Quddús and the Starving Garrison at Ṭabarsí

A retelling based on the account in The Dawn-Breakers, Nabíl's narrative of the early days of the Bahá'í Revelation (chapters 19 and 20, "The Mázindarán Upheaval"). Words in quotation marks are quoted from that history.

Quddús was the last of the eighteen Letters of the Living. In 1848, after he had been freed from confinement in Sárí, he joined Mullá Ḥusayn and the believers who had built a fort around the shrine of Shaykh Ṭabarsí in Mázindarán. There they were besieged by the Sháh's forces.

While he was held in Sárí, Quddús had begun a commentary on the Súrih of Ikhlás. His interpretation of the Ṣád of Ṣamad alone grew to three times the length of the Qur'án. Inside the fort he kept writing it, and Nabíl says he wrote as many verses there, under attack, as he had written in Sárí.

After Mullá Ḥusayn was killed, food ran out. Of their cattle only one cow was left, and Ḥájí Naṣíru'd-Dín-i-Qazvíní made a pudding from its milk each day for Quddús. Quddús would eat a few spoonfuls and share the rest among his companions. "My heart bleeds," he said, "at the sight of my famished companions, worn and wasted around me." He went on with his commentary, and every morning and evening Mírzá Muḥammad-Báqir chanted verses from it to the assembled believers.

Nabíl heard Mullá Mírzá Muḥammad-i-Furúghí, who survived the siege, describe those days:

"God knows that we had ceased to hunger for food. Our thoughts were no longer concerned with matters pertaining to our daily bread. We were so enraptured by the entrancing melody of those verses that, were we to have continued for years in that state, no trace of weariness and fatigue could possibly have dimmed our enthusiasm or marred our gladness. And whenever the lack of nourishment would tend to sap our vitality and weaken our strength, Mírzá Muḥammad-Báqir would hasten to Quddús and acquaint him with our plight. A glimpse of his face, the magic of his words, as he walked amongst us, would transmute our despondency into golden joy."

In the spring of 1849 an army under Prince Mihdí-Qulí Mírzá dug trenches around the fort and opened fire with its artillery. During the bombardment Quddús came out of his room and walked to the centre of the fort, smiling and calm. A cannon-ball fell in front of him. He rolled it with his foot and asked whether the attackers had forgotten that a gnat had ended the life of the mighty Nimrod, and that a tempest had destroyed the people of 'Ád and Thamúd. Then he turned to his companions: "Fear not the threats of the wicked, neither be dismayed by the clamour of the ungodly. Each one of you has his appointed hour, and when that time is come, neither the assaults of your enemy nor the endeavours of your friends will be able either to retard or to advance that hour."

Later the companions ate the flesh of their horses and even the leather of their saddles, and boiled grass from the fields. As their strength failed, Nabíl writes, Quddús "multiplied his visits to them, and endeavoured by his words of cheer and of hope to lighten the load of their agony."

In the end the prince sent Quddús a copy of the Qur'án bearing his seal and his written oath that the companions could leave the fort in safety. When they reached the camp, Quddús gathered them and said, "You should show forth exemplary renunciation, for such behaviour on your part will exalt our Cause and redound to its glory." The oath was broken. Many of the companions were killed, and Quddús was taken to Bárfurúsh, where he was put to death in the Sabzih-Maydán.

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

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/