ambitious Maḥmúd _Kh_án-i-Kalántar, into whose custody Táhirih had been
delivered before her martyrdom, incurred, nine years later, the wrath of
his royal master, was dragged feet first by ropes through the bazaars to a
place outside the city gates, and there hung on the gallows. Mírzá Ḥasan
_Kh_án, who carried out the execution of the Báb under orders from his
brother, the Amír-Nizám, was, within two years of that unpardonable act,
subjected to a dreadful punishment which ended in his death. The
_Sh_ay_kh_u’l-Islám of Tabríz, the insolent, the avaricious and tyrannical
Mírzá ‘Alí As_gh_ar, who, after the refusal of the bodyguard of the
governor of that city to inflict the bastinado on the Báb, proceeded to
apply eleven times the rods to the feet of his Prisoner with his own hand,
was, in that same year, struck with paralysis, and, after enduring the
most excruciating ordeal, died a miserable death—a death that was soon
followed by the abolition of the function of the _Sh_ay_kh_u’l-Islám in
that city. The haughty and perfidious Mírzá Abú-Talíb _Kh_án who,
disregarding the counsels of moderation given him by Mírzá Áqá _Kh_án, the
Grand Vizir, ordered the plunder and burning of the village of Tákúr, as
well as the destruction of the house of Bahá’u’lláh, was, a year later,
stricken with plague and perished wretchedly, shunned by even his nearest
kindred. Mihr-‘Alí _Kh_án, the _Sh_ujá’u’l-Mulk, who, after the attempt on
the _Sh_áh’s life, so savagely persecuted the remnants of the Bábí
community in Nayríz, fell ill, according to the testimony of his own
grandson, and was stricken with dumbness, which was never relieved till
the day of his death. His accomplice, Mírzá Na’ím, fell into disgrace, was
twice heavily fined, dismissed from office, and subjected to exquisite
tortures. The regiment which, scorning the miracle that warned Sám _Kh_án
and his men to dissociate themselves from any further attempt to destroy
the life of the Báb, volunteered to take their place and riddled His body
with its bullets, lost, in that same year, no less than two hundred and
fifty of its officers and men, in a terrible earthquake between Ardibíl
and Tabríz; two years later the remaining five hundred were mercilessly
shot in Tabríz for mutiny, and the people, gazing on their exposed and
mutilated bodies, recalled their savage act, and indulged in such
expressions of condemnation and wonder as to induce the leading mujtahids
to chastise and silence them. The head of that regiment, Áqá Ján Big, lost
his life, six years after the Báb’s martyrdom, during the bombardment of
Muḥammarih by the British naval forces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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