“Read the Súrih of the Inevitable,”(129) said Bahá’u’lláh; 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 Bahá’u’lláh. The Conference of Bada_sh_t broke up, but the
universal Advent had been proclaimed.
Afterward, Quddús hastened away to the Fort of Tabarsí(130) and the
Blessed Beauty, with provisions and equipment, journeyed to Níyálá, having
the intention of going on from there by night, making His way through the
enemy encampment and entering the Fort. But Mírzá Taqí, the Governor of
Ámul, got word of this, and with seven hundred riflemen arrived in Níyálá.
Surrounding the village by night, he sent Bahá’u’lláh with eleven riders
back to Ámul, and those calamities and tribulations, told of before, came
to pass.
As for Táhirih, after the breakup at Bada_sh_t she was captured, and the
oppressors sent her back under guard to Ṭihrán. There she was imprisoned
in the house of Maḥmúd _Kh_án, the Kalántar. But she was aflame, enamored,
restless, and could not be still. The ladies of Ṭihrán, 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 vazírs 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 Táhirih 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 Táhirih
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_áh;(131) a farmán was issued; she was sentenced to death.
Saying she was summoned to the Prime Minister’s, they arrived to lead her
away from the Kalántar’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 Táhirih.
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 Táhirih 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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