Two Ropes in the Tabríz Cell: 'Abdu'l-Bahá on the Báb's Martyrdom
'Abdu'l-Bahá, A Traveler's Narrative, (1886), Cambridge University Press · Read original
When in Bahá'í history
Tabríz (today: Tabríz, Iran)
In A Traveler's Narrative, 'Abdu'l-Bahá brings the story of the Báb's six-year ministry to its closing scene. The morning was the 9th of July, 1850 (the 28th of Sha'bán, 1266 A.H.). The place was the public square outside the army barracks of Tabríz. The order had come down from the Grand Vizier, Amír-Niẓám, that the Báb was to be publicly executed by firing squad.
The night before the execution had been spent in the holding cell. A young man named Mírzá Muḥammad-'Alíy-i-Zunúzí — given the title Anís, the companion — had earlier asked the Báb's permission to share His martyrdom. He had been imprisoned with Him. The morning of the execution, Anís refused every offer of release.
The Master records the staging of the execution with the care of an eyewitness historian — drawing on the accounts of those who had been present in the square.
An iron nail was hammered into the middle of the staircase of the very cell wherein they were imprisoned, and two ropes were hung down. By one rope the Báb was suspended and by the other rope Áqá Muḥammad-'Alí, both being firmly bound in such wise that the head of that young man was on the Báb's breast.
The image — the young man's head resting against the chest of the Master he had refused to leave — is the heart of the account. It would be carried, by the witnesses, into Bábí memory and from there into the deepest places of the Bahá'í imagination.
The first regiment, of seven hundred and fifty Armenian soldiers under the command of Sám Khán, fired. The smoke filled the square.
When the smoke cleared away they saw that young man standing and the Báb seated by the side of His amanuensis. To neither one of them had the slightest injury resulted.
The bullets had cut only the ropes. The Báb had vanished from the courtyard during the smoke. He was found in the cell completing a conversation He had been having with Siyyid Ḥusayn earlier that morning. I have finished My conversation with Siyyid Ḥusayn, the witnesses heard Him say; now you may proceed to fulfil your intention.
Sám Khán refused the second order. His regiment was withdrawn. A second regiment, Muslim, was brought in. The second volley succeeded. The Báb and His young companion were martyred.
A Traveler's Narrative records the date — the twenty-eighth of Sha'bán — and ends, in this section, on the death itself. The unburied bodies were thrown to the edge of the city moat. The believers, by night and at the risk of their own lives, recovered them. The remains of the Báb would, after fifty-nine years of hiding, finally rest in the white shrine on Mount Carmel that 'Abdu'l-Bahá Himself, in 1909, would build.
Source: 'Abdu'l-Bahá, A Traveler's Narrative (translated by E.G. Browne, Cambridge University Press, 1891), pages 21-40. Public domain text from Project Gutenberg eBook #19300.
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'Abdu'l-Bahá. (1886). *A Traveler's Narrative*. Cambridge University Press. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19300
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