A Mother's Courage in Tihrán

A retelling for children, based on The Chosen Highway by Lady Blomfield, drawn from the childhood memories of Bahíyyih Khánum. The words in quotation marks are hers, as the book records them.

In August 1852 Bahá'u'lláh was put into a prison in Tihrán called the Síyáh-Chál, the "Black Pit." It was an underground dungeon, seven steps below the ground, with no light at all. His daughter remembered that it was "ankle-deep in filth" and full of vermin. He was loaded with heavy chains, and five other Bábís were chained to Him night and day. He was kept there for four months.

His family had to hide. Their house had been stripped of everything. Bahá'u'lláh's brother, Mírzá Músá, helped His wife, Ásíyih Khánum, escape with her three children, and a kind relative found them two small rooms near the prison. Ásíyih Khánum had grown up in a wealthy home. Now she sold the few treasures she had saved so that she could pay the jailers to take food to her husband.

Those were terrible months for the Bábís in Tihrán. Every morning some of the prisoners were taken out to be killed, and the children could hear the noise of the crowds. Their mother could not know whether her own husband was among them. She could only find out late at night or very early in the morning, when she went out into the city to gather news. It was dangerous, because neither women nor children were spared, but she went. Her son 'Abbás, who was eight, usually went with her.

Bahíyyih Khánum, who was six, stayed behind with her little brother, Mírzá Mihdí, who was two. Many years later she told Lady Blomfield: "How well I remember cowering in the dark, with my little brother, Mirza Mihdi, the Purest Branch, at that time two years old, in my arms, which were not very strong, as I was only six." She was shivering with fear, because she knew some of what was happening in the city and knew that her mother might be seized too. She waited and waited until her mother came back.

Then their uncle, Mírzá Músá, who was also in hiding, would slip in to hear what news their mother had gathered, and the children listened eagerly. The news came from a great-uncle by marriage, Mírzá Yúsif, who went to the courts to learn who had been chosen for execution each day.

At last the Russian Consul in Tihrán spoke out in court for Bahá'u'lláh, and He was allowed to leave the prison alive, though He and His family were banished from Persia. When He came home to the two little rooms, the family wept to see the marks the chains had left on Him. Bahíyyih Khánum also remembered that they saw "a new radiance seeming to enfold him like a shining vesture." Only years later did they understand what had happened to Him in that prison.

The boy 'Abbás, who went out into the dark streets with His mother, would one day be known as 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "The Mother Who Went Out by Night".

Blomfield, L.. (1940). *The Chosen Highway*. George Ronald. https://bahai-library.com/blomfield_chosen_highway