'Conversion by the sword is not yet avowed, argument and inspiration from heaven being the present means of instilling or attaining faith in the Mission of Bab--If left to their own merits the not novel doctrines of this Preacher will doubtless sink into insignificancy, it is persecution only which can save them from neglect and contempt, and unluckily the proselytes are all of the Mahommedan faith, which is inflexible in the punishment of a relapsed Mussulman--Thus both the temporal and religious authorities have an interest in the extermination of this Sect. 'It is conjectured that in Teheran this religion has acquired votaries in every class, not even excluding the artillery and regular Infantry--Their numbers in this city, it is supposed, may amount to about two thousand.'[1][FX] [Footnote FX: Part of this passage is also quoted on p. 178.] The incident at Yazd, which the British Minister was reporting to the Foreign Secretary, concerned the activities of a man named Muḥammad-`Abdu'lláh, who professed belief in the new Revelation. Vaḥíd was in Yazd at the time, fearlessly proclaiming the advent of the Qá'im. Navváb-i-Raḍaví, an influential man of the city, who hated Vaḥíd as much as Sa`ídu'l-`Ulamá had hated Quddús,[FY] was plotting to destroy him. Despite Vaḥíd's injunction, Muḥammad-`Abdu'lláh went ahead with his own schemes which resulted in clashes with the civil authority, and his own death. Vaḥíd was forced to leave Yazd in the dead of night, on foot. His house in Yazd was pillaged, and his servant Ḥasan was seized and put to death. While horsemen sent by his adversaries were searching for him, he hid in the mountains; and by mountain tracks made his way to Bavánát in the province of Fárs. There were many in that area who gave him whole-hearted support, among them the renowned Ḥájí Siyyid Ismá`íl, the [_Sh_]ay[_kh_]u'l-Islám of Bavánát. Then by way of Fasá he approached the city of Nayríz. [Footnote FY: See p. 176.] APPENDIX 4 THE SEVEN MARTYRS OF ṬIHRÁN In the course of 1849, Prince Dolgorukov, the Russian Minister in Ṭihrán, had protested to the Persian Government that while going into the presence of the [_Sh_]áh he had been forced to witness the dragging away of the writhing corpses of eight criminals, executed in front of the [_Sh_]áh. Dolgorukov considered it an affront to him, the envoy of the Tsar, to be presented with such a spectacle. Sheil had backed Dolgorukov's protest.[1] Palmerston had, in turn, approved Sheil's action. On February 12th 1850, Prince Dolgorukov sent this report to Count Nesselrode in St. Petersburg: 'Minds are in an extraordinarily excited state due to the execution which has just taken place in the great square of Tihran. I have already once expressed my opinion that the method by which last year the troops of the Shah under the command of Prince Mahdi Quli Mirza exterminated the Babis will not lessen their fanaticism.