The Seven Who Would Not Recant

A retelling based on God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi (chapter 3), with details and the martyrs' own words taken from Nabíl's narrative, The Dawn-Breakers (chapter 21).

In 1850, four months before the martyrdom of the Báb, fourteen of His followers were arrested in Ṭihrán. When they would not give their captors the information they wanted, the case was sent to the Grand Vazír, the Amír-Niẓám, Mírzá Taqí Khán. He ordered that any of the fourteen who would not recant was to be put to death. Seven gave way and were released at once. The other seven are remembered as the Seven Martyrs of Ṭihrán.

Shoghi Effendi writes that they "represented the more important classes among their countrymen," and that they "deliberately refused to purchase life by that mere lip-denial" which Shí'ih Islam had long accepted in the hour of danger.

The first was Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid 'Alí, the Báb's maternal uncle and one of the leading merchants of Shíráz. After the death of the Báb's father, the Báb had been placed in his care. When trouble was coming in Ṭihrán his friends urged him to escape, and he would not. Merchants of his acquaintance offered to pay his ransom, and he refused. The Amír-Niẓám told him that one word of recantation would set him free and send him home with honours. He answered that to deny the Báb would be to deny all the Prophets before Him, and that he had seen in his Nephew "from His earliest boyhood" what he had read of those Messengers. "I only request of you," he said, "that you allow me to be the first to lay down my life in the path of my beloved Kinsman." The executioner who was to behead him went away weeping, saying he had been hired to execute murderers and highway robbers, not a man so holy, and did not return.

The second was Mírzá Qurbán-'Alí, a dervish of Bárfurúsh, so esteemed that notables of Mázindarán, Khurásán and Ṭihrán had pledged him their loyalty. On the night before he was brought in, state officials of every rank had pleaded with the Amír-Niẓám for him, and crowds filled the approaches to the government headquarters. When the Amír-Niẓám said he was reluctant to sentence him, the dervish replied:

The sooner you strike off my head, the greater will be my gratitude to you.

At the place of execution he found the body of Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid 'Alí, took it in his arms, and called to the executioner to strike.

The third was Ḥájí Mullá Ismá'íl-i-Qumí, who had studied under Siyyid Káẓim and had been named Sirru'l-Vujúd at Badasht. At the block he gave the executioner a coin to buy him something sweet, shared it with him, and said: "I have forgiven you your act; approach and deal your blow."

After him came Siyyid Ḥusayn-i-Turshízí, a mujtahid who asked in vain to be allowed to prove the truth of the Báb's Cause before the divines of the city; Ḥájí Muḥammad-Taqíy-i-Kirmání, a merchant; Siyyid Murtaḍá, a merchant of Zanján; and Muḥammad-Ḥusayn-i-Marághi'í. Shoghi Effendi records "the eagerness with which the last three victims strove to precede one another in sealing their faith with their blood."

For three days and three nights their bodies lay in the Sabzih-Maydán, where crowds kicked them, spat on them and heaped refuse on them. Then they were buried together in one grave outside the city gate. In a Tablet revealed in their honour, the Báb, then imprisoned in Chihríq, called them the "Seven Goats" of Islamic tradition who would "walk in front" of the promised Qá'im, a prophecy He explained as meaning that their martyrdom would come before His own.

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi and The Dawn-Breakers, chapter 21.

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