CHAPTER XII
Baha'u'llah's Incarceration in Akka (Continued)
While Baha'u'llah and the little band that bore Him company were being subjected to the severe hardships of a banishment intended to blot them from the face of the earth, the steadily expanding community of His followers in the land of His birth were undergoing a persecution more violent and of longer duration than the trials with which He and His companions were being afflicted. Though on a far smaller scale than the blood baths which had baptized the birth of the Faith, when in the course of a single year, as attested by Abdu'l- Baha, "more than four thousand souls were slain, and a great multitude of women and children left without protector and helper," the murderous and horrible acts subsequently perpetrated by an insatiable and unyielding enemy covered as wide a range and were marked by an even greater degree of ferocity. (197:1)

Nasiri'd- Din Shah, stigmatized by Baha'u'llah as the "Prince of Oppressors," as one who had "perpetrated what hath caused the denizens of the cities of justice and equity to lament," was, during the period under review, in the full tide of his manhood and had reached the plenitude of his despotic power. The sole arbiter of the fortunes of a country "firmly stereotyped in the immemorial traditions of the East"; surrounded by "venal, artful and false" ministers whom he could elevate or abase at his pleasure; the head of an administration in which "every actor was, in different aspects, both the briber and the bribed"; allied, in his opposition to the Faith, with a sacerdotal order which constituted a veritable "church- state"; supported by a people preeminent in atrocity, notorious for its fanaticism, its servility, cupidity and corrupt practices, this capricious monarch, no longer able to lay hands upon the person of Baha'u'llah, had to content himself with the task of attempting to stamp out in his own dominions the remnants of a much- feared and newly resuscitated community. Next to him in rank and power were his three eldest sons, to whom, for purposes of internal administration, he had practically delegated his authority, and in whom he had invested the governorship of all the provinces of his kingdom. The province of Adhirbayjan he had entrusted to the weak and timid Muzaffari'd- Din Mirza, the heir to his throne, who had fallen under the influence of the Shaykhi sect, and was showing a marked respect to the mullas. To the stern and savage rule of the astute Mas'ud Mirza, commonly known as Zillu's- Sultan, his eldest surviving son, whose mother had been of plebeian origin, he had committed over two- fifths of his kingdom, including the provinces of Yazd and Isfahan, whilst upon Kamran Mirza, his favorite son, commonly called by his title the Nayibu's- Saltanih, he had bestowed the rulership of Gilan and Mazindaran, and made him governor of Tihran, his minister of war and the commander- in- chief of his army. Such was the rivalry between the last two princes, who vied with each other in courting the favor of their father, that each endeavored, with the support of the leading mujtahids within his jurisdiction, to outshine the other in the meritorious task of hunting, plundering and exterminating the members of a defenseless community, who, at the bidding of Baha'u'llah, had ceased to offer armed resistance even in self- defense, and were carrying out His injunction that "it is better to be killed than kill." Nor were the clerical firebrands, Haji Mulla Aliy- i- Kani and Siyyid Sadiq- i- Tabataba'i, the two leading mujtahids of Tihran, together with Shaykh Muhammad- Baqir, their colleague in Isfahan, and Mir Muhammad- Husayn, the Imam- Jum'ih of that city, willing to allow the slightest opportunity to pass without striking, with all the force and authority they wielded, at an adversary whose liberalizing influences they had even more reason to fear than the sovereign himself. (197:2)

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