The Defenders of Shaykh Ṭabarsí

*A retelling based on **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi (chapter 3), which surveys the upheaval of Shaykh Ṭabarsí in Mázindarán. The words in quotation marks are from that book; Nabíl's **The Dawn-Breakers** (chapters 19–20) tells the story in full.*

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In the summer of 1848 Mullá Ḥusayn, the first to believe in the Báb, set out from Mashhad at the head of two hundred and two companions, under the Black Standard, to join Quddús in Mázindarán. At a farsang's distance from Bárfurúsh an armed crowd blocked their way and shot down seven of the companions. Only then did Mullá Ḥusayn draw his sword. The company took refuge at the shrine of Shaykh Ṭabarsí in the forest and threw up fortifications around it.

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"The contest lasted no less than eleven months," Shoghi Effendi writes. "Its heroes were the flower of the Báb's disciples." Among its martyrs were half of the Letters of the Living, Mullá Ḥusayn and Quddús among them. He describes the defenders as "a band of three hundred and thirteen untrained, unequipped yet God-intoxicated students, mostly sedentary recluses of the college and cloister," who were "pitted in self-defense against a trained army," led by a prince of the royal blood and backed by the resources of the state.

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Bahá'u'lláh visited the fort, inspected its defences and gave advice that led to the deliverance of Quddús, who then joined the defenders. Mullá Ḥusayn told the commanding prince plainly that he and his companions had no intention of usurping the authority of the Sháh. In one sortie before daybreak, led by Quddús and Mullá Ḥusayn, the defenders reached the prince's own quarters; he escaped by throwing himself from a back window into the moat, and fled barefoot. The companions refused to touch the gold and silver he left behind.

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Mullá Ḥusayn fell in a later sortie, soon after midnight. He had charged and taken all seven barricades the enemy had raised when his horse became caught in the rope of a tent, and he was struck in the breast by a bullet.

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The siege went on. The defenders ate the flesh of horses taken from the abandoned enemy camp, then grass, then the bark of trees and the leather of their saddles, belts, scabbards and shoes. For eighteen days they had nothing but water, a mouthful each morning. Under cannon fire they dug passages beneath the fort and lived in mud and water.

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In the end the prince resorted to treachery. He wrote an oath on the margin of the opening súrih of the Qur'án, swearing by that Book to set all the defenders free and to send them safely home. When they came out, the oath was broken. Some were sold as slaves and the rest were killed. Quddús was handed over to the Sa'ídu'l-'Ulamá' of Bárfurúsh and put to death in the streets of that town.

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Shoghi Effendi calls the outcome "a heinous betrayal," one that invested its victims "with a halo of imperishable glory."

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*This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi, chapter 3, and **The Dawn-Breakers**, chapters 19–20.*

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