The Volley That Severed the Ropes: The Martyrdom of the Báb

The Báb was thirty years old in the summer of 1850. He had been in custody for nearly three years — first at Máh-Kú, then at Chihríq, then in Tabríz for examination, then at Chihríq once more. The Bábí movement, in those three years, had spread across Persia in a way the central government found intolerable.

1 / 14

The chief minister of the realm, Mírzá Taqí Khán the Amír-Nizám — *the Grand Vazír,* in Nabíl’s usual rendering — took the decision to execute the Báb. He sought a fatwá from the chief jurists of Tabríz. They obliged. The execution was set for the morning of July 9, 1850.

2 / 14

The Báb was lodged the previous night under guard in the barracks of Tabríz. Nabíl preserves the testimony of the few who attended on Him in those final hours:

3 / 14

> That night the face of the Báb was aglow with joy, a joy such > as had never shone from His countenance.

4 / 14

He instructed His amanuensis on certain final matters. He gave his blessings to a young companion, Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí — Anís — who had requested the privilege of dying with Him. The request was granted.

5 / 14

In the morning the two were brought to the barrack-square. They were suspended by ropes against the wall. Anís was tied first; the Báb above him. Seven hundred and fifty soldiers in three files were arrayed in front of them. Each file fired a volley of two hundred and fifty muskets in succession.

6 / 14

The smoke filled the square. When it cleared, the assembled spectators saw an empty wall. The ropes had been severed. The two prisoners were nowhere to be seen.

7 / 14

Nabíl preserves the testimony of the consternation that followed. Anís stood, alone, against the wall — alive, untouched. The Báb was not visible.

8 / 14

> There, standing before them alive and unhurt, was the > companion of the Báb, whilst He Himself had vanished.

9 / 14

Soldiers were sent in haste through the barrack. They found the Báb in His cell, completing the conversation His instruction had been interrupted by the call to the square. He had time, He explained quietly, for one more sentence. When He had finished it, He rose, and walked back with them to the square, and was once more suspended against the wall.

10 / 14

The first regiment of musketeers, having seen what they had seen, refused to fire a second time. A second regiment had to be brought up. Their volley succeeded.

11 / 14

The Báb’s last spoken words to the city of Tabríz, Nabíl preserves, were not the curses of the wronged but the appeal of a teacher whose pupils have failed:

12 / 14

> Had you believed in Me, O wayward generation, every one of > you would have followed.

13 / 14

Within a year the Amír-Nizám who had ordered the execution would himself be murdered by royal command, his blood smearing the wall of the bath of Fín — a coincidence Nabíl reads as something more than coincidence.

14 / 14