The Bravest Ride

A retelling for children, based on The Dawn-Breakers (Nabíl's Narrative, translated by Shoghi Effendi).

Mullá Ḥusayn was looking for someone — and he had been looking for a very long time. Somewhere in Persia, he was sure, the Promised One that the holy books had spoken of for hundreds of years was about to appear. To find Him, Mullá Ḥusayn would have gone anywhere, and he wanted it more than anything else in the whole world.

And he did. One night, in the city of Shíráz, in a small lamplit room, he met a young Man and knew at once that his long search was over. That Man was the Báb. Mullá Ḥusayn became the very first person to believe in Him.

From that night on, Mullá Ḥusayn gave his whole life to serving the Báb. He traveled far and wide, telling people the good news. But not everyone was happy. Some powerful people were afraid of the new teachings, and they sent soldiers.

A group of the believers — only a few hundred of them — gathered for safety at a place in the forest called Fort Ṭabarsí. A whole army surrounded them. The believers had few weapons and no armor at all, but they had something the army did not understand: they were not afraid to do what was right.

One cold winter morning, Mullá Ḥusayn got ready. He washed, and he put on fresh clothes, and he placed on his head a special turban — one the Báb Himself had sent to him. Then he climbed onto his horse and, with his companions behind him, rode out of the fort to face the army.

What happened next was almost too amazing to believe. Mullá Ḥusayn and his small band rode forward so bravely that the soldiers scattered before them. They broke through one wall of the enemy, then another, then another.

But in the middle of the battle, Mullá Ḥusayn was struck and badly hurt. His friends carried him gently back into the fort. He asked to speak alone with Quddús, the young leader he loved dearly, and the two of them talked quietly for a while. And then Mullá Ḥusayn passed away — with, it is said, the faintest smile resting on his face.

He had spent his whole life looking for the One he loved, and once he found Him, he never turned back — not even when it was hard, not even when it was frightening, not even at the very end. That is what real courage looks like: not never being afraid, but loving something so much that you do the right thing anyway.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "Mullá Ḥusayn's Last Ride" and The Dawn-Breakers by Nabíl.

Nabíl-i-Aʻẓam. (1932). *The Dawn-Breakers (Nabíl's Narrative)*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://reference.bahai.org/en/t/nz/DB/