With the Báb’s return to _Sh_íráz the initial collision of irreconcilable forces may be said to have commenced. Already the energetic and audacious Mullá ‘Alíy-i-Bastamí, one of the Letters of the Living, “the first to leave the House of God (_Sh_íráz) and the first to suffer for His sake,” who, in the presence of one of the leading exponents of _Sh_í’ah Islám, the far-famed _Sh_ay_kh_ Muḥammad Ḥasan, had audaciously asserted that from the pen of his new-found Master within the space of forty-eight hours, verses had streamed that equalled in number those of the Qur’án, which it took its Author twenty-three years to reveal, had been excommunicated, chained, disgraced, imprisoned, and, in all probability, done to death. Mullá Ṣádiq-i-_Kh_urásání, impelled by the injunction of the Báb in the _Kh_asá’il-i-Sab‘ih to alter the sacrosanct formula of the a_dh_án, sounded it in its amended form before a scandalized congregation in _Sh_íráz, and was instantly arrested, reviled, stripped of his garments, and scourged with a thousand lashes. The villainous Ḥusayn _Kh_án, the Nizámu’d-Dawlih, the governor of Fárs, who had read the challenge thrown out in the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá, having ordered that Mullá Ṣádiq together with Quddús and another believer be summarily and publicly punished, caused their beards to be burned, their noses pierced, and threaded with halters; then, having been led through the streets in this disgraceful condition, they were expelled from the city. The people of _Sh_íráz were by that time wild with excitement. A violent controversy was raging in the masjids, the madrisihs, the bazaars, and other public places. Peace and security were gravely imperiled. Fearful, envious, thoroughly angered, the mullás were beginning to perceive the seriousness of their position. The governor, greatly alarmed, ordered the Báb to be arrested. He was brought to _Sh_íráz under escort, and, in the presence of Ḥusayn _Kh_án, was severely rebuked, and so violently struck in the face that His turban fell to the ground. Upon the intervention of the Imám-Jum’ih He was released on parole, and entrusted to the custody of His maternal uncle Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid ‘Alí. A brief lull ensued, enabling the captive Youth to celebrate the Naw-Rúz of that and the succeeding year in an atmosphere of relative tranquillity in the company of His mother, His wife, and His uncle. Meanwhile the fever that had seized His followers was communicating itself to the members of the clergy and to the merchant classes, and was invading the higher circles of society. Indeed, a wave of passionate inquiry had swept the whole country, and unnumbered congregations were listening with wonder to the testimonies eloquently and fearlessly related by the Báb’s itinerant messengers.