The Chosen Highway/Sakínih-Sultán Khánum

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THE SPOKEN CHRONICLES

SAKinIH-SULTAN KHANUM told me other details of this time:

My husband, Jindbi-Zayn, was exiled from Tihran for being a Babi. We came to join these, whose happiness it was to live near Baha’u’llah at Baghdad. When He was taken away for “an unknown destination,” we were of those who were bidden to remain.

At length, the time arrived when we were all to be driven forth. Jinabi-Zayn, who was a very learned man, incurred the especially malicious fury of the mob, which, in spite of the protection of the Governor, and incited by the fanatics, took every opportunity of injuring us.

They seized him, and scourged him severely. He, however, in company with a friend, escaped from Baghdad.

The infuriated mob seized all our belongings, so that we were able to save very few necessaries for the journey.

As we left the city, the people, filled with the hatred of bigotry, danced before us beating drums, and with other clashing noises the din was terrible. Those that went before, and those who followed after, shouted, yelled curses, and stoned us.

Thus we were driven forth in a headlong flight, the stones wounding many of us; the soldiers, who were supposed to protect us, being powerless to do so in the face of such unbridled fury.

As we fled, we lost many of our belongings, which we had with difficulty saved out of our looted and wrecked homes.

Many fell and were kicked and otherwise hurt; my poor sister had a knife stuck through her arm; a lady, riding on a mule, with her baby in the éakht-i-ravdn (similar to a howdah) found that, in the confusion of the flight, the dear infant had gone!

At her entreaty, friends went back and found the sweet, wee girl, lying unhurt on the road; she was smiling, having been protected by her voluminous swaddling clothes.

K 129 [Page 130]THE CHOSEN HIGHWAY

We suffered much on this journey, both from hunger and thirst, having succeeded in bringing very little food with us in the turmoil of our departure.

The villages through which we passed were filled with bitter enemies, who reviled us, spat upon us, stoned us, rushed at us with sticks, yelling “Let the infidels die of hunger and thirst, let them die.”

When we arrived at Mosul, the people of the town behaved in the same unfriendly manner, so that our condition was deplorable.

However, being locked into the Khan (the inn) to save us from injury from the people, the Vali, at the request of the Governor of Baghdad, had some food and water taken to us.

Eventually my husband and his friend arrived in so terrible a plight that we were aghast, and despaired for their lives.

Having escaped from Baghdad, they lost their way in the wilderness. So filled with malignity were the people they encountered, that they dared not ask their way, nor for food nor for water. Their sufferings were beyond description; driven by hunger and appalling thirst to venture near a village, the people rushed out to kill them, and they had to turn and flee for their lives.

Then, with strength almost gone, they reached Mosul.

They were brought to the Khan.

Five days they had struggled on without a drop of water; their tongues were badly swollen; they seemed about to die! We gave them what care we could, and they recovered.

The exiles at Mosul began to call my husband the “Father of the Exiles.”

He was not able to do much to mitigate their misery, for all our belongings had been taken from us.

News had been taken to the “King of the Martyred” at Isfahan, explaining the plight of the Babis at Mosul. He, with his usual kindness and generosity, promptly sent corn and other help to them, conditions thereby being vastly improved.

Stray fugitives, escaping from threatened death in Persia, joined us from time to time, until we were about one hundred and eighty persons.

These exiles gradually made their way to ‘Akka and to Haifa.

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