The Two Brothers Who Served the Báb

*A retelling for children, based on the account of Mírzá Muhammad-Husayn and Mírzá Muhammad-Hasan in **Bahá'í Chronicles**, with details from Adib Taherzadeh's **The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh**, vols. 2 and 4, and H. M. Balyuzi's **Eminent Bahá'ís in the Time of Bahá'u'lláh**.*

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When the Báb was staying in the city of Isfahan, a merchant named Mírzá Ibráhím invited Him to dinner. Mírzá Ibráhím was a close friend of the Imám-Jum'ih, the leading cleric of the city, and managed all his affairs. The banquet he gave that night was so splendid that people said neither the officials nor the notables of Isfahan had ever offered a feast like it.

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Two of Mírzá Ibráhím's sons, boys of about nine and eleven, served at that dinner: Muhammad-Hasan, the younger, and Muhammad-Husayn, the elder. The Báb paid them special attention.

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The brothers grew up to be merchants like their father. They became wealthy, and they traded together with the Báb's relatives, the Afnáns. The people of Isfahan knew them as selfless, upright and kindly men, honest in business and generous to the poor. Both became devoted followers of Bahá'u'lláh.

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For years the brothers had paid expenses on behalf of a later Imám-Jum'ih of Isfahan, and he came to owe them a large sum of money. Rather than pay it, he joined with another powerful cleric and with the prince who governed the city in a plan to destroy them. The brothers were arrested because they were Bahá'ís.

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In prison the prince pressed Muhammad-Hasan to deny his Faith and curse its leaders. He promised that if Muhammad-Hasan did so, he would protect him and make the Imám-Jum'ih pay everything he owed. Muhammad-Hasan stayed silent. When the prince kept pressing him, he answered: "If Your Highness knew what I know, you would not order me to do any cursing." Muhammad-Husayn, too, refused to renounce his Faith.

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The clerics then stirred up a crowd and demanded the brothers' deaths, and on 17 March 1879 they were put to death in Isfahan. Taherzadeh records that at the time of execution each brother pleaded with the other to be the first.

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Bahá'u'lláh gave them the titles by which they are remembered: Muhammad-Hasan is the King of Martyrs, and Muhammad-Husayn is the Beloved of Martyrs. He wrote several Tablets about their loss.

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*This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see ["Mirza Muhammad-Husayn and Mirza Muhammad-Hasan"](/stories/bc-mirza-muhammad-husayn-and-mirza-muhammad-hasan).*

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