The Constable's Son

*A retelling based on **The Dawn-Breakers** by Nabil-i-A'zam. Short phrases in quotation marks are words preserved in that account.*

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Husayn Khan, the governor of Fars, had been watching the Bab through secret agents: His movements, His visitors, the enthusiasm He aroused. One night the chief of those agents came with a report. The crowd that gathered every night to visit the Bab, he said, was larger than the crowd that thronged every day before the gates of the governor's own seat, and among them were men of rank and learning. He asked for some of the governor's attendants so that he could surprise the Bab at midnight.

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Husayn Khan refused. He would deal with the matter himself. He summoned 'Abdu'l-Hamid Khan, the chief constable of the city, and ordered him to go to the house of Haji Mirza Siyyid 'Ali, the Bab's maternal uncle, scale the wall, enter from the roof, arrest the Bab and whoever was with Him, and seize the books and papers. The governor swore by the imperial diadem of Muhammad Shah that he would have the Bab executed with His companions that very night.

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The constable and his assistants broke into the house. They found the Bab with His uncle and Siyyid Kazim of Zanjan. 'Abdu'l-Hamid Khan collected whatever documents he could find, ordered the uncle to stay in his house, and led the others toward the seat of government. The Bab, undaunted, was heard repeating a verse of the Qur'an: "That with which they are threatened is for the morning. Is not the morning near?"

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When the constable reached the marketplace, people were fleeing on every side. A long train of coffins was being hurried through the streets, each followed by men and women crying out in grief. He asked what had happened. A plague of exceptional virulence, he was told, had broken out that very night, and since midnight it had taken more than a hundred lives. People were abandoning their homes.

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He ran to the governor's house. An old man who kept the door told him it was deserted. Two of the Ethiopian maids and a manservant were already dead, and members of the family lay dangerously ill. Husayn Khan had fled with the rest of his household to the Bagh-i-Takht, a garden, leaving the dead unburied.

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'Abdu'l-Hamid Khan decided to take the Bab to his own house and keep Him there until the governor sent instructions. As he came near his door he heard weeping and wailing. His son had been struck by the plague and was hovering on the brink of death.

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The constable threw himself at the Bab's feet. Weeping, clinging to the hem of His garment, he begged Him to pray for his son and to forgive his own past misdeeds. He pleaded that his son not be taken in the prime of his youth, nor punished for what his father had done. He said that he repented, that he resigned his post at that moment, and that he would never accept such a position again even if he perished of hunger.

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The Bab was performing His ablutions, preparing to offer the prayer of dawn. He told the constable to take some of the water with which He was washing His face to his son, and to ask him to drink it. This, He said, would save his life.

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As soon as the constable saw the signs of his son's recovery, he wrote to the governor, told him the whole of it, and begged him to cease his attacks on the Bab. "Have pity on yourself," he wrote, "as well as on those whom Providence has committed to your care." If the plague went on as it had begun, he warned, he feared no one in the city would survive the day.

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Husayn Khan replied that the Bab should be released at once and left free to go wherever He pleased.

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The Bab, still staying in the house of 'Abdu'l-Hamid Khan, sent Siyyid Kazim to bring His uncle. He told him that He would soon leave Shiraz, and entrusted His mother and His wife to his care. The summer was drawing to a close when He bade His native city a last farewell and set out for Isfahan, with Siyyid Kazim beside Him.

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*This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see **The Dawn-Breakers** by Nabil-i-A'zam.*

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