The Báb's Brave Young Friend

A retelling for children, based on The Dawn-Breakers, the history written by Nabíl, of July 8–9, 1850, in the city of Tabríz.

In the city of Tabríz lived a young man who loved the Báb with all his heart. His name was Mírzá Muḥammad-'Alí, and he was also called Anís, which means Companion.

The government had ordered that the Báb be put to death. As He was being led into the courtyard of the army barracks, Anís pushed through the crowd, barefoot, and threw himself at the Báb's feet. "Send me not from Thee, O Master," he begged. "Wherever Thou goest, suffer me to follow Thee." The Báb told him to rise, and promised that he would be with Him.

The next morning Anís was told to give up his faith. He refused. When the guards tried to lead him away from the Báb, Anís burst into tears and asked to stay with his Master. So he was handed over to Sám Khán, the colonel of the soldiers.

Two ropes were tied to a nail in a pillar of the barracks. Anís asked Sám Khán to place him so that his own body would shield the Báb. He was hung from the ropes with his head resting on the Báb's breast.

The soldiers fired. When the smoke cleared, the crowd could hardly believe what they saw. Anís was standing there alive and unhurt, and the Báb was gone. The bullets had only cut the ropes.

People searched everywhere, and found the Báb, calm and unhurt, in the room where He had spent the night, finishing a conversation with His secretary, Siyyid Ḥusayn. Earlier that morning an official had interrupted that conversation, and the Báb had told him that no power on earth could silence Him until He had said all He wished to say. Now He told the official that His conversation was finished and that he could do what he had come to do. The official was so shaken that he left and gave up his post.

Sám Khán would not go on either. He took his soldiers and left. Another regiment took their place. Before they fired, the Báb spoke to the crowd. "Had you believed in Me, O wayward generation," He said, "every one of you would have followed the example of this youth."

That day, the Báb and Anís gave their lives together, as Anís had wished. Bahá'ís remember them every year on the Martyrdom of the Báb.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "Anís at the Side of the Báb".

Nabíl-i-A'ẓam. (1932). *The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl's Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá'í Revelation*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.bahai.org/library/other-literature/historical/dawn-breakers/