On the afternoon of the second day after the Báb’s
martyrdom, Hájí Sulaymán Khán, son of Yahyá Khán, arrived at Bagh-Míshih, a
suburb of Tabríz, and was received at the house of the Kalantar [Mayor], one of
his friends and confidants, who was a dervish and belonged to the súfí
community.
As soon as he had been informed of the imminent danger that
threatened the life of the Báb, Hájí Sulaymán Khán had left Tihrán with the
object of achieving His deliverance. To his dismay, he arrived too late to
carry out his intention.
No sooner had his host informed him of the circumstances
that had led to the arrest and condemnation of the Báb, and related to him the
events of His martyrdom, than he instantly resolved to carry away the bodies of
the victims, even at the risk of endangering his own life. The Kalantar advised
him to wait and follow his suggestion rather than expose himself to what seemed
to him would be inevitable death. He urged him to transfer his residence to
another house and to wait for the arrival, that evening, of a certain Hájí
Alláh-Yár, who, he said, would be willing to carry out whatever he might wish
him to do.
At the appointed hour, Hájí Sulaymán Khán met Hájí
Alláh-Yár, who succeeded, in the middle of that same night, in bearing the
bodies from the edge of the moat to the silk factory owned by one of the
believers of Milán; laid them, the next day, in a specially constructed wooden
case, and transferred them, according to Hájí Sulaymán Khán’s directions, to a
place of safety. Meanwhile the sentinels sought to justify themselves by
pretending that, while they slept, wild beasts had carried away the
bodies. Their superiors, on their part,
unwilling to compromise their own honour, concealed the truth and did not
divulge it to the authorities.
Hájí Sulaymán Khán immediately reported the matter to
Bahá’u’lláh, who was then in Tihrán and who instructed Áqáy-i-Kalím to despatch
a special messenger to Tabríz for the purpose of transferring the bodies to the
capital. This decision was prompted by the wish the Báb Himself had expressed
in the “Zíyárat-i-Sháh-’Abdu’l-’Azim,” a Tablet He had revealed while in the
neighbourhood of that shrine and which He delivered to a certain Mírzá
Sulaymán-i-Khatib, who was instructed by Him to proceed together with a number
of believers to that spot and to chant it within its precincts.
“Well is it with you,” the Báb addressed the buried saint in
words such as these, in the concluding passages of that Tablet, “to have found
your resting place in Rayy, under the shadow of My Beloved. Would that I might
be entombed within the precincts of that holy ground!” The remains were subsequently transported to
Shrine of Imam-Zadeh Hassan, and from there to a place the site of which remained
secret until the departure of Bahá’u’lláh for Adrianople.
(Adapted from ‘The Dawn-Breakers’, by Nabil, translated and edited by Shoghi Effendi)
