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In Persia, the cradle of the Faith, despite the persecutions which, throughout the years of that ministry, persisted with unabated violence, a noticeable change, marking the gradual emergence of a proscribed community from its hitherto underground existence, could be clearly discerned. Nasiri'd- Din Shah, four years after Baha'u'llah's ascension, had, on the eve of his jubilee, designed to mark a turning- point in the history of his country, met his death at the hands of an assassin, named Mirza Rida, a follower of the notorious Siyyid Jamalu'd- Din- i- Afghani, an enemy of the Faith and one of the originators of the constitutional movement which, as it gathered momentum, during the reign of the Shah's son and successor, Muzaffari'd- Din, was destined to involve in further difficulties an already hounded and persecuted community. Even the Shah's assassination had at first been laid at the door of that community, as evidenced by the cruel death suffered, immediately after the murder of the sovereign, by the renowned teacher and poet, Mirza Ali- Muhammad, surnamed "Varqa" (Dove) by Baha'u'llah, who, together with his twelve- year- old son, Ruhu'llah, was inhumanly put to death in the prison of Tihran, by the brutal Hajibu'd- Dawlih, who, after thrusting his dagger into the belly of the father and cutting him into pieces, before the eyes of his son, adjured the boy to recant, and, meeting with a blunt refusal, strangled him with a rope. (296:2) 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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