The Warden of Máh-Kú

A retelling based on God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi. Words in quotation marks and the indented passages are Shoghi Effendi's own.

In 1847 the Báb was sent to the fortress of Máh-Kú, in the far north-western corner of Ádharbayján, on a mountain at the frontiers of the Ottoman and Russian empires. It was the place of imprisonment chosen by Muḥammad Sháh on the advice of his Grand Vizir, Ḥájí Mírzá Áqásí. He was guarded by the people of that district, the Grand Vizir's birthplace, on whom he had lavished his favours. The Grand Vizir's orders to 'Alí Khán, the warden of the fortress, were "stringent and explicit."

For the first two weeks no one was allowed to see the Báb except His amanuensis, Siyyid Ḥusayn, and his brother. In the Persian Bayán the Báb Himself recorded that at night He did not even have a lighted lamp, and that His solitary chamber, built of sun-baked bricks, lacked even a door.

Shoghi Effendi writes that the Grand Vizir had misjudged both his Prisoner and the people he had favoured. They were, in his words, "an unruly, a proud and unreasoning people," yet they were gradually subdued by the gentleness of the Báb, chastened by His modesty and edified by His counsels. Neither the warden's objections nor repeated threats of punishment from Ṭihrán kept them away:

Their first act every morning ... was to seek a place where they could catch a glimpse of His face, and beseech from afar His benediction upon their daily work.

When they had disputes, they would go to the foot of the fortress, fix their eyes on His dwelling, invoke His name, and adjure one another to speak the truth.

Then the warden himself changed. Shoghi Effendi does not say what he saw; he records only the result:

'Alí Khán himself, under the influence of a strange vision, felt such mortification that he was impelled to relax the severity of his discipline, as an atonement for his past behavior.

The warden became so lenient that more and more pilgrims were admitted at the gates of the fortress. Among them was Mullá Ḥusayn, who had walked the whole way from Mashhad, in the east of Persia, to Máh-Kú, the westernmost outpost of the realm, and who celebrated the festival of Naw-Rúz of 1848 in the company of the Báb.

Secret agents charged to watch 'Alí Khán reported all this to the Grand Vizir, who at once ordered the Báb moved to the fortress of Chihríq, about 10 April 1848. There He was placed in the keeping of Yaḥyá Khán, a brother-in-law of the Sháh. Yaḥyá Khán began with the utmost severity, but, Shoghi Effendi writes, he "was eventually compelled to yield to the fascination of his Prisoner."

This is a retelling. For the full account, see God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi, chapter 2.

Effendi, S.. (1944). *God Passes By*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/shoghi-effendi/god-passes-by/