_Sh_ah, weak alike in
mind and will, had, under pressure, rejected the overtures made to him by
the Bab Himself, had declined to meet Him face to face, and even refused
Him admittance to the capital. The youthful Nasiri'd-Din _Sh_ah, of a
cruel and imperious nature, had, both as crown prince and as reigning
sovereign, increasingly evinced the bitter hostility which, at a later
stage in his reign, was to blaze forth in all its dark and ruthless
savagery. The powerful and sagacious Mu'tamid, the one solitary figure who
could have extended Him the support and protection He so sorely needed,
was taken from Him by a sudden death. The Sherif of Mecca, who through the
mediation of Quddus had been made acquainted with the new Revelation on
the occasion of the Bab's pilgrimage to Mecca, had turned a deaf ear to
the Divine Message, and received His messenger with curt indifference. The
prearranged gathering that was to have taken place in the holy city of
Karbila, in the course of the Bab's return journey from Hijaz, had, to the
disappointment of His followers who had been eagerly awaiting His arrival,
to be definitely abandoned. The eighteen Letters of the Living, the
principal bastions that buttressed the infant strength of the Faith, had
for the most part fallen. The "Mirrors," the "Guides," the "Witnesses"
comprising the Babi hierarchy had either been put to the sword, or hounded
from their native soil, or bludgeoned into silence. The program, whose
essentials had been communicated to the foremost among them, had, owing to
their excessive zeal, remained for the most part unfulfilled. The attempts
which two of those disciples had made to establish the Faith in Turkey and
India had signally failed at the very outset of their mission. The
tempests that had swept Mazindaran, Nayriz and Zanjan had, in addition to
blasting to their roots the promising careers of the venerated Quddus, the
lion-hearted Mulla Husayn, the erudite Vahid, and the indomitable Hujjat,
cut short the lives of an alarmingly large number of the most resourceful
and most valiant of their fellow-disciples. The hideous outrages
associated with the death of the Seven Martyrs of Tihran had been
responsible for the extinction of yet another living symbol of the Faith,
who, by reason of his close kinship to, and intimate association with, the
Bab, no less than by virtue of his inherent qualities, would if spared
have decisively contributed to the protection and furthera