Shaykh Sálih, the First Martyr

A retelling based on The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl's Narrative (trans. Shoghi Effendi), Chapter XV. The narrative below is retold in our own words; the words in quotation marks are verbatim from the book. Read the full text for Nabíl's complete account.

Shaykh Sálih was an Arab living in Karbilá. He was one of the men there who accepted the Cause of the Báb through the efforts of Ṭáhirih, the poet and scholar who was one of the Báb's first disciples, the Letters of the Living. Nabíl writes that she praised him so highly that some people supposed him equal in rank to Quddús.

Before Ṭáhirih went on to Qazvín, she sent home the companions who had come with her from 'Iráq. Only two of her companions remained with her, Shaykh Sálih and Mullá Ibráhím-i-Gulpáygání, and both of them later gave their lives for the Faith.

In 1847, in Qazvín, Ṭáhirih's home town, her uncle Mullá Taqí was murdered. He was a powerful cleric who, with his son, had denounced her as a heretic. The man who killed him, Mullá 'Abdu'lláh, confessed to the crime, but Mullá Taqí's heirs blamed Ṭáhirih and her companions. They had a number of the believers arrested and taken to Ṭihrán, and demanded their deaths. When they appealed to Muḥammad Sháh, he told them that only the murderer himself should pay for the crime: let them name him, and he would be handed over to them. So they declared that Shaykh Sálih was the murderer, had him arrested, and had him put to death in Ṭihrán.

Nabíl calls him the first to shed his blood on Persian soil in the path of the Cause of God. As he was led to his execution, Nabíl writes, his face glowed with zeal and joy. He hurried to the foot of the gallows and met his executioner as if he were welcoming a dear and lifelong friend. As his end approached he cried out:

"I discarded the hopes and the beliefs of men from the moment I recognised Thee, Thou who art my Hope and my Belief!"

He was buried in the courtyard of the shrine of Imám-Zádih Zayd in Ṭihrán.

This account is retold for the Bahai Story Library; it is a paraphrase, not the original text. The quoted words are verbatim from The Dawn-Breakers (Nabíl, trans. Shoghi Effendi). See the source for the complete account.

Nabíl-i-Aʻẓam. (1932). *The Dawn-Breakers (Nabíl's Narrative)*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://reference.bahai.org/en/t/nz/DB/