The Reconciliation of Races and ReligionsCheyne, T. K. (Thomas Kelly)
Religion
The Reconciliation of Races and Religions
Cheyne, T. K. (Thomas Kelly)
Bahais
On the whole, there can hardly be a doubt that Muḥammad 'Ali, called
Ḳuddus, was (as I have suggested already) the most conspicuous
Bābī next to the Bāb himself, however hard we may find it to
understand him on certain occasions indicated by Prof. Browne. He
seems, for instance, to have lacked that tender sense of life
characteristic of the Buddhists, and to have indulged a spiritual
ambition which Jesus would not have approved. But it is unimportant to
pick holes in such a genuine saint. I would rather lay stress on his
unwillingness to think evil even of his worst foes. And how abominable
was the return he met with! Weary of fighting, the Bābīs yielded
themselves up to the royal troops. As Prof. Browne says, 'they were
received with an apparent friendliness and even respect which served
to lull them into a false security and to render easy the perfidious
massacre wherein all but a few of them perished on the morrow of their
surrender.'
The same historian tells us that Ḳuddus, loyal as ever, requested
the Prince to send him to Tihran, there to undergo judgment before the
Shah. The Prince was at first disposed to grant this request, thinking
perhaps that to bring so notable a captive into the Royal Presence
might serve to obliterate in some measure the record of those repeated
failures to which his unparalleled incapacity had given rise. But when
the Sa'idu'l-'Ulama heard of this plan, and saw a possibility of his
hated foe escaping from his clutches, he went at once to the Prince,
and strongly represented to him the danger of allowing one so eloquent
and so plausible to plead his cause before the King. These arguments
were backed up by an offer to pay the Prince a sum of 400 (or, as
others say, of 1000) _tumāns_ on condition that Jenāb-i-Ḳuddus
should be surrendered unconditionally into his hands. To this
arrangement the Prince, whether moved by the arguments or the
_tumāns_ of the Sa'idu'l-'Ulama, eventually consented, and
Jenāb-i-Ḳuddus was delivered over to his inveterate enemy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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