A Candle on the Oven Floor

A retelling based on Stories from The Delight of Hearts, the memoirs of Ḥájí Mírzá Ḥaydar-'Alí, translated and abridged by A. Q. Faizi, with Eminent Bahá'ís in the Time of Bahá'u'lláh by H. M. Balyuzi, The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, volume 2, by Adib Taherzadeh, and Days of Remembrance, selections from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh. Words in quotation marks are from those books.

In Persia Ḥájí Mírzá Ḥaydar-'Alí had often seen people persecuted, and when he asked why, the only answer he received was that they were Bábís. One night, in a garden in Iṣfahán, the talk turned to the Báb. Ḥaydar-'Alí gave his opinion that the Báb had made two great mistakes, setting Himself against the established authorities and trying to overturn the customs and beliefs of the masses. One man answered politely: "If this was a mistake, then it has been made by all the Prophets of God, including Muḥammad, the Seal of the Prophets, and all the Holy Imáms."

Ḥaydar-'Alí was embarrassed at having made "such a false and simpleminded statement," and he realized that the man must be a Bábí. He set out to become his friend, and the man took him as a student, though at first he told him scarcely anything. One day in a city square he saw five men with their ears nailed to a post, while soldiers beat them with sticks and demanded that they recant. They were calm and thankful, and they refused. "As I observed their steadfastness and submission to the Will of God, the fire of search was inflamed within me and I caught a glimpse of the grandeur of this Cause."

When his friend was at last assured of his sincerity, he revealed that he was a Bábí. They could not meet openly. Some nights the friend invited him home, always after midnight. He hid in the corridor until the whole household was in bed and sound asleep. Then his friend came for him and led him quietly to the kitchen, where they studied the Báb's Writings and chanted prayers. "At times, when it was too dark and we were unable to see the words, the only thing we could do was place a candle on the floor of the oven, then hold up the Writings to the light and, with great difficulty, study them."

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Years later, after attaining the presence of Bahá'u'lláh in Adrianople, he was instructed to go to Egypt. A Tablet addressed to him from Adrianople told of the perils awaiting him: "We hear thy cry and supplication at thy remoteness from the Dawning-Place of Lights. Be patient and do not bewail thy plight." Further on it said: "Should affliction overtake thee in My path and abasement in My name, rejoice and be of the thankful."

In Egypt the Persian consul invited him to his house on the night when Shí'ih Muslims commemorated the martyrdom of the Imám 'Alí, saying that they would be alone to talk. An old friend urged him not to accept: in the consul's office he could be arrested, with no one to defend him. He decided that refusal "would indicate weakness and fear." Recalling his Tablets, he "became sure that imprisonment awaited me. Nevertheless, I went to the house of the consul at the appointed hour." Two companions went with him.

They spent the evening discussing the proofs of the Faith, and the consul "appeared to be impressed and even convinced." As dawn approached he retired, and a servant brought his message that they should go home. "The consul had sent some people to carry lamps ahead of us to light the way through the dark and narrow lanes of the town." Balyuzi quotes what follows from the Persian memoir: "Only one lantern was needed, but every few steps that we took, more lanterns and more men appeared, until some thirty to forty men, like wolves, encircled me and the other two." They were carried to a prison, chained, stripped and beaten. "But, praise to God, I was very happy," he writes.

After forty-five days in the consul's jail, he and others were handed to Egyptian officers "to be taken to an unknown destination." There were eight of them by now: seven Persians and an Egyptian who had befriended him but was not a believer. Shortly after midnight one night, soldiers chained them in a row and took them over a stony road to the prison of Famul-Baḥr. The governor ordered that they be manacled together on one chain, in a dark cell with the doors bolted and locked. A hole was made in the door, and the chain was passed through it to the guards outside.

"The day was almost as dark as the night, and when evening came no one gave us so much as a candle. We decided to chant the Tablet of Náqús, which had been revealed by Bahá'u'lláh for the celebration of the night on which the Báb had declared His mission." Bahá'u'lláh had revealed this Tablet of the Bell in Constantinople in 1863, on the eve of that anniversary. One of its verses reads: "O lamp of earthly sovereignty! Put out thy light, for the Lamp of God hath been lit within the niche of eternity and hath illumined all that are in heaven and all that are on earth."

"We were eight prisoners and our voices united in chanting the verses. When the soldiers heard this, they came in with a lamp for us. They thought that we were dervishes and that we were chanting something which contained the mention of God. This attracted their kindness toward us. Thereafter, the soldiers kept the doors of our cell open during the day and unchained us all."

They stayed fifty days. "Every minute of those days we were far from the material world and very close to our Beloved because of the Tablets and prayers that we chanted."

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They were then put in permanent fetters and sent by steamer, camel and boat to Khartoum. Their captivity lasted nine years. In the "Dungeon of Fear", a prison near Khartoum, each of four hundred prisoners had no more than two hand spans of space.

The richest man in the Sudan, a Christian named Búlus, was the honorary consul of Persia. Hearing of their condition, he sent them clothes, coffee, a lantern and some mats.

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see Stories from The Delight of Hearts, pp. 1-3 and 28-53, and Balyuzi's Eminent Bahá'ís in the Time of Bahá'u'lláh, pp. 239-249.

Faizi, Ḥ. M. Ḥ. T. B. A. Q.. (1980). *Stories from The Delight of Hearts*. Kalimát Press. https://bahai-library.org/pdf/h/haydar-ali_stories_delight_hearts.pdf