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A certain Muhammad- Javad was stripped naked in Isfahan, and was severely beaten with a whip of braided wires, while in Kashan the adherents of the Faith of Jewish extraction were fined, beaten and chained at the instigation of both the Muhammadan clergy and the Jewish doctors. It was, however, in Yazd and its environs that the most bloody outrages committed during Abdu'l- Baha's ministry occurred. In that city Haji Mirzay- i- Halabi- Saz was so mercilessly flogged that his wife flung herself upon his body, and was in her turn severely beaten, after which his skull was lacerated by the cleaver of a butcher. His eleven- year- old son was pitilessly thrashed, stabbed with penknives and tortured to death. Within the space of half a day nine people met their death. A crowd of about six thousand people, of both sexes, vented their fury upon the helpless victims, a few going so far as to drink their blood. In some instances, as was the case with a man named Mirza Asadu'llah- i- Sabbagh, they plundered their property and fought over its possession. They evinced such cruelty that some of the government officials were moved to tears at the sight of the harrowing scenes in which the women of that city played a conspicuously shameful part. (297:1) In Taft several people were put to death, some of whom were shot and their bodies dragged through the streets. A newly converted eighteen- year- old youth, named Husayn, was denounced by his own father, and torn to pieces before the eyes of his mother, whilst Muhammad- Kamal was hacked into bits with knife, spade and pickaxe. In Manshad, where the persecutions lasted nineteen days, similar atrocities were perpetrated. An eighty- year- old man, named Siyyid Mirza, was instantly killed in his sleep by two huge stones which were thrown on him; a Mirza Sadiq, who asked for water, had a knife plunged into his breast, his executioner afterwards licking the blood from the blade, while Shatir- Hasan, one of the victims, was seen before his death distributing some candy in his possession among the executioners and dividing among them his clothing. A sixty- five year old woman, Khadijih- Sultan, was hurled from the roof of a house; a believer named Mirza Muhammad was tied to a tree, made a target for hundreds of bullets and his body set on fire, whilst another, named Ustad Riday- i- Saffar, was seen to kiss the hand of his murderer, after which he was shot and his corpse heaped with insults.
(297:2)
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