The Rescue of the Báb's Remains

A retelling based on God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi (chapter 4), with details from Nabíl's The Dawn-Breakers (chapter 23). Words in quotation marks are quoted from these books.

The Báb and His young companion, Mírzá Muḥammad-'Alíy-i-Zunúzí, were martyred at noon on the 9th of July, 1850, in the barrack square of Tabríz. Shoghi Effendi records what followed:

On the evening of the very day of the Báb's execution ... the mangled bodies were transferred from the courtyard of the barracks to the edge of the moat outside the gate of the city. Four companies, each consisting of ten sentinels, were ordered to keep watch in turn over them.

The next morning the Russian consul in Tabríz went to the spot with an artist and had a drawing made of the remains as they lay beside the moat.

Ḥájí Sulaymán Khán

Nabíl tells how the rescue came about. Ḥájí Sulaymán Khán, a believer in Ṭihrán, had heard of the danger to the Báb's life and set out for Tabríz hoping to save Him. He arrived too late. On the afternoon of the second day after the martyrdom he reached Bágh-Mishih, a suburb of the city, and stayed with a friend, the Kalántar. When he heard what had happened, he resolved to carry away the bodies, even at the risk of his own life.

The Kalántar urged him not to throw his life away, but to wait for a man named Ḥájí Alláh-Yár, who would do whatever he asked. The two met that evening. In the middle of that same night Ḥájí Alláh-Yár carried the bodies from the edge of the moat to a silk factory owned by one of the believers of Mílán. The next day they were laid in a specially made wooden case and moved, as Ḥájí Sulaymán Khán directed, to a place of safety.

The sentinels claimed that wild animals had carried the bodies away while they slept, and their superiors did not report the truth. Shoghi Effendi adds that the mullás were meanwhile announcing from the pulpits that the Báb's body had been devoured by wild animals.

To Ṭihrán

Shoghi Effendi writes that as soon as news of the rescue reached Bahá'u'lláh in Ṭihrán, He "ordered that same Sulaymán Khán to bring them to Tihrán." The remains were first taken to the shrine of Imám-Zádih-Ḥasan and afterwards moved from one hiding place to another. Nabíl, who was in Ṭihrán when they arrived, adds that Áqáy-i-Kalím, Bahá'u'lláh's brother, and Mírzá Aḥmad moved them to a place known only to themselves.

The remains stayed hidden in Persia for many years. At 'Abdu'l-Bahá's direction they were at last brought to the Holy Land, and in 1909 He laid them to rest in the mausoleum built for them on Mount Carmel.

This is a retelling. For the full account, see God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi, chapter 4, and The Dawn-Breakers by Nabíl-i-A'ẓam, chapter 23.

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