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World Order

FALL 1973

THE BÁB: ACCOUNTS OF HIS MARTYRDOM

TELECOMMUNICATIONS ADMIISTRATION:

PATTERNS FOR PEACE

Gloria H. Ferguson

NEW WORKERS WITH THE BLIND:

REACTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS

Allan L. Ward

THE PURE IN HEART

Rachel Fort Weller

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World Order

A BAHÁ’Í MAGAZINE • VOLUME 8 NUMBER 1 • PUBLISHED QUARTERLY

WORLD ORDER IS INTENDED TO STIMULATE, INSPIRE AND SERVE THINKING PEOPLE IN THEIR SEARCH TO FIND RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CONTEMPORARY LIFE AND CONTEMPORARY RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS AND PHILOSOPHY

Editorial Board:

FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH

BETTY FISHER

HOWARD GAREY

ROBERT HAYDEN

GLENFORD E. MITCHELL

WORLD ORDER is published quarterly, October, January, April, and July, at 415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois 60091. Subscriber and business correspondence and changes of address should be sent to this address. Manuscripts and other editorial correspondence should be addressed to 2011 Yale Station, New Haven, Connecticut 06520.

The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, or of the Editorial Board. Manuscripts should be typewritten and double spaced throughout, with the footnotes at the end. The contributor should keep a carbon copy. Return postage should be included.

Subscription: USA and Canada, 1 year, $4.50; 2 years, $8.00; single copies, $1.25. All other countries, 1 year, $5.00; 2 years, $9.00; single copes $1.35.

Copyright © 1973, National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, World Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.

ISSN 0043-8804

IN THIS ISSUE

1 Peace—or Absence of War?

Editorial

2 Interchange: Letters to and from the Editor

6 The Báb: Accounts of His Martyrdom

35 Telecommunications Administration:

Patterns for Peace, by Gloria H. Ferguson

48 New Workers with the Blind: Reactions and

Observations, by Allan L. Ward

52 The Pure in Heart

by Rachel Fort Weller

56 The Story of the Báb

a book review by Firuz Kazemzadeh

Inside back cover: Authors and Artists in This Issue

[Page 1]

Peace—or Absence of War?

PEACE is frequently understood to mean an absence of war. Such a negative definition is totally inadequate to the needs of the complex, interdependent, and fragile system of social, economic, and political relationships in which mankind lives. The ingrained desire to preserve the status quo and to prolong “the absence of war,” the very fear of conflict, make men timid, preventing them from seeking fundamental solutions and attacking the root of the problem. The root of the problem is, of course, the outmoded concept of unfettered national sovereignty.

Ages ago man recognized that peace and justice cannot prevail in relations among individuals without there existing a superior authority, that in the absence of law no one’s life is safe and no one’s freedom assured, that no individual can be a judge in his own case. These are simple and obvious truths; yet nations still live in a world without enforceable law, without an international police force, without an international court of compulsory jurisdiction.

Analyzing the world situation from the vantage point of the Bahá’í principle of the unity of mankind, Shoghi Effendi wrote in 1931:

Some form of a world Super-State must needs be evolved, in whose favor all the nations of the world will have willingly ceded every claim to make war, certain rights to impose taxation and all rights to maintain armaments, except for purposes of maintaining internal order within their respective dominions. Such a state will have to include within its orbit an International Executive adequate to enforce supreme and unchallengeable authority on every recalcitrant member of the commonwealth; a World Parliament .. .; and a Supreme Tribunal whose judgment will have a binding effect even in such cases where the parties concerned did not voluntarily agree to submit their case to its consideration. A world community in which all economic barriers will have been permanently demolished and the interdependence of Capital and Labor definitely recognized; in which the clamor of religious fanaticism and strife will have been forever stilled; in which the flame of racial animosity will have been finally extinguished; in which a single code of international law . . . shall have as its sanction the instant and coercive intervention of the combined forces of the federated units; and finally a world community in which the fury of a capricious and militant nationalism will have been transmuted into an abiding consciousness of world citizenship—such indeed, appears, in its broadest outline, the Order anticipated by Bahá’u’lláh, an Order that shall come to be regarded as the fairest fruit of a slowly maturing age.

Thus peace is not a negative quantity, not merely an absence of war. It is rather a new mode of international existence, a new world structure, and a new world ethic. To achieve it in full mankind must embark upon a spiritual adventure without parallel in all history, an adventure destined to culminate in the construction of the first world civilization.

[Page 2]

Interchange LETTERS FROM AND TO THE EDITOR

SINCE THE FIRST publication in WORLD ORDER of a column of Letters to the Editor (Spring 1968) and of Interchange —Letters to and from the Editor (Summer 1968), there has been a continuous and, at times, spirited exchange of ideas between Editors and readers. While the flow of comment has been steady, there have been three publishing events which have evoked extraordinary response. In our Spring 1970 issue we printed the first of two excerpts from E. S. Stevens’ The Mountain of God, referring to it as “a forgotten novel by a forgotten author.” Our careful readers—librarians and historians —soon reminded us that E. S. Stevens was not only not a forgotten author but alive and a famous scholar as well.

Our Fall 1971 issue commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was a special labor of love for the Editors. For months we received notes of gratitude in the form of letters to the Editors and scribbled messages on subscription renewals. The series of articles on the ANISA Model, beginning in Spring 1972, has brought another flood of correspondence—commending and taking issue with the authors, and asking for more information on the educational project.

Now, once again, we find our mailbox flooded. The reason this time is the statement of editorial policy which appeared in our Spring 1973 Interchange. By coincidence our first sampling of letters to the Editors in our Summer 1968 issue reflected the range of response we have received in the last several weeks—the wondering whether the intellectual content is not “perhaps a bit too high for most people to really enjoy” and the thanks for the wide variety of articles and the magazine’s excellence and the hope that “it will develop into a discussion medium of truly cosmopolitan scope that no statesman will dare ignore.”

Below is a sampling—pro and con— from our readers, 1973:

Just a quick line to say “Bravo” to . . . whoever was responsible for the editorial comment concerning the purpose of WORLD ORDER magazine and its “intellectual” content, in the Spring issue. Thank goodness, no capitulation to more “popular” appeal, or what is left? A most lucid presentation, and also kind and original in its explanation of reverse tolerance.

LAILA STORCH FRIEDMAN

Seattle, Washington

I was happy to note in “Interchange” of the Spring, 1973 issue I am not alone in finding much of the text content in the Fall 1972 issue incomprehensible. Of course that one issue was an extreme example of erudite obfuscation, but I have found it to be a valid criticism most of the time. Personally I manage to read about ⅓ of all issues; all texts. The rest are only occasionally interesting but heavy to the point of inducing slumber.

As you state in the Spring ‘73 apology, your intent is to reach the “mind” people who are a sizable minority of this world. I have been accused of being an intellectual snob with some justification, but my careful estimate of about half the past WORLD ORDER texts have been of such esoteric content as to be unpalatable to at least 99% of your subscribers. . . .

EDGAR RUSSELL

Anchorage, Alaska

Thank you for another fine issue of WORLD ORDER [Spring 1973]. It is always a joy to receive, to read, to share.

MOLLY KING

Santa Paula, California

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Having just completed reading my first issue of WORLD ORDER [Spring 1973], I am enchanted!

It is an extremely well-written magazine where Bahá’ís who find great pleasure in the processes of thought may enjoy the interaction of their minds with articles on topics that are bound to interest them.

I especially enjoyed reading Interchange where I found the status of an “intellectual” was given a more pleasing definition than the connotation I had in my mind, while enhancing the role of the emotions in the intellectual life. . . .

I should like to purchase all previous issues. . . .

Thank you for providing this forum on ideas suitable to the formation of the Bahá’í World Order.

MRS. ELLEN SCHOR

Scarsdale, New York

The Spring 1973 issue of WORLD ORDER which recently arrived is truly excellent. Am enclosing check of $5—so that you can send me four more copies.

EDITH SEGEN JOHNSON

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

. . . Bahá’í teachings appeal to all kinds of people, but Bahá’í people more than any other people in the world should improve their own education according to their own ability if they want to participate in the creation of the civilization of which the Faith is the basis. Any Bahá’í who does not understand this sacred duty really needs to deepen in the Writings. An accomplished human being is one who matures equally in the spiritual and the intellectual levels of existence; particularly in our society it is the way to be the most effective as a Bahá’í.

As a Catholic I always thought that Christianity had made the tragic mistake of misunderstanding the social and intellectual implications of Christian love. However it could be said that Christ’s teachings were directed more to the individual than to society. Bahá’ís have no excuse. The Writings are very explicit in defining the responsibility of the individual and of society in the process of spiritual and intellectual growth.

Therefore the Editors of WORLD ORDER do not have to be apologetic to justify their goal and purpose. An intellectual Bahá’í magazine is sorely needed to show the way to Bahá’í communities. If WORLD ORDER didn’t exist, its creation would be an imperative necessity. Personally, I am sorry that it is only a quarterly. I will pay twice as much to have it at least as a bimonthly. As it is, thank you for the good work.

ELIANE A. HOPSON

New York, New York

I have been planning to share my concern about WORLD ORDER with you for some time. Now that I better understand your position from Interchange in the Spring issue, I hope I can more simply and pointedly express mine.

It’s important to start by saying that my husband and I enjoy WORLD ORDER, and the following is based on that premise. I also agree with your internal view—we have people in our Bahá’í and non-Bahá’í society who can appreciate such a publication—therefore the basic aspects of WORLD ORDER must remain, as long as the magazine does.

My main concern is that we in the Bahá’í community need a down-to-earth magazine aimed at perspectives for day-by-day living— becoming a parent, being a wife, being an isolated believer, being a liberal young adult in an old, long established assembly community, raising kids in a mixed marriage home, dealing with teens, challenges at the office, in the community. Anyone could continue on and on. There is a Parents Magazine, Marriage Magazine, This Day, and many others; but something is lacking in them—a Bahá’í perspective. . . .

JUDY ORLOFF

Foxboro, Massachusetts

With regards the “controversy” in your pages concerning intellectuals:

An intellectual is a person who feels that ideas are important in themselves. This is to [Page 4] be distinguished from the conceited intellectual who feels that only his ideas are important and the narrow intellectual who feels that nothing else but ideas is important. However, emotions, love, will, desire, courage, practical sense, and spiritual awareness (to mention a few) are important aspects of life and must also be accorded an intrinsic value. Thus, the narrow or conceited intellectual is wrong because he is unbalanced, giving as he does too little stress to these other important areas of life.

Since balance and moderation are key concepts of Bahá’í morality, it is perhaps only natural that some of your readers might instinctively react with fear that a Bahá’í organ dedicated to ideas might somehow come to reflect this imbalance. Of course, such a legitimate concern could also become exaggerated and give rise to an equally unbalanced anti-intellectual thesis, i.e., that ideas are not important.

I feel that we Bahá’ís must realize that there are many different forms of immoderation, and we must strive to avoid them all. For example, undue stress on the emotional aspect of religious experience can give rise to sentimentalism, evangelism, and fanaticism. Such imbalances have frequently occurred in religious history, and Bahá’u’lláh warns against them. The confusion of emotionality with spirituality is probably just as widespread in present society as is the equally disastrous confusion of intellectualism with knowledge or wisdom. It is easy to keep these distinctions straight when we remind ourselves that spirituality, knowledge, and wisdom come only with conscious character development whereas everyone has emotions and anybody can be an intellectual. Moreover, these former qualities express themselves primarily in the way we act towards other human beings rather than through public expressions of effusive emotion or through verbal dexterity and articulateness.

I can only express my conviction that the Editors of WORLD ORDER seem to be aware of the possibility of imbalance and seem to have taken conscious efforts to avoid it. Every Bahá’í feels strongly impelled to reflect as deeply and as clearly as he can on the meanings and implications which lie within the ocean of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings. I feel that WORLD ORDER has provided an outlet for some of these personal reflections, all the while imposing certain minimal literary standards and maintaining a sense of humor and an openness to criticism. Even though the value of the thought of the authors is not necessarily transcendental, the discipline of trying to articulate one’s vision of the Word to others in a cogent way cannot help but enrich us all.

WILLIAM S. HATCHER

Québec, Canada

One direct implication of the world order toward which civilization is advancing is the casting of its institutions into a new form. Such a transformation involves no less than a total restructuring of the way in which men view the world. All must change, be they laborers, scientists, stenographers, or farmers. Citizenship in a world commonwealth demands rejecting the parochial and embracing the universal. For intellectuals and nonintellectuals alike, WORLD ORDER offers a challenge: both must place aside the narrow view that worth is determined by criteria they themselves construe through the limitation of their understanding and adopt standards set forth by the Manifestation of God.

One such standard affirmed by Bahá’u’lláh for the people of this age is that truth is one regardless of the light from which it shines. Thus, the intellectual must accept happily and with respect the truth that dawns from the heart, while the nonintellectual must embrace and honor the truth revealed by the scientific method. However shallow or tedious the respective methods may seem, the aspiring world citizen must recognize that his vision, because he lives in an age of transition, is immature, and acknowledge humbly, if not with relish, the validity of each approach.

World citizenship in its fullest sense sees neither the intellectual nor nonintellectual. Rather, its vision embraces the intellect, the heart, emotion, and intuition as co-sharers in a legacy endowing man with the stamp of divinity.

May WORLD ORDER continue to assist the aspiring world citizen in negotiating the path leading to a far nobler society by presenting this aspect of the challenge of worldmindedness with its characteristic clarity, quality, and command.

GEOFFRY W. MARKS

Sunderland, Massachusetts

[Page 5]

[Page 6]

The Báb: Accounts of His Martyrdom

INTRODUCTION: On Sunday, July 9, 1850, in the Barracks Square in Tabríz a regiment of army soldiers, carrying out the orders of the government, fired a volley at Siyyid ‘Alí-Muḥammad, the Báb. When the thick cloud of gun smoke cleared away, the vast crowd that had gathered to witness the execution gasped with astonishment: the body of the Báb had vanished from sight. A frantic search was instantly organized by the authorities. Moments later the Báb was found, alive and unharmed, conversing with his amanuensis, Siyyid Ḥusayn-i- Yazdí, in the same room off the Barracks Square, whence He had been led to the execution. The act was repeated. This time the bodies of the Báb and of His disciple, Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí, were riddled with bullets—only the faces remained unmarked.

The news of the unique circumstances of the martyrdom spread throughout Persia and abroad. Foreign diplomats, frequently ignorant of Persian affairs, relying almost exclusively on information supplied by their Persian dragomans or by the very government that had ordered the execution, sent home inaccurate dispatches which produced more confusion than knowledge in European capitals. Qájár historians, familiar with the rules of their art, did not bother to verify the rumors they picked up from officials. One had to please the sovereign who rewarded generously but punished severely. Western writers, searching for facts a few years later, found themselves dependent upon largely unreliable sources. Only toward the end of the nineteenth century did European scholars begin to gather materials of a more substantial nature—histories and reminiscences written by the Bábís themselves.

Over the years a number of accounts of the Báb’s martyrdom have been translated and published in Britain and the United States. The Cambridge Orientalist Edward G. Browne, for example, was especially diligent in publishing Bábí-Bahá’í literature. However most of the sources remain unavailable to Western readers. The editors of WORLD ORDER have therefore put together a number of selections dealing with the tragic event of July 9, 1850. With the exception of Sheil’s account, which appears in its original form, and of Nabíl’s narrative, these have never appeared in English and have been newly translated for publication in this issue.

The first selection is a dispatch from the British Minister in Ṭihrán, Justin Sheil, to Lord Palmerston, Britain’s Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Like his Russian colleague, Prince Dolgorukov, Sheil was poorly informed about the origin and the Teachings of the movement whose Founder had suffered death in the Barracks Square. His reports were replete with obvious errors of fact and interpretation. Wild rumors were served up as established truth, the most far-fetched speculations were offered as considered opinions on the motives, methods, and goals of the Bábís. One must, of course, remember that European diplomats initially derived all their information about the new religion either from its bitterest opponents or from unverified and unreliable rumors that [Page 7] circulated in the bazaars of the capital. Only gradually did they accumulate a body of facts that enabled them to revise their first impressions drastically and to convey to their respective governments a less distorted picture of events.

In his dispatch of July 22, 1850, Sheil gives a confused account of a letter received from Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí of Zanján in which the latter purportedly declared “that he had been falsely accused of Bâbeeism.” The entire career of Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí, who was not even mentioned by name in Sheil’s dispatch, stands as a refutation of such an allegation. In a later dispatch Sheil will even report that Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí “has the reputation of having proclaimed himself to be the true Báb, and his predecessor to have been an impostor.” The concluding three paragraphs of Sheil’s dispatch have no relation to the Bábí movement, disturbances and minor uprisings having been for centuries regular occurrences in the provinces of Persia.

The most interesting part of this document is the second paragraph in which the Minister gives Palmerston the substance of a report recently received from Tabríz. Tersely and virtually without comment Sheil records the fact that the Báb was not killed by the first volley of musketry. One would imagine that such an incredible occurrence would be precisely the point on which all the accounts would disagree. Yet it is the one fact that no account disputes, the one element of the story that is reported identically by everyone.

Our second selection is an excerpt from the third volume of Násikhu’t taváríkh (Abolition of Histories), written by Naṣiri’d-Dín Sháh’s court historian, Mírzá Taqí Khán-i-Lisánu’l-Mulk-i-Sipihr, and first published in Ṭihrán in 1858, which suffices to explain the obvious bias of this narrative. Court chroniclers were employees of the Sovereign and performed a function similar to that of court poets: panegyrizing the monarch and his reign. By virtue of being the official history, Násikhu’t taváríkh formed the basis of many subsequent accounts of the inception of the Bábí Faith and the martyrdom of the Báb. Its influence on foreign scholars such as Comte de Gobineau and Mírzá Kazem-Bek is unmistakable. Of course, no Persian historian, writing after the publication of this work, could ignore it or escape its influence.

Unfortunately Sipihr was not only biased but frequently ignorant as well. For example he writes that three divines issued opinions (fatvá) calling for the Báb’s execution: Hájí Mírzá Báqir, Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí-yi-Mamaqání, and Siyyid ‘Alí-yi-Zunúzí. The fact is that Siyyid ‘Alí-yi-Zunúzí took no part in the proceedings, except for his repeated attempts to save his stepson, the Báb’s disciple and fellow martyr, Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí, surnamed Anís. The learned historian ‘As’adu’lláh Faḍil-i-Mázindarání states that shortly before the martyrdom Siyyid ‘Alí wrote to his stepson that though Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí’s adherence to the Báb humiliated his stepfather, he wanted to give his stepson paternal advice: “do not be afraid and do not despair because of having adhered to the Siyyid-i-Báb, for it is human to err. You have made a mistake, but the door of repentence and forgiveness is open. Should you repent, your dignity will not diminish, and I will save you.” In reply Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí [Page 8] quoted a couplet from Ḥáfiz saying that he, the wise lover, would indeed have to seek God’s pardon, if he repented of his love. Angered and distressed though he was by this answer, Siyyid ‘Alí-yi-Zunúzí did not give up his efforts to save his stepson whom he had educated in religion and to whom he was deeply attached. Though he failed to save his stepson, he took no part in the persecution and was in no way responsible for the martyrdom of the Báb and of Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in A Traveller’s Narrative and Nabíl in The Dawn-Breakers state that the third mujtahid to sign the Báb’s death warrant was Mullá Murtaḍá-Qulí.

In spite of these and other inaccuracies, Sipihr, like Sheil, confirms the fact that the first volley fired at the Báb did not hurt Him though it allegedly killed Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí. Beyond this point Sipihr’s story becomes virtually incoherent. Thus, having stated that the first volley killed the Báb’s faithful disciple, he, in the next sentence, says that Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí “was wounded.” Wounded? Was he not killed by the volley? That same volley was supposedly fired by the soldiers who had purposely aimed their guns too high, too low, too far to the right, or too far to the left. How did they then manage to kill (or was it wound?) Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí and to cut the ropes “with which the Báb’s arms were tied”? Yet even this garbled story agrees with the rest in the one most amazing particular of the Báb’s martyrdom—the inefficacy of the first volley.

The excerpt from Mirza Kazem-Bek’s book, Bab i Babidy, shows him following in the footsteps of Sipihr. Like Sipihr and Sheil, Kazem-Bek tended to side with the authorities against the “revolutionaries” and the “disturbers” of public order and tranquility. However he had time for reflection and was not laboring under strictures such as were imposed upon Mírzá Muḥammad-Taqí Khán-i-Sipihr by his official position. Mirza Kazem-Bek was a man of considerable learning in Persian, Turkish, and Arabic. Born in Russian Adhirbáyján, he moved to St. Petersburg, entered the Russian academic world as an Orientalist, and attained professorial rank. In the process he abandoned Islám for Orthodox Christianity, though the conversion may have been purely formal, Kazem-Bek retaining a warm and sympathetic feeling for his original religion for the rest of his life.

Again, like Sipihr’s and Sheil’s, Kazem-Bek’s narrative contains numerous errors. He states that Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí was shot first. He claims, unlike the others, that the Báb tried to persuade the multitude that a miracle had occurred and would have succeeded in escaping death had not the Christian regiment been above such superstitions. He is unaware that the Christian regiment refused to repeat the execution and left the Barracks Square. He is also wrong about the Báb’s age at the time of the martyrdom, claiming He was “in the thirty-seventh or thirty-eighth year of his life,” whereas the Báb was [Page 9] thirty-one, having been born on October 20, 1819. Still Kazem-Bek confirms the essential facts of the martyrdom, facts that he received not only from Sipihr’s book but also from letters of Russian officials who obtained their information independently in Tabríz.

Les religions et les philosophies dans l’Asie centrale by Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau is a much more substantial work than Kazem-Bek’s. Gobineau had spent several years on the staff of the French Legation in Ṭihrán, knew Persian, and had fairly solid knowledge of the country and its culture. Though his racial theories often clouded his vision of Asia and her peoples, he was an acute observer and an eloquent writer. His research into the nature, the scope, and the fate of the Bábí movement had to be conducted discreetly; and he probably had little access to the Bábís and to their writings. His principal written sources were the same as Kazem-Bek’s, though his residence in Írán put at his disposal oral reports of a number of local observers.

Following Sipihr, Gobineau places the Báb in Chihríq, skipping His stay in Iṣfáhán and the imprisonment in Máh-Kú. Though his account is much richer in detail, it contains numerous errors and inaccuracies. Embroidering on Sipihr’s spare story, Gobineau tells of the dramatic recantation of one of the Báb’s closest disciples, Siyyid Ḥusayn-i-Yazdí. His “betrayal” of the Báb stood in such contrast to the devotion and sacrifice of Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí that both Kazem-Bek and Gobineau found the drama irresistible. None of them knew, however, that Siyyid Ḥusayn had been instructed by the Báb to repudiate his beloved Teacher in order to avoid death and to carry out a mission with which the Báb, before being executed, entrusted him. That mission was to reach Ṭihrán and to convey to the Ṭihrán Bábís, among them Bahá’u’lláh, the true circumstances of the martyrdom. Muḥammad-i-Zarandí, surnamed Nabíl, who met Mírzá Ḥusayn in Ṭihrán and talked to him at length, has left in his book a worthy memorial to this faithful and fearless disciple. Siyyid Ḥusayn never ran from danger, never feared death. He achieved martyrdom not long after in the holocaust of August 1852.

Again following in the footsteps of Sipihr, Gobineau mentions Siyyid ‘Alí-yi-Zunúzí as one of the mujtahids who condemned the Báb, though Gobineau is not sure how to transliterate the name. He also seems unaware of the fact that Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí, Anís, was Siyyid ‘Alí’s stepson, which explains the special efforts made to save him from death. There are many other inaccuracies and fanciful interpretations in this narrative. However Gobineau too confirms the fact that the first volley did the Báb no harm. The story about Qúch-‘Alí cutting the Báb down with a sword and of the soldiers ending His life with rifles at point-blank range is without foundation. One may only wonder where Gobineau picked it up.

Mírzá Mihdí Khán Zaímu’d-Dawlih’s Miftáh-i-Bábu'l Abváb yá táríkh-i-Báb va Bahá (The Key to the Gate of Gates or the History of the Báb and Bahá) was a much later production. It is a strongly anti-Bahá’í work written, according to ‘Ishráq-i-Khávarí, in A.H. 1310 for the purpose of blackmailing the Bahá’ís. Most of the book is of no historical value and a failure as [Page 10] literature and as blackmail. However it contains a few pages of great interest. Zaímu’d-Dawlih reports that he heard about the execution of the Báb from his own father, who had witnessed it. Zaímu’d-Dawlih’s father’s story strikes one as quite authentic. The essential facts and the sequence of events are correct, and there are many details that lend an air of reality to the narrative. Even the mood of the day is properly conveyed. Zaímu’d-Dawlih’s account is especially significant because it does not follow Sipihr’s but represents independent testimony by a hostile eyewitness. Zaímu’d-Dawlih is aware of the divergences between his father’s report and Sipihr’s account in Násikhu’t taváríkh. There can be no doubt that his father’s story is much closer to the truth.

Our final selection is from Nabíl’s The Dawn-Breakers. It is a well-known work that has been available in English for more than forty years. We include it here since it is by far the most accurate, the most well documented, and the most poetic of all accounts of the Báb’s martyrdom. Nabíl was a disciple. He makes no pretense at objectivity. To him the Báb was a Prophet sent by God to inaugurate a new religious cycle and to announce the advent of an even greater Manifestation. Nabíl was also a born historian—curious, attentive to detail, eager to compare sources, careful, and scrupulous. Though not an eyewitness of the martyrdom itself, he interviewed many who were, including Siyyid Ḥusayn-i-Yazdí, the amanuensis, who was with the Báb to the end. An analysis of Nabíl’s method, his sources, and his interpretation could easily turn into a book. Suffice it to say that his consuming interest in the fate of the Báb and of the [Page 11] Báb’s disciples prompted him to gather every scrap of available evidence, interview hundreds of participants, some of whom were his close friends, and record hundreds of anecdotes from the lips of friends and enemies alike. No contemporary work except the brief and luminous A Traveller’s Narrative comes near The Dawn-Breakers in embodying so fully historical truth.

The Editors feel that taken together these accounts—and one could easily add others—give a fair representation of a unique event in the religious history of mankind.

F. K.

F.O. 60/152/88

SIR JUSTIN SHEIL, QUEEN VICTORIA’S ENVOY EXTRAORDINARY AND MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY IN TIHRAN, TO SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS, LORD PALMERSTON

The Right Honorable

The Viscount Palmerston, G. C. B.

No. 88

Camp near Tehran,

July 22nd 1850

My Lord,

There has been an intermission in the contest at Zengan between the Shah’s troops and the Bâbees of that city—The Chief of that sect in Zengan, a Mollah of high station, wrote to me a short time ago, declaring that he had been falsely accused of Bâbeeism, and begging me to intercede and save himself and his companions from military violence. He enclosed a letter of the same purport to the Ameer i Nizam. The Persian Minister replied to this person that he was willing to accept his declaration, but that in proof of his sincerity, he must present himself at the Shah’s Court. No notice having been taken of this condition, a further body of troops has been summoned to prosecute the siege.

The founder of this sect has been executed at Tabreez. He was killed by a volley of musketry, and his death was on the point of giving his religion a lustre which would have largely increased its proselytes. When the smoke and dust cleared away after the volley, Bâb was not to be seen, and the populace proclaimed that he had ascended to the skies. The balls had broken the ropes by which he was bound, but he was dragged from the recess where after some search, he was discovered, and shot.

His death, according to the belief of his disciples will make no difference, as Bâb must always exist.

His followers in Fars have received a severe check. Syed Yaheeya who fled from Yezd to that province with a large force of Bâbees has been defeated and [Page 12] captured, having however previously twice repulsed the Shah’s troops.

At Meshed many executions have taken place. That the ringleaders in the late rebellion committed many excesses, and that they merited death, can scarcely be doubted; nevertheless, the Shah’s interests would perhaps be more truly consulted by the extension of clemency. As was to be anticipated the Prince Governor has had recourse to arbitrary measures in the exaction of heavy fines. The consequence has been that several hundred families have abandoned Meshed and fled to Herab.

There have lately been several severe earthquakes in Khorassan, which have inflicted severe damage and destroyed a large number of people.

Some disturbances which had taken place in Behbehan in the province of Fars have been quelled, and the other parts of Persia seem to be in tranquillity. The Chiefs of the Gurmseer, or low Country on the Gulf of Persia, have however not been brought under subjection, and it may be said without exaggeration that discontent prevails largely throughout the Country.

I have the honor to be with the greatest respect—My Lord

Your Lordship’s

Most obedient

humble servant

JUSTIN SHEIL

MÍRZÁ MUḤAMMAD TAQÍ KHÁN LISÁNU’L MULK SIPIHR: Násikhu’t taváríkh, vol. 3, QÁJÁR HISTORY (ṬIHRÁN, 1337), PP. 99-101

When the Sháh received the report of the insurrection caused by Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí of Zanján, Mírzá Taqí Khán Amír Niẓám came before His Majesty and, having kissed the ground, reported that though the region of Mázindarán and the land of Shaykh-Ṭabarsí were still red with Bábí blood and many troops had fallen there on the battle field, yet now in Zanján Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí began another uprising and started another war and commotion, and that as long as ‘Alí-Muḥammad, the Báb, was alive, his followers would not be pacified and one or another of his disciples would raise his head in some town and would senselessly shed the blood of many. It would be better to put an end to the Báb himself and to liquidate this trouble definitely.

The Sháh stated that this proposal was not unreasonable but that the first omission had been that of Ḥájí Mírzá Áqásí who, instead of bringing the Báb to the capital, so that the people could see him, ordered him, when he was on his way to Ṭihrán, to be exiled to Chihríq for imprisonment. Simple people began to think that he possessed some sort of knowledge or had a sign, or was able to perform miracles. As a result, those who sought to gain importance found in him a means for the achievement of their desires and began to deceive the ignorant. Had he [Ḥájí Mírzá Áqásí] permitted Mírzá ‘Alí-Muḥammad, the Báb, to come to the capital and live wherever he pleased, so that people could [Page 13] meet him, enter into conversation with and talk to him, it would have become clear to everyone that there was nothing outstanding about him and that he did not exceed the ‘ulamá in any branch of knowledge and was not able to perform any miracles. Thus he would have lived as one of the low people and would have even acquired a reputation for being mentally unbalanced, and the blood of many soldiers and of these lost ones [the Bábís] would not have been senselessly spilled.

Mírzá Taqí Khán, “The statement of the King of Kings is true, but that which must happen has happened and there is no other way out but to liquidate him and eradicate his sedition.”

At last on Mírzá Taqí Khán’s advice Sulaymán Khán-i-Afshár left for Ádhirbáyján and Hamzih Mírzá Hishmatu’d-Dawlih, then governor of Ádhirbáyján, was instructed to bring the Báb from the fortress of Chihríq and to execute him. [Here follows the story of Hishmatu’d-Dawlih summoning the ‘ulamá to talk to the Báb. The ‘ulamá refused, saying that the Báb’s opinions had already been examined and that His execution was mandatory. The governor had the Báb brought to his own residence and in the presence of several officials, including the Prime Minister’s brother, asked the Báb questions concerning obscure passages in Muslim traditions and argued with Him.]

Afraid that if the Báb were executed in secret, ignorant people would think he was alive and hidden from sight and would not quiet down nor refrain from disturbance, hoping for his return and a new proclamation of his mission, the authorities decided to parade him through the city and the bazaar so that all could see and recognize him. Therefore a group of Hamzih Mírzá’s attendants first led Mírzá ‘Alí-Muḥammad the Báb together with Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí and Siyyid Ḥusayn-i-Yazdí to the house of Ḥájí Mírzá Báqir. The crowd followed them. The Báb concealed his convictions from him [Ḥájí Mírzá Báqir]. Then he was taken to the house of Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí-i-Mamaqání. Here too the Báb concealed his convictions and addressed to Mullá Muḥammad a plea for protection. Mullá Muḥammad said, “You have been and are now a renegade.”

Then they took the Báb to Siyyid-i-Zunúzí. All three issued fatvás for his execution. At this time Siyyid Ḥusayn took fright and repented. He was told to spit in the face of the Báb and to curse the Báb in order to be set free. This he did and was let go. However on another occasion in the capital he joined Sulaymán Khán, son of Yaḥyá Khán, in the Bábí sedition and was executed, as shall be mentioned in the appropriate place. Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí, however, did not at all recant his faith. They brought to him his wife and minor children in the hope that he would take pity on them and repudiate his error. But it was of no avail. He asked to be executed first, and the Báb after him.

[Page 14] So they led them through the city and the bazaar and brought them to the Tabríz Square. On Monday, 27 Sha’bán, on orders of Hamzih Mírzá, soldiers of the Bahádurán regiment, of Christian confession, were to shoot them. Since these soldiers had often heard about the disturbances caused by the followers of the Báb in the cities, being reluctant to execute the Báb, they aimed their guns high and low, as well as to the right and to the left of the Báb so that he was not hurt at all. However, this time Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí, his disciple, was killed. He was firmer than the Báb, for when he was wounded, he turned to the Báb and said: “Are you not satisfied with me?” In brief, at this moment an accidentally discharged bullet hit the rope with which the Báb’s arms were tied, and he was freed, and ran away, and hid in the room of one of the soldiers.

His flight was a consequence of the power of the Shari‘at for if, when the bullets hit the rope and he was freed, he had bared his chest and shouted, “O soldiers and people! Have you not seen my miracle, that of a thousand bullets not one hit me but, on the contrary, they freed me of my bonds,” no one would have shot at him again, and women and men would have gathered around him in that same square and would have raised a clamor and an outcry.

God desired to show the triumph of truth over falsehood and to dispel the people’s doubt. When the soldiers saw his flight, they were convinced that he possessed no station or dignity and that he had no strength to bear disaster the way the ignoramuses who followed his teachings did. Then Qúch-‘Alí Sulṭán, with firm decision and tranquil soul, went to that room, took him, and, having hit him several times on the back of his head, returned him to the place of execution. This time without hurry and with deliberation they made him the aim of their shots. His body was dragged through the city for several days and then thrown outside the gates to be eaten by beasts.

TRANSLATED BY KAZEM KAZEMZADEH AND FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH

MIRZA KAZEM-BEK: Bab i babidy: religiozno-politicheskie smuty v Persii v 1844-1852 godakh (ST. PETERSBURG, 1865), PP. 39-41

The place of execution was set in the yard of the soldiers’ barracks. All the roofs of the houses and all the streets were filled with onlookers. They brought the criminals and began to execute the verdict.

It is said that in Persia, when they shoot criminals, they tie them to the pillar face to the wall, that is with their back to the public, so that they would not be able to see the preparations. Áqá Muḥammad-‘Alí solemnly requested to be tied facing the public and calmly read aloud excerpts from prayers composed by his teacher. The Báb was silent throughout. The beautiful features of his face, his [Page 15] distinguished carriage, his delicate manners, his light-pale face adorned with a black beard and a small moustache, his well-shaped white hands, and his very dress—simple but neat—all of this evoked sympathy for him. It must be said that the majority of the people who gathered there consisted of angry haters of the Báb and the Bábís. Before the execution the government and the clergy had spread, as it usually happens everywhere, exaggerated rumors about the bloodshed that had recently occurred, and was still occurring, in many parts of the fatherland because of the viciousness of the Bábís; they painted everywhere in strong colors the inhuman assassination, through the wiles of a woman, proselyte of the Báb, of the “holy man,” the Mujtahid of Qazvín; about the horrors perpetrated by the Bábís in Mázindarán, about their preparations in Zanján, etc. Therefore few among the people sympathized with the “monsters” worthy of terrible punishment. However, the behavior of the two brothers-traitors, the self-sacrifice of Áqá Muḥammad-‘Alí, and the Báb’s situation itself won him many partisans ready to accept his teachings; however, the situation and the time were different: on the one hand the hostile spirit of the majority of the people incited by the clergy against the Bábís, and on the other the fear that overtook all at the solemn execution, prevented an explosion. The execution was carried out without any evil consequences in regard to the violation of order, tranquility, and the instructions of the government. At the signal a platoon of the Christian regiment began to fire; unfortunately, the first bullets hit the ropes with which the Báb was tied and he was freed. Noise and talk were heard everywhere; they did not know what the matter was; the Báb jumped up and, they say, ran toward the people, supposedly trying to pass for a miracle that which had occurred. He might have succeeded had the riflemen been Muslim; however Christian soldiers immediately ran and showed the people the ropes severed by bullets; the criminal was again tied; Áqá Muḥammad-‘Alí was shot first, then the Báb. The execution was carried out quietly; the people dispersed, but many carried away with them the embryo of future anti-government thoughts.

Thus ended his life in the thirty-seventh or thirty-eighth year of his life the unfortunate Báb.

TRANSLATED BY FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH

[Page 16]

JOSEPH ARTHUR COMTE DE GOBINEAU, Les Religions et les Philosophies dans l’Asie centrale (PARIS: DIDIER, 1865), PP. 256-72

. . . Mírzá Taqí Khán, cursing the laxness with which his predecessor, Ḥájí Mírzá Áqásí, had allowed such a danger to arise and grow, understood that this mistaken policy should not be allowed to continue, and determined to cut off this evil at its root. He was persuaded that its source was the Báb himself, the first author of all the doctrines which were disturbing the country; and he intended to cause that source to disappear. The Báb, who had been allowed to remain at Shíráz, half hidden in his house but quite free to act, and surrounded by his disciples, whose numbers grew daily, had, however, been arrested in the aftermath of the Mázindarán insurrection and had been taken to the fort of Chihríq, in the Caspian province of Gílán. He was guarded there, but not too oppressively. The Prime Minister resolved to blame him for everything that was happening, although he had played no direct role in the insurrections; and no one had found the slightest indication that he had fomented, directed, advised, or even approved them, and, to judge from the personal character of ‘Alí-Muḥammad, as well as from the opinion of many of his people, there is nothing implausible about the reality of his abstention. However, Ḥájí Mírzá Taqí resolved to strike the monster of Bábism at its head; and he was persuaded that, once this blow had been dealt, with the instigator of disorder removed from the scene and no longer active, everything would resume its normal course. Yet—and this is rather remarkable in an Asiatic government and especially in a statesman like Mírzá Taqí Khán who was not likely to be squeamish about an excess of severity—this minister did not at once decide to order the upstart’s death. He thought that the best way to destroy him would be to ruin him morally. Drag him out of his retreat at Chihríq, where a halo of suffering, saintliness, knowledge, eloquence was about him and made him shine like a sun; show him to the mobs as he was—that is, as Mírzá Taqí imagined him to be—this was the best way to keep him from doing harm, by destroying his prestige. For he saw him as a common charlatan, a timid dreamer who did not have the courage to conceive, much less to direct, the audacious enterprises of his three apostles, or to take part in them. A man of that stripe, brought to Ṭihrán and put before the cleverest dialecticians of Islám, could but bend shamefully; and his credit would vanish much more effectively by this means than if, by suppressing the physical person, there would be allowed to linger in the minds of the people the ghost of a superiority which would have been irrefutably ratified by his death. It was planned, therefore, to have him arrested, bring him to Ṭihrán, and, all along the road, expose him in public, in chains, humiliated; to make him debate everywhere with mullás, imposing silence upon him whenever he might become insolent; in a word, to wage against him a series of unequal battles in which he would necessarily be defeated, being demoralized in advance by so many devices designed to break his spirit. He was [Page 17] a lion to be exhausted, pulled by his chain, deprived of teeth and claws, then given up to the dogs to show how easily they could triumph over him. Once he was vanquished, it would hardly matter what disposition would then be made of him.

This plan was not without imagination; but it was founded on assumptions the most important of which were far from proven. It was not enough to imagine the Báb as lacking in courage and firmness; he had really to be so. Now, there was nothing in the attitude of that personnage in the fort of Chihríq which lent itself to such a belief. He prayed and worked unceasingly. His gentleness was inalterable. Those who approached him underwent despite themselves the winning influence of his face, his manners, his language. The soldiers who guarded him were not all exempt from this weakness. His death seemed near to him. He spoke of it often as he would of an idea which had become not only familiar to him, but highly agreeable. What if, then, paraded all through Persia, he should not crumble? If he showed himself neither arrogant nor fearful, but well above his present fortune? If he were going to confound the prodigies of knowledge, skill, and eloquence arrayed against him? If he remained more than ever the Báb for his old sectaries and became so for the indifferent or even for his enemies? It was risking a lot to win a lot, no doubt, but also to lose a lot; and, all things considered, they did not dare run this risk.

The Prime Minister, therefore, regretfully fell back on the idea of a pure and simple death sentence; and, sending for Sulaymán Khán, the Afshár [belonging to Afshár tribe], he charged him with carrying to Tabríz, to Prince Hamzih Mírzá the order to bring the Báb out of the fort of Chihríq and take him to the citadel of Tabríz, where he [the Prince] would learn later what to do with him.

The Sháhzádih obeyed without wasting any time; and the Báb, well guarded, closely watched, besides being in chains and surrounded by a strong escort, was conducted from the fortress, where he had been living for nearly eighteen months, and brought to Tabríz with two of his disciples, who had been imprisoned with him. One was Siyyid Ḥusayn of Yazd and the other Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí, son-in-law of Aga-Seyd-Aly Zenvéry [Áqá Siyyid ‘Alí-yi-Zunúzí]. The last named [Áqá Siyyid ‘Alí] belonged to a family of very rich and highly considered merchants at Tabríz; and his brother had made and was still making, without success, extraordinary efforts to bring him back to Islám and to persuade him to abandon his master.

As soon as Hamzih Mírzá had delivered the three heretics to the citadel, he met with the mullás; and, obeying the express instructions of the Prime Minister, who was still somewhat bemused by his first idea, he proposed to them that they have a conference with his chief prisoner in which they would not fail to cover him with confusion by uncovering his errors and his bad faith. But the mullás pointed out to the prince that the time for such discussions had passed, that what needed to be done now was to put the Báb to death, and that with the least possible delay.

Hamzih Mírzá made no reply and ordered, for that very evening, the meeting of a council in which the Báb would appear before his judges. The [Page 18] assembly was held at the citadel. There were in the council chamber Mírzá Ḥasan, the Prime Minister’s brother and Vazír-Niẓám or inspector of the regular army; Hájí Mírzá ‘Alí, son of Hájí Mírzá Mas’úd, the former minister of foreign affairs under Muḥammad Sháh; last, Sulaymán Khán, the Afshár. The mullás having refused to initiate any discussion of a religious nature with the captive, these laymen, more ardent or less prudent, assumed their role; and, when the Báb had been led before his judges, Hájí Mírzá ‘Alí began to ask him in the most vehement tone some questions on the traditions of the Prophets and the Imáms. The Báb answered; and his sectaries claim that he refuted from top to bottom the arguments of his adversary. It should not have been much trouble, for this is assuredly one of the most vulnerable points in the Shí’ite doctrine. To the authentic traditions which they possess in common with the Sunnites, traditions which are as rationally established as anyone could wish, the Persians have added an enormous number which rest on absolutely no valid proof and do not even bear discussion. . . . The Bábís are not the first to have claimed and demonstrated their inanity. The Ja’faris long ago, as more recently the Shaykhís, have successfully undertaken to rid the national orthodoxy of this thicket of allegations which are often clumsy and always gratuitous. But the mullás, who can justify by this means alone the existence of a sacerdotal body, entirely incompatible, otherwise, with the principles of Islám, regard this terrain as particularly sacred; they defend it with fury and require the support therein of the political authority. So there is nothing surprising in that the representatives of that authority formed the intention of judging and condemning the Báb on the basis of his opposition to these same essential points. But the debate dragged on, and Hájí Mírzá was clearly getting the worst of it; so Hájí Mírzá brusquely interrupted the discussion and, addressing the Báb, said to him haughtily,

“I have learned that you are giving yourself out as being of a divine nature, and that you have dared to write a Qur’án, which has been impudently given out among the people. If this is so, turn towards that crystal chandelier and pray that there be revealed to you a new verse.”

The Báb, perfectly serene, did what the prince asked of him, turned to the light, and, in a calm voice, uttered a few verses in Arabic which were not yet in his works and which concerned the nature of light and the signs of the decadence of the authority.

Hamzih Mírzá, somewhat surprised, ordered what the Báb had just said to be written down and, continuing in the same provocative tone:

“And that comes from Heaven?” he said, contemptuously.

“Yes,” answered the Báb.

The Muslims add at this point that the prince observed that anything of such an origin would surely engrave itself in the memory of the prophets and would never leave it, and the Báb agreed. But a few minutes later, when the prince asked him to recite once again the same verses, he could not do it without introducing variants. The Bábís deny absolutely this last detail, and, in fact, it is hard to believe. If one refuses to grant, for the verses pronounced under these circumstances, the supernatural character that the Seer attributes to them, one is led to suppose that they had been composed already some time since and that, [Page 19] consequently, since the Báb was reciting them from memory, he had no reason to forget them so quickly. To believe, as the Muslims do, that this personnage could, by himself, improvise sacred verses in the Arabic language, in an alliterative and flowery style, in the situation in which he found himself, is to admit at the outset one miracle in order to find the means to reject another miracle. This is, by the way, a good specimen of the Asiatic critical faculty.

In short, in the account of the Muslims as well as in that of the Bábís, it is certain that the royal commissioners did not play an admirable role. They finally understood that the mullás had been right to decline any confrontation with the innovator; so they announced to him that he was to die.

I will say not only that, from the European point of view, this whole way of proceeding was highly irregular; I will say that, in all times, from the point of view of all peoples, it would always have appeared so, and that since there have been under the sun races which, to use here Herodotus’ expression in speaking of the Scythians, have known justice. Bábí leaders had as a matter of fact troubled the state; but the Báb himself had never lent himself to any act of this sort, and no one has ever been able to adduce any proof that he encouraged his three disciples in their line of conduct. He was not indictable except in terms of the religious law, and this is what the commissioners who were judging him seemed to admit, since they, these laymen, were trying to bring him back to Islám and prove to him that he was either deceiving or being deceived in departing from it. But if the Qur’án does condemn to death relapsed Muslims and heresiarchs, it is fair to say that this doctrine has not only fallen into disuse, it has never been accepted or practiced [in Persia] there by the political powers. In the past few centuries, as in our own time, the mullás have been seen to demand insistently its application, and they have never obtained it. Heresiarchs, heretics of every sort have always shown themselves more or less openly and have never had anything to fear from the secular arm. The Báb himself had seen, for some four years, the fatvás of the mujtahids break, like spent waves, against the repugnance of the government; he would probably have escaped from the irritation produced by the uprising of the Mázindaránís, and nothing less than the redoubtable insurrection of Zanján was required for the Reason of State (consideration of national interest to justify what is otherwise an unjust act) to be invoked against him. At bottom, then, it was no more the religious law than the common law which killed him: it was the Reason of State. . . .

. . . To tell the truth, the preoccupation with the just and unjust is so feeble that the idea of the Reason of State, which is at least an excuse or the shadow of an excuse invented by a suffering conscience, does not exist in Asia at all. Nor are there any traces of those personalities which have suffered any loss of credit or prestige by public opinion; nor of those tribunals, like the star chamber or the chambre ardente [tribunal for the condemnation to death by fire of heretics and poisoners] or the military commissions, which are spoken of among us only with reprobation. [In Asia] there is no hypocrisy either, and when they kill, they do not advance so much as the simulacrum of a formal bill of indictment: they kill because they are the stronger party; they give no reasons for doing what they do, because they are the power, and public opinion [Page 20] does not ask for reasons and never will, because it considers power by its nature made for abuse and legitimated by its mere existence. Among us, there has never been, in the worst days of the worst revolutions, a tribunal established in a cabaret, which did not attempt to impose on its victims the simple recognition of its right to judge them or of the principle in virtue of which it judged them. If such a victim would suggest that he considered himself as condemned in advance and that he regarded the forms followed as derisory, he would be called to order. In Asia, however, the naïveté of the judge is complete. Hamzih Mírzá and his assessors had not the slightest intention of deceiving the Báb; they had no wish that he regard them as undecided with respect to the treatment they were reserving for him. He was surely quite convinced, as he entered their assembly, that there he would be outraged, but in no way judged, in the sense in which we understand the word; and they did not seek to deceive him on that point. But they were content to see if he would weaken or would offer any sort of opening whereby their own cause would be strengthened. In other words, power in Asia has no morality. It is a fact. It comes from God, as do all things. It is a scourge which has the advantage of being attenuated by perpetuity. Anarchy is a greater evil only because it brings with it an unwholesome fluctuation of contending forces, which are irritated thereby, and the more dangerous for the tranquillity, the well-being, and the rights of each individual. The result of this attitude is that the authority permits itself everything, that no one is surprised by this fact, and that one is no more inclined to regard as infamous the violation of a surrender agreement, an assassination, an imprisonment, a confiscation, or similar consequences of the temperament which Asiatics consider as quite natural to whatever is power, than anyone is disposed to be scandalized by an earthquake. It is just that any man who is wise, or even a little sensible, who has enough for his subsistence, keeps himself at a distance, at as great a distance as possible, from public affairs and owes it to himself to keep his feet from these dangerous paths.

After deciding that the Báb was to die, they were going to pass, without any other delay or formality, to the execution of the sentence—and, in Persia, this sort of thing is done without ceremony. The man is garrotted and laid on the ground; the executioner lifts his chin and cuts his throat in two strokes, back and forth, with a cheap little knife. But, as they were still holding the Báb by the arm to proceed in this manner, someone made the observation that, by doing the job so to speak within the intimacy of the family, the public, or at least a great part of the public, would not fail to believe that the Báb was still alive. Then they would have wasted their effort, with regard to the principal result; for if everyone was going around imagining that the Báb was not dead, that he was hidden somewhere, and that he would soon reappear to fulfill his promises, they would find that they had in no way achieved the desired end, and the agitation, instead of coming to a halt, would increase. It was resolved, then, to act in such wise that no one would be able to doubt that it was indeed the Báb himself who was a prisoner and that it was he who was being put to death. Then, when the whole world was quite convinced that there was no possible error on this point, the last supreme act remained to be executed in such a manner that the slightest doubt could never conceivably be raised as to its [Page 21] reality.

Once these decisions were taken, early the next morning Hamzih Mírzá’s men opened the doors of the prison and brought out the Báb and his two disciples. They made sure that the irons were firmly attached to neck and arms; moreover a long cord was attached to the iron collar of each of them, and each was held at the end by a farrásh. Then, so that everyone might get a good look and recognize them, they were paraded through the city, in all the streets and bazaars, and subjected to taunts and blows. The crowd filled the roads and the people were climbing on each other’s shoulders to examine as well as they could the man there had been so much talk about. The Bábís, the semi-Bábís, fairly numerous in every part [of the city], tried to excite among some of the spectators a certain amount of pity or of whatever feeling they could have utilized to save their master. The indifferent, the philosophers, the shaykhís, the ṣúfís turned away from the procession with disgust and went back into their houses; or, on the contrary, awaiting it at the street corner, they contemplated it with mute curiosity and nothing more. The ragged mob, turbulent, impressionable, piled many coarse insults on the heads of the three martyrs; but it was quite ready to change its mind for the slightest change of circumstance that might bend its spirits in another direction. Finally, the Muslims, masters of the day, pursued the prisoners with contumely, sought to break into the ranks of the escort to strike them [the martyrs] in the face or on the head; and whenever they were not repulsed in time, or when a shard thrown by a child hit the Báb or one of his companions in the face, the escort and the crowd would burst into laughter.

When they had been shown to the whole city, they were conducted to the house of Ḥájí Mírzá Báqir, a theologian, where, the Muslims swear, the Báb, being interrogated on his doctrines, renounced them. From there the procession went to the house of Mullá Muḥammad-i-Mamaqání one of the most important clerics of Tabríz. There, according to the Báb’s enemies, he not only renounced all his teachings, but he wept and asked for mercy; but the learned mullá answered ironically with this sentence, pronounced in Arabic: “Well, then, to what end had you revolted?”

Upon leaving the mujtahid, the victims were dragged off, in a great tumult, to the home of another eminent clergyman, Áqá Siyyid Zenwézy [sic]. There as elsewhere insults, blows, brutalities burst out with extreme violence, and the cries of the ever more furious populace covered the words which the Báb is supposed to have uttered. Around him the cries were heard, “He admits his crimes!” And they struck him; and again, “He is afraid!”—and they slapped him. The three mujtahids of the city did not fail, in the Báb’s presence, to ratify, in the name of the law, the death sentence brought against him. This formality produced a great effect on the multitude, which probably concluded from it that the innovator was still more guilty than they had supposed until then.

On coming out of the house of Áqá Siyyid Zenwézy, one of the two disciples, Siyyid Ḥusayn Yazdí, crumpled to the ground, weeping bitterly, asked [Page 22] for pardon and admitted that he was at the end of his strength. They put him back on his feet and, shaking him, for he was like a drunk man, utterly powerless, they made him face the Báb and told him that, if he cursed him, his crimes would be erased and he would be forgiven. Siyyid Ḥusayn cursed the Báb. Then they told him that, if he would spit in his face, he would in that instance be set at liberty. Siyyid Ḥusayn spat in the Báb’s face. He was immediately relieved of his fetters and was abandoned. After the procession had moved on and there was no longer anyone in the deserted street, Siyyid Ḥusayn picked himself up and, leaving the city, disappeared in the direction of Ṭihrán, where we shall find him later.

His tormentors encouraged by this success, tried to determine whether the other disciple, Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí, could not perhaps be persuaded to a similar conversion. They believed that they had a hold on him through the presence of his family at Tabríz and also because he was rich, young, and accustomed to a very agreeable way of life. So they sent for the young wife of the prisoner and had her brought to the middle of the bazaar, along with some of their little children; and they tried to shake him with their horror, their tears, their supplications: but he was unmoved. The only expression they could drag from him was that, if it was desired to treat him with some degree of humanity, he be permitted to perish before his master. Seeing that nothing could be got from him, and in view of the fact that the soldiers and the executioners were exhausted from their long day, they brought the martyrs back to the citadel, just as the sun was about to set. There they were brought out to the rampart, which is of great height and formed by a perpendicular wall of fired bricks, a work from the time of the Seljuk sulṭáns. Heavy ropes were passed under their arms and they were let down against the outer surface of the wall, in such a way that they were left hanging a few feet above the ground. Facing them, on an immense square, was the surging crowd, and everyone could see the two condemned men perfectly well. This was on a Monday, the twenty-seventh day of Sha‘bán.

At this moment the officers of the prince brought forward a company of the regiment of Behadéran [Bahádurán]. This corps was composed of Christians, and the Muslims subsequently maintained that it carried out its duty with the greatest repugnance. The Bábís, on the contrary, assure us that recourse was had to Christians because of distrust of the Muslim soldiers.

However that may be, when the two condemned men had been suspended side by side, Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí was distinctly heard to say to the Báb, “Master, are you not pleased with me?” At that very moment the company fired. The disciple was killed instantly, but the Báb was not even slightly wounded, and the rope by which he had been suspended had been cut by a bullet. He fell on his feet, quickly rose and sought to flee; then, all of a sudden, [Page 23] seeing a guardhouse, he ran into it.

If, instead of this no doubt unconsidered act, he had thrown himself into the midst of the crowd—stupefied as it would have been by what it had just seen, and applauding the miracle—there is no doubt on this point, and the Muslims agree, the population of Tabríz would instantly and without hesitation have gone over to the Báb’s side. No soldier, Christian or Muslim, would have dared to renew fire against him—there would have been a revolt, a general insurrection; and in a city of the importance of Tabríz, the second capital of the Empire, this would have been quite another matter from the Zanján affair. The Qájár dynasty would probably have fallen. But it was in a guardhouse that the Báb took refuge; and, to understand this action, one must assume that, tortured as he was from early morning, his senses troubled by the simple fact of his having been painfully suspended by ropes, he was not aware of what he was doing and walked randomly, drawn by a sort of mechanical instinct to get himself into a sheltered place.

This was a moment of terrible anguish for the military leaders and the partisans of the prince. In the first place, they believed in the miracle just as much as any of the other spectators; then—and this did not require a miracle—they understood immediately, from the sort of roar of admiration that came from the crowd, in what danger they found themselves. But when the Báb had entered the guard-room, an infantry captain, or sulṭán, by the name of Qúch-‘Alí came in after him and cut him down with his sabre. The Báb fell without saying a word; then the soldiers, seeing him in a pool of blood, approached and ended his life with their rifles at point-blank range.

The cadaver was paraded or rather dragged for several days in the streets of the city; afterwards it was thrown outside the walls and abandoned to the animals.

The head of the new religion was dead and, according to the calculations of Mírzá Taqí Khán, the Prime Minister, the most profound peace was to be established in the minds of the people and would no longer be troubled from that quarter. But once more political wisdom proved to be in short supply; and, instead of extinguishing the conflagration, this turn of events fanned the fire of violence.

TRANSLATED BY HOWARD GAREY

MÍRZÁ MIHDÍ KhÁN ZAÍMU’D-DAWLIH: Miftáh-i-Bábu’l Abváb yá táríkh-i-Báb vá Bahá (ṬIHRÁN, 1346)

The next morning, 27 Sha‘bán A.H. 1265, according to official books, or, as the Bábís think, in the morning of 28 Sha‘bán A.H. 1266, those three persons [the Báb, Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí-yi-Zunúzí, and Siyyid Ḥusayn-i-Yazdí] accompanied by a group of soldiers and guards under the commander of the [Page 24] governor’s guard, were taken to the house of the late Ḥájí Mírzá Báqir . . . Here the Báb concealed his convictions.

The author of the Násikhu’t taváríkh writes that he [Ḥájí Mírzá Báqir] issued a fatvá for the execution of the Báb. To me, however, this remains unproved, for I have heard from many sources that the above named mujtahid did not meet him [the Báb] because he [the mujtahid] either was, or pretended to be, ill.

The Báb was then taken to the house of Mullá Muḥammad-i-Mamaqání, head of Shaykhí clergy. My grandfather, my father . . . and many other members of the nobility were present. When the Báb entered the house, the master of the house welcomed him with honor, sat him down in a place of honor next to himself, and, beginning the conversation, asked, “Do these writings and books belong to you?” The Báb replied, “Yes, these are my books. I wrote them with my own hand.” The host asked, “Do you admit the authenticity of everything in these writings?” The Báb said, “Yes, I admit their authenticity.” The host asked, “Do you still maintain your conviction? You said that you were the Mihdí, the expected Qá’im from the family of the Prophet Muḥammad.” The Báb replied, “Yes.” Mamaqání said, “Now your execution has become mandatory and your blood will have been spilled to no purpose. . .”

Concerning this point there is disagreement among the narrators of the event. The author of the Násikhu’t taváríkh says that the Báb at this meeting also concealed his belief and, to save himself, turned to the Ḥujjatu’l Islám [Proof of Islám, Mamaqání], pleading, crying, and holding on to the hem of his garment; but the latter pushed him away, and, saying, “You have sinned now as in the past,” left the meeting. However, I have heard my father tell repeatedly: “At this meeting the Báb did not conceal his mission, and when Ḥujjatu’l-Islám rose to leave the room, he [the Báb] caught the hem of his robe and said to him, ‘Ḥujjat, and you too are issuing a fatvá for my execution?’ Then the host pushed him away and exclaimed, ‘O infidel, you have yourself by your blasphemous writings and words issued the fatvá for your execution!’” . . .

They were then taken to the house of Siyyid ‘Alí-yi-Zunúzí. Having talked to the Báb and having heard certain things from him, he too was convinced of the necessity of the execution . . .

When the governor announced to the guard the fatvá of the ‘ulamá, he ordered the Báb to be led along the big streets of the town and through the bazaar. Then they led the Báb, who had some sort of a hat like a nightcap on his head, his feet bare, except for socks, and Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí in chains, through the city until they reached the square known as the Small Barracks . . .

Then the Báb was brought out through the first door that led to the square; and when they reached the roof of the cistern, they stopped for a moment, for a number of nobles and prominent persons of the city were present there. My father with some of his friends stood at the top of the stairs that led to the square. The Báb also stood there. Then my father and his friends approached the Báb and all begged him to recant his pretentions and not to spill his blood in a city famous because its citizens, more than the inhabitants of other towns, revered siyyids and noble descendents of the Prophet. But he paid no attention to my father’s words and remained calm, and did not show any signs of fear, anxiety, or confusion . . .

[Page 25] The governor's farrásh-báshí [head of attendants] came to the commander of the special regiment and showed him the order of the judge [qádí] for the execution of the Báb and of his comrade. But the officer refused to obey the judge’s order, since as a military man under the command of the War Ministry he had the duty to obey only his own ministry . . .

Thereupon the head of the gate keepers went to the colonel of the Christian regiment and showed him the order of the judge. He submitted and appointed a detachment of the regiment to carry it out. The head of the detachment was Qúch-‘Alí Sulṭán, a Muslim inhabitant of the town of Khuy. The head of the detachment ranged his detachment in three files. Then, having taken the Báb and his comrade, he led them to the spot where iron spikes had been driven in. Their shoulders were firmly bound with ropes, and they were lifted three zars [about three meters] off the ground.

Their faces were turned to the wall, but Mullá Muḥammad-‘Alí begged the head of the detachment to turn him to face the soldiers so that he could see the bullets flying toward him. The officer granted his request. Then he asked for his face to be placed at the Báb’s feet, but this request was not accepted.

Then the colonel, that is Sám Khán, gave the order; and the soldiers raised their guns as for salute. The people fell silent, as though everyone had stopped breathing. Hearts pounded, joints shook, one could hear the hum like the hum of a fly’s wings. At the second command such silence descended upon the people so that it seemed a bird was sitting on their heads [sic]. One could hear the beat of hearts and pulses. At that moment Sám Khán glanced toward the chief of the governor’s gate keepers who held in his hand the order for the execution, and the latter signaled to carry it out. Then Sám Khán, the colonel, signaled the head of the squadron and ordered the first file to fire. Bullets whistled, and smoke filled the whole square. When the smoke cleared, it appeared that a bullet had struck Muḥammad-‘Alí. In such a state he called out to the Báb and spoke thus, “Are you content with me, O my master?”

As for the Báb, a bullet hit the rope, and the Báb fell to the ground and immediately ran into one of the rooms of the barracks close by the place of his fall and disappeared there. Because of the heavy smoke the spectators and the soldiers could not see the fall and the flight of the Báb. When the people could not see the Báb, they raised a cry, and doubt invaded them. They thought to themselves: Did the Báb fly in the air, had he ascended to heaven, had he disappeared from sight?

The colonel and the commander of the detachment were filled with anxiety and sensed fear. Therefore Sám Khán gave an order and the soldiers formed a wedge and thus stopped the people’s rush. He then ordered the soldiers to search the rooms off the square and to find the Báb. The head of the squadron Qúch-‘Alí Sulṭán, found the Báb in one of the rooms, dragged him by force from the room, hit him on the back of his head, and showed him to the people. Then, as the first time, he was tied with a rope and shot. This time he was hit by more than twenty bullets, and his whole body, but not his face which remained whole, was mangled.

His body stopped shaking, and the people, having quieted down, came out of their state of doubt and temptation, and it became clear to them that the Báb [Page 26] did not fly through the air, did not rise to heaven, did not disappear from sight, but had, for only a moment, hid in a room off the square.

Thereupon their bodies were lowered, ropes were tied to their legs, and they were dragged through the streets and the bazaar to the gate of the main street. From there they reached the Barracks Square [sic]. Then they threw the bodies in the moat opposite the middle tower, and there the bodies were eaten by beasts and birds.

Thus this event is described by the author of the Násikhu’t taváríkh, and that narrative in everything but two particulars coincides with my father’s stories.

First, my father did not see the commander of the squadron hit the Báb on the back of his head as alleged. Second, my father did not confirm that the Báb’s body was dragged through the streets and the bazaar to the edge of the moat.

A few months before my last departure from Írán my father told me everything he had seen and heard of the case of the Báb and the Bábís. Then he took me to the place of the Báb’s execution and showed me the arch under which the Báb and his comrade had been thrown and the spot where my father had stood. Then he led me to the moat and showed me the place where the bodies of the Báb and of his comrade had been thrown and said to me, “In the evening of the second day after the Báb’s execution, I, together with several persons whose names I have forgotten, came to this place and saw the body of Muḥammad-‘Alí. His body was in pieces and nothing remained of it. But the body of the Báb had not been mangled except for the right side of the pelvis and the right thigh. His shirt and gabá [outer garment] were on him. He lay on his left side, and on that spot, except for a group of onlookers, there was no watch or guard.”

TRANSLATED BY KAZEM KAZEMZADEH AND FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH

NABÍL, The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl’s Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá’í Revelation, TRANS. AND ED. SHOGHI EFFENDI (WILMETTE, ILL.: BAHÁ’Í PUBLISHING TRUST, 1932), PP. 507-19

Deprived of His turban and sash, the twin emblems of His noble lineage, the Báb, together with Siyyid Ḥusayn, His amanuensis, was driven to yet another confinement which He well knew was but a step further on the way leading Him to the goal He had set Himself to attain. That day witnessed a tremendous commotion in the city of Tabríz. The great convulsion associated in the ideas of its inhabitants with the Day of Judgment seemed at last to have come upon them. Never had that city experienced a turmoil so fierce and so mysterious as the one which seized its inhabitants on the day the Báb was led to that place which was to be the scene of His martyrdom. As He approached the courtyard of the barracks, a youth suddenly leaped forward who, in his eagerness to overtake Him, had forced his way through the crowd, utterly ignoring the risks and perils which such an attempt might involve. His face was haggard, his feet were bare, and his hair dishevelled. Breathless with excitement and exhausted [Page 27] with fatigue, he flung himself at the feet of the Báb and, seizing the hem of His garment, passionately implored Him: “Send me not from Thee, O Master. Wherever Thou goest, suffer me to follow Thee.” “Muḥammad-‘Alí,” answered the Báb, “arise, and rest assured that you will be with Me. To-morrow you shall witness what God has decreed.” Two other companions, unable to contain themselves, rushed forward and assured Him of their unalterable loyalty. These, together with Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alíy-i-Zunúzi, were seized and placed in the same cell in which the Báb and Siyyid Ḥusayn were confined.

I have heard Siyyid Ḥusayn bear witness to the following: “That night the face of the Báb was aglow with joy, a joy such as had never shone from His countenance. Indifferent to the storm that raged about Him, He conversed with us with gaiety and cheerfulness. The sorrows that had weighed so heavily upon Him seemed to have completely vanished. Their weight appeared to have dissolved in the consciousness of approaching victory. ‘To-morrow,’ He said to us, ‘will be the day of My martyrdom. Would that one of you might now arise and, with his own hands, end My life. I prefer to be slain by the hand of a friend rather than by that of the enemy.’ Tears rained from our eyes as we heard Him express that wish. We shrank, however, at the thought of taking away with our own hands so precious a life. We refused, and remained silent. Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí suddenly sprang to his feet and announced himself ready to obey whatever the Báb might desire. ‘This same youth who has risen to comply with My wish, the Báb declared, as soon as we had intervened and forced him to abandon that thought, ‘will, together with Me, suffer martyrdom. Him will I choose to share with Me its crown.’”

Early in the morning, Mírzá Ḥasan Khán ordered his farrásh-báshí to conduct the Báb into the presence of the leading mujtahids of the city and to obtain from them the authorisation required for His execution. As the Báb was leaving the barracks, Siyyid Ḥusayn asked Him what he should do. “Confess not your faith,” He advised him. “Thereby you will be enabled, when the hour comes, to convey to those who are destined to hear you, the things of which you alone are aware.” He was engaged in a confidential conversation with him when the farrásh-báshí suddenly interrupted and, holding Siyyid Ḥusayn by the hand, drew him aside and severely rebuked him. “Not until I have said to him all those things that I wish to say,” the Báb warned the farrásh-báshí, “can any earthly power silence Me. Though all the world be armed against Me, yet shall they be powerless to deter Me from fulfilling, to the last word, My intention.” The farrásh-báshí was amazed at such a bold assertion. He made, however, no reply, and bade Siyyid Ḥusayn arise and follow him.

When Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí was ushered into the presence of the mujtahids, he was repeatedly urged, in view of the position which his stepfather, Siyyid ‘Alíy-i-Zunúzí, occupied, to recant his faith. “Never,” he exclaimed, “will I renounce my Master. He is the essence of my faith, and the object of my truest adoration. In Him I have found my paradise, and in the observance of His law I recognise the ark of my salvation.” “Hold your peace!” thundered Mullá Muḥammad-i-Mamaqání, before whom that youth was brought. “Such words betray your madness; I can well excuse the words for which you are not responsible.” “I am not mad,” he retorted. “Such a charge [Page 28] should rather be brought against you who have sentenced to death a man no less holy than the promised Qá’im. He is not a fool who has embraced His Faith and is longing to shed his blood in His path.”

The Báb was, in His turn, brought before Mullá Muḥammad-i-Mamaqání. No sooner had he recognised Him than he seized the death-warrant he himself had previously written and, handing it to his attendant, bade him deliver it to the farrásh-báshí. “No need,” he cried, “to bring the Siyyid-i-Báb into my presence. This death-warrant I penned the very day I met him at the gathering presided over by the Valí-‘Ahd. He surely is the same man whom I saw on that occasion, and has not, in the meantime, surrendered any of his claims.”

From thence the Báb was conducted to the house of Mírzá Báqir, the son of Mírzá Aḥmad, to whom he had recently succeeded. When they arrived, they found his attendant standing at the gate and holding in his hand the Báb’s death-warrant. “No need to enter,” he told them. “My master is already satisfied that his father was right in pronouncing the sentence of death. He can do no better than follow his example.”

Mullá Murtaḍá-Qulí, following in the footsteps of the other two mujtahids, had previously issued his own written testimony and refused to meet face to face his dreaded opponent. No sooner had the farrásh-báshí secured the necessary documents than he delivered his Captive into the hands of Sám Khán, assuring him that he could proceed with his task now that he had obtained the sanction of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of the realm.

Siyyid Ḥusayn had remained confined in the same room in which he had spent the previous night with the Báb. They were proceeding to place Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí in that same room, when he burst forth into tears and entreated them to allow him to remain with his Master. He was delivered into the hands of Sám Khán, who was ordered to execute him also, if he persisted in his refusal to deny his Faith.

Sám Khán was, in the meantime, finding himself increasingly affected by the behaviour of his Captive and the treatment that had been meted out to Him. He was seized with great fear lest his action should bring upon him the wrath of God. “I profess the Christian Faith,” he explained to the Báb, “and entertain no ill will against you. If your Cause be the Cause of Truth, enable me to free myself from the obligation to shed your blood.” “Follow your instructions,” the Báb replied, “and if your intention be sincere, the Almighty is surely able to relieve you from your perplexity.”

Sám Khán ordered his men to drive a nail into the pillar that lay between the door of the room that Siyyid Ḥusayn occupied and the entrance to the adjoining one, and to make fast two ropes to that nail, from which the Báb and His companion were to be separately suspended. Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí begged Sám Khán to be placed in such a manner that his own body would shield that of the Báb. He was eventually suspended in such a position that his head reposed on the breast of his Master. As soon as they were fastened, a regiment of soldiers ranged itself in three files, each of two hundred and fifty men, each of which was ordered to open fire in its turn until the whole detachment had discharged the volleys of its bullets. The smoke of the firing of the seven hundred and fifty rifles was such as to turn the light of the noonday [Page 29]

[Page 30] sun into darkness. There had crowded onto the roof of the barracks, as well as the tops of the adjoining houses, about ten thousand people, all of whom were witnesses to that sad and moving scene.

As soon as the cloud of smoke had cleared away, an astounded multitude were looking upon a scene which their eyes could scarcely believe. There, standing before them alive and unhurt, was the companion of the Báb, whilst He Himself had vanished uninjured from their sight. Though the cords with which they were suspended had been rent in pieces by the bullets, yet their bodies had miraculously escaped the volleys. Even the tunic which Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí was wearing had, despite the thickness of the smoke, remained unsullied. “The Siyyid-i-Báb has gone from our sight!” rang out the voices of the bewildered multitude. They set out in a frenzied search for Him, and found Him, eventually, seated in the same room which He had occupied the night before, engaged in completing His interrupted conversation, with Siyyid Ḥusayn. An expression of unruffled calm was upon His face. His body had emerged unscathed from the shower of bullets which the regiment had directed against Him. “I have finished My conversation with Siyyid Ḥusayn,” the Báb told the farrásh-báshí. “Now you may proceed to fulfil your intention.” The man was too much shaken to resume what he had already attempted. Refusing to accomplish his duty, he, that same moment, left that scene and resigned his post. He related all that he had seen to his neighbour, Mírzá Siyyid Muḥsín, one of the notables of Tabríz, who, as soon as he heard the story, was converted to the Faith.

I was privileged to meet, subsequently, this same Mírzá Siyyid Muḥsín, who conducted me to the scene of the Báb’s martyrdom and showed me the wall where He had been suspended. I was taken to the room in which He had been found conversing with Siyyid Ḥusayn, and was shown the very spot where He had been seated. I saw the very nail which His enemies had hammered into the wall and to which the rope which had supported His body had been attached.

Sám Khán was likewise stunned by the force of his tremendous revelation. He ordered his men to leave the barracks immediately, and refused ever again to associate himself and his regiment with any act that involved the least injury to the Báb. He swore, as he left the courtyard, never again to resume that task even though his refusal should entail the loss of his own life.

No sooner had Sám Khán departed than Áqá Ján Khán-i-Khamsih, colonel of the body-guard, known also by the names of Khamsih and Náṣirí, volunteered to carry out the order for execution. On the same wall and in the same manner, the Báb and His companion were again suspended, while the regiment formed in line to open fire upon them. Contrariwise to the previous occasion, when only the cord with which they were suspended had been shot into pieces, this time their bodies were shattered and were blended into one mass of mingled flesh and bone. “Had you believed in Me, O wayward generation,” were the last words of the Báb to the gazing multitude as the regiment was preparing to fire the final volley, “every one of you would have followed the example of this youth, who stood in rank above most of you, and willingly would have sacrificed himself in My path. The day will come when you will have [Page 31] recognised Me; that day I shall have ceased to be with you.”

The very moment the shots were fired, a gale of exceptional severity arose and swept over the whole city. A whirlwind of dust of incredible density obscured the light of the sun and blinded the eyes of the people. The entire city remained enveloped in that darkness from noon till night. Even so strange a phenomenon, following immediately in the wake of that still more astounding failure of Sám Khán’s regiment to injure the Báb, was unable to move the hearts of the people of Tabríz, and to induce them to pause and reflect upon the significance of such momentous events. They witnessed the effect which so marvellous an occurrence had produced upon Sám Khán; they beheld the consternation of the farrásh-báshí and saw him make his irrevocable decision; they could even examine that tunic which, despite the discharge of so many bullets, had remained whole and stainless; they could read in the face of the Báb, who had emerged unhurt from that storm, the expression of undisturbed serenity as He resumed His conversation with Siyyid Ḥusayn; and yet none of them troubled himself to enquire as to the significance of these unwonted signs and wonders.

The martyrdom of the Báb took place at noon on Sunday, the twenty-eighth of Sha‘bán, in the year 1266 A.H., thirty-one lunar years, seven months, and twenty-seven days from the day of His birth in Shíráz.

On the evening of that same day, the mangled bodies of the Báb and His companion were removed from the courtyard of the barracks to the edge of the moat outside the gate of the city. Four companies, each consisting of ten sentinels, were ordered to keep watch in turn over them. On the morning following the day of martyrdom, the Russian consul in Tabríz, accompanied by an artist, went to that spot and ordered that a sketch be made of the remains as they lay beside the moat.

I have heard Ḥájí ‘Alí-‘Askar relate the following: “An official of the Russian consulate, to whom I was related, showed me that same sketch on the very day it was drawn. It was such a faithful portrait of the Báb that I looked upon! No bullet had struck His forehead, His cheeks, or His lips. I gazed upon a smile which seemed to be still lingering upon His countenance. His body, however, had been severely mutilated. I could recognise the arms and head of His companion, who seemed to be holding Him in his embrace. As I gazed horror-struck upon that haunting picture, and saw how those noble traits had been disfigured, my heart sank within me. I turned away my face in anguish and, regaining my house, locked myself within my room. For three days and three nights, I could neither sleep nor eat, so overwhelmed was I with emotion. That short and tumultuous life, with all its sorrows, its turmoils, its banishments, and eventually the awe-inspiring martyrdom with which it had been crowned, seemed again to be re-enacted before my eyes. I tossed upon my bed, writhing in agony and pain.”

On the afternoon of the second day after the Báb’s martyrdom, Ḥájí Sulaymán Khán, son of Yaḥyá Khán, arrived at Bágh-Mishih, a suburb of Tabríz, and was received at the house of the Kalántar, one of his friends and confidants, who was a dervish and belonged to the ṣúfí community. As soon as he had been informed of the imminent danger that threatened the life of the Báb, Ḥájí [Page 32] Sulaymán Khán had left Ṭihrán 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 Kalántar 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 Ḥájí Alláh-Yár, who, he said, would be willing to carry out whatever he might wish him to do. At the appointed hour, Ḥájí Sulaymán Khán met Ḥájí 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 Mílán; laid them, the next day, in a specially constructed wooden case, and transferred them, according to Ḥájí 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.

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Telecommunications Administration: Patterns for Peace

BY GLORIA H. FERGUSON

THE DEVELOPMENT of international administration and regulation of telecommunications is a topic which touches the lives of all citizens of the world today. Therefore a knowledge of how international telecommunications are regulated should be of interest to all. Further, the system of regulation used in international telecommunications may be expanded to the possible establishment of a world order in which world peace will be the ultimate goal. This should provide an exciting prospect for everyone who shares a concern for the future of our planet.

To clarify the discussion let us define what is meant by international telecommunications. Telecommunication, with the Greek prefix “tele” which means “far-off,” is simply long-distance communication. A more complex definition of telecommunication is “any transmission, emission or reception of signs, signals, writing, images and sounds or intellegence of any nature by wire, radio, optical or other electromagnetic systems.” Therefore we are discussing telegraphy, telephony, radio, and television and the regulation of their use between countries. Richard G. Gould, formerly of the Office of Telecommunications Policy, said:

Reaching international agreement in any field is always difficult and time-consuming. The over-all record of successful agreements on telecommunications problems during the past 100 years should convince us that nations CAN live together and work out their differences. It should be a cause of great satisfaction to us that our particular field has one of the best records of international cooperation and agreement.

Past Progress

THE STORY of international telecommunications begins on May 24, 1844, when the first public link using the Morse apparatus was established between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland. This event marked the advent of the oldest and most primitive form of telecommunications, telegraphy. As soon as electric telegraph was made available to the general public, the need for international regulations of telecommunications arose. The messages which were sent from country to country were transmitted at the speed of light to the telegraph station nearest the border. Then the message was copied down by hand and carried across the border to the nearest station on the other side from which the message could continue to be transmitted to its destination. The practice was costly and time-consuming. The problem was particularly acute in Europe where the countries are numerous and small and have several borders. If a message had to cross several borders, it would be held up at each one.

On October 3, 1849, Prussia and Austria signed an agreement to link the telegraph systems of the two countries so that uninterrupted service could be provided. It was further agreed that government messages would be given first priority, messages concerning [Page 36] railway stations second priority, and public correspondence third priority. Each government reserved the right to suspend telegraphic services in its own country; and the cost of the message, paid by the sender, was the sum of the existing rates in the two countries. This first agreement was quickly followed by similar ones reached by all European countries. It was necessary for each country to negotiate with every other country through or to which it wished to send messages. Prussia, for example, when it decided to link its capital with places on the border, had to enter into fifteen agreements with the German states to obtain the rights of passage necessary for the construction of its lines.

The necessity for such agreements between countries soon led to the development of several regional unions in Europe. Soon it became obvious that with the progress of science, the extension of lines, and the increasing complexity of telegraph relations a merger would best serve the interests of all concerned. France invited all the powers of Europe to meet at a conference to negotiate a general treaty. The conference was held in Paris in 1865. A convention was drawn up which laid the foundation for the International Telegraph Union, with twenty European states as original members.

The formation of the union was a significant event in the history of telecommunication regulations. This union, which has survived and expanded over the years, is now the major regulatory organization in international telecommunications.

The original Paris conference established certain basic principles which are still operative, and it promoted a community spirit. From the beginning the International Telegraphic Union expressed the ideal of international cooperation and sharing.

During the rest of the nineteenth century the Union continued to expand. It revised and redrafted the International Telegraph Regulations, forbade the transmissions of messages contrary to public order and decency, and battled with a vast complexity of legal and financial problems concerned with the telegraph. In 1886 the Union began to legislate internationally for the telephone which had been invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876.

The invention of radio in 1895-1896 revolutionized telecommunications, and there developed an even greater need for regulation. Radio’s ability to reach ships at sea and to cross borders without wires brought about new problems. These were illustrated by three events. In 1902 Prince Heinrich of Prussia attempted to send President Theodore Roosevelt a courtesy message while crossing the Atlantic after a visit to the United States. He was refused service because the apparatus of the ship that he was on was not of the same make as that of the shore station with which the ship was in contact. In 1903 the French Ministry of Posts, Telegraphs, and Telephones reported that a large number of French coastal stations in the maritime services were being rendered inactive because of the refusal of the Marconi Company to accept correspondence. In 1906 an American ship under orders to search for a dangerous derelict was refused information by another ship because the radio transmitters were not of the same make.

Occurrences such as these clearly demonstrated that the lack of international regulations was detrimental to all concerned. In 1903, at the invitation of the German government, nine countries including the United States participated in the first international convention on radio communication in Berlin. The conference set up the basic mechanism for future ones. In 1906 a second conference was held in Berlin, this time with twenty-seven countries participating, resulting in the adoption of a convention (constitution) and Radio Regulations. The SOS distress signal was also agreed upon at this [Page 37] conference. The major problem of the conferences was to persuade member states to cooperate with regulations, particularly those designed to block any attempt by anyone to monopolize facilities or to impose one system in preference to others.

It was not until the third international radio conference in 1912 in London that the United Kingdom and Italy, both major users of maritime radio who employed only the Marconi system, agreed to communicate with all other ships regardless of the system used by them. The tragedy of the Titanic in 1912, in which the radio operator of the sinking ship was unable to communicate with another ship that was in rescue distance because its operator had gone off duty for the night, dramatized to the world the need for effective regulation of international telecommunications.

After World War I, public broadcasting increased at an unbelievable pace, giving rise to the serious problem of interference between stations. In the United States the problem was mainly a domestic one, which resulted in the establishment of federal control and regulation with the Radio Act of 1927. In Europe the countries had no choice but to attempt international control. The International Broadcasting Union was established in 1925 to deal specifically with “the problem of mutual interference.” The participating governments agreed to assign a specific frequency to each broadcasting station in Europe, set a limit on power used by stations, and adopt technical measures to assure the most efficient use of frequencies. The so-called “Geneva Plan” was the first of many attempts, both intra-European and international, to prevent interference between the radio services of different countries. Among the other groups created during this period were the International Telephone Consultative Committee (CCIF, 1923), the International Telegraph Consultative Committee (CCIT, 1926), and the International Radio Consultative Committee (CCIR, 1927).

The discovery of short waves and the continuous improvement of radio apparatus increased the reach of telecommunications a thousand fold, leading to international broadcasting or broadcasting that was specifically designed for a large audience in another country. Previously, radio communications between countries had consisted of government messages and safety, maritime, and common carrier services. The regulations developed thus far had been concerned with establishing policies regarding these as well as establishing controls designed to prevent the interference of stations from neighboring countries. Now the development of international broadcasting entered a new area for regulations or policies.

International broadcasting developed in four phases. The first was the exchange of programs between broadcasting services of different countries. The second was the broadcasts of colonial powers, such as England, to distant colonies. The third was the broadcasting from one country to its nationals, or former nationals, in another country. Switzerland became very active in this kind of broadcasting, beaming programs from Switzerland to her former residents living in North America and Argentina. The fourth phase was broadcasting from one country directly to the nationals of another. The last phase contained the greatest problem for international cooperation because of the political potentialities of such broadcasts and the propaganda purposes for which they could be used. The effectiveness of this kind of broadcasting was demonstrated in World War II when all of the major powers as well as the smaller countries filled the airwaves with programs designed for foreign listeners. The common carrier services of telecommunications, telegraphy, telephony, and [Page 38] radio, had proven to be an essential means of conducting military operations in World War I. In World War II radio broadcasting proved to be a formidable means of propaganda and was used widely for this purpose, so that in both wars telecommunications played an important and perhaps decisive role.

During and between the two World Wars broadcasters from the various countries continued to seek agreements on telecommunications between nations. There was much organizing and reorganizing of groups as advances in the technology of telecommunications presented new and continually more far-reaching problems which warranted control and regulation.

In 1932, at its conference in Madrid, the International Telegraph Union changed its name to the International Telecommunications Union in order to encompass all aspects of telecommunications. Television and radiodetection (radar) had made their appearance in 1930 and broadcasters had become aware of the new horizons they would open up and the problems they would bring. This conference adopted the first International Telecommunication Convention and established new radio, telegraph, and telephone regulations. In 1947, at its Atlantic City Conference, the ITU reached an agreement with the United Nations under which it became a specialized UN agency and transferred its headquarters from Berne to Geneva. No less important was the creation of the International Frequency Registration Board which was charged with maintaining “a register of all frequencies used for all purposes throughout the world.” Since that time the International Telecommunications Union has emerged as the most comprehensive and powerful international telecommunications agency, and one involved with the regulation of all phases of telecommunications from telegraphy to space radiocommunication.

Present Problems

THE MAIN regulatory agency for international telecommunications is the International Telecommunications Union. But there are many other smaller, international organizations, each concerned with only one aspect of telecommunications or operating within a specific geographic locality. In broadcasting there are five principal organizations dealing with the promotion of international relays and program exchanges, the general improvement of broadcasting techniques, and the exchange of information. It should be kept in mind that most of the smaller groups are private associations and not bound by governmental agreements. Since the ITU is unique in its scope and power to regulate, its organization, administration, and functions deserve examination.

The ITU is governed by a constitution called the International Telecommunications Convention adopted at the Montreux Conference in 1965. A new and permanent constitution is now in the process of being written by a committee of experts appointed at the Montreux Conference. This document is to be completed and ready for presentation at the next major conference scheduled for Geneva in 1973.

The purposes of the ITU as stated in its constitution are:

a) to maintain and extend international cooperation for the improvement and rational use of telecommunications of all kinds;

b) to promote the development of technical facilities and their most efficient operation with a view to improving the efficiency of telecommunications services, increasing their usefulness, and making them, so far as possible, generally available to the public;

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c) to harmonize the actions of nations in the attainment of those common ends.

In order to fulfill these purposes the ITU performs specific functions such as allocating frequency assignments and maintaining a register of them; coordinating efforts to eliminate harmful interference between radio stations of different countries and improving the use made of the radio frequency spectrum; fostering collaboration among its members and associate members with a view to the establishment of rates at levels as low as possible consistent with efficient service and taking into account the necessity for maintaining independent financial administration of telecommunications on a sound basis; fostering the creation, development, and improvement of telecommunications equipment and networks in new or developing countries by every means at its disposal, especially its participation in the appropriate programs of the United Nations; promoting the adoption of measures for ensuring the safety of life through the cooperation of telecommunications services; undertaking studies, making regulations, adopting resolutions, formulating recommendations and opinions, and collecting and publishing information concerning telecommunications matters for the benefit of all members and associate members.

The supreme organ of the ITU is the Plenipotentiary Conference which is responsible for establishing the basic policy of the organization, revising its Convention (constitution), and electing the Secretary-General, Deputy Secretary-General, and twenty-nine members of the Administrative Council. It is composed of delegations representing the members of the Union and meets approximately once every five years. The ITU conducts Administrative Conferences which undertake partial or complete revisions of the Administrative Regulations which consist of the Telegraph Regulations, the Telephone Regulations, the Radio Regulations, and the Additional Radio Regulations. There are two kinds of administrative conferences, world and regional. The Administrative Council of the ITU meets once a year and is responsible for taking all the steps necessary to facilitate the implementation of the provisions of the Convention (constitution), the Regulations, the decisions of the Plenipotentiary Conference, and the decisions of other conferences and meetings of the Union. Its twenty-nine members are elected with due regard to the need for equitable representation of all parts of the world.

The ITU operates through four permanent organs which employ some five-hundred staff members. The organs are the General Secretariat, the International Frequency Registration Board, and two International Consultative Committees, one concerned with radio and the other with telegraphy and telephony. Participation in the work of these committees is open to all members and to private telecommunications operating agencies, scientific and industrial organizations, and other international organizations. Every few years each Consultative Committee holds a Plenary Assembly which draws up a list of technical questions that are then referred to study groups composed of experts from various countries who study the problem and draw up recommendations that are submitted to the next Plenary Assembly. If the recommendations are adopted, they are published in CCI books which are distributed by the Union.

The structure and activities of the ITU and each of its subordinate groups have all been characterized by international interaction. The absolute necessity of solving or regulating the problems inherent in telecommunications has led to the development of an organization (the ITU) which functions smoothly in spite of the striking diversity of its members.

Many problems have plagued the ITU and other such organizations since the advent of telecommunications. The first is that of the [Page 41] fair allocation of frequencies. With the increasing demand for use of the air waves, if there are insufficient desirable frequencies to meet the world’s requirements, those that are available must be allocated to individual countries according to their needs. The assessing of one nation’s needs against another’s is one of the duties that fall upon a regulatory agency, as is the question of “Priority Rights,” involving the adjudication of claims to proprietary interest in a frequency registered ahead of some other administrations which may subsequently wish to use the same frequency or one close enough to cause interference. Priority rights became an issue as early as 1927. Several committees were formed over the years to deal with them and proved unable to formulate a policy. In 1934, Frank Schwill, an official of ITU, made a detailed study and concluded that frequency cannot become the object of ownership. In cases of arbitration, however, a country’s past performance in using that frequency could be used as a point in its favor.

Several plans for allocating frequencies were tried but none proved satisfactory to all countries involved. In 1947 the Plenipotentiary Conference of the ITU in Atlantic City accepted the principle that a new listing was needed and set up the machinery for establishing the International Frequency Registration Board. By 1957 the ITU had not succeeded in implementing these directives. Many difficulties arose in preparing the new list. These were due first to the fact that in the more desirable bands requests for frequencies far outnumbered the frequencies available. Second, the many conferences held to attempt to set up the Board were hampered by a lack of agreed upon technical data. Third, a group of countries, led by the USSR, insisted that the method adopted was incorrect and wanted the new list to be based on a revision of the old list to fit the new allocation table. The dates of registration in the old list of frequencies were to be the deciding factor in all cases of priority. In addition this group criticized attempts to assign frequencies on the basis of circuits and areas of reception rather than on individual stations. Fourth was the worsening political climate in 1950.

In 1952 the Soviet Union entered a reservation to the Buenos Aires Convention, thereby refusing to register its allocated frequencies with the IFRB of the ITU. The problem of allocations continues to be paramount.

Another problem with which the ITU has been concerned has been the use of frequencies to promote international understanding. The ITU has been working closely with UNESCO, another specialized UN agency with a great interest in telecommunications for the free flow of ideas and as a link between peoples. At the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Atlantic City in 1947 the Director-General of UNESCO urged that international broadcasting be allocated in a manner which would give all nations and diverse cultures adequate facilities for expression. At subsequent conferences of ITU, UNESCO has urged the use of telecommunications in the interests of peace; the expansion of radio-communication facilities in underdeveloped areas; encouragement for the international exchange of programs; the extension of educational, scientific, and cultural broadcasts; and the promotion of professional training for radio personnel.

In 1949 at the International High-Frequency Broadcasting Conference of the ITU, the following resolution was adopted:

Considering that it is highly desirable that high-frequency broadcasts should contribute to the development of international co-operation and peace to the greatest possible extent;

Recommends that the frequencies to be assigned by the conference should not be used for purposes contrary to mutual understanding and tolerance, and that all appropriate steps should be taken to the [Page 42] end that this resolution is followed by practical measures on the part of the governments concerned, and that such measures are brought to the attention of the International Telecommunications Union, United Nations and UNESCO by the countries members of these organizations.

Future Potentialities

WITH THE STUPENDOUS development of space communications the regulation of telecommunications will continue to increase in complexity. The ITU is presently creating, through its Regional and World Plan Committees, a world telephone network. The ITU will regulate the technical and financial aspects of the global network.

The most exciting phase of telecommunications today with a myriad of promises for the future is space radio communication. The ITU has already assumed a regulatory role in that area. In 1959, at the beginning of the space age, the United Nations Ad Hoc Com- mittee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (having emphasized the imperative need of regulating telecommunications in space) drew the attention of the international community to the fact that “there is already in existence and operation an international organization suited to consider the problems of radio frequency allocation for outer space uses, namely, ITU.”

Telecommunications, reliably regulated, are an absolute necessity for successful scientific exploration of outer space and the application of the results thereof for peaceful uses. They are essential for space guidance, tracking, telemetry, command systems, astronaut contacts, scientific data reception, commercial space communications, and radio astronomy. Thus ITU’s role in it is vital.

INTELSAT is an important organization in space radio communications. It is also an important organization in international relations. It is the first international cooperative enterprise to have, from the very outset of its commercial development, the purpose of sharing the exploitation of a new resource for the benefit of all mankind. Today INTELSAT has eighty members. The scheme of INTELSAT is designed to minimize conflicts in a new field of economic activity by establishing a single global system instead of competing national and regional ones. The members of INTELSAT also reflect the desire to make communications by means of satellite available to all the nations of the world as soon as practicable, on a non-discriminatory basis.

The advent of the space age has thrown men together, in spite of themselves. Because it has had to deal with international problems from its beginning, the field of telecommunications has advanced further than other fields in this respect.

Patterns for Peace

THE ORGANIZATION and activities of international telecommunications regulatory agencies offer a pattern which could be used in the establishment of world peace. Richard R. Colino, Director of the International Arrangements Division of Communications Satellite Corporation, states:

The form of international cooperation which had developed among governments and operating entities in the field of international telecommunications was of interest. The activities of governments and operating entities had not been of a “supranational” nature. The ITU developed as an organ of cooperation and consultation rather than as an operating agency or body making international decisions binding on nations.

The key words are “cooperation” and “consultation.” They are the qualities which have characterized the ITU throughout its lengthy [Page 43] development. Disputes or points of disagreement were and still are resolved by repeated consultative conferences, as was the case with allocation of frequencies. The ITU was the first intergovernmental organization to set up a permanent headquarters with a secretariat, a structure many other international or intergovernmental organizations now use.

INTELSAT is closely related to ITU since membership in ITU is one of the requirements for membership in INTELSAT. Its charter consists of two Agreements which were opened for signature by its members on August 20, 1971. The first of these agreements is one among governments. It states a “goal of creating” a single global commercial communications satellite system as a part of an improved global communications network which will “provide expanded telecommunications services to all areas of the world and which will contribute to world peace and understanding.”

The second agreement, called the Special Agreement, is between telecommunications organizations. It deals with financial and operational aspects of INTELSAT, including such matters as the sharing of costs and revenues, and the establishment of charges for use of the INTELSAT satellites. The Special Agreement may be signed by a government which is party to the international agreement, or by a public or private telecommunications entity designated by such a government.

There are other provisions in the INTELSAT agreements which differentiate between the two major elements of a global communications satellite system. The satellites in outer space, called the space segment, are owned by the signatories of the Special Agreement in proportion to their respective contributions to the costs of the space segment. The terminal stations, located on the earth’s surface, are separately owned and operated by public or private owners in the country in which they are located. The INTELSAT Agreements provide for the unitary development, establishment, and operation of these two elements, which are essential if the objectives of INTELSAT are to be realized. This structure and plan is unique in that it provides for various kinds of ownership, governmental or private, as well as for international regulation and participation.

INTELSAT has a legal structure that is also unique and has received much attention from legal experts who regard it as an exciting new form of arbitration. The INTELSAT Arbitration Agreement, approved and established on November 21, 1966, provides that “an arbitral tribunal constituted in accordance with its provisions shall be competent to decide in a legal dispute whether an action or a failure to act by the Committee or by any member or members is authorized by or is in compliance with the Agreement and the Special Agreement.” The tribunal can also give a decision in any legal dispute arising in connection with any other agreement relating to the INTELSAT arrangements. The only persons permitted to be part of an arbitration proceeding are the Committee and groups or persons who signed the Special Agreement. The tribunal must base its decisions on interpretation of the intergovernmental agreement, the Special Agreement, and the Supplementary Agreement on Arbitration. Decisions are binding on all parties to the dispute and must be carried out by them in good faith.

An interesting feature of this arbitration plan is the selection of the tribunal. Each party to a dispute, petitioner and respondent, designates a member of the arbitral tribunal which will decide their particular case. These two members then select a third member, who will be the tribunal’s president, from a panel of seven legal experts from widely differing parts of the world appointed every two years by the Interim Communications Satellite Committee, the governing body of INTELSAT. If agreement cannot be reached [Page 44] by the two original panel members on the selection of the third member as to who will be the president of the tribunal, the chairman of the panel of legal experts designates a member of the panel other than himself to serve as president of the arbitral tribunal.

The significance of this method of arbitration and its possible uses in other areas is pointed out in an article by Frank M. Wozencraft, former Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice, entitled “The Intelsat Arbitration Agreement—A Pattern for the Future?” Wozencraft states that the INTELSAT Arbitration Agreement

departs from previous comparable agreements in three respects:

a) It establishes an outside tribunal which can review the legality of the Interim Committee’s actions or failure to act;

b) it contains an unusual provision for the appointment of the impartial arbitrator, and

c) the arbitral procedure is set forth in clear and specific detail to an extent rare in agreements of this type.

In addition he expresses the opinion that in approach and substance the INTELSAT Arbitration Agreement “has aspects which may prove useful in the context of intergovernmental treaty disputes as well as international business disputes.” Wozencraft concludes that

The need to develop conciliation and arbitration procedures adapted to the settlement of critical international disputes—in which questions of law are typically mixed with other considerations—is clearly one of the major challenges facing us today. If this challenge is to be met successfully, it will be through adapting old and shaping new techniques for arbitration and selecting arbitrators, creatively and resourcefully, as the parties did in negotiating the Intelsat arbitration agreement. In this sense, that agreement may well provide a pattern for the future in areas even more crucial than the one with which it deals.

Further evidences of the practices which may be useful in establishing peace can be found in a comparison of a few of the activities of ITU and INTELSAT with a few of the elements listed by Grenville Clark as being essential to world peace.

According to Clark in order to establish world peace, “Active participation in the world peace authority must be universal, or virtually so . . .” The ITU has a membership of 135 countries and INTELSAT has a membership of 80 countries. These organizations conduct numerous conferences, meetings, and assemblies, giving ample opportunity for the active participation of their member countries.

Clark states further that “It will doubtless also be found advisable, in the interest of a solid and durable peace, to include a World Development Authority, adequately and reliably financed, in order to mitigate the vast disparities between the ‘have’ and the ‘have not’ nations.”

The ITU has special subgroups which are working towards such a principle. The World Plan and Regional Plan Committees set up by the International Consultative Committees of the ITU as well as five Special Autonomous Working Parties are all involved in helping the new and developing countries come up to par in the area of telecommunications. INTELSAT is also playing [Page 45] an important role in bringing about the equality of nations. It offers to the less developed countries new or vastly improved communications services which are proving to be an effective tool in hastening their development process. Education, literacy, improved hygiene and agricultural techniques can be had by anyone anywhere because of INTELSAT, a situation which will certainly help to close the gaps which divide people.

Finally, Clark suggests that for world peace “World judicial tribunals to interpret and apply the world law against international violence must be established and maintained, and also organs of mediation and conciliation,—so as to substitute peaceful means of adjudication and adjustment in place of violence, or the threat of it, as the means for dealing with all international disputes.” The Arbitral Tribunal Plan of INTELSAT would certainly meet that requirement for peace.

In these and many other ways the organizations that have been developed to create and administer international telecommunications regulations have established precedents and patterns that may be applied to the promotion of world peace.

Summary and Conclusions

THE DISCOVERY and continuing development of uses of the electromagnetic spectrum necessitated the establishment of regulations to govern their use. The nature of the phenomenon was such that it ignored manmade barriers. People who had no previous contact could, with the advent of telecommunications, see, hear, and talk with each other. To establish effective controls, people had to meet, plan, and work together. As the range of telecommunications increased, so did the scope of human interaction that accompanied it until today, with space telecommunications encompassing the globe and penetrating outer space, men from all parts of the world are working together, actively involved with the continuous and ever-expanding task of regulating in an equitable manner the uses of telecommunications and of reaching even greater horizons in techniques and capabilities.

From the very beginning the organizations which developed to regulate telecommunications have been aware of the fact that, for the most effective use of telecommunications services, there must be cooperation on the part of all involved. Therefore, policies were designed with the needs of all in mind. The organization of the ITU has served as a model for other fields of endeavor which have had to organize and operate internationally. The method of arbitration devised by INTELSAT is now being studied as a possible means of settling disputes in other areas.

The obvious conclusion one can draw from studying the development of international telecommunications and their regulation is that it is possible for people from all parts of the world with vastly differing cultural and social values to work together and accomplish results beneficial to all. In fact the dizzying rate of advancement that telecommunications have undergone within little more than a century should convince any skeptic that this is the only route to take. Because of the sharing of discoveries and facilities by persons from all corners of the globe, the range of telecommunications has increased from connecting Baltimore to Washington in 1844, to connecting Mars to Earth in 1971.

There have been problems, there still are problems, and there will be problems in getting people to work together. The organizations concerned with international telecommunications regulation have remained constantly in the forefront and have been remarkably effective in doing this successfully. Perhaps, in the final analysis, their greatest and most significant contribution to mankind will be, not the tremendous technical [Page 46] and scientific advances they have nurtured, but the formulation of policies and procedures that can be used successfully in enabling men to live and work together in peace.

Arthur C. Clarke, writer and space expert, summed it all up at the signing of the new INTELSAT Agreements on Friday, August 20, 1971, in the International Conference Room of the Department of State in Washington, D.C.:

I am an optimist; anyone interested in the future has to be. I believe that communications satellites can unite mankind. Let me remind you that, whatever the history books say, this great country was created a little more than a hundred years ago by two inventions. Without them the United States was impossible; with them, it was inevitable. Those inventions, of course, were the railroad and the electric telegraph.

Today we are seeing on a global scale an almost exact parallel to that situation. What the railroads and the telegraph did here a century ago, the jets and the communications satellites are doing now to all the world.

I hope you will remember this analogy in the years ahead. For today, whether you intend it or not and whether you wish it or not, you have signed far more than just another intergovernmental agreement.

You have just signed a first draft of the articles of federation of the United States of Earth.

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New Workers with the Blind: Reactions and Observations

BY ALLAN L. WARD

A rehabilitation teacher intern sits across from a blind trainee, demonstrating a technique for using the materials on the table. The intern has a college degree representing several years of academic preparation, but he has been working directly with blind people for only a month. His tense face betrays emotions welling up deep inside him. He finally gives the trainee work to do alone and goes to his room where he closes the door and cries, for he has come face to face with questions for which he has no answer.

This intern was one of nearly a hundred whose activities I directed for approximately three months each, over a thirty-six month period, in professional training for working with the blind. Certain emotions erupted with such consistency that they became the focus of a three-year study to identify causes. The results of the study have been published; but there remain observations more appropriate for WORLD ORDER which explore the framework of a spiritually-oriented world order, wherein all professions and arts can be seen in a new perspective. It is my intention to summarize briefly relevant aspects of the study and to observe how the findings relate to gaining a spiritual perspective on working with the blind.

My study concentrated on interns who themselves were sighted and who had little or no previous association with the blind. During their training they experienced feelings which they characterized with the following words: annoyance, amazement, depression, dizziness, fear, fright, frustration, guilt, helplessness, melancholy, nervousness, pity, resentment, revulsion, sadness, self-consciousness, shyness, sorrow, uneasiness, and withdrawal.

With some of the interns there was no warning that such feelings might possibly occur. As a result they did not particularly associate the onset of uncomfortable feelings with their work with the blind. Rather they attributed them to causes such as “change of climate,” “weather conditions,” “coming down with something,” or “cracking up.” They were almost universally hesitant to mention to anyone their feelings and feared that they alone were experiencing such sensations. The other interns, however, were forewarned that such feelings might occur and were invited to discuss them. Yet forewarning did not appear to lessen either the number or the depth of responses, but it did alleviate related feelings of guilt and frustration. They would sometimes come by the director’s office and say, “Well, it has happened,” or “I am in it now.”

Three different levels of feelings were identified. The first was related to associating for a prolonged period with large numbers of blind people. The interns expressed it this way: “Sudden exposure to so much blindness.” “Large groups of people bumping into one another.” “I felt angry that there had to be blindness. Seeing almost one hundred legally or totally blind individuals together in one place, watching blindisms of the congenitally [Page 49] blind. . . .” “I remember feeling like I wanted to run and just get away from everyone. I felt like I was trapped in a zoo. . . .”

The second level of feeling began as the interns started to consider what would happen if they lost their own sight. They noted: “I was not psychologically nor emotionally prepared for the impact of total darkness.” “I am sure these feelings of revulsion, etc., were brought on by fear; it was about this time that I was certain I was losing my sight.”

The third level emerged as the interns seriously questioned whether life without sight (or other sensory, body, or mental functions) was worth living. They wondered if they could ever, without being hypocrites, tell a blind person that life without sight was meaningful until they understood it better themselves. The root questions which surfaced concerned the purpose of life itself, whether a God existed, what kind of justice of the Supreme Being would allow some people to be blind, and how poorly prepared they had been to confront these basic issues. Here the sense of helplessness reached its peak. The interns reached this edge of their own understanding, and they had no answers. Most withdrew and wept, some for hours at a time. Many considered leaving the program and returning home. Some described how they carried on in a determined way trying to force themselves not to think about these questions and not to let their inner feelings show. Some said they went out and “got as drunk as possible” in order to “forget.” Another said, “I responded by crying, talking to others, and taking walks alone.”

After hours of discussion with the interns over a prolonged period, it became apparent that there were certain assumptions, held in common, that seemed to bar the way to any satisfactory solution of their emotional difficulties. Chief among them were the beliefs (1) that there was probably no Supreme Being, (2) that man was an animal without any other aspect than his material body, (3) that life consisted of physical, sensuous, and material pleasures and benefits, and (4) that there was no apparent existence after the death of our material bodies. One person noted, “Whereas I could escape from these questions in my usual routine, here I had my nose rubbed in it day after day, hour after hour, simply by being confronted by blind people endlessly. I had never been forced to think about such serious things for so long a time in my life. I could not escape and I realized how poorly prepared I had been by my school, my church, and my home to confront these issues.”

From this point of view the tears shed were not only for the people encountered by [Page 50] the interns and for the fearful thought of themselves deprived of their purpose in life but also for the acknowledgement of an awareness of the purposelessness in their whole concept of life. To stand at the edge of understanding and peer into the dark space beyond and to identify oneself as a temporarily living animal, a buzz of consciousness, to be plunged into the endless oblivion of nonexistence is a source of fear that can drive one to seek forgetfulness and to give vent to anguish. What explanation does a rehabilitation teacher with such an orientation have to offer another who asks the same questions?

To rehabilitate implies the restoration of purposes and abilities that one has lost. To the materialist a major inlet of pleasure-seeking is disrupted by loss of sight (or other severe sense or body loss) with no restoration of the gratification possible without restoration of the faculty. The very nature of a materialist’s own goals makes rehabilitation impossible in terms of those values and presents an unresolvable contradiction.

THE TEACHERS that God has sent to mankind represent a different purpose of man’s creation, and hence a different perspective for those working with persons who have any type of physical impairment (including old age, which includes a general lessening of physical abilities). When a spiritual habilitation —equipping and providing spiritual goals in the first place—has occurred in a person’s life, strictly speaking a rehabilitation in case of physical impairment is not needed, since the spiritual reality has not been affected. A substitution of certain methods and skills with the remaining senses and corporal parts would be the major need of the already spiritually habilitated person since no loss would have touched the core of the spiritual purpose and pleasures of his life.

As the purpose of man has been explained by Bahá’u’lláh, it is obvious (1) that there is a God, (2) that man is primarily a spiritual being who functions temporarily on this material plane through his material body, (3) that gratification and fulfillment come from developing spiritual qualities, and (4) that there is an eternal life of the soul. It should also be noted that “The conception of annihilation is a factor in human degradation, a cause of human debasement and lowliness, a source of human fear and abjection. . . . If he [man] dwells upon the thought of non-existence he will become utterly incompetent; with weakened will-power his ambition for progress will be lessened and the acquisition of human virtues will cease.” In addition it may be observed that turning away from the source of information that God has provided will cause a person to “sink into irretrievable despondency.” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá once told a physician, “If one possesses the love of God, everything that he undertakes is useful, but if the undertaking is without the love of God, then it is hurtful and the cause of veiling one’s self from the Lord of the Kingdom.” He further indicated, “With the love of God all sciences are accepted and beloved, but without it, are fruitless; nay, rather the cause of insanity.”

In light of these concepts the comments of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá are significant. In Dublin, New [Page 51] Hampshire, in the summer of 1912, when asked if two hard-of-hearing ladies might sit near Him to hear Him with their ear trumpets, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá replied, “‘Yes, the nearer they come, the better they will hear the Words of God. . . . It matters little in what way or by what means they hear it.’” In November of that same year, in Washington, D.C., when a man came for an interview who had lost both legs in a railroad accident, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá told him, “‘Mutilation of the body brings no defect to the soul. This is one of the proofs of the immortality of the spirit, for death is another name for change and dispersion of the members and elements of the body. As a bodily change does not bring about change in the spirit, it is apparent that the spirit is eternal.’”

When rehabilitation workers have a unified concept of the nature and purpose of man, according to spiritual definitions, the effect of working with people with any physical disabilities must surely change. Instead of being taken to the edge of an understanding that seems to many who share the materialistic views of the age like a jumping-off place to oblivion, the spiritually-oriented person would gladly hasten on past that edge into an endless universe of ever-increasing understanding, based on the eternal nature of man, spiritually born in the image and likeness of God. When the “helping professions” attain that perspective, many workers will undoubtedly find a serenity, undismayed by a fear of life questions which they cannot now answer.

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The Pure in Heart

RACHEL FORT WELLER

“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” What wonder and questioning these words should have aroused in the minds of Jesus’ disciples! What promise to mortal man could be more charged with divine mystery and heavenly exaltation? Yet what does it mean to be “pure in heart,” and who is so presumptuous as to imagine the sight of God? Those whom we believe to be pure in heart make no self-conscious claims to possession of that virtue; and God, the Ineffable, is beyond all names and attributes and is known only to Himself. Yet we are told by His Manitfestations, those mighty Founders of all living religions, that we have been created to know and to worship Him. Here is a paradox which, in the nature of divine paradoxes, has one aspect beyond human knowledge and another within our grasp and reconcilable with the first: We who are created and finite are incomplete. We cannot therefore conceive of the essence of the Creator Who is uncreated and infinite and Who surpasses every concept of completeness, for infinity cannot be encompassed or confined. At the same time, it is the whole purpose of our existence and spiritual evolution to know the names and attributes of God through all the forms, both material and spiritual, which are manifested in the visible creation of which we are a part:

Whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth is a direct evidence of the revelation within it of the attributes and names of God, inasmuch as within every atom are enshrined the signs that bear eloquent testimony to the revelation of that Most Great Light. Methinks, but for the potency of that revelation, no being could ever exist. How resplendent the luminaries of knowledge that shine in an atom, and how vast the oceans of wisdom that surge within a drop! To a supreme degree is this true of man, who, among all created things, hath been invested with the robe of such gifts, and hath been singled out for the glory of such distinction. For in him are potentially revealed all the attributes and names of God to a degree that no other created being hath excelled or surpassed. All these names and attributes are applicable to him. Even as He hath said: “Man is My mystery, and I am his mystery.

This knowledge of God which exists within and around man is not at variance with the ultimate unknowability of God in His Essence, and it is shown to us most clearly and perfectly in the persons of the divine Messengers, Who, throughout the ages, have revealed to us progressively portions of divine Truth: Buddha, Moses, Zoroaster, Christ, Muḥammad, the Báb, Bahá’u’lláh, and others Whom God will send in future ages.

But before we can begin to “see” with the spiritual eye which recognizes everywhere the signs of God, we must awaken —our eyes must open to receive the spiritual light. Now this awakening in many of the world’s religious scriptures is said to occur in the heart, that symbolic [Page 53] vessel wherein our deepest understandings (“seeings”) are felt to take place. And the heart must be pure. Bahá’u’lláh, speaking as the mouthpiece of God, instructs us: “O Son of Being! Thy heart is My home; sanctify it for My descent. Thy spirit is My place of revelation; cleanse it for My Manifestation.”

The ancient yogis of India believed that the heart was an actual center of spiritual awareness in the form of a lotus and that an “inner light” dwelled there which could be beheld when the spiritual eye was awakened in deep meditation. This light was said to be beyond sorrow, and those who saw it were filled with extraordinary peace and joy. Quakers seek the “Inner Light” which can reveal truth and bring guidance to the silent worshiper. Bahá’u’lláh, the Voice of God for this Age, says: “O Son of Being! Thou art My lamp and My light is in thee. Get thou from it thy radiance and seek none other than Me. For I have created thee rich and have bountifully shed My favor upon thee.”

The beholding of the light is the result of a transformation, at first intermittent and impermanent, of our self-centered consciousness away from the powerful desire to satisfy the ego’s multitude of personal demands to a new consciousness which desires severance from everything except God. Thus we are compelled to undertake the work of purifying our hearts consciously and self-directively. The desire itself is the first step towards the goal. It is the impulse which, if faithfully obeyed, at last causes the sporadic experiences of God-centeredness to unite into a steady, continuing condition of the soul.

Turning again to the ancient Hindu scriptures we find guidance for the seeker who wishes to purify his heart. In The Yoga Aphorisms of Pantanjali, one of the best known among the Indian commentaries on yoga (that which yokes, or joins, the soul to God), the disciple is to follow five rules and five observances. The five rules are:

1. Abstention from harm to any other being, whether caused by thoughts, words, or deeds.

2. Abstention from falsehood in thought, word, or deed.

3. Abstention from theft, either material or psychological, remembering that all is God’s—nothing really belongs to us, neither objects, virtues, nor ideas.

4. Abstention from incontinence. The disciple must be chaste in thought, word, and deed.

5. Abstention from greed.

The five observances are:

1. Purity: cleanliness, both physical and mental. The importance of external cleanliness derives from its psychological effect upon us. With this ‘Abdu’l-Bahá agrees:

External cleanliness, although it is but a physical thing, hath a great influence upon spirituality. For example, although sound is but the vibrations of the air which affect the tympanum of the ear, and vibrations of the air are but an accident among the accidents which depend upon the air, consider how much marvelous notes or a charming song influence the spirits! A wonderful song giveth wings to the spirit and filleth the heart with exaltation. To return to the subject, the fact of having a pure and spotless body likewise exerciseth an influence upon the spirit of man.

2. Contentment: acceptance of the [Page 54] position in which God has placed us, free from selfish rebellion or self-seeking.

3. Austerity: control of the physical appetites and passions in order that all energy may be concentrated upon God.

4. Daily study of the holy Scriptures and other spiritual writings.

5. Devotion to God: the dedication of all one’s actions and the fruits of one’s work to God without desire that the results should be those for which one hopes personally, for God alone knows what the fruits of all action should be.

Each of the Prophets or Manifestations of God has revealed to us guidelines by which to discipline ourselves in order to progress on our spiritual journey, and a detailed study might be made, parallel to the Indian disciplines, of the precepts of other religions: the laws of Moses, the Eightfold Path of the Buddha, the Sermon on the Mount of Christ, the laws and teachings of Bahá’u’lláh.

Various are the ways to the purification of the heart. The great achievement which opens wide the door is the transcendence of the ego-sense. The surrender of all to God comes as a miracle, often after years —perhaps a life-time—of longing struggle and seeming failure. It begins with a whispered stirring in the heart which, if heeded, grows in strength and volume until it becomes a sound of glory, overwhelming all that was heard before, and a light which destroys every darkness. Does one then see God?

The great mystics of history all report their metaphysical experiences as being beyond description, and they know that any images they may use in attempting to convey what they have “seen” with the inner eye or “heard” with the inner ear cannot contain the experience itself. The kind of comprehension which must result from the attainment of true purity of heart surely none of us dares venture to imagine, let alone describe. Bahá’u’lláh warns us against “idle fancies and vain imaginations.” But, miraculously, as we travel the spiritual path with devotion and deep longing, aspects of God do begin to appear to us out of the “cloud of unknowing,” and all which enters our awareness begins to shine with unspeakable joy and beauty—even those things which we thought were causing us ugliness, pain, and grief. Then we, ourselves, without realizing it, begin to shine too.

How are we to come by the unself-awareness of true purity of heart? For man is a self-conscious creature; and being so, he cannot regain the innocence of the childhood of the human race as symbolized in Eden before Adam and Eve ate the apple. That symbolic apple, in bestowing upon them powers of reflection and decision, deprived them of what the innocent know by instinct. We must forever be aware of ourselves, make our choices, and pay the prices of our mistakes. The pure in heart are as they are not because they have no self-awareness, but rather because they have transcended the need for personal possessions, whether material or spiritual. Therefore consciousness of any individual virtue has no place, no importance, and no necessity in the minds and hearts of those who know that all comes from and belongs to God. They are content to be perfectly possessed by Him.

[Page 55] THE OLD WORLD is falling apart under the weight of materialism. The new World Order of Bahá’u’lláh is arising in a new spiritual springtime. His world is one which needs, as never before, the pure in heart and all of those who truly struggle for that condition, however far from the goal each may be. Of unimaginable magnitude are the results of the attainment of purity for each individual and for mankind as a whole. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá tells us something of the illumination, joy, beauty, and knowledge which we may experience and reflect:

Cleanliness and sanctity in all conditions are characteristics of pure beings and necessities of free souls. The first perfection consists in cleanliness and sanctity and in purity from every defect. When man in all conditions is pure and immaculate, he will become the center of the reflection of the manifest Light. In all his actions and conduct there must first be purity, then beauty and independence. The channel must be cleansed before it is filled with sweet water. The pure eye comprehendeth the sight and the meeting of God; the pure nostril inhaleth the perfumes of the rose-garden of bounty; the pure heart becometh the mirror of the beauty of truth. This is why, in the heavenly Books, the divine counsels and commands have been compared to water. So, in the Qur’án it is said, “and we have caused a pure water to descend from heaven;” and in the Gospel, “Except a man hath received the baptism of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.” Then it is evident that the divine teachings are the heavenly grace and the showers of the mercy of God, which purify the hearts of men.

I now assure thee, O servant of God, that, if thy mind become empty and pure from every mention and thought and thy heart attracted wholly to the Kingdom of God, forget all else besides God and come in communion with the Spirit of God, then the Holy Spirit will assist thee with a power which will enable thee to penetrate all things, and a Dazzling Spark which enlightens all sides, a Brilliant Flame in the zenith of the heavens, will teach thee that which thou dost not know of the facts of the universe and of the divine doctrine. Verily, I say unto thee, every soul which ariseth today to guide others to the path of safety and infuse in them the Spirit of Life, the Holy Spirit will inspire that Soul with evidences, proofs and facts and the lights will shine upon it from the Kingdom of God. Do not forget what I have conveyed unto thee from the breath of the Spirit. Verily, it is the shining morning and the rosy dawn which will impart unto thee the lights, reveal the mysteries and make thee competent in science, and through it the pictures of the Supreme World will be printed in thy heart and the facts of the secrets of the Kingdom of God will shine before thee.

Souls are like unto mirrors, and the bounty of God is like unto the sun. When the mirrors pass beyond all coloring and attain purity and polish, and are confronted with the sun, they will reflect in full perfection its light and glory. In this condition one should not consider the mirror, but the power of the light of the sun, which hath penetrated the mirror, making it a reflector of the heavenly glory.

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The Story of the Báb

A REVIEW OF H. M. BALYUZI’S The Báb: The Herald of the Day of Days (OXFORD: GEORGE RONALD, 1973), 192 PAGES, APPENDICES, BIBLIOGRAPHY, NOTES

BY FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH

FOR OVER A CENTURY friends and enemies alike have attempted to tell the story of the Báb. Persian court historians, foreign travelers and diplomats, learned Orientalists, and, first and foremost, the Báb’s ardent followers have produced a body of biographical writing of considerable, though uneven, value and significance. To this literature Mr. H. M. Balyuzi, well-known to the readers of WORLD ORDER through his earlier works, has made an important contribution.

Mr. Balyuzi’s book The Báb: The Herald of the Day of Days completes a trilogy that includes a brief biography of Bahá’u’lláh (Bahá’u’lláh [London: George Ronald, 1963]) and a much larger work on ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (‘Abdu’l-Bahá: The Centre of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh [London: George Ronald, 1971]). The Báb, last to be written, constitutes, therefore, the first volume of the trilogy. However each of the volumes stands on its own merits and should be considered independently of the others.

The book, consisting of a prologue, thirteen chapters, and an epilogue, is based on wide reading in Persian as well as Western sources. Its value is further enhanced by the utilization of a number of British and Russian diplomatic documents which have not been previously exploited by historians. Such documents include the sixty-six page dispatch from Lt.-Col. Farrant, Special Commissioner, to Sir Stratford Canning, British Ambassador in Constantinople, on the siege of Karbilá; a number of dispatches from Justin Sheil, British Minister in Ṭihrán; and dispatches from Prince Dolgorukov, Russian Minister in Ṭihrán. Even more valuable are documents provided by the author’s cousin, Mr. Abu'l-Qásim Afnán, among them several chronicles and a number of letters written by the relatives of the Báb, as well as the manuscript chronicle of Luṭf’-‘Alí Mírzá of Shíráz.

While the story told by Mr. Balyuzi contains few surprises, it will provide Western readers with a new and a deeper insight into the life and times of the Báb. Mr. Balyuzi sketches in the background, placing the Báb in the context of nineteenth-century Persia; for some knowledge of the context is indispensible for a proper understanding of the person of the Báb, of the Bábí movement, and of the Báb’s works. Moreover Mr. Balyuzi’s intimate familiarity with Persia, her people, and her literature enables him to recreate the authentic atmosphere of the place and the age in which his Protagonist lived and died.

The illustrations scattered through this volume deserve special mention. Several of them have not, to this reviewer’s knowledge, been published before. All add to the sense of reality that emanates from the book. The caption under the picture of Siyyid Káẓim-i-Rashtí corrects Nicolas’ mistaken identification, while committing a new error. It simply is not a photograph. Minor slips are, of course, unavoidable in any publication. In this case they are insignificant and do not detract from the high scholarly quality of the work.

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Authors and Artists

GLORIA H. FERGUSON is studying telecommunications at the University of Southern California, where she is teaching assistant in the Urban Studies Department. She has also done graduate work in child development at the University of North Carolina and has served as a social worker in North Carolina and Tennessee. Mrs. Ferguson’s interests include music, reading, spectator sports, and creative writing (she has published a short story in Black America Magazine); and she is the mother of four children.

FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH is a professor of history at Yale University and Editor of World Order.

ALLAN L. WARD is Director of Research and Staff Development for the Arkansas Enterprises for the Blind and the International Services for the Blind. He holds a doctorate in public address and oral interpretation from Ohio University. Dr. Ward has become a familiar name in World Order’s pages, his “Frankenstein: An Allegorical Analysis” having appeared in Winter 1968-69; and introduction to Hawthorne’s “Earth’s Holocaust” in Spring 1969; “‘Abdu’l-Bahá: Child of Light Amidst the Children of the Half Light” in Summer 1970; and “‘Abdu’l-Bahá: Speaking in America” in Winter 1971-72.

RACHEL FORT WELLER has published a number of articles in the Friends Journal and in this issue makes a third appearance in World Order. She received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Chicago in 1927 and 1928.

ART CREDITSL Pp. 5 and 10, photographs by Glenford E. Mitchell; p. 29, photograph by Paul Slaughter; p. 33, photograph by Glenford E. Mitchell; pp. 34 and 39, photographs by Paul Slaughter; p. 46, pen and ink drawing by Massood Mahmoudi; p. 47, photograph by Glenford E. Mitchell; p. 51, pen and ink drawing by Massood Mahmoudi; back cover, photograph by Paul Slaughter.

MASSOOD MAHMOUDI received his Master’s degree in fine arts from Utah State University in 1971. His experience and interests cover a variety of fields: photography, filmmaking, print making, ceramics, painting, weaving, and landscape architecture.

GLENFORD E. MITCHELL is Managing Editor of World Order.

PAUL SLAUGHTER, like Mr. Mahmoudi, is appearing in World Order for the first time. He recently joined the staff of the National Bahá’í Information Office after having been a free-lance photographer for several years. Some of his credits include Time-Life Books and Records and Time Magazine.

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