came out of
the house.

They brought her into a garden, where the headsmen waited; but these
wavered and then refused to end her life. A slave was found, far gone in
drunkenness; besotted, vicious, black of heart. And he strangled Tahirih.
He forced a scarf between her lips and rammed it down her throat. Then
they lifted up her unsullied body and flung it in a well, there in the
garden, and over it threw down earth and stones. But Tahirih rejoiced; she
had heard with a light heart the tidings of her martyrdom; she set her
eyes on the supernal Kingdom and offered up her life.

Salutations be unto her, and praise. Holy be her dust, as the tiers of
light come down on it from Heaven.

FOOTNOTES

1 For the author of The Dawn-Breakers, see Nabil-i-Zarandi.

2 Cf. Nabil, The Dawn-Breakers, p. 395, note 1.

3 Cf. Qur'an 19:98.

4 Qur'an 3:91.

5 Qur'an 54:55.

6 1849-1850.

7 1853; 1892.

8 Aqa Jan. Cf. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 189.

9 Siyyid Muhammad, the Antichrist of the Baha'i Revelation. Cf. Ibid.,
pp. 164 and 189.

10 The Afnan are the kindred of the Bab. Ibid., pp. 239; 328.

11 Herald of the Prophet Muhammad.

12 Qur'an 68:4.

13 This wine, Rumi says elsewhere, comes from the jar of "Yea verily."
That is, it symbolizes the Primal Covenant established between God
and man on the day of "Am I not your Lord?" On that day, the Creator
summoned posterity out of the loins of Adam and said to the
generations unborn, "Am I not your Lord?" Whereupon they answered,
"Yea, verily, Thou art." Cf. Qur'an 7:171.

14 The Turkish para was one-ninth of a cent. Cf. Webster, New
International Dictionary.

15 Nabil, author of The Dawn-Breakers, is Baha'u'llah's "Poet-Laureate,
His chronicler and His indefatigable disciple." Cf. God Passes By,
p. 130.

16 Mirza Yahya, the community's "nominal head," was the "center
provisionally appointed pending the manifestation of the Promised
One." Ibid., p. 127-28.

17 A reference to Islamic symbolism, according to which good is
protected from evil: the angels repel such evil spirits as attempt
to spy on Paradise, by hurling shooting stars at them. Cf. Qur'an
15:18, 37:10 and 67:5.

18 A reference to the declaration of Baha'u'llah's advent in 1863, as
the Promised One of the Bab. The Bab's own advent had