# A Visit to Persia

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Guy Murchie, A Visit to Persia, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> A Visit to Persia
> by Guy Murchie
> 
> [The following notes are from the diary of Guy Murchie taken on his journey in
> Irán in 1964, made with the special permission of the Universal House of Justice.
> They were published in Bahá’í News in March, April, June, September 1965,
> and January, April, May 1966.]
> 
> Springtime in Shíráz
> March 21, 1964
> The history proper of the Bahá’í Faith began on the evening of May 22, 1844, in Shíráz in
> southern Persia (now called Irán) when the inspired seeker, Mullá Husayn, met and accepted the Báb.
> So it is appropriate to begin a visit to Persia in the garden city of Shíráz in spring and precisely at the
> site of the southern or Kaziran Gate where the two actually saw each other for the first time at
> sundown on that fateful day.
> An old caravanserai or inn still stands near the historic spot with its ample courtyard surrounded
> by vaulted rooms, and near by are several big plane trees (some six feet in diameter) which must have
> cast their shade on resting caravans at that time. Mullá Husayn, it seems, had walked in the last few
> miles from Búshihr on a dirt road through grassland with a few scattered trees since cut down,
> probably wild almonds, olives, ash, poplars and willows, with here and there flat-roofed mud huts
> some of which are still standing. The Kaziran Gate, one of six gates of the old city, is no longer there,
> but merchants and peddlers are still selling vegetables, fruits, clothing and pottery on wooden stands
> at the base of the big planes probably about as they did in the Báb's time…
> 
> Next we saw in the southern (now Jewish) quarter of Shíráz, the small mosque called
> Masjid-i-Ilkhani where Mullá Husayn met with the future Letters of the Living and told them to
> disperse and find the Báb, Whom he had already found. This we reached through many narrow alleys
> with overhanging roofs of sheet metal, which I was told were quite old as the metal came from Russia
> in the time of the Báb. Some houses were propped against others across the alley at the second story
> level. A public bath stood near by where Mullá Husayn used to bathe with his followers in a tiled
> pool about six feet square and three feet deep. The mosque is built of brick with vaulted roof, has
> wooden doors arched at the top, and is now virtually empty of furnishings. . . .
> We visited the Báb's own house in the afternoon, reaching it through a series of narrow alleys
> and finally a tunnel, a common sort of passage in olden times for reasons of secrecy and defense and
> still helpful for the same reason today. Two Afnán brothers, great-grandsons of the Báb's brother, live
> there and are custodians, dwelling and receiving pilgrims in adjoining quarters purchased for the
> purpose. They are very gracious, quiet and hospitable. After tea we were shown the holy house. First
> the little patio, perhaps just over twenty feet square, with a small square pool in the center filled
> through a pipe from a forty-foot well in one corner with revolving drum to take the bucket rope. By
> the well is a block of stone on which the Báb used to sit and a tall orange tree which He Himself
> planted. The house and lower quarters (for the Báb's wife, mother, servants, etc.) have a checkered
> tile design on their walls, mostly blue and white. Doors are of carved wood. The living room (or, as
> Persians say, guest room for receiving visitors) is upstairs. This is where the Báb took Mullá Husayn
> on the fateful night of May 22, 1844, to announce His Cause. The stairs consist of nine steep steps,
> then one more above the upper landing. Before entering the room which is about twelve feet square,
> we knelt and touched our foreheads to the threshold, one by one, then silently entered, having left our
> shoes outside the patio below. Prayers appropriate to the occasion were chanted. The wall design
> (white on blue) carved in the plaster just above where the Báb had sat in the northwest corner of the
> room beside the window showed the ancient traditional Persian design of a lion attacking a bull. The
> next day in Persepolis, not far from Shíráz, we were to see the same design carved in several places
> on the ancient palace walls, for it is said to be symbolic of the power of regal or divine authority over
> mere brute strength. Although enemies of the Cause demolished much of the woodwork and some
> masonry in this house in mob action in 1957, it has been restored with great care and accuracy. Five
> wooden windows face west out of the holy upper room toward the setting sun, and we walked out
> upon the flat mud roof overlooking and partly surrounding the patio. The roof contains straw to bind
> the mud, and salt to prevent grass growing. Wooden rafters let it overhang the courtyard. We could
> see the purplish gray mountains to the north and a crow's nest in a tall plane tree about thirty feet to
> the south in a neighboring patio. Swallows flitted overhead and hooded crows cawed near by. The
> latter have gray bodies with black heads, wings and tails. White-cheeked nightingales are common
> here too, both wild and as pets in cages. A young pear tree is growing in the adjoining courtyard to
> the north, now owned by Bahá’ís but half demolished. A few cracks in the Báb's house dated from
> the earthquake that destroyed many buildings in Shíráz in 1850 shortly after His martyrdom. We
> picked a few leaves from the thorny orange boughs as we talked of the Báb and Mullá Husayn.
> 
> The Báb’s Shop in Búshihr
> March 23
> At 6 a.m. a group of five of us set off in a Land Rover for Búshihr on the Persian Gulf about
> 150 miles west of Shíráz to see the shop of the Báb who, being a merchant, had used it in His
> business of transporting tea, spices and other goods imported from India and more distant places. We
> roared and bounced over the very rough gravel road, winding over high mountain passes, fording
> rivers and stopping briefly at an oasis for breakfast where, in a small caravanserai, an old man
> squatted smoking his bubble pipe and warming himself over a tin brazier. Passing an occasional
> camel caravan, at about 9 o'clock we got to Kaziran which used to be well known as a lion hunting
> center — even as recently as the Báb's day, though the number of lions left was small by then — and
> the area still has plenty of leopards, wild boar, deer, antelope, wolves, foxes, jackals, wild goats,
> rabbits, quail, pheasants, and other game.
> When we arrived in Búshihr at noon it was hot on the arid, treeless flatland and when we made
> our way through the low city (no building more than two stories high) strewn along the shore, it was
> refreshing to view the green gulf with its big breakers rolling in over the undredged shoals. The Báb's
> shop is in an alley one block away from the sea, the main doors through which caravans would pass
> being of wood with lions and other figures carved in them. The buildings themselves, warehouses etc.
> are made of stone plastered with mud as is common all over Persia. We walked into the courtyard and
> washed the dust off our hands and faces while children and a cat played around us. Red bougainvillea
> and jasmine grew out of the small flower bed next the salt water well attended by a pitcher boy who
> poured directly on our soapy hands according to custom. Salt water is only seven or eight feet deep
> here which discourages the digging of cellars, a serious drawback in such a hot climate. Drinking
> water comes by collecting rain from' the flat roofs which is piped into cisterns.
> Before inspecting the office, we repaired upstairs to the relatively new quarters built for the
> custodian and for receiving pilgrims and there, on magnificent Persian rugs, sat cross-legged on the
> floor for lunch. First we had tea in tiny glasses and cookies, then delicious hazel nuts, almonds and
> pistachios, followed by rice with raisins, fried shrimp, egg cakes, paper-thin "bread," fried potatoes,
> sweet jelly and soft drinks in original bottles, all served on a patterned blue oil cloth laid flat on the
> rug.
> 
> Although a slight sea breeze kept us reasonably cool, one could easily imagine the intense heat
> of summer here where shops then traditionally close at ten o'clock in the morning not to reopen until
> about five and office workers often sit waist-deep in barrels of salt water which, they say, was the
> custom in the Báb's office also, the indoor temperature sometimes reaching 115° F. Out in the blazing
> sun of course it was much hotter but the Báb Himself regularly on Fridays went out upon His roof to
> chant His noon prayers at considerable length. He sometimes remained at Búshihr a month or more,
> requiring from a week to 10 days to travel to or from Shíráz with His goods. Finishing our meal with
> fruit, someone spoke of the Báb's fondness for tangerines and a kind of sweet grapefruit that the
> Persians call "sweet lime." His Ethiopian servant Mobarak carried a large basket of them on to the
> ship when the Báb sailed out of here for Mecca in 1844, there being no fresh water on the vessel.
> 
> After some more tea and a few prayers, we made our pilgrimage downstairs to the Báb's
> personal office, a rather dark little room about thirteen by eleven feet in area and perhaps twelve feet
> high. Three wooden grilled windows, which can be slid up out of the way, shielded the room from the
> semi-public passageway between the yard and the street. Oil lamps were on the table and one could
> almost see the young Báb sitting there working on His accounts, a barrel of salt water perhaps
> standing in one corner.
> Before leaving Búshihr we walked along the quayside where a number of wooden ships were
> moored or docked, most of them about seventy-five feet long built with spiked planking, single
> masts, no gaffs, canvas sails, engines (probably diesel), long upsweeping bows and tiller chains
> running aft to T-shaped rudder posts — likely similar to the ship the Báb embarked on, although that
> may well have been larger. At Borázján (some forty miles inland) where we spent the night we went
> to see the famous ash tree under which the Báb was resting when He saw the mounted guardsmen of
> the governor of Shíráz passing by on their way to Búshihr to arrest Him after His return from Mecca,
> whereupon He immediately offered Himself as a willing prisoner. The old tree was cut down several
> years ago but new shoots from its stump have already grown into a clump of trees some thirty feet
> high. The story goes that the old man owning this land told his sons and heirs before he died that it
> was his will for them never to cut down this holy tree under which such a "famous siyyid" had rested,
> but later one of them heedlessly chopped it down, only to die himself the very next day. Returning to
> Shíráz we zigzagged our way up over the "Old Woman Pass," reportedly almost 10,000 feet high,
> over which the Báb walked barefoot as a prisoner, having refused to ride the stolen horses
> respectfully offered Him by the governor's men. The narrow stone-paved road built by Shah Abbas
> the Great some 300 years ago, skirting the newer gravel road, is plainly visible still, and we stopped
> to pick wild forget-me-nots appropriately growing there amid dark red poppies, yellow asters,
> chamomiles and wild grape hyacinths, while numerous scraggly wild almond trees covered the lower
> mountainsides, probably having provided welcome sustenance to the illustrious Prisoner and His
> escort as they are still offering to wayfarers today.
> 
> Birthplace of Bahá’u’lláh
> 
> April 2
> Bahá’u’lláh's House in Tihrán was built about a decade before His birth in what was then the
> fashionable northeastern section of the city. Invited to visit it, I was first cautioned to speak no
> English as we walked through the streets and to keep my camera concealed because of the many and
> dangerous enemies of the Cause in the area who, if they realized it were a place of pilgrimage
> venerated by Bahá’ís, would likely attack and demolish it as they have so recently done to the Báb's
> house and others.
> Leaving a broad street we made our way for three or four hundred yards through circuitous
> alleys where boys were playing ball, finally entering an ordinary-looking door which opened into a
> large courtyard. There we were greeted by the unpretentious custodian and his family who conducted
> us without delay to the holy Home, which was actually built by Mírzá Buzurg, Bahá’u’lláh's father,
> as the first of seven houses in a family compound. This walled enclosure of several acres, typical
> among the oriental nobility, included when completed a central kitchen building where meals for all
> the homes were prepared before being carried to their destinations by the ubiquitous servants. The
> courtyard of Bahá’u’lláh's house is about sixty feet long by fifty wide with a small grape arbor, rose
> bushes and many small fruit trees such as apple, pear and pomegranate, and flanked in some places
> by colonades of thin spiral columns. Walls are mostly of buff-colored brick with red windows
> rounded at the top, arched doorways, circular decorations here and there, and blue tile latticework at
> ground level to ventilate the basement rooms and keep them cool in summer. Several bedrooms
> upstairs open upon flat roof areas while still higher rise special towers serving as the upper vents of
> the basement circulation system.
> We soon climbed up the very steep three brick steps that led to the main parlor or receiving
> room, the steps being comparable in height and steepness to those of a railroad coach when you
> mount from the level of the rails, the accepted thing in the old days and presumably requiring a strong
> helping hand or boost for ladies and children. Touching our foreheads to the threshold, we entered the
> large parlor without shoes, stepping silently upon the exquisite pale carpets that covered the floor
> from wall to wall, some thirty feet one way and twenty feet the other. This was the room Bahá’u’lláh
> was actually born in, appropriately just before sunrise on the morning of November 12, 1817. It was
> traditional to use the best parlor for such an important event as a birth. The most conspicuous feature
> of the room is the south wall facing the courtyard with its three great windows with fairly large panes
> of glass between wooden muntins, most of the panes transparent but a few colored bright red, blue,
> yellow and green. Since the house was ransacked in 1852 at the time Bahá’u’lláh was put into the
> dungeon of Síyyáh-Chál, and remained in Muslim hands for some half a century, the present
> windows are only copies of the originals. Other features in the room, appear of high standard, the
> general style giving prominence to the Romanesque arch with not only the windows rounded at the
> top but the pale blue plastered walls lined with niches, each rounded at the top and ending at the
> bottom in a shelf or mantel about three feet from the floor. There is also a small fireplace about
> fourteen inches wide and two feet high in the middle of the north wall, a mantelpiece above its arched
> top also. The theme of round-topped niches continues throughout the mansion apparently, for all the
> basement rooms have it, including the luxurious bath suite.
> We found the basement rooms pleasantly cool with their vertical ventilating shafts and vaulted
> brick ceilings of a pinkish but varicolored hue, and I noticed that the main room directly below the
> birth chamber has nine niches arrayed along its north side. In the west basement is a small kitchen
> with a chimney above the arched stove niche, evidently used before the central kitchen building was
> built or perhaps for minor meals. The bath suite of three rooms was especially interesting. At the
> bottom of the steep flight of stairs extending about eight feet below ground, we came first to a sort of
> dressing room, roughly octagonal with a central footbath of blue tile (also approximately octagonal)
> about two feet deep, then farther on, a bigger washing room likewise more or less octagonal but with
> alcoves that have attractive floral tracery in the tiled lower levels of their niches and, last of all, a
> short flight of steep steps leading up into a smaller pool room kept four or five feet deep in hot water
> and, if desired, filled with steam. The steps all around the pool could accommodate children of
> various ages and no doubt Bahá’u’lláh played there with His brothers when they were growing up.
> This mansion was unusual, having been designed for Bahá’u’lláh's father as one of the Sháh's
> important ministers whose specific assignment was to advise and look after the Shah's eldest son, a
> young prince who then had the title of governor of the province of Luristán. As Bahá’u’lláh grew to
> manhood, the house was more and more used for guests who were particularly attracted by its
> provisions for escaping summer heat, not only in the vaulted basements by day but while sleeping
> upon its extensive roofs by night, usually beneath specially-made mosquito net canopies, these
> insects being plentiful in Tihrán throughout most of the year. After His father died when Bahá’u’lláh
> was twenty-two, He grew accustomed to spending more of His time at His various country houses to
> the north, usually leaving the Tihrán house entirely in the hands of guests.
> 
> The Black Pit
> April 3
> This morning we drove to the Shah's old summer palace high up toward the foothills of the
> Elburz Mountains and saw the approximate place where Bahá’u’lláh was arrested in August 1852,
> stripped of His outer clothing and driven barefooted and bareheaded before an abusive mob all the
> many miles down to the dungeon to be imprisoned in heavy chains for four months. We drove over
> the same road He trod in His bare feet. It was probably a dirt road then but is now asphalted. Along
> both sides remain many old trees that were there on that terrible day and younger ones that have
> grown up since. Most of them are ash, I believe, with occasional planes and mulberry trees among
> them.
> There is not much to see of the dungeon of Síyyáh-Chál, which means Black Pit, because it is
> underground and inaccessible because of the large modern buildings now being erected around it, but
> from the third story of one of these a few rubble-strewn ruins and portions of brick wall could be
> glimpsed behind a row of poplars. These ruins, however, are undoubtedly the remains of a domed
> building constructed above the Síyyáh-Chál after Bahá’u’lláh was there and which collapsed
> relatively recently. The actual dungeon is entirely underground, having originally been built as a
> water reservoir for one of the city's public baths, then later adapted as a place for confining the most
> dangerous criminals and enemies of the state. It is described as about eighteen feet deep, watertight
> and undrainable, with no opening but a small aperture at the top of three nights of very steep stairs. It
> was almost pitch dark and reeked with the foul stench from nearly 150 prisoners kept there under
> heavy chains and their legs in stocks without any provisions for sanitation. There was no structure
> above ground at that time but an open "prison yard" to which the prisoners were hauled up each day
> at the time of the noon prayer for a little air and exercise — presumably so they wouldn't just rot
> away in the pestilential vermin-infested hole and thus spoil the program of torturing and killing them.
> The Sháh evidently took some personal interest in their treatment for his city palace and its ample
> gardens adjoin the Síyyáh-Chál on its north side and stand there today as a public museum with
> glittering hallways of millions of tiny mirrors and elaborate exhibits of royal gifts from the crowned
> heads of Europe and Asia. It is said that in 1852 the Sháh in his bed at night must have actually heard
> the prayers chanted by Bahá’u’lláh and His many fellow Bábís who were exultantly awaiting
> martyrdom just beyond his garden wall.
> 
> Leaving the Síyyáh-Chál, we visited a near by large circular public square where many Bábís
> were beheaded during that same period of persecution, there having been a raised brick platform
> there at the time so the large blood-thirsty crowds could see every detail without obstruction. We also
> saw the garden where Táhirih was martyred, apparently some half a mile northwest of the
> Síyyáh-Chál. The area belonged then to the "chief of the nomads" in the Tihrán region who, I
> understand, lived in a comfortable house near by. The garden probably contained many large pine
> trees, ashes, elms, etc. for tall and beautiful old pines still stand there and many other trees, though
> now the city is closing in. A "modern" hospital is already there and tennis courts and a swimming
> pool. Yet birds continue to enjoy the garden and I noticed wagtails, hooded crows and sparrows. The
> well where Táhirih was buried is now unmarked and unknown but, I'm told, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá reasonably
> predicted it would be discovered in time and made into an appropriate and beautiful shrine.
> 
> Visit to Fort Tabarsi
> April 6
> Mazindaran is Persia's central northern province that spreads along the southern shores of the
> Caspian Sea. Hidden some 17 miles from the coast in its lush lowlands lies Fort Tabarsi where the
> greatest of several holy battles was fought in early Babi history. So it was with eager anticipation that
> I set out this sunny morning with five companions (interpreter, guides, etc.) to visit this sacred spot
> that is still so inaccessible to most westerners.
> We drove in a jeep from the town of Shahi (called Aliabad a century ago) and, after half an hour on
> a wrong road, we crossed the new highway bridge over the Talar River, where in 1848 Mulla Husayn
> made his Babi followers abandon their precious belongings in order to purify them from the taint of
> earthly possessions. At that time the river is said to have been in flood and the country was partly
> wooded round about, but today we found the water fairly low and surrounding country flat with many
> rice fields where farmers were plowing with black humped Brahmin oxen and the occasional villages
> showed houses with thatched roofs clustered behind hedges af woven wattle, sometimes covered with
> brambles that may have been blackberry.
> Shortly west of the river we turned south off the highway onto a dirt road with ruts and mud holes
> on a sort of causeway between the paddy fields, stopping to ask the way of farmers and in villages
> where chickens and ducks scattered before us and children and adults stopped to stare. In the second
> village the ruts got so bad the jeep was hopelessly stuck, so we got out and walked the remaining
> couple of miles. The interpreter's wife, who was with us, put on a chadur (shawl) for the sake of
> modesty in the eyes of the country people, particularly as the fort is not owned by Baha'is yet and
> many Muslims are very sensitive on such matters.
> It was getting quite hot as we picked our way slowly ahead, sometimes through deep mud, once
> across a plowed field with here and there a large walnut tree, then back to the road with its mud walls
> and hedges. Birds flew by frequently and we heard one sing sweetly but unseen from a
> densely-leaved tree a phrase that sounded like "Swink-swee-na-na! Swee-na!" Further on we came to
> a dead, dark brown snake several feet long, which the guides referred to as a korkori. Nearby two
> men were building a hut near a rice field by tying together a framework of sticks stuck in the ground,
> presumably in preparation for plastering it with mud and thatching the roof. A young mother in white
> chadur and flowery pants passed us with her 3-year-old daughter wearing a red bandana and gold
> earrings and a necklace of beautiful agate-like stones, both of them barefoot. Then came a shepherd
> boy with a long stick and more than a hundred black and white sheep. Our conversation ran mostly to
> simple Biblical-type anecdotes.
> Just after a very tame magpie had hopped out of our way into a clump of nettles, we rounded a
> corner of the road and at last we saw it. There was Fort Tabarsi, a third of a mile away and,
> unexpectedly, on the far side of what seemed to be a small lake, actually a 2-acre reservoir created by
> a long mud dam for summer irrigation. The fort appeared as a low white building among tall trees on
> the plain just north of foothills leading gradually up to the snowy Elburz mountains visible in the
> haze to the south. On a clear day these peaks viewed from Fort Tabarsi, which is probably below sea
> level, must be very impressive as they reach more than 3000 feet higher than the highest Alps. Frogs
> croaked loudly in the pond and a heron circled gracefully overhead, finally alighting on a distant
> grassy bank. Several horses grazed in a nearby field as we skirted the water. We were thirsty from the
> midday heat, despite having drunk some dubious well water at a farm along the way, so when we
> arrived at the fort we were thankful for the chance to refresh ourselves with the clear, cool, holy
> water from the 50-foot well dug there by Mulla Husayn's men. Meantime one of our guides spoke
> with the Muslim family living in a small house near the fort, presumably as caretakers. An old
> woman, apparently rather apprehensive toward us, was eventually cajoled into consenting to our
> pilgrimage — perhaps in hopes of earning a little money by it — and we were invited to visit the fort.
> We walked through the east gate house which, before the famous siege, was one of two entrances
> through an encircling mud wall, most of which has been replaced with a feeble wickerwork fence.
> There under several huge trees (which I could not identify without their leaves) and many small
> pomegranate and fruit trees, some weirdly pollarded, stood the fort with its plastered white walls and
> reddish tiled roof about 50 feet long by 25 feet wide. A few children stood around among grazing
> sheep, mallard ducks and bantam chickens. We entered the recessed porch at the east end facing us,
> then, removing our shoes, went into the first of two inside rooms, each of which is about 20 feet
> square. This is of white plaster covered with faded banners on the west wall and indented with niches
> surmounted with pointed arches. Through a door we next entered the west room which contains the
> 700-year-old tomb of the famed Muslim saint, Shaykh Tabarsi, the presence of which is said to have
> caused this building to be chosen for their last stand by the three hundred-odd Babis under attack by
> several regiments of the Shah's best troops, the site being thus assured immunity from desecration
> after their martyrdoms. Mulla Husayn also is buried in this room, since Quddus, who survived him
> and who alone slept in this room during the siege, determined to keep his body safely hidden from
> the steadily approaching enemies. But the only visible object in the room is the dominating tomb of
> the shaykh, surrounded by a sort of cage of open woodwork about 12 feet long, 8 feet wide and 6^
> feet high. The floor is of ancient turquoise tile and there are two niches in each of the plastered white
> walls. The ceiling is of wood, temporarily replacing the pyramid-shaped upper ramparts said to have
> been built by the Babis for the siege and which the Baha'is hope some day to restore. Meantime the
> shaykh's body holds the fort safe from destruction. After we had chanted the Tablet of Visitation for
> Mulla Husayn and said a prayer in English, we were asked to leave the fort. So we put our shoes hack
> on and trooped over to the Muslim house where we were ushered into its single, small room. The
> floor was covered with coarse brownish rugs and around the bottom of the walls were colorful bed
> quilt rolls surmounted by huge red cushions, against which two old barefooted women and a
> grown-up boy sat on the floor and poured us tea from a brass samovar fueled with glowing charcoal.
> As the nine of us sipped our tea, an old woman handed me a piece of iron cannon ball which she
> indicated had been dug up beside the fort. Although at first I thought she might have hi' tended this as
> a gift, she soon intimated to one of the guides that she would like to be paid for it, and he handed her
> a few coins which she gratefully accepted. Since the siege lasted eleven months, probably there are
> enough cannon ball fragments about to keep the family in pocket money for many years. At any rate,
> my piece of ball shows that the Shah's artillery used cannon balls about 5% inches in diameter and
> hollow, the casing being about three quarters of an inch thick. While Quddus and Mulla Husayn had
> quarters in the fort itself, their Babi soldiers dug themselves in outside, by the end of the siege being
> well protected, it is said, by a moat about 10 feet deep and 10 feet wide outside the walls and several
> deep dugout chambers within. They even built themselves a sizeable pool for bathing about 50 yards
> north of the fort. The Muslim artillery were firing from a small hill perhaps 100 feet high and half a
> mile or so to the south. One of the large smooth-barked trees (perhaps a live oak) north of the fort still
> has a "cannon ball hole" in its split trunk.
> The captain of the Babi defenders after the death of Mulla Husayn was Muhammad Harati, under
> the overall leadership of Quddus, and he led forays to the hill where the tents of the Shah's troops
> could be seen, and captured cannon and ammunition, giving the Babis artillery of their own. The Babi
> soldiers were mostly laymen and commoners who wore the traditional baggy pants and coats and felt
> caps of the period, but a fair number were mullas (corresponding to priests) wearing robes and
> turbans. This costume would have been a serious disadvantage in fighting but, following Mulla
> Husayn's example, they would roll up their sleeves and tuck their skirts up into their sashes, revealing
> long, loose dark-colored pants underneath. Thus attired, they could not only ride their horses easily
> but felt themselves at no disadvantage on the ground. In fact their spiritual elation made them so
> fearless and invincible that they were victorious in every military action they undertook without
> exception, even when outnumbered a hundred to one. Their final capture and martyrdom was actually
> their greatest victory of all, this time not a military but a spiritual one, since the enemy had been able
> to attain his end only by descending to the vilest treachery.
> Before leaving the fort, I noted that one of the commonest flowers growing here seemed to be the
> appropriate forget-me-not, while not far away stood something like a blue wild chrysanthemum, a
> scarlet pimpernel and a sort of yellow aster the guides called "tetikokh" (probably Senecio vulgaris).
> Birds included the gray hooded crow, goldfinch, sparrow, raven and several hawks. The hoopoe,
> reputed to have carried notes from Sheba to Solomon, is also common here, we were told, and I heard
> what sounded like a quail's whistle across the fields. Among wild mammals inhabiting the area,
> according to my guides, are porcupines, jackals, wolves, wild boar which bother farmers by eating
> their rice and wheat and, in the foothill forests, tigers!
> March 25
> The Journey to Nayriz
> We set out this morning at 6 a.m. to visit Nayriz, some 100 miles southeast of Shiraz, site of the
> greatest siege in the early Baha'i history of southern Persia, which occurred in 1850. As we bounced
> over the rough gravel road eastward into the rising sun, we soon reached Lake Maharloo, a salt sea
> about twenty miles long, around which melons are grown not much differently than they were in the
> Bab's day. Outcrops of chrome ore were visible in the nearby mountains and, I was told, several
> chrome mines are in operation in the area. The only trees were in fruit orchards such as reddish
> pomegranate groves near the lake and neat rows of fig trees along the lower slopes of the foothills.
> Wild mustard in bloom made an occasional patch of yellow, while larks and wagtails ran across the
> road amid faint clouds of dust hanging on the still morning air.
> 
> Sarvestan
> In Sarvestan, a flat-roofed mud village, we passed the old homes of many 19th-century martyrs of
> our Faith who had been executed in Shiraz by shooting them from the mouths of cannon. Later we
> climbed into hilly sagebrush country with almonds in bloom. In an oasis of two or three houses amid
> willows we stopped for breakfast of papery bread, tea in tiny glasses, fried eggs, raw onion and
> yogurt, the traditional fare of well-to-do merchants here. An old woman nearby in pants was churning
> butter in a goatskin rigged on a frame with a cord for easy shaking. Others in yellow flowery clothes
> were sorting and cleaning wheat. An old man was killing a lamb against the ground by slowly slitting
> its throat with a big knife. On our way again, we passed occasional mud forts with round towers at
> the corners and straw-topped walls, a black nomad tent here and there, and flowers such as red
> poppies and others resembling the tall, pale asphodels of southern Europe. Twice we overtook camel
> caravans and, more often, saw large flocks of sheep and goats, sometimes near their folds made of
> brambles arranged in a circular corral for defense against the wolves. That these marauders are a real
> menace was evident from the sticks, cudgels and woven slings carried by the shepherds. One of our
> passengers mentioned having been attacked by three wolves this past winter in Azerbaijan while
> walking alone between villages on a pioneering trip, but he took to his heels and, with the help of a
> few stones as missies, somehow managed to reach a house.
> 
> Some of the narrower ravines we passed through, I was told, were favorite haunts of highwaymen
> who frequently robbed and sometimes killed passersby. But the only inhabitants of the area we met
> were goats and black, scrawny cattle and once a dervish or tramp carrying his bowl and bubble pipe
> and standing, curiously enough, next to a whirling dust devil that had sprung up beside the road.
> Looking over some of the garden walls into fig orchards, we could see lush grass growing under the
> trees where, I was told, were thousands of autumn crocuses, the stigma of which make an
> orange-colored threadlike food called saffron commonly used for flavoring Persian stews.
> Lake Nayriz
> After nearly four hours of driving, including a stop to fix a flat tire, we descended from a high pass
> where snow was visible on mountain crags to salty Lake Nayriz about eighty miles long and
> sprawling across a wide, gradual valley surrounded by beautiful rocky mountains, some
> sienna-colored, others ochred, brownish and purplish with overlayers of weathered gray. Igneous
> volcanic mounds rose like small Gibraltars here and there along the lakeside where the ground was
> sometimes streaked in red and often punctuated with small meandering streams which, as we
> approached the town, were seen to be the sources of irrigation projects. Now a few swallows
> skimmed over our heads as we overtook a file of donkeys bearing brush to fuel the bakeries and
> public baths.
> Nayriz, like other Persian towns, is made out of the earth surrounding it so its mud walls perfectly
> match the valley floor. Although almost all the houses are low and flat-roofed, there is one big ancient
> temple, now used as a mosque, that is said to antedate the Muslim era and is a place where God
> presumably was once worshipped only in the form of the sun, moon and stars.
> 
> Fort of Khajih
> We drove directly around the town to the Fort of Khajih on the far outskirts, a holy spot famous for
> the siege of 1850 where illustrious Vahid and his few score of Babi followers held off the Shah's
> army until they were martyred by foul treachery. The fort occupies several acres and is roughly
> square, its walls made of mud with straw for a binder and embedded with stones in a few places, the
> towers rising to about fifteen feet high at the corners. The whole fort now serves as a sort of citadel or
> walled village like Irbil in 'Iraq or Carcassonne in France with many families dwelling there and
> children, donkeys, dogs and chickens moving freely about. The well that Vahid's men dug near the
> gate is still being used and Vahid's own room, at the corner nearest the town from which attack was
> most expected, seems to be just as he left it. It contains a charming little fireplace as well as a brazier
> or sunken Are pit in the brick floor, and the walls are indented with niches in traditional Persian style.
> They appear to be made of plastered mud but sound hollow to a rap as if they had flaked or crumbled
> inside. To the left of the fireplace is a doorway into a dark passage leading to the tower up which
> Vahid was wont to climb to his lookout station in order to keep track of the enemy. Before leaving of
> course we chanted and recited prayers in this quarter of the fort.
> Between the fort and the town is a swift-flowing stream of good, clear mountain water along which
> graceful old willows and plane trees grow, the largest of the planes being famed because Vahid often
> held meetings under it while rallying his men before the siege. The number of his loyal Babi
> followers was pathetically small at first and, it is recorded (in The Dawn Breakers, p. 486) that
> Vahid's second sally against the thousands of troops surrounding the fort numbered only fifteen
> including half a dozen boys and several old men, one of the best of whom was a wiry ninety-year-old
> shoemaker. These inspired heroes actually fought hand-to-hand on this occasion for eight hours in
> darkness, demoralizing the enemy and accounting for sixty dead and more than a hundred seriously
> wounded by dawn.
> There is little sign left of this fierce fighting in the gentle, carpeted plain around the fort where wild
> vetch grows with its fragrant, lavender blossoms, wild mustard, grape hyacinths, Persian clover, wild
> geraniums, silver weed, forget-me-nots, fescue grass (known for its resistance to trampling), wild
> brome grass and mint so pungent you can smell it sometimes in the fort itself. The streams too are in
> bloom now with the small white blossoms of watercress, floating lilies, ferns and knot grass.
> 
> Vahid's Tomb
> After leaving the fort we saw Vahid's tomb with its pointed dome, then walked over to the nearby
> graveyard where, two generations later, the famous eighteen martyrs of 1904 were buried. These
> unfortunates, having attracted attention through their courageous devotion to their Faith, were
> dragged from their homes in Nayriz and brutally killed on the very day that 'Abdu'1-Baha placed the
> holy remains of the Bab in the Shrine on Mount Carmel, about a thousand miles away in Haifa. One
> of us chanted 'Abdu'l-Baha's Tablet of Visitation as we stood at this spot, thinking of the meaning of
> His statement that these eighteen martyrdoms were a sacrifice taken by God on the occasion of the
> arrival of the Bab's remains at His final resting place.
> 
> Another episode in Baha'i history that happened here in 1850 was the arrival of large government
> reinforcements shortly after Vahid's death when the Shah had given orders to exterminate the
> hundreds of Babis still remaining in the region. One Mirza 'All Sardar, who had been chosen to
> succeed Vahid, had already mustered a sizeable company of Babis with the idea of avenging Vahid,
> but, when it became obvious that the Babis could not overwhelm the tens of thousands of soldiers
> with artillery closing in on them, and the fort was clearly too feeble to withstand prolonged
> bombardment with cannonballs, the Babis made a strategic retreat to the mountains and found caves
> with streams to water them. There they built eighteen fortresses in the vertical ravines, visible from
> Nayriz, and there they held off the besiegers for many months, even capturing cannon by bold forays
> and hauling them up the ravines, and of course sending out frequent scouts and messengers to bring
> supplies and information. There were trees all over these mountains at the time, one of the
> commonest kinds being the wild almond which provided much-needed food, and even the valleys
> were wooded here and there, though few trees are left today. But despite these meagre blessings and
> all their courageous efforts, of course the embattled Babis could not withstand the Shah's hordes and
> their constant replacements forever and eventually they suffered their hundreds of separate
> martyrdoms in the long heartrending campaign as the royal troops brutally dragged off women and
> children, usually torturing any men left alive, finally beheading living prisoners and dead bodies alike
> until they had collected some 400 Babi heads to display in their triumphal processions.
> 
> A Meeting of Nayríz
> Leaving the graveyard, we repaired for a sort of picnic lunch in a very beautiful Baha'i garden full
> of trees and swift streams. Besides willows, walnuts and planes, there were many kinds of fruit trees:
> apple, pear, apricot, plum, quince, pomegranate, peach, mulberry, almond and plantains. Under a low,
> old grape arbor on a Persian carpet that literally reached from stream to stream (two of them being
> only eight feet apart), we sat and partook of rice, lamb loaf, salted fish, carrots, paper bread, yogurt
> and water from the streams that seemed really "sweet scented" as they gurgled by in that blossomy
> setting with birds twittering just above us and blue-bodied, black-winged dragonflies alighting on
> green blades that grew out of the water. We saw a turtle plodding through the garden and we ate green
> almonds off the trees. Then for half an hour we lay down and slept on the carpet, some of the Persians
> putting handkerchiefs over their heads for extra shade.
> Before starting back to Shiraz we attended a special Baha'i meeting at the Nayriz Haziratu’l-Quds
> which was crowded with hundreds of eager but rather bewildered-looking people. After prayers, talks
> and some discussion, several children recited poetry, which is as popular in Persia as baseball in
> America, contests in it being broadcast regularly over the radio and TV. For the past two years, I was
> informed with pride, a twenty-two year-old girl in Shiraz has been "national champion" in the poetry
> quoting tournament in which each contestant in turn must quote a line beginning with the last letter of
> the previous line quoted. Indeed public statues in Persia, one is glad to see, are less often of generals
> than of famous poets.
> 
> March 27
> Isfahan
> Isfahan was, until about a century ago, not only the most central but by all odds the largest city of
> Persia, and it still basks in the memory of Shah 'Abbas the Great of the early 17th century who made
> it his capital. It is a city of beautiful turquoise mosques and trees and waterways, many of its
> boulevards having small, flowing canals on both sides as well as four continuous rows of trees that
> local Baha'is call "the flowering of the Bab's Cause" and that consist mostly of planes and poplars
> with here and there a pine, ash or cypress. This naturally gives it something of a pleasant garden
> atmosphere if you don't mind the dust and traffic or the hundreds of drooping telephone wires.
> 
> To the visiting Baha'i the most interesting places are the houses where the Bab stayed during His
> months in the city and the homes and graves of the immortal martyrs. An especially interesting place,
> therefore, is the magnificent home of the famous martyr brothers of Isfahan, Haji Mirza Hasan and
> Haji Mirza Husayn, in which the Bab was also a guest. After visiting the exquisite marble tomb of
> these merchant heroes who died for their Faith in 1879, we made our way through the muddy streets
> and past the camel pens of the bazaar and devious byways full of displayed wares to the secret and
> unpretentious doorway that led to the imposing courtyard and mansion built by their wealthy father
> and where they lived as citizens of the highest reputation all their days. Taking off our wet shoes, we
> walked through handsome hallways, up steep stairs and through room after room with plaster
> moldings, large elaborate mosaics, hand carved panels and great windows with thousands of tiny
> glass panes between muntins of delicate wood. Then finally to an extensive basement of vaulted
> brick, ventilated for cooling in summer, where the Bab had remained in seclusion for many days in
> 1846.
> Yazd—Home of the Seven Martyrs
> My interpreter and I went to Yazd on a crowded bus from Isfahan, the city of trees, and it took six
> hours of bouncing over a rough gravel road as we sped eastward over the Great Salt Desert which is
> flat, dusty and buff-colored in the foreground, sometimes with sparse brown grass or sage clumps,
> white in the distance with a background of lavender mountains against a gray blue sky. I am told
> there are sand dunes up to 700 feet high on this desert, some of them star-shaped as seen from the
> sky.
> Yazd is a city of towers built of sandy mud the color of the desert and has some 65,000 inhabitants.
> It is said to have been founded as a sort of desert concentration camp where Alexander the Great kept
> prisoners captured in this part of Persia, and by the 19th century A.D. it had become the leading
> center of the nation's silk industry but has hardly yet felt any influence of the 20th century. It reveals
> its age in the ubiquitous wind-blown walls of mud, some more than half eaten away by the rasping
> sand storms. There seem to be few birds here beyond hawks, crows and sparrows, but camels are
> common in the streets, plodding ponderously on their splayed sand-shoe hoofs and odd caravans of
> laden cattle thread the mazelike alleys. In fact I saw a boy riding a heifer, sitting atop a big load of
> grain, guiding her with a rope through a hole in her nose. There are few dogs, but cats scuttle through
> the dusty lanes or gaze lynxlike up at you from restaurant floors, hoping patiently for at least a crust
> of bread from tea-drinking, raw-onion-chewing patrons arguing vainly, beads in hand, about their
> brittle problems.
> The Baha'is of Yazd have a large Haziratu'1-Quds with well-tended gardens and a wide view of the
> city from the roof, revealing its distinctive feature of numerous ventilating towers described by Prof.
> E. G. Browne in 1888 in his A Year Among the Persians and still important for cooling water
> reservoirs and summer sleeping cellars. Beyond a few salty dunes in the distance one can see snowy
> mountains, while in the foreground one's eye catches a black flag Buttering on a high pole above a
> structure being built just beyond the Hazira gate. This will be a mosque and local Baha'is surmise that
> it was put there to counteract the influence of our growing "heresy."
> Among the martyrs' graves shown us in a brief tour of the city was a particularly sacred burial spot:
> the well where the bodies of the famed "seven Martyrs of Yazd" were dumped in 1890 after they had
> been judicially condemned as Baha'is by the city government and each man handed over to a separate
> group of executioners to be tortured and killed as they wished in public squares and markets. Later I
> was led by a cautious Baha'i, walking 100 feet ahead (to avoid seeming associated with a earner
> a-wielding foreigner), to most of the seven places of martyrdom, some of them inside the vast
> covered bazaar full of merchants and bustling people in the center of the city. After the mutilated
> bodies showed no more signs of life, we were told, they were dragged by their feet in a proud
> procession through the main streets, then by a route unchanged in three quarters of a century out to
> the appointed well for disposal. An artisan was drying adobe bricks at one place in that road,
> spreading them out in the sun just as has been done for thousands of years. The holy well is still
> unmarked to avoid provoking local mullas, the Muslim "priests" who continue to be very suspicious
> and belligerent toward Baha'is here, but the surrounding land is owned by believers who have made it
> into a beautiful rose and pine garden.
> The House of Quddus in Mashhad
> Mashhad is the biggest city in northeastern Persia and lies close to where that country joins
> Afghanistan on the east and Turkistan (part of the Soviet Union) on the north. Turkistan, east of the
> Caspian Sea, is where the horse is presumed to have been first domesticated (around 4000 B.C.) and
> its principal city is 'Ishqabad where the first Baha'i temple was erected shortly after the turn of the
> century.
> Though close to the Great Salt Desert, Mashhad is not a desert city like Yazd but in fact is quite lush
> and fertile, particularly in winter and spring when it enjoys frequent rains. When I landed here today
> by plane with my interpreter, a retired major general, a shower had just washed the dusty streets and
> the cotton and sugar beet fields were green and fruit orchards coming into blossom on the
> surrounding broad plain. As a Baha'i friend drove us to town along poplar-lined roads, we could see
> also numerous mulberry trees which provide the principal raw material (worm food) for the silk
> industry. As we reached the first squared-off blocks of houses and approached the heart of the city its
> oriental character became apparent in the loose turbans of white cloth commonly worn like coiled
> dish towels with one end dangling in back. Lots of faces are Mongoloid and some almost Chinese
> though often very dark of skin. Exotic street scenes include camels being led under the plane trees
> beside the small canal separating the two sides of one of the main double streets, a cluster of youths
> betting coins on which of the six numbered faces of spinning brass top will end uppermost, a file of
> seven porters with huge trays of cakes and sweets on their heads hurrying to a wedding feast, three
> old men haggling in a radish market in front of six-foot piles of radishes, a large crowd of pilgrims
> with bulky bundles awaiting a bus to start them on a month-long journey to Mecca and back, and two
> mullas at the door of a mosque greeting each other with respectful salaams (bowing with hand over
> heart) and conversing quietly with palms-up gestures and bland, benign expressions.
> 
> House of Babiyyih
> The most important thing for a visiting Baha'i to see in Mashhad is the famous house of Babiyyih
> built by Mulla Husayn at the behest of Quddus before they went to Fort Tabarsi and which may be
> said to be the first building on Earth constructed as a Haziratu'1-Quds (which means in Persian "The
> Sacred Fold"). So we went there by way of a street with poplars so light in color they seemed to be
> birch trees. When we got to a muddy alley in the immediate neighborhood (apparently near the
> southeastern edge of town), we separated as a normal precaution against attracting attention, and
> walked quietly ahead past several women in black chadurs and a couple of squatting beggars, filing
> inconspicuously through a narrow gate to find ourselves suddenly in the garden of Babiyyih. It was
> also a sort of courtyard perhaps fifty feet square surrounded by low, unpretentious buildings that
> would have seemed very ordinary to one unacquainted with their history. But to us of course these
> structures had a magical quality for we recalled that this area was open grass land in the spring of
> 1848 when Mulla Husayn, who had just arrived on foot from visiting the Bab in Mah-Ku some 1200
> miles away, chose the lot of land, bought it early in May and, with his own hands and probably those
> of a few helpers, built the houses by the end of June in time to move in, along with Quddus, and held
> many important meetings there during the first three weeks of July — for on July 21 both these
> heroes left, at the Bab's command, for their glorious destiny at Fort Tabarsi from which they would
> never return.
> 
> Mulla Husayn, we were told, lived in the larger quarters on the north side of the courtyard and slept
> in a bedroom about nine by twelve feet with an eleven-foot wooden ceiling, the walls indented with
> double rows of niches in traditional style except that the upper ones have unusually fancy pointed
> arches at the top. The main meeting room is approximately fourteen by twelve feet but here the
> niches are rounded at the top, a small fireplace is in an alcove to the rear (north wall), while three
> outside doors and two small windows open on the courtyard. Quddus occupied the humbler south
> side of the courtyard with lower (ten-foot) ceiling and only a single row of oblong niches. His room
> was originally rectangular, I am told, but due to later construction of a street on the south side of the
> property, has now been reduced to a wedge shape with a single outside door and two little windows
> facing the courtyard. The storeroom of the north building, which could also serve as a hiding place in
> time of danger, is a windowless, dark closet about nine by six feet behind Mulla Husayn's bedroom.
> The relatively ample courtyard has at least one old tree possibly planted by Mulla Husayn himself,
> in which a turtle dove was sitting most of the time we were there. The Persians call it an "anob" tree
> and its edible fruit consists of orange-colored, one-inch "beans" that look something like rose hips.
> There are also several young pine trees in the garden, some pears in blossom, a grape arbor, lots of
> roses and a central pool, while poplars are visible rising here and there above the low flat roofs from
> outside.
> The custodian of this holy house is a very dark and wizened old man with a gentle face named
> Gholam Husayn Bidari, which seems appropriate as Bidari means "ever awake" which he must be to
> maintain such a well-kept garden and buildings despite the hostile Muslim neighbors all around. He
> is a mason by trade and has the distinction of having actually worked on construction of the Baha'i
> temple in 'Ishqabad more than sixty years ago. The street outside this sacred house and garden is
> traditionally known as Babiyyfli Street and many still call it that although the Muslims, trying to
> erase its memory, have troubled themselves to give it some other name.
> 
> The Story of a Baha'i in Mashhad
> Repairing to another part of the city, my guides took me to call on a seventy-four year old sick
> Baha'i who honored me with tearful kisses and told such a touching story that I cannot bear not to
> repeat it, nor is it possible to forget how he looked as he sat on the edge of his bed in his black
> bathrobe and woolen sailor's cap atop his greasy, unshaven but enraptured face. It seems that his
> father, a Muslim, had wanted him to become a droshky driver when he was in his teens and,
> discovering that he preferred to take up reading and writing, violently opposed this outlandish idea on
> the ground that it might lead to his becoming a Babi, as these "scheming heretics" were still called in
> many parts of Persia. The boy had never heard the name Babi before but somehow it fascinated him
> despite the evil implication his father gave it, so he secretly bided his time to learn more about these
> dangerous literary monsters. A few years later when he was a servant in the great household of the
> Grand Vazir in Tihran he chanced to be scolded for not being able to read, and again he thought how
> wonderful it would be if only he could comprehend a book and he hoped he could find someone,
> even a Babi, who might teach him this unimaginable magic.
> Shortly thereafter he found himself jobless and semi-starving in Rasht on the Caspian Sea where
> one night he dreamed he met a holy man with blue eyes and a white beard who smiled on him and
> asked if he needed any help. "O yes," replied the hungry youth, clutching the old man's robe. "Then
> you must be patient," said the old man and he repeated this for what seemed a long time eventually
> introducing him to a man who, he said, would presently offer him an important job. The young man
> did not know how much he could trust this curious dream but a few weeks afterward he was
> overjoyed to encounter in a narrow alley of the bazaar the very man he had been introduced to and,
> better still, the man recognized him in return and, comparing accounts, they discovered they had both
> had the same dream at the same time. And by this means the youth got a job which led to his being
> taught to read and write, through which he discovered the Baha'i Faith and heard that the holy man of
> his dream was 'Abdu'l-Baha. By this time he was a successful merchant and his life took on a whole
> new purpose, much of which was evident from the attractive pictures still on his walls and the large
> library of books behind glass-fronted bookcases and his oft-expressed praise of God for all his
> blessings, one of them being that his daughter in dying had dreamed she was about to be a guest of
> 'Abdu'1-Baha. Perhaps he was gladdest of all, however, in knowing that his Muslim neighbors had
> come to appreciate his character and deeds and one of them had even allowed he was absolutely sure
> he was a "good man" despite his being a Baha'i.
> 
> The next afternoon we were in our hotel when a messenger arrived to inform us that a local Baha'i
> farmer with a Muslim wife had just been molested by her fanatical brothers abducting her and
> threatening to kill her if she tried to return to him or their three children. They also destroyed his
> crops and commandeered his farm, hoping thus to make him destitute, and when he appealed to the
> police they refused to listen to him, even kicking him out the door as a "filthy Baha'i" ...
> My interpreter, a member of the Persian National Assembly and a respected military figure who
> outranked the brigadier general responsible for the Mashhad police, immediately took action to right
> the wrong — with the result that the farmer is likely at least to get his farm back, though extracting
> the wife unharmed from her bitter family is another thing again. Such occurrences unfortunately are
> still only too common in Persia.
> Journey Through Northern Iran
> by Guy Murchie
> 
> Editorial Note: This is another in a series of articles written by Guy Murchie from his diary kept on
> his travels to Irán in 1964 and printed with the permission of the Universal House of Justice. The
> photos were taken by Sir. Murchie.
> 
> April
> Babel
> In Babol, which was called Barfurush last century and is located near the southern shore of the
> Caspian Sea, we visited places sacred to the memory of Quddus, who was born, lived and died here
> and ranked second only to the Bab Himself in the Babi Cause. Here too is the old caravanseri to
> Sabzih-Maydan where Mulla Husayn's band of Babis foregathered preparatory to going to Fort
> Tabarsi, during which meeting three of them were shot dead by Muslims while sounding the adhan or
> call to prayer (at his command) from the roof. The third Babi was just able to finish it before he fell
> (see The Dawn Breakers p. 337-38)-The Thursday Bazaar here, where some of the martyrdoms took
> place, still follows its ancient tradition of having a market day for peasants of the region every
> Thursday, just as neighboring towns meet on other days of the week. Yet today, a Tuesday, we passed
> fish lying displayed on the sidewalks and 30 ducks waddling loose in the fowl market followed by
> geese, chickens and a few turkeys. At a 400-year-old mosque near by several dozen sheep huddled
> just outside the open door through which we could see and hear the solemn funeral chants going on
> for the chief mulla who died on Sunday.
> Near the edge of town we walked through a park and broad square that cover what on May 16,
> 1849 was a prairie of long grass where Quddus in chains was tortured and paraded naked before a
> savage crowd before being torn to pieces and burned at the Sabzih-Maydan. Orange trees, palms and
> stately pines decorate the park where the heirs of that awful carnage today stroll heedlessly under the
> blue sky, enjoying a peace that Quddus, among many others, died to give them.
> 
> April 8
> Amul
> Approaching Amul, some 25 miles west of Babol on the Caspian coast, we drove along a road lined
> with beautiful old pollared willows, figs, mulberry trees and poplars, here and there farmers plowing
> with black oxen in paddy fields and in one place a woman carrying a basket of fish on one arm and a
> baby in the other. We stopped in the town in a deserted square (about 50 yards on each side) where
> stood the old mosque and courtyard where Baha'u'llah was bastinadoed some 115 years ago. The
> brick building had been turned into a mosque, we were told, in 1839, and now has a rather thick
> octagonal minaret, but the basic structure is much older and before it was a mosque it served as a
> theatre, whose painted murals of mounted saints on parade and birds fighting in a rose garden are still
> plain to see.
> 
> Mazindarán
> It was in the court behind the mosque evidently that Baha'u'llah was subjected to the torture, which
> consists of having one's feet tied in a raised position by ropes while one lies on one's back on the
> ground, the bare soles then whacked with rods (often of stout bamboo) until they are a bloody pulp.
> The acting governor of Amul had ordered the bastinadoing to appease a crowd of fanatical siyyids
> who were demanding the death of this "heretic." But the acting governor secretly sympathized with
> Baha'u'llah and, after the punishment, had Him led through one of the big grilled doors of the mosque
> and imprisoned in a corner room out of which, by quietly opening a hole in a wall at night, he
> conducted Him to the safety of his own home. A gentle rain, typical of Mazindaran province, was
> falling as we looked around the mosque and soon the old orange tree in the courtyard started dripping
> as if weeping from its memory of this brutal blasphemy of so long ago, while a broad-tailed hawk
> slowly circled like an unassailable seraph far overhead. We ended our visit to Amul with a look at the
> 165-year-old bridge of twelve pointed arches over the Haras River and from which a Babi named
> Mulla Nematollah from Fort Tabarsi was thrown limb by limb into the water to a death which, if only
> his murderers could have realized it, was not the oblivion they intended but rather a glorious
> immortality.
> 
> April 15
> Qazvin
> Qazvin, 80 miles west of Tihran, is the native city of Tahirih and was once so prominent it was the
> capital of the country and even the great Caspian Sea derived its name from it. As we walked through
> its now poorly-kept streets to visit the ruins of her father's house, the most distinctive feature of the
> town seemed to be the extraordinary tameness of the crows, both black and gray ones, cawing and
> napping among the poplar trees and walking the mud walls on every hand. Although they are
> probably the commonest birds in Persia, elsewhere in the country they behave about as shy as crows
> in America — yet, for some reason, here they are almost like park pigeons, walking the streets with
> the people and sitting confidently on fenceposts within a foot of passersby. And their nests are
> tenement rooker-ies, sometimes a hundred to a single great poplar, touching each other and
> continuing downward in tiers to within three feet of the ground. Could it be that, in some mysterious
> way, these birds have inherited a faint influence from Tahirih's audacious casting off of her chadur
> veil?
> The first place we stopped was inside a large garden owned by Baha'is that Baha'u'llah Himself
> approved as the site for a future temple. And next door was a house containing a vaulted brick cellar
> with a closet in which Tahirih once hid for three days when Muslim fanatics were seeking to kill her.
> Perhaps half a mile farther on we drew near to the large house where Tahirih grew up but we had
> difficulty getting to it because what is left is now surrounded by Muslim neighbors and a mosque.
> But at length, after inquiries at several doors, we were admitted by a round-about route through two
> other houses and entered a roofless area of perhaps half an acre of ruins surrounding an overgrown
> garden. We took a couple of pictures of the partly demolished rows of wall niches, some of which
> may once have held books of the extensive library that extraordinary woman grew up with, and could
> imagine her walking gracefully through the long halls or writing an ode under a mulberry tree beside
> the fountain. As we left, a youngish man approached from a dark passage shouting, "Why are they
> taking pictures of the house? Is it a shrine of the heretics?" His fanatical rancor alarmed my guides
> enough so that they hastily summoned a cab and we departed the area, forcefully reminded by this
> rabble-rousing demonstration that enemies of the new age are still all too plentiful and ready with
> their brickbats, hardly yet much less dangerous than they were in the days of "the Pure One" herself.
> As my interpreter and I rode out of Qazvin on a ramshackle bus for Zanjan 100 miles further
> northwest, we soon left the wooded region west of the town which is covered with pistachio and
> walnut orchards almost as dense as a forest while numerous flocks of white sheep and black goats
> graze under the trees. People also rode by on donkeys, well wrapped against the north wind, and
> occasionally the bus stopped to pick up some ill-kempt wayfarer, such as one who entered crying
> "Praise be to Muhammad!" to which the other passengers responded with a sort of cheering shout in
> unison. As we careened westward over the wash-boarded gravel, wallowing through mud holes and
> fording many small rivers, the wheat and barley land gave way to sparse brown grass with the
> inevitable poplars and willows only in stream beds but, more and more often, a scraggly vineyard
> harboring a busy platoon of crows. Several times we passed camel caravans, plodding over the
> yellow earth, and in one of them rode a new-born baby camel tied into a snug bundle upon his
> mother's back. Later we saw two dozen brownish vultures homing in on a camel carcass at which as
> many more were already feeding.
>
> — *A Visit to Persia (Used by permission of the curator)*