The Báb's Uncle Among the Seven Martyrs
Nabíl-i-A'ẓam, The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl's Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá'í Revelation, (1932), Bahá'í Publishing Trust · Read original
When in Bahá'í history
Ṭihrán (today: Tehran, Iran)
A retelling based on The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl's Narrative (trans. Shoghi Effendi), chapter 21, with details from 'Abdu'l-Bahá's A Traveller's Narrative and Shoghi Effendi's God Passes By. Words in quotation marks are quoted from those books.
When the Báb's father died, 'Abdu'l-Bahá writes, the Báb "was brought up in Shíráz in the arms of His maternal uncle Mírzá Siyyid 'Alí the merchant." When He came of age He went into trade in Búshihr, first in partnership with this uncle. Nabíl adds that after the Báb returned from His pilgrimage to Mecca and was arrested by Ḥusayn Khán, it was this uncle who took responsibility for Him by giving his word in writing. He cared for the Báb and acted as intermediary for the believers who came to Shíráz to see Him. His own only child had died in infancy.
In 1849 Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid 'Alí left Shíráz and visited the Báb in the castle of Chihríq. From there he went on to Ṭihrán. When trouble began to gather against the believers in the capital, his friends urged him to leave. He stayed.
Early in 1850 fourteen believers were arrested in Ṭihrán. The Grand Vazír, the Amír-Niẓám, ordered that any of them who would not recant should be put to death. Seven gave way and were released. The other seven are remembered as the Seven Martyrs of Ṭihrán, and the Báb's uncle was one of them.
A number of wealthy merchants who knew him offered to pay his ransom. He refused. He was then brought before the Amír-Niẓám, who told him that merchants of Shíráz and Ṭihrán were eager to pay for his release and that "a word of recantation" would set him free and send him home with honour.
He answered: "My repudiation of the truths enshrined in this Revelation would be tantamount to a rejection of all the Revelations that have preceded it." He spoke of what he had seen in his Nephew since childhood: "God knows that whatever I have heard and read concerning the sayings and doings of those Messengers, I have been privileged to witness the same from this Youth, this beloved Kinsman of mine, from His earliest boyhood to this, the thirtieth year of His life." He ended: "I only request of you that you allow me to be the first to lay down my life in the path of my beloved Kinsman."
The Amír-Niẓám, without a word, signalled that he be taken out and beheaded. On the way he spoke to the crowd around him, reminding them that they had prayed for a thousand years for the coming of the Promised One, and now that He had come they had sent Him into exile. He did not curse them. "With my last breath," he said, "I pray that the Almighty may wipe away the stain of your guilt and enable you to awaken from the sleep of heedlessness."
His words moved the executioner, who went away saying the sword needed sharpening and meaning not to come back. Nabíl records that he later went to Khurásán, told the believers there what had happened, and could not hear the name of Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid 'Alí without weeping.
Shoghi Effendi writes that the bodies of the seven lay unburied for three days and three nights in the Sabzih-Maydán, and that the Báb, a prisoner in Chihríq, praised them in a long eulogy.
This is a retelling. For the full account, see The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl's Narrative, chapter 21.
Cite this story
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/
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