The Martyrdom of the Báb in Tabríz

In A Traveler's Narrative, 'Abdu'l-Bahá tells how the Báb's ministry ended in Tabríz. The Prime Minister sent his brother, Mírzá Ḥasan Khán, an order: obtain a formal sentence from the leading divines of Tabríz, summon the Christian regiment of Urúmíyyih, suspend the Báb before all the people, and have the regiment fire a volley.

The Báb's turban and sash, the signs of His descent from the Prophet, were taken from Him. He was brought with four of His followers to the barrack square of Tabríz and confined in a cell, with forty Christian soldiers to guard Him.

The next day He was handed over to Sám Khán, colonel of the Christian regiment, together with Áqá Muḥammad-'Alí, a young man of a noble family of Tabríz. Nabíl's Dawn-Breakers names him Mírzá Muḥammad-'Alíy-i-Zunúzí, surnamed Anís, and records that he burst into tears when they were about to confine him in the room with Siyyid Ḥusayn, and entreated them to let him remain with his Master. He was delivered to Sám Khán with orders that he too should be executed if he would not deny his Faith.

'Abdu'l-Bahá writes:

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.

Crowds filled the surrounding housetops. A regiment formed in three files, and each file fired in turn; Nabíl gives the number of rifles as seven hundred and fifty.

When the smoke cleared away they saw that young man standing and the Báb seated by the side of His amanuensis Áqá Siyyid Husayn in the very cell from the staircase of which they had suspended them. To neither one of them had the slightest injury resulted.

Nabíl adds that the bullets had cut only the ropes, and that the Báb was found in the room where He had spent the night before, completing an interrupted conversation with Siyyid Ḥusayn. "I have finished My conversation with Siyyid Husayn," He told the farrásh-báshí. "Now you may proceed to fulfil your intention." The farrásh-báshí left the scene and resigned his post.

Sám Khán asked to be excused, and the duty passed to another regiment. Áqá Ján Big of Khamsih, colonel of the bodyguard, came forward, and the Báb and His companion were bound again to the same nail. The Báb spoke certain words which the few who knew Persian understood; the rest heard only the sound of His voice. Before noon on the twenty-eighth day of Sha'bán, 1266 A.H. (9 July 1850), the colonel gave the order to fire, and both were killed.

Their bodies were taken to the edge of the moat outside the city. At midnight on the second night the Bábís carried them away. The remains were kept hidden for many years. On Naw-Rúz 1909, as Shoghi Effendi records in God Passes By, 'Abdu'l-Bahá laid the remains of the Báb and His companion to rest with His own hands in the Shrine He had built on Mount Carmel.

A retelling based on A Traveler's Narrative, with details from Nabíl's The Dawn-Breakers and Shoghi Effendi's God Passes By. For the fuller account, see the originals.

'Abdu'l-Bahá. (1886). *A Traveler's Narrative*. Cambridge University Press. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19300