on the Bábís the great author and poet of Turkey, Sulaymán Nazím Bey, “you are worth a thousand Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháhs!” “The greatest ideal of womanhood has been Táhirih” is the tribute paid her by the mother of one of the Presidents of Austria, Mrs.
The sympathizer was seized, and as the gathering grew, the opportunity to gratify private animosity and satisfy opposing interests was taken advantage of, and three other Babis were added, making six in all who were dragged before the Governor to be condemned as members of an accursed sect. The Moullas urged them to save their lives by cursing the Bab, but they all refused.
As a religious body, Bahá’ís have, at the express command of Bahá’u’lláh, entirely abandoned the use of armed force in their own interests, even for strictly defensive purposes. In Persia many, many thousands of the Bábís and Bahá’ís have suffered cruel deaths because of their faith.
Just as has been known in other countries where a proscribed religion was practised in secret, and protection against persecution and informers secured by means of money, so in many places the Babis have made friends in this manner out of enemies. Individuals sometimes are troubled by the needy and unscrupulous who affect an excess of religious zeal, but these desist on their terms being met.
At the same time an influx of Persian Bábís, whose sole object was to attain the presence of Bahá’u’lláh, swelled the stream of visitors that poured through His hospitable doors.
Mírzá Yaḥyá, closeted most of the time in his house, was secretly directing, through his correspondence with those Bábís whom he completely trusted, a campaign designed to utterly discredit Bahá’u’lláh.
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