The Bábís of Nayriz History and Documents Ahang Rabbani Volume 2 Witnesses to Bábí and Bahá’í History The Bábís of Nayríz History and Documents Ahang Rabbani Volume 2 Witnesses to Bábí and Bahá’í History Copyright and Distribution © 1999 and 2006, Ahang Rabbani This book was prepared for print publication by Ahang Rabbani. This electronic edition has been produced to facilitate widespread distribution and use of this study. This monograph may be freely redistributed in electronic form so long as the following conditions are met: 1. The contents of this file are not altered. 2. This copyright and redistribution notice remains intact 3. No charges are made or monies collected for the redistribution In addition, this electronic version may be printed for redistribution as a printed document or as a book for non- commercial purposes, such as, personal or educational use, so long as the above conditions are met with the following qualifications and additions: 1. Charges may be made or monies collected only to recover the actual costs of printing and distribution. No profit may be made, or surcharge assessed, for the distribution of this work in printed formats. 2. If printed in book form, five copies must be submitted for archival purposes to the International Bahá’í Library in Haifa, Israel (http://library.bahai.org/). Any other reproduction or redistribution in any format is forbidden without the expressed written consent of Dr. Ahang Rabbani or his designated heirs. For the latest version of this study, visit: http://ahang.rabbani.googlepages.com/ Witnesses to Bábí and Bahá’í History The Witnesses to Bábí and Bahá’í History series is a multi-volume on- going project of Ahang Rabbani. A list of current projects and forthcoming research monographs is available at: http://ahang.rabbani.googlepages.com/ Published Volumes 1 In the Land of Refuge: The Genesis of the Bahá’í Faith in Shiraz 2 The Bábís of Nayriz: History and Documents 3 Eight Years Near ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: The Diary of Dr. Habíb Mu’ayyad 4 Memories of the Báb, Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: Recollections of Mírzá Habíbu’lláh Afnán 5 Ponder Thou upon the Martyrdom of Hájí Muhammad-Ridá: Nineteen Historical Accounts 6 Bahá’í Martyrdoms in Manshad in 1903: Three Historical Accounts 7 Memoirs of a Bahá’í in Rasht: 1889-1903 8 Witness to Shaykh Tabarsi: The Narrative of Hájí Nasír Qazvíní 9 A Lifetime with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: Reminiscences of Khalíl Shahídí 10 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Year in Egypt: A Compilation of Eyewitness Accounts 11 With ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: The Diary of Mírzá ‘Isá Isfahání 12 With ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: Diaries of Drs. Habíb Mu’ayyad and Zia Baghdadi 13 With ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: The Diary of Dr. Núru’lláh Hamadání 14 With Bahá’u’lláh: The Narrative of Áqá Husyan Áshchí 15 The Voice of the Heroes: The Genesis of the Bahá’í Faith in Khurasan O son of man! Ponder and reflect. Is it thy wish to die upon thy bed, or to shed thy life blood on the dust, a martyr in My path, and so become the manifestation of My command and the revealer of My light in the highest paradise? Judge thou aright O servant! Bahá’u’lláh (The Hidden Words) Dedication For Mírzá Asadu’lláh Fádil Mázandarání Contents Foreword ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Vahíd Dárábí 1. The Shore of Certitude -------------------------------------------- 17 2. An Itinerant Teacher ----------------------------------------------- 42 3. The Events of Yazd ------------------------------------------------ 67 4. Vahíd’s Approach to Nayríz -------------------------------------- 93 Nayríz-I – History and Documents 5. Narrative of Mullá Muhammad Shafí‘ – Part 1 --------------- 105 6. Excerpts from the Kitáb Nuqtatu’l-Káf ------------------------ 139 7. Narrative of Siyyid Ibráhím -------------------------------------- 152 8. Narrative of the Qájár Historians ------------------------------- 162 9. Narrative of Siyyid Husayn Hamadání ------------------------- 183 10. Companions of Vahíd ------------------------------------------- 208 Nayríz-II – History and Documents 11. Narrative of Mullá Muhammad Shafí‘ – Part 2 ------------- 242 12. Memoirs of Hájí Muhammad Nayrízí ------------------------ 295 13. Narrative of Mírzá Qábil: from General History ----------- 302 14. Narrative of Mírzá Qábil: The Garden of the Merciful ---- 308 15. Transition from Bábí to Bahá’í Community ----------------- 320 Appendices 1. Bábí Martyrs of Nayriz-II ------------------------------------------ 341 2. The Family of Vahíd Dárabí --------------------------------------- 348 3. Writings of Vahíd Dárábí ------------------------------------------ 382 4. Bahá’u’lláh’s Tablet of Visitation for Vahíd Dárábí ----------- 396 Bibliography ----------------------------------------------------------------- 398 Foreword When thou seest in the path a severed head which is rolling towards our field, ask of it, ask of it our secrets, for from it thou mayst hear our hidden mystery. Rúmí (Diván Shams Tabríz) The central features of the upheavals of Nayríz are known to those who have read about the millenarian Bábí religious movement of nineteenth- century Qajar Iran.1 Next to the incident of Zanján, where nearly two thousand Bábís perished, the Bábís of Nayríz in 1850 lost more men, women and children in the fiery ordeals that surrounded them than any other Bábí community of that country. Moreover, unlike the other major Bábí incidents, the conflicts in this town were not limited to the one pogrom, but continued to unfold unabated for several more years and in the process took the lives of many hundreds more of the Báb’s followers. The present volume is an attempt to tell the story of the leading figure of that uprising, Vahíd Dárábí, and to bring a number of historical documents pertaining to these episodes of Nayríz along with a brief analysis to the attention of English-speaking readers. By way of general background, it should be noted that the Bábís of Nayríz suffered two distinct though related incidents of persecution: one in 1850 and another in 1853. These will be referred to as Nayríz-I and Nayríz-II, respectively.2 The first incident has already been told in such moving accounts as Shoghi Effendi’s The Dawn-Breakers – an edited translation of Nabíl’s Narrative – and Edward G. Browne’s Táríkh-i Jadíd – a translation of a revised narrative by Siyyid Husayn Hamadání. In 1 For introductions to the Bábí movement and its early history, see Shoghi Effendi’s The Dawn-Breakers; Balyuzi’s The Báb; or Amanat’s Resurrection and Renewal. 2 A third pogrom in the Spring of 1909 enveloped the descendants of the Bábís of Nayríz, who by that time had become Bahá’ís. That incident will be referred to as Nayríz-III and is outlined in Rabbani, In the Land of Refuge, chap 16. 2 The Bábís of Nayriz addition, both of these sources provide a cursory glimpse into the 1853 persecution, namely, Nayríz-II. As moving and elegant as those two sources are, neither of the authors were themselves participants in the events, although much of their information comes from eyewitness accounts. Those underlying primary source materials are the focus of the present study. Discussion of Sources A deeper historical perspective about any incident or social development can best be established after all or most of the documents about that event have been assembled, critically analyzed, and correlated. As a step towards a better understanding of what occurred in Nayríz during the 1850’s – as a microcosm of the beleaguered Bábí community of Iran in that period – this monograph includes translations of many of the relevant primary accounts. Fortunately, there is a considerable amount of narrative data about the Bábí community of Nayríz and their siege from various sources, which can be divided into several broad categories: 1. Contemporary Documents Only a few contemporary narratives are available, one of these being the important description written shortly after the events by Siyyid Ibráhím Nayrízí, (see chapter 7). Since this interesting chronicle was inscribed on a wall in a relatively obscure mosque and covered in dust until 1940, it remained unnoticed and the information it contains was not reflected in subsequent accounts. To my knowledge, this document represents the only instance of a Muslim writing a detailed sympathetic eyewitness account of a Bábí incident. It is known that Vahíd Dárábí had ordered one of the besiegers (who was his planned son-in-law), Muhammad-Ja‘far, to compose a jang- námih [war epic], telling of the daily events, but only one verse of this jang-námih is extant. It is cited in chapter 15. Should the full epic ever be located, it may be of capital importance. Among Vahíd’s own writings, one important document is his daughter’s marriage certificate, which is translated and discussed in The Bábís of Nayriz: History and Documents, Witnesses to Bábí and Bahá’í History, vol. 2 © 2006 Ahang Rabbani The Bábís of Nayriz 3 Appendix 2. Since this document is dated, it helps in establishing the time of the siege. It further establishes that the Bábís of Nayríz had implemented at least some of the laws of the Bayán and were conducting their daily lives in accordance with such ordinances. Other writings of Vahíd that I have been able to gather are translated in Appendix 3. These, for the most part, do not include much historical information as they belong to the genre of proof-texts. 2. Bábí Eyewitness Sources As would be expected, many Bahá’í sources discuss the events of Nayríz and these can without exception be traced to earlier Bábí eyewitness accounts. However, before discussing the Bábí documents, it should be noted that the limitations of these sources reside in the totality of the Bábí disaster: virtually every adult Bábí of the Nayríz community was killed in the battles or the ensuing executions. Nevertheless, a few Bábí youngsters survived the slaughters and two of them wrote what they had witnessed in their youth. The most detailed historical exposition is that of Mullá Muhammad Shafí‘, a narrative more fully introduced in chapter 5.