The Executioner in the Síyáh-Chál

A retelling of Bahá’u’lláh’s own account as recorded by Nabíl in The Dawn-Breakers.

In 1852 Bahá’u’lláh was confined for four months in the Síyáh-Chál, the “Black Pit”, an underground dungeon in Tihrán. With Him were many of the Bábís arrested in that year, a number of whom were taken out one by one to be executed.

Nabíl heard Bahá’u’lláh describe those days many times, and recorded His words in The Dawn-Breakers. The prisoners were huddled together in one cell, their feet in stocks and chains about their necks. Each day the gaolers came in and called the name of one of them:

Every day Our gaolers, entering Our cell, would call the name of one of Our companions, bidding him arise and follow them to the foot of the gallows. With what eagerness would the owner of that name respond to that solemn call!

The man named would be freed from his chains and would embrace Bahá’u’lláh, who comforted him with the assurance of everlasting life and sent him out full of hope. He would then embrace the rest of the prisoners and go to his death.

Of what followed, Bahá’u’lláh said:

Soon after the martyrdom of each of these companions, We would be informed by the executioner, who had grown to be friendly to Us, of the circumstances of the death of his victim, and of the joy with which he had endured his sufferings to the very end.

The account says nothing more about this man. It records only that the executioner had become friendly toward Bahá’u’lláh, and that it was from him that Bahá’u’lláh learned how each of His companions had died.

A retelling of Bahá’u’lláh’s account in Nabíl’s The Dawn-Breakers, chapter 26 (Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1932). For the fuller account, see the original.

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/