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The storm which subsequently burst, with unexampled violence, on a community already beaten to its knees, had, moreover, robbed it of its greatest heroine, the incomparable Tahirih, still in the full tide of her victories, had sealed the doom of Siyyid Husayn, the Bab's trusted amanuensis and chosen repository of His last wishes, had laid low Mulla Abdu'l- Karim- i- Qasvini, admittedly one of the very few who could claim to possess a profound knowledge of the origins of the Faith, and had plunged into a dungeon Baha'u'llah, the sole survivor among the towering figures of the new Dispensation. The Bab-- the Fountainhead from whence the vitalizing energies of a newborn Revelation had flowed-- had Himself, ere the outburst of that hurricane, succumbed, in harrowing circumstances, to the volleys of a firing squad leaving behind, as titular head of a well- nigh disrupted community, a mere figurehead, timid in the extreme, good- natured yet susceptible to the slightest influence, devoid of any outstanding qualities, who now (loosed from the controlling hand of Baha'u'llah, the real Leader) was seeking, in the guise of a dervish, the protection afforded by the hills of his native Mazindaran against the threatened assaults of a deadly enemy. The voluminous writings of the Founder of the Faith-- in manuscript, dispersed, unclassified, poorly transcribed and ill- preserved, were in part, owing to the fever and tumult of the times, either deliberately destroyed, confiscated, or hurriedly dispatched to places of safety beyond the confines of the land in which they were revealed. Powerful adversaries, among whom towered the figure of the inordinately ambitious and hypocritical Haji Mirza Karim Khan, who at the special request of the Shah had in a treatise viciously attacked the new Faith and its doctrines, had now raised their heads, and, emboldened by the reverses it had sustained, were heaping abuse and calumnies upon it. Furthermore, under the stress of intolerable circumstances, a few of the Babis were constrained to recant their faith, while others went so far as to apostatize and join the ranks of the enemy. And now to the sum of these dire misfortunes a monstrous calumny, arising from the outrage perpetrated by a handful of irresponsible enthusiasts, was added, branding a holy and innocent Faith with an infamy that seemed indelible, and which threatened to loosen it from its foundations.
(90:1)
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