-'Ulama' who,
in his unquenchable hostility and aided by the mob whose passions he had
sedulously inflamed, stripped his victim of his garments, loaded him with
chains, paraded him through the streets of Barfuru_sh_, and incited the
scum of its female inhabitants to execrate and spit upon him, assail him
with knives and axes, mutilate his body, and throw the tattered fragments
into a fire.

This stirring episode, so glorious for the Faith, so blackening to the
reputation of its enemies--an episode which must be regarded as a rare
phenomenon in the history of modern times--was soon succeeded by a parallel
upheaval, strikingly similar in its essential features. The scene of
woeful tribulations was now shifted to the south, to the province of Fars,
not far from the city where the dawning light of the Faith had broken.
Nayriz and its environs were made to sustain the impact of this fresh
ordeal in all its fury. The Fort of _Kh_ajih, in the vicinity of the
_Ch_inar-Su_kh_tih quarter of that hotly agitated village became the
storm-center of the new conflagration. The hero who towered above his
fellows, valiantly struggled, and fell a victim to its devouring flames
was that "unique and peerless figure of his age," the far-famed Siyyid
Yahyay-i-Darabi, better known as Vahid. Foremost among his perfidious
adversaries, who kindled and fed the fire of this conflagration was the
base and fanatical governor of Nayriz, Zaynu'l-Abidin _Kh_an, seconded by
'Abdu'llah _Kh_an, the _Sh_uja'u'l-Mulk, and reinforced by Prince Firuz
Mirza, the governor of _Sh_iraz. Of a much briefer duration than the
Mazindaran upheaval, which lasted no less than eleven months, the
atrocities that marked its closing stage were no less devastating in their
consequences. Once again a handful of men, innocent, law-abiding,
peace-loving, yet high-spirited and indomitable, consisting partly, in
this case, of untrained lads and men of advanced age, were surprised,
challenged, encompassed and assaulted by the superior force of a cruel and
crafty enemy, an innumerable host of able-bodied men who, though
well-trained, adequately equipped and continually reinforced, were
impotent to coerce into submission, or subdue, the spirit of their
adversaries.

This fresh commotion originated in declarations of faith as fearless and
impassioned, and in demonstrations of religious enthusiasm almost as
vehement and dramatic, as those which had ushered in the Mazindaran
upheaval.