Memorial of Áqá Muḥammad-Báqir and Áqá Muḥammad-Ismá'íl, the Tailor

In the chapter of *Memorials of the Faithful* devoted to Áqá Muḥammad-Báqir and Áqá Muḥammad-Ismá’íl, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá tells the story of two brothers from Káshán whose lives ended together in the early days of the prison at ‘Akká.

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The brothers were related to Pahlaván Riḍá, a famous figure of the Káshán community. The Master inserts, into the chapter, a remembered anecdote about Pahlaván Riḍá: though he appeared to the eye uneducated, he had once entered into a theological debate with the eminent Ḥájí Muḥammad-Karím Khán of Káshán on the question of the *Fourth Pillar* — and had, with simple questions, exposed the contradictions in the Ḥájí’s system.

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The two brothers, Báqir and Ismá’íl, had emigrated from Persia to Adrianople when the community of the friends was gathered there about Bahá’u’lláh. When the order for the further exile to ‘Akká was given, they were taken with the others. They endured the long journey by ship and by land. They arrived at the ‘Akká fortress with the rest of the prisoners.

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The early days of the prison, the Master writes, were the worst. The air of the city was reckoned by the local inhabitants to be deadly to newcomers. Many of the believers fell ill within weeks of their arrival. Báqir and Ismá’íl were two of those whose constitutions could not endure the change.

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They both fell sick. They lay in the same room. There were no physicians to attend them. They died on the same night.

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The authorities of the prison did not permit the customary rites of burial. The friends had no money to purchase a grave or to pay for the labour of digging it. To meet the necessity, one of the small possessions of the prison household — a prayer carpet — was sold, and the proceeds went to pay for the interment.

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The two brothers were buried in a single grave. They were laid in their simple clothes. They were placed embraced, as they had been at the moment of death. The Master writes the image into his chapter:

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> They remained embraced beneath the earth as they had been in > death.

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Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá records, *showered His blessings on these two brothers* in spite of the indignity of their burial circumstances. He commemorated them in His writings. The absence of a proper marker on the earth was answered by His naming them in the eternal record.

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Upon Áqá Muḥammad-Báqir and Áqá Muḥammad-Ismá’íl be salutations and praise. May their resting place — wherever now in the soil of ‘Akká it may be — be encompassed by the light of God.

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