December 1852: Bahá’u’lláh was released from Siyáh-Chál

The Prisoner was eventually released from His confinement, and was able to unfold and establish, beyond the confines of the kingdom of her son, a sovereignty the possibility of which she could never even have dreamed of. The blood shed in the course of that fateful year in Tihrán by that heroic band with whom Bahá’u’lláh had been imprisoned, was the ransom paid for His deliverance from the hand of a foe that sought to prevent Him from achieving the purpose for which God had destined Him. Ever since the time He espoused the Cause of the Báb, He had never neglected one single occasion to champion the Faith He had embraced. He had exposed Himself to the perils which the followers of the Faith had to face in its early days. He was the first of the Báb’s disciples to set the example of renunciation and service to the Cause. Yet His life, beset as it was by the risks and dangers that a career such as His was sure to encounter, was spared by that same Providence who had chosen Him for a task which He, in His wisdom, deemed it as yet too soon to proclaim publicly. 

- Nabil  (‘The Dawn-Breakers’, translated and edited by Shoghi Effendi)

August - December 1852: Bahá’u’lláh’s “imprisonment lasted for a period of no less than four months”

The attempt on the life of Náiri’d-Dín Sháh, as stated in a previous chapter, was made on the 28th of the month of Shavvál, 1268 A.H., corresponding to the 15th of August, 1852. Immediately after, Bahá’u’lláh was arrested in Níyávarán, was conducted with the greatest ignominy to Tihrán and cast into the Síyáh-Chál. His imprisonment lasted for a period of no less than four months, in the middle of which the “year nine” (1269), anticipated in such glowing terms by the Báb, and alluded to as the year “after Ḥín” by Shaykh Ahmad-i-Ahsá’í, was ushered in, endowing with undreamt-of potentialities the whole world. Two months after that year was born, Bahá’u’lláh, the purpose of His imprisonment now accomplished, was released from His confinement, and set out, a month later, for Baghdád, on the first stage of a memorable and life-long exile which was to carry Him, in the course of years, as far as Adrianople in European Turkey, and which was to end with His twenty-four years’ incarceration in ‘Akká. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’)

Bahá’u’lláh met the Grand Vizir, Mírzá Áqá Khán, immediately following His release from Síyáh-Chál

No sooner had He presented Himself before them than the Grand Vizir addressed Him saying: “Had you chosen to take my advice, and had you dissociated yourself from the Faith of the Siyyid-i-Báb, you would never have suffered the pains and indignities that have been heaped upon you.” “Had you, in your turn,” Bahá’u’lláh retorted, “followed My counsels, the affairs of the government would not have reached so critical a stage.” Mírzá Áqá Khán was thereupon reminded of the conversation he had had with Him on the occasion of the Báb’s martyrdom, when he had been warned that “the flame that has been kindled will blaze forth more fiercely than ever.” “What is it that you advise me now to do?” he inquired from Bahá’u’lláh. “Command the governors of the realm,” was the instant reply, “to cease shedding the blood of the innocent, to cease plundering their property, to cease dishonoring their women, and injuring their children.” That same day the Grand Vizir acted on the advice thus given him; but any effect it had, as the course of subsequent events amply demonstrated, proved to be momentary and negligible. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’)

The order for Bahá’u’lláh’s release from Síyáh-Chál was delivered to Him

With such overwhelming testimonies establishing beyond the shadow of a doubt the non-complicity of Bahá’u’lláh, the Grand Vizir, after having secured the reluctant consent of his sovereign to set free his Captive, was now in a position to dispatch his trusted representative, Hájí ‘Alí, to the Síyáh-Chál, instructing him to deliver to Bahá’u’lláh the order for His release. The sight which that emissary beheld upon his arrival evoked in him such anger that he cursed his master for the shameful treatment of a man of such high position and stainless renown. Removing his mantle from his shoulders he presented it to Bahá’u’lláh, entreating Him to wear it when in the presence of the Minister and his counsellors, a request which He emphatically refused, preferring to appear, attired in the garb of a prisoner, before the members of the Imperial government. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’)

Circumstances resulting in Bahá’u’lláh’s release from Síyáh-Chál

Now that He [Bahá’u’lláh] had been invested, in consequence of that potent dream, with the power and sovereign authority associated with His Divine mission, His deliverance from a confinement that had achieved its purpose, and which if prolonged would have completely fettered Him in the exercise of His newly-bestowed functions, became not only inevitable, but imperative and urgent. Nor were the means and instruments lacking whereby his emancipation from the shackles that restrained Him could be effected. 

• The persistent and decisive intervention of the Russian Minister, Prince Dolgorouki, who left no stone unturned to establish the innocence of Bahá’u’lláh; 
• the public confession of Mullá Shaykh ‘Alíy-i-Turshízí, surnamed ‘Azím, who, in the Síyáh-Chál, in the presence of the Hájibu’d-Dawlih and the Russian Minister’s interpreter and of the government’s representative, emphatically exonerated Him, and acknowledged his own complicity; 
• the indisputable testimony established by competent tribunals; 
• the unrelaxing efforts exerted by His own brothers, sisters and kindred,

—all these combined to effect His ultimate deliverance from the hands of His rapacious enemies. 

• Another potent if less evident influence which must be acknowledged as having had a share in His liberation was the fate suffered by so large a number of His self-sacrificing fellow-disciples who languished with Him in that same prison. For, as Nabíl truly remarks, “the blood, shed in the course of that fateful year in Tihrán by that heroic band with whom Bahá’u’lláh had been imprisoned, was the ransom paid for His deliverance from the hand of a foe that sought to prevent Him from achieving the purpose for which God had destined Him.” 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’)

“the ‘Most Great Spirit’ proclaimed His (Bahá’u’lláh’s) mission to the entire creation”

In His Súratu’l-Haykal (the Súrih of the Temple) He thus describes those breathless moments when the Maiden, symbolizing the “Most Great Spirit” proclaimed His mission to the entire creation: 

“While engulfed in tribulations I heard a most wondrous, a most sweet voice, calling above My head. Turning My face, I beheld a Maiden—the embodiment of the remembrance of the name of My Lord—suspended in the air before Me. So rejoiced was she in her very soul that her countenance shone with the ornament of the good-pleasure of God, and her cheeks glowed with the brightness of the All-Merciful. Betwixt earth and heaven she was raising a call which captivated the hearts and minds of men. She was imparting to both My inward and outer being tidings which rejoiced My soul, and the souls of God’s honored servants. Pointing with her finger unto My head, she addressed all who are in heaven and all who are on earth, saying: ‘By God! This is the Best-Beloved of the worlds, and yet ye comprehend not. This is the Beauty of God amongst you, and the power of His sovereignty within you, could ye but understand. This is the Mystery of God and His Treasure, the Cause of God and His glory unto all who are in the kingdoms of Revelation and of creation, if ye be of them that perceive.’” (Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Summons of the Lord of Hosts’) 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’)

Bahá’u’lláh “describes, briefly and graphically, the impact of the onrushing force of the Divine Summons upon His entire being”

In another passage He describes, briefly and graphically, the impact of the onrushing force of the Divine Summons upon His entire being—an experience vividly recalling the vision of God that caused Moses to fall in a swoon, and the voice of Gabriel which plunged Muhammad into such consternation that, hurrying to the shelter of His home, He bade His wife, Khadíjih, envelop Him in His mantle. “During the days I lay in the prison of Tihrán,” are His own memorable words, “though the galling weight of the chains and the stench-filled air allowed Me but little sleep, still in those infrequent moments of slumber I felt as if something flowed from the crown of My head over My breast, even as a mighty torrent that precipitateth itself upon the earth from the summit of a lofty mountain. Every limb of My body would, as a result, be set afire. At such moments My tongue recited what no man could bear to hear.” (Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Epistle to the Son of the Wolf’) 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’)

“a Revelation was…born amidst the darkness of a subterranean dungeon in Tihrán”

A Revelation, hailed as the promise and crowning glory of past ages and centuries, as the consummation of all the Dispensations within the Adamic Cycle, inaugurating an era of at least a thousand years’ duration, and a cycle destined to last no less than five thousand centuries, signalizing the end of the Prophetic Era and the beginning of the Era of Fulfillment, unsurpassed alike in the duration of its Author’s ministry and the fecundity and splendor of His mission—such a Revelation was…born amidst the darkness of a subterranean dungeon in Tihrán—an abominable pit that had once served as a reservoir of water for one of the public baths of the city. Wrapped in its stygian gloom, breathing its fetid air, numbed by its humid and icy atmosphere, His feet in stocks, His neck weighed down by a mighty chain, surrounded by criminals and miscreants of the worst order, oppressed by the consciousness of the terrible blot that had stained the fair name of His beloved Faith, painfully aware of the dire distress that had overtaken its champions, and of the grave dangers that faced the remnant of its followers—at so critical an hour and under such appalling circumstances the “Most Great Spirit,” as designated by Himself, and symbolized in the Zoroastrian, the Mosaic, the Christian, and Muhammadan Dispensations by the Sacred Fire, the Burning Bush, the Dove and the Angel Gabriel respectively, descended upon, and revealed itself, personated by a “Maiden,” to the agonized soul of Bahá’u’lláh. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’)

Bahá’u’lláh’s inspiring dream while in Siyáh-Chál

One night, in a dream, this all-glorious word was heard from all sides: ‘Verily We will aid Thee to triumph by Thyself and by Thy pen. Grieve not for that which hath befallen Thee, and have no fear. Truly Thou art of them that are secure. Ere long shall the Lord send forth and reveal the treasures of the earth, men who shall give Thee the victory by Thyself and by Thy name wherewith the Lord hath revived the hearts of them that know.’” 

- Baha’u’llah  (‘Epistle to the Son of the Wolf’)

While in Siyáh-Chál Bahá’u’lláh “reflected on the condition of the Bábís and their doings and affairs” “By day and by night”

By day and by night, in this prison We reflected on the condition of the Bábís and their doings and affairs, wondering how, notwithstanding their greatness of soul, nobility, and intelligence, they could be capable of such a deed as this audacious attempt on the life of the sovereign. Then did this wronged One determine that, on leaving this prison, He would arise with the utmost endeavour for the regeneration of these souls. 

- Baha’u’llah  (‘Epistle to the Son of the Wolf’)

Bahá’u’lláh was poisoned in the Siyáh-Chál

Animated by a relentless hatred His enemies went even so far as to intercept and poison His food, in the hope of obtaining the favor of the mother of their sovereign, His most implacable foe—an attempt which, though it impaired His health for years to come, failed to achieve its purpose. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’)

The anger of the Sháh’s mother towards Bahá’u’lláh: ““Deliver him to the executioner!” she insistently cried to the authorities.”

All this suffering and the cruel revenge the authorities had taken on those who had attempted the life of their sovereign failed to appease the anger of the Sháh’s mother. Day and night she persisted in her vindictive clamour, demanding the execution of Bahá’u’lláh, whom she still regarded as the real author of the crime. “Deliver him to the executioner!” she insistently cried to the authorities. “What greater humiliation than this, that I, who am the mother of the Sháh, should be powerless to inflict upon that criminal the punishment so dastardly an act deserves!” Her cry for vengeance, which an impotent rage served to intensify, was doomed to remain unanswered. Despite her machinations, Bahá’u’lláh was saved from the fate she had so importunately striven to precipitate. 

- Nabil  (‘The Dawn-Breakers’, translated and edited by Shoghi Effendi)

The very touching circumstances of what preceded the daily martyrdom of each of Bahá’u’lláh’s fellow-prisoners in the Siyáh-Chál

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! Relieved of his chains, he would spring to his feet and, in a state of uncontrollable delight, would approach and embrace Us. We would seek to comfort him with the assurance of an everlasting life in the world beyond, and, filling his heart with hope and joy, would send him forth to win the crown of glory. He would embrace, in turn, the rest of his fellow-prisoners and then proceed to die as dauntlessly as he had lived. 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. 

- Baha’u’llah  (Quoted by Nabil in ‘The Dawn-Breakers’, translated and edited by Shoghi Effendi)

How Bahá’u’lláh and His fellow-prisoners responded to the offer of a tray of roasted meat in the Siyáh-Chál

One day, there was brought to Our prison a tray of roasted meat, which they informed Us the Sháh had ordered to be distributed among the prisoners. ‘The Sháh,’ We were told, ‘faithful to a vow he made, has chosen this day to offer to you all this lamb in fulfilment of his pledge.’ A deep silence fell upon Our companions, who expected Us to make answer on their behalf. ‘We return this gift to you,’ We replied; ‘we can well dispense with this offer.’ The answer We made would have greatly irritated the guards had they not been eager to devour the food we had refused to touch. Despite the hunger with which Our companions were afflicted, only one among them, a certain Mírzá Husayn-i-Matavalliy-i-Qumí, showed any desire to eat of the food the sovereign had chosen to spread before us. With a fortitude that was truly heroic, Our fellow-prisoners submitted, without a murmur, to endure the piteous plight to which they were reduced. Praise of God, instead of complaint of the treatment meted out to them by the Sháh, fell unceasingly from their lips—praise with which they sought to beguile the hardships of a cruel captivity. 

- Baha’u’llah  (Quoted by Nabil in ‘The Dawn-Breakers’, translated and edited by Shoghi Effendi)

Bahá’u’lláh describes the Siyáh-Chál

When We entered the prison, on arrival, they conducted us along a dismal corridor, and thence We descended three steep stairs to the dungeon appointed for Us. The place was dark, and its inmates numbered nearly a hundred and fifty—thieves, assassins, and highway robbers. Holding such a crowd as this, it yet had no outlet but the passage through which We entered. The pen fails to describe this place and putrid stench. Most of the company had neither clothes to wear nor mat to lie on. God knows what We endured in that gloomy and loathsome place! 

- Baha’u’llah  (‘Epistle to the Son of the Wolf’)

Prison system in Persia in the nineteenth century – by Lord Curzon, a British statesman

“Concerning the Persian mode of imprisonment, the practice is as different from our own as in the case of penalties. There is no such thing as penal servitude for life, or even for a term of years; hard labour is unknown as a sentence; and confinement for any lengthy period is rare. There is usually a gaol-delivery at the beginning of the new year; and when a fresh governor is appointed, he not uncommonly empties the prison that may have been filled by his predecessor, one or two of the worst cases, perhaps, suffering the death penalty, in order to create a salutary impression of strength. There is no such thing as a female ward, women being detained, as also are male criminals of high rank, in the house of a priest. In Tihrán there are said to be three kinds of prison the subterranean cells beneath the Ark, where criminals guilty of conspiracy, or high treason are reported to have been confined; the town prison, where the vulgar criminals may be seen with iron collars round their neck, sometimes with their feet in stocks, and attached to each other by iron chains; and the private guard-house, that is frequently an appurtenance of the mansions of the great. It will be seen that the Persian theory of justice, as expressed both in judicial sentences, in the infliction of penalties, and in the prison code, is one of sharp and rapid procedure, whose object is the punishment (in a manner as roughly equivalent as possible to the original offence), but in no sense the reformation, of the culprit.” 

- Lord Curzon  (“Persia and the Persian Question,” vol. i, pp. 458–9.; Footnotes to chapter 26 provided by Shoghi Effendi)

“The chorus of…gladsome voices” by prisoners in the Siyáh-Chál

We were placed in two rows, each facing the other. We had taught them to repeat certain verses which, every night, they chanted with extreme fervour. ‘God is sufficient unto me; He verily is the All-sufficing!’ one row would intone, while the other would reply: ‘In Him let the trusting trust.’ The chorus of these gladsome voices would continue to peal out until the early hours of the morning. Their reverberation would fill the dungeon, and, piercing its massive walls, would reach the ears of Násiri’d-Dín Sháh, whose palace was not far distant from the place where we were imprisoned. ‘What means this sound?’ he was reported to have exclaimed. ‘It is the anthem the Bábís are intoning in their prison,’ they replied. The Sháh made no further remarks, nor did he attempt to restrain the enthusiasm his prisoners, despite the horrors of their confinement, continued to display. 

- Baha’u’llah  (Quoted by Nabil in ‘The Dawn-Breakers’, translated and edited by Shoghi Effendi)

Bahá’u’lláh describes His torments in the Síyáh-Chál to a clergy who had persecuted His followers

O Shaykh! …Shouldst thou at some time happen to visit the dungeon of His Majesty the Shah, ask the director and chief jailer to show thee those two chains, one of which is known as Qara-Guhar, and the other as Salasil. I swear by the Daystar of Justice that for four months this Wronged One was tormented and chained by one or the other of them. "My grief exceedeth all the woes to which Jacob gave vent, and all the afflictions of Job are but a part of My sorrows!" 

- Baha'u'llah  (‘Epistle to the Son of the Wolf’)

Bahiyyih Khanum (Bahá’u’lláh’s daughter) recalls the impact of Bahá’u’lláh’s arrest in Tehran on the family

From our doors nobody was ever turned away; the hospitable board was spread for all comers … 

Whilst the people called my Father 'The Father of the poor', they spoke of my mother as 'The Mother of Consolation', though, naturally, only the women and little children ever looked upon her face unveiled…

One day I remember very well, though I was only six years old at the time. It seemed that an attempt had been made on the life of the Shah by a half-crazy young Babi.

My Father was away at his country house in the viliage of Niyavaran, which was His property, the villagers of which were all and individually cared for by Him.

Suddenly and hurriedly a servant came rushing in great distress to my mother.

'The master, the master, He is arrested - I have seen Him! He has walked many miles! Oh, they have beaten Him. They say He has suffered the torture of the bastinado! His feet are bleeding! He has no shoes on! His turban has gone! His clothes are torn! There are chains upon His neck!’'

My poor mother’s face grew whiter and whiter.

We children were terribly frightened and could only weep bitterly.

Immediately everybody, all our relations, and friends, and servants fled from our house in terror, only one man servant, Isfandiyar, remained, and one woman. Our palace, and the smaller houses belonging to it were very soon stripped of everything; furniture, treasures all were stolen by the people.

Baha’u’llah’s brother, Mirza Musa., who remained faithful throughout his life, helped the distraught mother and her three children to escape and found them a small house near the prison where they could remain in hiding. Asiyih Khanum [Baha’u’llah’s wife] gathered what small treasures she could, such as the gold buttons on her wedding dress, and sold everything to provide money to pay the gaolers to take food to Baha’u’llah and to keep the family alive. 

- Bahiyyih Khanum  (Quoted by lady Blomfield in 'The Chosen Highway'; David Hofman, 'Baha’u’llah the Prince of Peace')