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Three years previously a youth, named Muhammad- Riday- i- Yazdi, was shot in Yazd, on the night of his wedding while proceeding from the public bath to his home, the first to suffer martyrdom during Abdu'l- Baha's ministry. In Turbat- i- Haydariyyih, in consequence of the Shah's assassination, five persons, known as the Shuhaday- i- Khamsih (Five Martyrs), were put to death. In Mashhad a well- known merchant, Haji Muhammad- i- Tabrizi, was murdered and his corpse set on fire. An interview was granted by the new sovereign and his Grand Vizir, the unprincipled and reactionary Mirza Ali- Asghar Khan, the Atabik- i- A'zam, to two representative followers of the Faith in Paris (1902), but it produced no real results whatever. On the contrary, a fresh storm of persecutions broke out a few years later, persecutions which, as the constitutional movement developed in that country, grew ever fiercer as reactionaries brought groundless accusations against the Baha'is, and publicly denounced them as supporters and inspirers of the nationalist cause.
(296:3)
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