Translation of French Foot-Notes of the Dawn-Breakers/Chapter XV
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CHAPTER XV
Page 268, Note I
“It will surprise no one to learn,” writes Clément Huart, “that the new sect spread more rapidly in _I_{hura'1sé.n than it had anywhere else. I_(hurasan has been singularly fortunate in that she has always offered to new ideas the most propitious field. It is out of this province that came many revolutions which caused fundamental changes in the Muhammadan Orient. It is enough to recall that in _K_h,ura’1san the idea of the Persian renovation originated after the Arabian conquest. It was there likewise that the army was organized which, under the orders of Abfi-Muslim placed the Abbassides upon the throne of the Khalifs by overthrowing the aristocracy of Mecca which had occupied it since the accession of the Umayyads.” (“La Religion de Bab,” pp. 18-19.)
Page 270, Note I “It was in her own family that she heard, for the first time, of the preaching of the Báb at Shíráz and learned the meaning of his doctrines.
38
[Page 39]
TRANSLATION OF FRENCH FOOT-‘NOTES
This knowledge, even incomplete and imperfect as it was, pleased her extremely; she began to correspond with the Báb and soon espoused all his ideas. She did not content herself with a passive sympathy but con fessed openly the faith of her Master. She denounced not only polygamy p
but the use of the veil and showed her face uncovered in public to the great amazement and scandal of her family and of all the sincere Mussulmans but to the applause of many other fellow citizens who shared her enthusiasm and whose numbers grew as a result of her preaching. Her uncle the doctor, her father the jurist, and her husband tried in every way to bring her back at least to a conduct more calm and more reserved. She rebuffed them with arguments inspired by a faith incapable of placid resignation.” (Comte de Gobineau’s “Les Religions et les Philosophies dans l’Asie Cen trale,” pp. 137-138.)
Page 27 5, Note 2
“How could it be that a woman, in Persia where woman is considered so weak a creature, and above all in. a city like Qazvin, where the clergy possessed so great an influence, where the ‘Ulamás, by their number and importanceattracted the attention of the government and of the people,how could it be that tlzere, precisely under such untoward circumstances, a woman could have organized so strong a group of heretics? There lies a question which puzzles even the Persian historian, Sipihr, for such an occurrence was without precedent!” (3‘ournal zfsiatique, 1866, tome 7,
13- 474-)