Mercy for the Killers in ʻIshqábád

A retelling based on God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi, with details from Adib Taherzadeh's The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, volume 4, and H. M. Balyuzi's 'Abdu'l-Bahá: The Centre of the Covenant. Words in quotation marks are from those books and from Bahá'u'lláh's Lawḥ-i-Dunyá (Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh).

In the 1880s a new town, ʻIshqábád, grew up in Russian Turkistán, a short distance from the Persian border. Persian Bahá'ís, harassed in their homeland, settled there. So did other Persians, some of whom disliked the Bahá'ís.

Ḥájí Muḥammad-Riḍá came from Khurásán but had lived in Iṣfahán as a merchant, and had been imprisoned there for teaching the Faith. After his release he went to 'Akká and attained the presence of Bahá'u'lláh. He begged to be allowed to lay down his life in His path. Bahá'u'lláh is reported to have told him that this was not necessary, as many souls had already given their lives. When he asked again, Bahá'u'lláh remained silent, and he took the silence as consent. He was directed to ʻIshqábád, where he lived for several years and taught the Faith.

On 1 July 1889 he received a Tablet from Bahá'u'lláh praising his services. It spoke, in the past tense, of a grievous upheaval in ʻIshqábád, and prayed that God would give strength to his body and assurance to his heart. The Tablet was read out at a gathering to which he had invited the believers. Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl explained that such an upheaval was now certain, and that one person would be martyred. Ḥájí Muḥammad-Riḍá told the friends he believed he was that person.

Two months later, on the morning of 8 September 1889, two men armed with daggers attacked him in the bazaar. Shoghi Effendi records that the Shí'ih community of the city, "envious of the rising prestige of the followers of Bahá'u'lláh," had instigated the attack, and that the two men stabbed the seventy-year-old "in no less than thirty-two places." The Russian police arrested them.

The Bahá'ís learned that others among them had also been marked for death, and they appealed for protection to General Komaroff, the Governor-General of Transcaspia, who granted it. Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl, who was in ʻIshqábád at the time, met the Russian governor and explained that the Bahá'ís honoured all the Manifestations of God and revered the Imáms. A military court sent by the Czar established the guilt of the accused "after prolonged investigation." It sentenced the two murderers to death and six others to banishment. Neither the Sháh nor the clergy of Persia, who were appealed to, could change the sentence. Taherzadeh writes that it was the first time in the history of the Faith that the killers of a Bahá'í had been brought to justice.

Relatives of the condemned men then came to the Bahá'ís and begged them to intercede. The Bahá'ís consulted together, and Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl and another believer asked the governor to pardon the murderers or, if that was not possible, to lessen their sentences. The Czar agreed, but the decision was kept secret. On the day of execution, with the prisoners at the foot of the scaffold, an official announced that at the request of the Bahá'ís the death sentences had been commuted to life imprisonment in Siberia, and the other sentences halved.

Shoghi Effendi calls it a "magnanimous intercession which greatly surprised the Russian authorities." Bahá'u'lláh wrote of it in the Lawḥ-i-Dunyá: "Day and night this Wronged One yieldeth thanks and praise unto the Lord of men, for it is witnessed that the words of counsel and exhortation We uttered have proved effective and that this people hath evinced such character and conduct as are acceptable in Our sight. This is affirmed by virtue of the event which hath truly cheered the eye of the world, and is none other than the intercession of the friends with the high authorities in favour of their enemies. Indeed one's righteous deeds testify to the truth of one's words."

Balyuzi notes that the Bahá'ís "gained greatly in prestige," and that the way was opened for their schools, libraries and, in time, the first Mashriqu'l-Adhkár of the Bahá'í world, raised in ʻIshqábád.

This is a retelling. For the fuller accounts, see God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi and The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, volume 4, by Adib Taherzadeh.

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