Varqá and His Son Rúḥu'lláh

A retelling based on God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi, with details from H. M. Balyuzi's Eminent Bahá'ís in the Time of Bahá'u'lláh, which draws on the recollections of Mírzá Ḥusayn, a Bahá'í imprisoned with Varqá and his son. Words in quotation marks are from those two books.

Mírzá 'Alí-Muḥammad, a poet and physician, was "surnamed 'Varqá' (Dove) by Bahá'u'lláh." He twice attained the presence of Bahá'u'lláh. On the second visit, about a year before Bahá'u'lláh's ascension, he brought two of his sons, 'Azízu'lláh and Rúḥu'lláh. Rúḥu'lláh was then about seven. Like his father, he wrote poetry.

Some years later, in winter, Varqá set out from Zanján for Ṭihrán with Rúḥu'lláh and his father-in-law, Ḥájí Imán. The night before, he and several Bahá'ís of Zanján had called at the telegraph office to say goodbye to its director. A hostile cleric saw them coming out and reported them. The governor, the 'Alá'u'd-Dawlih, had a number of local Bahá'ís arrested and sent men after the travellers, who were brought back to Zanján and put in prison.

The prisoners were later sent on to Ṭihrán in fetters, with a troop of cavalry going to the capital for Náṣiri'd-Dín Sháh's jubilee. At the village of Dizij they were brought before an assembly of notables and divines. Varqá withstood them. They turned to Rúḥu'lláh, and his answers at first gave them hope, until they realized that the boy was "ingeniously holding them up to ridicule." A carpenter was sent for to put fetters on his feet.

In the prison of Ṭihrán the Bahá'ís were chained and given little to eat. The maternal grandfather of Varqá's children urged him to write an ode for the Sháh's jubilee, so that it might win his release. Varqá replied that a poetic talent that had been moved to praise Bahá'u'lláh and His Son could not be made to praise anyone else.

On 1 May 1896, shortly before the jubilee, Náṣiri'd-Dín Sháh was shot dead. The assassin, Mírzá Riḍá, was a follower of Siyyid Jamálu'd-Dín-i-Afghání, but, as Shoghi Effendi writes, the Sháh's assassination "had at first been laid at the door of" the Bahá'í community.

The Ḥájibu'd-Dawlih, acting on his own initiative, went to the prison. The Bahá'ís were brought out two by two, and Varqá and Rúḥu'lláh were taken first into an inner room. Some of the gaolers later told the other prisoners what happened there. The Ḥájibu'd-Dawlih shouted at Varqá, who answered quietly that he was unaware of having done anything wrong. The courtier drew his dagger, plunged it into Varqá's chest and asked, "How are you?" Varqá answered, "Feeling better than you." Asked whether he or his son should be killed first, he replied, "It is the same to me." Then executioners cut Varqá to pieces, while Rúḥu'lláh cried out, "O dear father, father dear, take me, take me, take me with you."

The Ḥájibu'd-Dawlih turned to the boy, telling him not to weep, and promised to take him into his care, give him an allowance and obtain a post for him from the Sháh. Rúḥu'lláh answered: "I do not want you. I do not want your allowance. I do not want any post that you might obtain for me. I want to join my father." In Shoghi Effendi's words, the Ḥájibu'd-Dawlih "adjured the boy to recant, and, meeting with a blunt refusal, strangled him."

Mírzá Ḥusayn and Ḥájí Imán, who had been waiting their turn, were sent back to their cell and survived. Balyuzi records that during Varqá and Rúḥu'lláh's last pilgrimage to the Holy Land, 'Abdu'l-Bahá had patted Rúḥu'lláh on the back and said: "Should God will it, He can make Rúḥu'lláh ride on the neck of an emperor to proclaim the Cause of God."

Varqá's son Valíyu'lláh was later raised by the Guardian to the rank of Hand of the Cause of God.

This is a retelling. For the fuller accounts, see God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi and Eminent Bahá'ís in the Time of Bahá'u'lláh by H. M. Balyuzi.

Effendi, S.. (1944). *God Passes By*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/shoghi-effendi/god-passes-by/