The Báb's Last Night in Tabríz

*A retelling based on **The Dawn-Breakers**, Nabíl's narrative translated and edited by Shoghi Effendi (chapter 23). Words in quotation marks are quoted from the book.*

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Three days after the Báb was brought to Tabríz in the summer of 1850, an order came from the Grand Vizier that He was to be executed. He was stripped of His turban and sash, the signs of His descent from the Prophet, and taken with His amanuensis, Siyyid Ḥusayn, to a room in the barracks, with ten soldiers guarding the door.

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As He approached the barracks, a youth pushed through the crowd, barefoot and exhausted, and threw himself at the Báb's feet. "Send me not from Thee, O Master," he begged. "Wherever Thou goest, suffer me to follow Thee." The Báb answered: "Muḥammad-'Alí, arise, and rest assured that you will be with Me. To-morrow you shall witness what God has decreed." This youth, Mírzá Muḥammad-'Alíy-i-Zunúzí, and two other companions who came forward were seized and put in the same cell as the Báb and Siyyid Ḥusayn.

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## That night

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Nabíl heard Siyyid Ḥusayn describe the night that followed:

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> That night the face of the Báb was aglow with joy, a joy such as had never > shone from His countenance. Indifferent to the storm that raged about Him, He > conversed with us with gaiety and cheerfulness. The sorrows that had weighed > so heavily upon Him seemed to have completely vanished. Their weight appeared > to have dissolved in the consciousness of approaching victory.

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The Báb told them: "To-morrow will be the day of My martyrdom. Would that one of you might now arise and, with his own hands, end My life. I prefer to be slain by the hand of a friend rather than by that of the enemy."

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The companions wept. None of them could bring himself to do it, and they stayed silent. Then Mírzá Muḥammad-'Alí sprang to his feet and said he was ready to do whatever the Báb desired. The others stopped him, and the Báb said: "This same youth who has risen to comply with My wish will, together with Me, suffer martyrdom. Him will I choose to share with Me its crown."

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## The morning

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Early the next morning the farrásh-báshí came to take the Báb to the mujtahids of the city. As the Báb was leaving, Siyyid Ḥusayn asked Him what he should do, and was told not to confess his faith, so that he could later tell what he alone knew. The farrásh-báshí interrupted their conversation and pulled Siyyid Ḥusayn aside. The Báb warned him: "Not until I have said to him all those things that I wish to say can any earthly power silence Me."

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At noon that day, after the first volley failed to harm Him, the Báb was found back in the same room, finishing His conversation with Siyyid Ḥusayn. A second regiment then carried out the execution, and Mírzá Muḥammad-'Alí died with Him, as the Báb had said he would.

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*This is a retelling. For the full account, see **The Dawn-Breakers** by Nabíl-i-A'ẓam, chapter 23.*

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