An independent-minded mullah

Mahin Ahdieh, a Baha’i from Nayriz, took her young nephew for a trip cross Iran in 1956.Their second stop was Zanjan, the site of a bloody conflict between the Babis and the authorities.

Zanjan was an ancient walled city known for its handicrafts and its manufacture of knives and located a hundred miles from Qazvin. a similar cold and dry climate and a mountain range on its horizon.

Zanjan in the time of Hujjat

Hujjat, a dynamic and independent-minded mullah who had become a Babi, took on the clerical establishment of Zanjan by decrying its immorality and abuse of power, and by issuing pointed legal decisions that were at variance with those of the other Mullas.

Graphic novel about the events at Zanjan

Hujjat’s position became more precarious as the Babi Faith spread. Tensions mounted between Muslims and Babis, especially after the siege at Fort Tabarsi, and a street fight in Zanjan that escalated into outright violence fueled by long-standing theological divisions and new political concerns.

Hundreds of Babi men, aided by the women, took up position in a nearby fort, and a bloody siege followed lasting from July to December of 1850 when Hujjat was injured and died. Upon Hujjat’s death, the discouraged Babis peacefully surrendered though only a hundred or so Babi men subsequently survived. Among those who died was Zaynab, a woman who had joined the Babi men in the fight.

Luke Slott tells the story of Zaynab, a heroine of the episode of Zanjan

Baha’u’llah sent the future Baha’i chronicler, Nabil Zarandi, to Zanjan in 1865 to announce his declaration. The Baha’i community was infused with new life when Varqa moved to Zanjan along with his young son Ruhu’llah; both were later martyred. ‘Abdu’l-Baha also sent travel teachers there to increase the activity of the local community.

Avant-garde jazz by Craig Owens and the Bodo Ensemble

Summer memories

One summer in 1956, Mahin Ahdieh, a Baha’i from Nayriz, took her young nephew Hussein, for a trip to show him cities and sites associated with the history of the Faith and the beauty of Northern Iran.

They stayed with Baha’i families or at local Baha’i centers which rented them rooms. The itinerary started with a train ride from Tihran northwest up into the mountains bound for Qazvin.

The Trans-Iranian Railway

Qazvin had been the home of three of the Bab’s Letters of the Living, most notably the only female, Tahereh. She suffered greatly at the hands of her father-in-law and her husband who attempted to silence her by using their ecclesiastical authority.

Her devotion to the Bab transcended the violent reprisals against the Babis in Qazvin that followed her father-in-law’s murder in 1847. After her departure, her memory was blotted out in Qazvin, but her poems of spiritual longing continued to circulate throughout Persia.

Many prominent Babis, merchants and citizens came to accept the new claims of Baha’u’llah whose influence reached leaders of the Kurdish Mafi tribe. They may have followed the Ahl-i Haqq religious sect which accepted the concept of the continuity of Revelation.

Several Sufi dervishes—mystics who practiced asceticism—also accepted the Faith.

A Zoroastrian priest visiting Qazvin in 1920 noted that all the Zoroastrians he met had converted to the Baha’i faith. After persecutions, the Baha’i community of Qazvin regained its vigor by the turn of the century, founding the Tavakkul School in 1908, and its sister school in 1910.

Qazvin became a pulsing center of religious practice after the arrival of Islam. It attracted mystics, legal scholars, and philosophers and spurred the construction of mosques, including a magnificent central mosque that dated back to the 9thc.

Qazvin had been the capital of Persia in the 16th century. Situated on the road from the Caspian Sea to the highland, the city’s economy grew from trade. Its location also gave it a more diverse population and history that included the tombs of four Jewish saints, a large Azeri population, and the presence of Russian Cossacks who built St. Nicolas Orthodox Church, a hospital and a road connecting Qazvin to Tihran and Hamedan.

Qazvin, Iran

The theater of His agony

Mahin Ahdieh, a Baha’i from Nayriz, took her young nephew for a trip cross Iran in 1956.Their second stop was Tabriz, the capitol of Azerbaijan, a province blessed by the Bab having spent “the saddest, the most dramatic, and in a sense the most pregnant phase of His six year ministry” but, also, “the theatre of His agony and martyrdom.”

Mahin Ahdieh

The authorities decided to imprison Him in the fortress of Mahku in a remote region of the province in the hope that this would cause His influence to wane. From his dark and cold cell, though, the Bab revealed his Holy Book, the Bayan, meaning “Utterance”.

Analysis if the Persian Bayan

In an attempt to stem the growth of the Bab’s Faith, the authorities brought Him to Tabriz for a trial, but it was the petty-minded clerics themselves who were judged and condemned by the Bab’s powerful proclamation:

            “"I am," he exclaimed, "I am, I am the Promised One! I am the One Whose name you have for a thousand years invoked, at Whose mention you have risen, Whose advent you have longed to witness, and the hour of Whose Revelation you have prayed God to hasten. Verily, I say, it is incumbent upon the peoples of both the East and the West to obey My word, and to pledge allegiance to My person."

The Promised One, by Luke Slott

Luke Slott tells about Dr. Cormick, a physician who treated the Bab

On July 9th, 1850, the Bab was brought before a firing squad in a square in Tabriz. After a first thunderous volley of rifles, the smoke cleared, and the Bab had disappeared from sight

Bewilderment spread throughout the spectators. The commander remembered that the Bab had absolved him of responsibility and immediately took his soldiers out of the square. Only when the Bab was ready did the appointed hour come, and after a second volley of rifle fire, He, along with his young devotee, Anis, ascended.

Tabriz, the city from which Shi’a Islam was declared the official religion of Persia became the place where the One who fulfilled its very prophecies was martyred.

“Say: God Sufficeth”, French language

The point of the Bab’s Bayan was to prepare the way for Baha’u’llah.

The claims of Baha’u’llah reached Tabriz in the mid-1860s. Tabriz was located on the main road from Iran to Edirne, and Baha’i pilgrims passed through on their way to visiting Baha’u’llah in exile; as a result, most of the Babis as well as others from Tabriz’s diverse population of Azeri Turks, Armenians, and Assyrians became Baha’is.

To read about the Baha’i communities of Iran click HERE

Tabriz had been the capitol of Iran during several dynastic periods but became a center of the constitutional movement in 1905 and 1911. Tabriz was the first Iranian city affected by modernization and westernization because it was the closest Iranian city to Europe and, consequently, more influenced by the West than the rest of the country. The French consul there was A.L.M. Nicolas who wrote one of the earliest histories of the Bab as well as translated three of the Bab’s major writings into French. Hippolyte and Laura Dreyfus-Barney, the first European Baha’is to visit Iran, came first to Tabriz in 1906.

Hippolyte Dreyfuss

An independent-minded mullah

Mahin Ahdieh, a Baha’i from Nayriz, took her young nephew for a trip cross Iran in 1956.Their second stop was Zanjan, the site of a bloody conflict between the Babis and the authorities.

Zanjan was an ancient walled city known for its handicrafts and its manufacture of knives and located a hundred miles from Qazvin. a similar cold and dry climate and a mountain range on its horizon.

Zanjan at the time of Hujjat

Hujjat, a dynamic and independent-minded mullah who had become a Babi, took on the clerical establishment of Zanjan by decrying its immorality and abuse of power, and by issuing pointed legal decisions that were at variance with those of the other Mullas.

Hujjat’s position became more precarious as the Babi Faith spread. Tensions mounted between Muslims and Babis, especially after the siege at Fort Tabarsi, and a street fight in Zanjan that escalated into outright violence fueled by long-standing theological divisions and new political concerns.

Hundreds of Babi men, aided by the women, took up position in a nearby fort, and a bloody siege followed lasting from July to December of 1850 when Hujjat was injured and died. Upon Hujjat’s death, the discouraged Babis peacefully surrendered though only a hundred or so Babi men subsequently survived. Among those who died was Zaynab, a woman who had joined the Babi men in the fight.

Luke Slott tells the story of Zaynab, a heroine of the episode of Zanjan

Baha’u’llah sent the future Baha’i chronicler, Nabil Zarandi, to Zanjan in 1865 to announce his declaration. The Baha’i community was infused with new life when Varqa moved to Zanjan along with his young son Ruhu’llah; both were later martyred. ‘Abdu’l-Baha also sent travel teachers there to increase the activity of the local community.

Avant-garde jazz by Craig Owens and the Bodo Ensemble

Summer memories

One summer in 1956, Mahin Ahdieh, a Baha’i from Nayriz, took her young nephew Hussein, for a trip to show him cities and sites associated with the history of the Faith and the beauty of Northern Iran.

They stayed with Baha’i families or at local Baha’i centers which rented them rooms. The itinerary started with a train ride from Tihran northwest up into the mountains bound for Qazvin.

Aunt Mahin in the middle, Hussein Ahdieh on the left

Qazvin had been the home of three of the Bab’s Letters of the Living, most notably the only female, Tahereh. She suffered greatly at the hands of her father-in-law and her husband who attempted to silence her by using their ecclesiastical authority.

Her devotion to the Bab transcended the violent reprisals against the Babis in Qazvin that followed her father-in-law’s murder in 1847. After her departure, her memory was blotted out in Qazvin, but her poems of spiritual longing continued to circulate throughout Persia.

House where Tahirih lived in Qazvin

Many prominent Babis, merchants and citizens came to accept the new claims of Baha’u’llah whose influence reached leaders of the Kurdish Mafi tribe. They may have followed the Ahl-i Haqq religious sect which accepted the concept of the continuity of Revelation.

Several Sufi dervishes—mystics who practiced asceticism—also accepted the Faith.

A Zoroastrian priest visiting Qazvin in 1920 noted that all the Zoroastrians he met had converted to the Baha’i faith. After persecutions, the Baha’i community of Qazvin regained its vigor by the turn of the century, founding the Tavakkul School in 1908, and its sister school in 1910.

Tavvakul School for Girls

Qazvin became a pulsing center of religious practice after the arrival of Islam. It attracted mystics, legal scholars, and philosophers and spurred the construction of mosques, including a magnificent central mosque that dated back to the 9thc.

Qazvin had been the capital of Persia in the 16th century. Situated on the road from the Caspian Sea to the highland, the city’s economy grew from trade. Its location also gave it a more diverse population and history that included the tombs of four Jewish saints, a large Azeri population, and the presence of Russian Cossacks who built St. Nicolas Orthodox Church, a hospital and a road connecting Qazvin to Tihran and Hamedan.

The earth shall be filled

In his Ridvan Message of 1952, Shoghi Effendi announced the launching of a Ten-Year World Crusade:

“The avowed, the primary aim of this Spiritual Crusade is none other than the conquest of the citadels of men's hearts. The theatre of its operations is the entire planet. Its duration a whole decade. Its commencement synchronizes with the centenary of the birth of Bahá’u’lláh's Mission. … The armour with which its onrushing hosts have been invested is the glad tidings of God's own message in this day, the principles underlying the order proclaimed by His Messenger, and the laws and ordinances governing His Dispensation. The battle cry animating its heroes and heroines is the cry of Yá-Bahá'u'l-Abhá, Yá ‘Alíyyu'l-A`lá.”[1]

To inaugurate the inter-continental phase of the growth of the international Baha’i community On November 30, 1951, Shoghi Effendi called for the holding of four intercontinental teaching conferences. These were held in Kampala, Uganda, Wilmette, United States, Stockholm, Sweden, and New Delhi, India.

[1] Shoghi Effendi, Messages to the Bahá'í World (Wilmette, IL:US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1971) 152–153.

The Ten-Year Crusade had four major objectives: to develop the institutions at the Baha’i World Center, to consolidate local Baha’i communities in countries which were the administrative bases for the operation of the Plan, to consolidate local communities in territories already opened to the faith, and to bring the faith to the main remaining territories on the planet where no Baha’is resided.

Iran’s direct responsibility in the Crusade was to open seven territories in Asia, six in Africa, and to help with the consolidation of Baha’i communities in twelve additional territories in Asia, as well as two in Africa.

Shoghi Effendi explained that international pioneering was the most important form of Baha’i activity during the first phase of the crusade; he stated that it embodied the prophecy in the Book of Daniel of the ‘1335 days’ and of the prophet Habbakuk that the “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”

Baha’is in Iran faced very difficult challenges when attempting to fulfill the pioneering call. Nevertheless, they contributed substantially to the Crusade. Forty-four of the ‘Knights of Baha’u’llah’ were of Iranian background.

Several families with a connection to Nayriz pioneered—the Rouhanis, Taherzadehs, Erfans, Amjadihs, and the Khadems. Mirza Ahmad Vahidi took part in these efforts by moving to the Arabian Peninsula at the request of Shoghi Effendi. In a groundbreaking development within Iran, women began to serve on local and national assemblies; nine other Muslim countries soon followed—Iraq, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya, Arabian Peninsula, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey.

Launch

Shoghi Effendi launched the Baha’i World on the Ten-Year World Crusade in 1953. Pioneers would bring the Baha’i Faith across the world.

Since 1937, Shoghi Effendi had been using the term ‘conqueror’ with the Iranian Baha’is, which echoed a concept from the early period of Islam when a new area was opened to Islamic rule but, with American Baha’is, he used the term ‘pioneer’ because this term had more meaning in the context of the American experience.

The Iranian Baha’i community had already been preparing, in a sense, for this world crusade. As early as 1938, Shoghi Effendi called for Baha’is to migrate within Iran to establish Baha’i groups and in 1941, over one hundred and forty-five Baha’i families pioneered to Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Baluchistan (Pakistan), and Bahrain. A.Q. Faizi was one of the pioneers who was able to settle in Bahrain.

Iran had already carried out a forty-five-month plan for Persia from October of 1946 to July of 1950. Its general objectives were to strengthen the Baha’i community of Iran and send out pioneers. Some of the more specific goals included establish local assemblies in Kabul, Mecca, and Bahrain, to form four new groups in the Arabian peninsula, to send pioneers to India and to Iraq for the Women’s Four-Year Plan, and to hold literacy classes for girls and adult women.

This plan was followed by a two-year ‘Africa Campaign’ (1951-1953) coordinated with the British Baha’is and carried by the Baha’is in the U.K., Iran, the U.S., Egypt, and India, with the objective of opening up three African countries to the Baha’i Faith. The most fruitful teaching was in Uganda to which Musa Banani pioneered. He was later named a Hand of the Cause.

Crossing the Tigris

Shaykh Baha’i was able to move his family out of their small cramped rooms in a run-down part of Abadan when the British were pushed out and many houses became available. In the family’s new home and garden, many Baha’i gatherings were held.

Hundreds of Baha’is came to the spirit filled Nineteen Day Feasts. There were picnics along the river, a large celebratory Naw-Ruz gatherings, and interesting children’s classes.

A distinguished Baha’i scholar, Mr. Saeed Razavi, was a resident teacher at the Baha’i center, a system used in all cities in Iran to help educate Baha’is. The Baha’i Assembly was strong and respected.

Baha’is in Abadan released from prison

Shaykh Baha’i’s home was blessed by outstanding travel teachers. Mr. Furutan came regularly from Tihran. Mr. Fananapazir held study classes which gave the friends a deep appreciation for the Faith. Mr. Mazandarani, who travelled throughout Iran compiling stories of the history of the Faith in Iran, stayed there. Mr. Avaregan an expert on Marxism, which was very much in vogue at the time but not discussed much among Baha’is, gave firesides.

Shaykh Baha’i invited Arabs to come to his home to hear about the faith. He and Mr. Avaregan also travelled by boat across the Tigris River into the Arab tribal areas in Iraq to teach the Faith.

Chanted prayers (click HERE) by the Bab, Baha’u’llah, and Abdu’l-Baha in Arabic (click small yellow boxes on the right to open sound file and then press play).

Shaykh Baha’i was chairing a feast one night when members of the Hojjatiyeh, an anti-Baha’i group, came to disrupt it, When they barged in, my father changed the subject of consultation to the Baha’i principle of obedience to government. His young son made the mistake of raising my hand and asking if it wasn’t true that the teaching was obedience to a government that was “just” and treated citizens fairly.

Good Manners

Shaykh Baha’i Ahdieh and his family fled his hometown of Nayriz, Iran, after experiencing a kidnapping and other threats and moved to the coastal city of Abadan where they lived in the poor section of Karun with Arab, Jewish, and Armenian neighbors. For security, he strung up several pots and pans which clanged if an intruder came in.

The family struggled to make ends meet as their assets were back in Nayriz. They lived crowded together in small rooms with no electricity or running water with all the aunts, uncles, and their blind grandmother together, which led to tensions between them. Everyone was struggling.

Their son, Hussein, had a religion teacher in school who was a fanatic and made him recite Muslim prayers in front of the class to try to break him of his Baha’i faith. Later that teacher became a prominent leader in the Revolution of 1979. He personally carried out executions but was later hanged.

The young Hussein did his homework under the street light in the company of numerous black cockroaches because the house was too dark, small, and crowded. Among his classmates in that public school though was Farzam Arbab, later a member of the Universal House of Justice.

A restless but smart boy, his parents sent Hussein to the Baha’i school in Tihran to improve his behavior—the school’s name was “The House of Good Manners” (Darul-u-Tarbieah). Shaykh Baha’i knew Mr. Furutan, the head of the school, from his visits to Nayriz as a travelling Baha’i teacher.

The school had been created by the National Assembly for Baha’i children whose parents had been martyred or had left to pioneer. It was located near the National Center which had a beautiful dome, extensive gardens, a guest house, and many employees. The upscale neighborhood was home to many wealthy Baha’is.

Boys and girls slept in separate dorms, attending a regular public school during the day and Baha’i classes afterwards. Mrs. Shamsi was the capable school administrator. The hard-working gardener who maintained the grounds was later killed by local fanatics who shook the ladder he was standing on, plunging him to his death, though the official explanation was that the wind had knocked him off.

Luke Sott, One Hundred Thousand Veils

Mr. Furutan went out of his way to try and channel Hussein’s energy. He gave him the job of delivering correspondence around the National Center and this kept me busy. One day, the boy jumped into the fountain in the center’s courtyard. Mr. Furutan came out to try and get a hold of him, but he ran to the other side of the pool. Despite the best efforts of Mr. Furutan and Mrs. Shamsi, Hussein found himself back in Abadan for the next school year.

Erosion

In the mid-1950s, a populist mullah took to the radio waves with official sanction to inflame the passions of Iranian Muslims against Baha’is. Every day at noon, he harangued a national audience with conspiratorial lies about Baha’is being Zionist agents, plotters against the government.

A nationwide campaign against Baha’is was undertaken by clerics and a secretive anti-Baha’i society. The National Baha’i Center was destroyed in the presence of the clerics and the military.

Destruction of Tehran Baha’i Center, 1955

Click HERE to buy a first-hand account of the persecutions

Baha’i communities were resilient in the face of the constant erosion of civil liberties, the bankrupting of businesses, the closing of schools, and the random acts of mob violence.

Iranian Baha’is still arose to go pioneering after 1953 when Shoghi Effendi launched the epochal ten-year crusade which established the Baha’i Faith for the first time as a worldwide religion. Its goals were:

     The development of institutions at the World Centre

·       Consolidation of the twelve countries where the Faith was well established

·        Consolidation of all other territories already open

·        The opening of the remaining "chief virgin territories" around the globe

On 4 November 1957, Shoghi Effendi passed away suddenly in London, following a bout of influenza. He was just 60 years old. Five days later, his funeral cort...

This fanaticism reached Nayriz as a local cleric promoted anti-Baha’i sentiment and used to line family’s pockets by thieving from Baha’is. He did not even have any actual religious degrees, but he had the ability to use rhetoric to poison the minds of people who were easily influenced by a cleric.

Eshraghie, a Baha’i girl, was teased and bullied at school where the other children threw her books away, insulted her, and stole her lunch. A sensitive girl, this treatment hurt her deeply. Eventually she left school and, in time, had to accept a marriage proposal from a Muslim man who turned out to be unkind and mean-spirited towards her. Her new relatives harangued her about her faith to get her to recant and wanted her denounced in the mosque. She tried for fifteen years to repay their unkindness with kindness. Her in-laws prevented her from even having any communication with other Baha’is. She contracted tuberculosis but no one helped her; instead she was sent to her sister’s house in Shiraz where she died at the age of forty.

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Shaykh Baha’i, the secretary of the local assembly, was told by the fanatical mullah to cease his Baha’i activities and correspondence but he continued. The breaking point came when my father suggested a public debate on behalf of the Assembly between the cleric and Tarazu’llah Samandari, a well-known Baha’i teacher at the time.

The governor of Nayriz was friendly to Baha’is and cancelled the debate because he suspected the cleric would use any outcome as fodder to promote violence against Baha’is. The cleric was angered and felt humiliated.

His henchmen kidnapped my father while he was on his way to his orchards. Several Muslim family members of Shaykh Baha’i’s rode out to rescue him. My father was brought back greatly bruised and with a broken nose.

The kidnapping convinced Shaykh Baha’i that his family had no viable future in this town. The cleric’s fanaticism and corruption brought intense economic and psychological pressure on all Baha’i families.

The cleric’s son went on to great prominence in Iran and would boast of his father’s accomplishment in ridding Nayriz of Baha’is. With few options, Shaykh Baha’i and his family were forced to leave town, never to return.

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To have seen Baha'u'llah

Shaykh Baha’i, one of the most active Baha’is of the early community of Nayriz, Iran, was a man of letters at heart and served as the secretary of the Baha’i Assembly that had garnered the respect of the local people.

Shaykh Baha’i, Baha’i of Nayriz

He memorized prayers and poems and chanted excerpts during the talks he gave. He studied the Qur’an, the Hadiths (Islamic traditions of the Prophet), and the Baha’i Writings and, as a result, became very knowledgeable about the Qur’anic traditions regarding the Qa’im and the Baha’i proofs demonstrating the Bab and Baha’u’llah’s claims.

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His home regularly welcomed outstanding Baha’i teachers such as Tarazu’llah Samandari and Ali Akbar Furutan. Mr. Samandari was the last person living to have seen Baha’u’llah in person. Over decades of travel teaching, he inspired believers by recounting his experiences of seeing the Manifestation of God in the Garden of Ridvan outside of Akka while he was revealing tablets to the believers.

Mr. Furutan was a graduate of the University of Moscow. He founded the Baha’i school in Tehran. Beginning the 1930s, he served on the National Assembly of Iran and knew Shaykh Baha’i who attended the National Conventions as a delegate from Nayriz.

Interview with Hand of the Cause Furutan

The Hands of the Cause of God, Hands of the Cause, or Hands (informally) were a select group of Bahá'ís, appointed for life, whose main function was to propa...

Courageous women

The Baha’i community of Nayriz, Iran, was nurtured by courageous women.

Khavar Sultan

Khavar Sultan, wife of my great-grandfather Mulla Muhammad Shafi, became a role model for other women in Nayriz. She used her education to teach other women basic skills, and she taught in the Baha’i school all while raising five children who later became devoted Baha’is. A trusted person, she was often called on to advice in matters of marriage.

Pari Jan

Pari Jan was  known as the “angel of Nayriz.” She had been greatly helped by the love expressed to her by ‘Abdu’l-Baha, Shoghi Effendi, and the Greatest Holy Leaf, during her pilgrimage, and the tablets she subsequently received from them. ‘Abdu’l-Baha acknowledged the terrible afflictions she had suffered at the hands of others while praising her courage and steadfastness. Her home became a place of hospitality.

Saheb Jan

Saheb Jan devoted herself entirely to raising her seven children. She was greatly concerned with both preserving and perpetuating our family’s spiritual legacy.

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Relief

The early years of the 20th c. were a time of persecution for the Baha’is of Nayriz, Iran. They bore an important fruit: the formation for the first Spiritual Assembly of Nayriz.

Baha’u’llah composed the administration of the Baha’i Faith of “Houses of Justice”. He left to those who would later guide the Faith to determine the details of governance. ‘Abdu’l-Baha foresaw their future establishment at the different levels of society.

Shoghi Effendi interpreted Abdu’l-Baha’ guidance to mean that there would be ‘secondary’ houses of justice at local and national levels. He used the term “spiritual assembly”, reserving the term “house of justice” for a time when the institutions and community had matured.

Talk on the nature and structure of the Baha’i administrative order

In Iran, Mirza Asad’u’llah, later the son-in-law of ‘Abdu’l-Baha, led the organization of the first Baha’i institution in response to the newly issued Kitab-i Aqdas, and it was called the ‘House of Justice’ following its appellation in the Sacred Text. Its functioning and meetings were kept entirely secret

He also helped found the House of Justice in Chicago but ‘Abdu’l-Baha changed the name to ‘House of Spirituality’ so that the authorities might not become suspicious that a court had been set up.

Given the strong proscription in both societies against women in public life much less as teachers of religion, women did not serve on these early versions of Baha’i Assemblies. There were, though, parallel all-women’s Baha’i groups at the same time.

The first woman elected to the Spiritual Assembly of Nayriz was Mrs. Nusrat Missaqi.

Leaves of the Twin Divine Trees, the first in-depth study in English of the lives of women closely related to the Bab and Baha’u’llah

The Assembly of Nayriz gained a reputation for wisdom and fairness such that Muslims sought it out its advice. It was also of great material assistance in times of need. During the terrible flooding of 1924 when most Nayrizis fled to higher ground for safety, the Assembly appealed to Shoghi Effendi for funds.

Shoghi Effendi asked the entire Baha’i world to send funds for relief. These were used to build a bathhouse and a dam, which were greatly appreciated by all Nayrizis, to erect a Baha’i center, and to buy land for a cemetery. The significant sum of $500 was sent by the Spiritual Assembly of New York City.

Vahid’s room in Fort Khajih outside of Nayriz was made into a shrine.

Vahid’s room at Ft. Khajih

With its renewed vigor and greater economic stability, the Baha’i community of Nayriz started two schools, one for boys and one for girls. Baha’i women played important roles as teachers and administrators, and the schools quickly became recognized by the authorities as the town’s best.

Mobs and Locusts

‘Abdu’l-Baha must have sensed the terrible violence that was directed on the Baha’is in March of 1909, which is why he told Mirza Ahmad Vahidi, one of the leading Baha’is of Nayriz, to return immediately from his pilgrimage.

The martyrdoms of the eighteen Baha’is of Nayriz may also have been the sacrifice that inspired the group of American Baha’is who, during those same days, made the official decision to build the first Baha’i House of Worship in the West on the shores of Lake Michigan.

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Back in Nayriz, Mirza Ahmad Vahidi found the neighborhood of the Baha’is devastated. His friend Abdu’l-Husayn’s bountiful orchards were reduced to cinders, and the plot on which his home once stood now was nothing but dirt—even the stones and bricks had been removed.

He found his wife Nurijan, my great-aunt, and his children destitute, his properties expropriated, and his belongings stolen. Nurijan had refused the offer of free corn so as not to dishonor her husband by accepting aid.

The Baha’is were resilient and immediately began to rebuild. The tablets and communications received from Baha’u’llah, ’Abdu’l-Baha, and Shoghi Effendi, were the great life force that sustained us.

These were the bright lights of inspiration during the Nayrizi Baha’is’ dark hours, the core of their spiritual lives—so much so that when there was flooding or an attack by a mob, the main concern was to “save the tablets.”

Persecution of Nayriz Baha'is 1909

The year 1916 brought renewed suffering as a gang of toughs led by the brother of a cruel Shaykh came to Nayriz. He destroyed the crops of the Baha’is and demanded payments. He even made pretenses to being the Qa’im, the Islamic holy figure who would appear at the end of time. This time, though, the Baha’is and Muslims banded together for protection.

Worse than this fanatic for Nayrizis was the lack of rainfall and the appearance of locusts which resulted in famine. A Baha’i, Mirza Abdu’l-Husayn, opened his storehouses to help alleviate the hunger. In 1916, Mirza Abdu’l-Husayn, this venerable Baha’i, passed away.

Madagascar's worst locust plague in 60 years has infested about half of the island, destroying crops and raising concerns over food shortages. Malagasy autho...

These years bore an important fruit: the formation for the first Spiritual Assembly of Nayriz, of which my grandfathers, Shaykh Muhammad Husayn and Mirza Ahmad Vahidi, were members.

To learn more about the Babi and Baha'i experience in Iran read Foreigner, available at:

http://www.grbooks.com/george-ronald-publisher-books/biographical-books/foreigner-1545153918

Holy remains

On Nawruz day, 1909, the Bab’s holy remains were interred at night on Mt. Carmel. ‘Abdu’l-Baha leaned over the vault, his long grey hair sweeping over the coffin and wept.

That same month, Baha’is in the U.S. met at their National Convention and decided to build a House of Worship, the first in North America; Corrine True would be the driving force in this effort. It would become the holiest House of Worship because ‘Abdu’l-Baha laid its cornerstone in 1912.

While they met, a severe persecution descended on the Baha’is of Nayriz, Iran, claiming eighteen of their lives.

History, Design and Construction of the Baha'i House of Worship in North America

‘Abdu’l-Baha must have sensed something because he told Mirza Ahmad Vahidi, to return immediately to Nayriz from his pilgrimage.

Persia was careening into chaos. Shaykh Zakariya battled the government throughout the Nayriz region. He re-opened the wounds of the conflicts of 1850 and 1853 that had begun to heal.

Baha’is fled into the mountains, hiding in caves and orchards. Baha’i homes were ransacked. There were house to house searches. Money were extorted from them. They were forced to sign over deeds.

A blind elderly Baha’i man who was beloved by neighbors for his wonderful storytelling was dragged out into the street and killed. A father was forced to watch his son be killed. Men were brought before the Shaykh, humiliated, and then executed.

Parijan, a young Baha’i woman, witnessed the violence of 1909:

“Our days and nights were spent in fear…. Shaykh Zakaria's army ransacked our homes and our district … they began to attack the mosque. … I came out of hiding to find out what was going on in town. A woman, who was a neighbor of ours, approached me crying, I asked her ‘What has happened?’ she told me “They have killed your husband, Mullá Hasan and your father, Mullá Muhammad Ali”. She told me that she has seen with her own eyes how they have killed my husband and my father. I had a six-month-old son and a five-year-old daughter. I left the younger one at home and began to run towards the bazaar district. I saw more than five thousand people running around and some were pulling the body of a naked man with a rope tied up to his feet. I asked “Who is he?” and they told me “He is Mullá Muhammad Ali, your father.”… … We tried to hide in a neighbor’s house, but they did not let us in…. We had no choice, but to flee outside the town and hide in the field amongst the tall bushes. The owner of the field also kicked us out. … Nighttime fell and we were hungry and scared, it was dark and we were trembling. We could hear the mob screaming while they were hanging my father. Suddenly a friendly man, who was searching for us also climbed over the wall. He told us that he would help us. He gave us shelter that night and for fourteen days we were hiding in his house..”

To hear a reading o ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s tablet to Pari Jan click HERE

Passing by a shop

The prominent Nayriz Baha’i, Mirza Ahmad Nayrizi, later named ‘Vahidi’ after the great Babi martyr, was blessed with regular letters from ‘Abdu’l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi.

Ahmad Nayrizi

Mirza Ahmad Vahidi rose from poverty to become a wealthy businessman and landowner. He loved to tell the story of how he became a Baha’i:

One day, he was passing by the shop of Karbelai Husayn who invited him and challenged him by asking if he knew the Hadith in which a believer is exhorted to search in the East and the West for the promised one and investigate his claim and, if so, why had Ahmad not inquired about the Baha’i claims. Ahmad asked a Mulla later about this hadith but the Mulla reacted with surprise that Ahmad had even listened to a lowly shopkeeper. This only made Ahmad more curious, and he returned to the shop for a series of discussions and later accepted the Baha’i faith and regretted that he, like many Nayrizis, had treated Baha’is with contempt.

(The similar story of the sifter of wheat HERE)

So began an active life of service during which Ahmad accumulated great wealth and spent it on the affairs of the Faith. He believed that by giving of his wealth, he would accrue spiritual merit, and he was very steadfast in his obedience to Baha’i laws. Once Shoghi Effendi told him that having more than one wife—the common custom among Muslims—was no longer allowed in the new dispensation, he immediately divorced one of his wives, though he supported her financially for the rest of her life.

Vahidi descended from Mirza Ahmad Koshnevis, whose highly developed use of the elegant Naskhi style made him one of the most distinguished Persian calligraphers of the 18th century. Koshnevis’s life’s work was a prodigious output of some seventy major works and between ninety and one-hundred and twenty Qur’ans, some of which are found in major museums today.

Tablet to Koshnevis

Poetry the women of Shiraz loved to sing

After the passing of his first wife, Shafi’, one of the leaders of the Baha’i community of Nayriz, Iran, married Khavar Sultan, the daughter of a beloved poet from Shiraz, Vafa, whose poetry the women of Shiraz loved to sing.

Vafa’s poetry came to express his love for Baha’u’llah as well. Vafa married one of the widows of Nayriz whom he met while visiting the prison in Shiraz that held the refugees from the conflict of 1853. He and his father subsequently moved to Nayriz to be away from the jealousy and intrigue of the Mullas of the provincial capital.

Shiraz is the fifth most populous city of Iran and the capital of Fars Province. Shiraz is located in the southwest of Iran on the "Roodkhaneye Khoshk" (The ...

During his short life—he died while still in his 30’s—Vafa became a passionate follower of Baha’u’llah and travelled to Baghdad to meet him. He wrote to Baha’u’llah on certain mystical and theological questions about the worlds of God, the return, the laws of God, and paradise.

Baha’u’llah responded with a lengthy tablet in which he praised Vafa for being faithful in the face of others who were not. He gave him the name ‘Vafa,’ which means fidelity and urged him to become its embodiment:

Vafa’s short life was commemorated by these words on his headstone:

“This is the spot in which the gem of the mine of virtue has been put to rest. He was like unto a mountain of good character and a shining star. He left this mortal world of suffering and entered the horizon of eternal delight. He was like unto a shining moon on the horizon of knowledge. He was an enlightened and skillful poet. With his death great loss has been experienced and a void has been left behind. He was the son of the learned and wise father Mulla Muhammad Bagher ...his name is Sheik Hussein. May the blessings and forgiveness of God accompany Him.”

Recovery

Mulla Muhammad Shafi’ was a brave and capable Babi who helped to rebuild the community in Nayriz, Iran, after destruction following a violent conflict in 1852.

The leading Imam of Shiraz, who had been a protector of the Bab, saw great potential in Shafi’ and educated him in religion, Arabic, logic, and poetry.

The Jamih Mosque in Shiraz

Shafi was appointed him as an administrator of the holdings of the Great Mosque in Nayriz.

In this position, he was able to help the Babi community to grow. He acted as its defender and gave employment to returning Babis. He developed a business association with several Nayrizis and relatives of the Bab, the Afnans, which brought greater prosperity and jobs to Nayriz.

In 1859, Shafi’ made the journey to Baghdad to meet Baha’u’llah. One of their donkeys was stolen, but out of deference for each other, neither man would ride the remaining one. In Baghdad, Shafi’ recognized the true spiritual station of Baha’u’llah though He had yet to make His public declaration.

Shafi’ asked Baha’u’llah to bless him and his family so that they would always keep the Covenant; ‘Ahdieh’, the family name his descendants were later given, means ‘to keep the Covenant’.

The House of Baha’u’llah in Tehran

In the following decades, Shafi’ fostered good relations between Baha’is and Muslims. These reached such a point that the town governor reached out to Baha’i leaders to make peace between the communities, hired Baha’is as his guards, and appointed two to administer certain lands under his control.

In a tablet to Shafi’, Baha’u’llah exhorted His followers in Nayriz to serve God by teaching his cause. This could be done through the performance of pure and goodly deeds in a spirit of love and compassion.

Shafi’ held regular study classes to educate believers in the Babi and Baha’i Writing especially on the Covenant, to protect them from being misled by the Covenant-breakers who were active at the time. Baha’u’llah wrote to him that Baha’is had to be well-informed about the faith to be steadfast.

An Insulting Act

Greed was a driving force in the persecution of Babis and, later, of Baha’is, in Iran.

In Nayriz during the time of the Bab, Siyyid Ja’far Yazdi was a high-ranking cleric who owned a large home in the bazaar and gave up his position to become a follower of the Bab. He was kept alive after the siege at Ft. Khajih in Nayriz for extortion.

He was led to the entrance of a barn from which grain was distributed, and those entering were encouraged to spit on him for a share of grain. When he saw that people hesitated to commit such an insulting act, he encouraged them and accepted this humiliation as a sign of his devotion to the Bab and Vahid.

Soldiers led him forcibly to the homes of wealthy townspeople and beat him outside their front doors, only stopping when the residents or passers-by—ashamed of the sight—paid a bribe to them to stop. This brutality continued for months until his swollen legs could no longer carry him.

In his honor, Baha’u’llah revealed the lengthy Tablet of Nus’h which examines the rejection of all the messengers of God by the leaders of religion.

The major theme of this Tablet is the rejection of the Manifestations of God by the people of their time:

“Verily, people have never turned away from God in any Dispensation except when their leaders turned away and rose up arrogantly against God and were among those who denounced His clear signs. And whenever their leaders opposed the Manifestations, the people followed them in their vain imaginings and rejection, and none believed among them except those who were endowed with holy sight, whose hearts God had tested, preparing them for His Faith.”

(provisional translation, Afaf A. Stevens)

The test

The small town of Nayriz in southern Iran was the scene of a dramatic episode in the history of the Bab. In 1850, the great cleric Vahid and his companions entered the fort to defend themselves against the onslaught of local troops.

"'Protect us, from what lieth in front of us, and behind us, above our heads, on our right, on our left, below our feet, and every other side to which we are...

Excitement about the Bab’s Message had been spreading throughout Persia so the King, who was interested in spiritual questions, asked one his most trusted clerics to go and investigate the new claims and report directly back to him. The King wanted an honest assessment of the Bab.

Vahid arrived in Shiraz having decided on difficult questions that would challenge the Bab. The new Babis warned him not to be proud in his knowledge.

Brief introduction to Awakening: A History of the Bábí and Baha'i Faiths in Nayriz by Hussein Ahdieh and Hillary Chapman

The Bab warmly welcomed Vahid who asked Him questions for two hours. His profound answers left Vahid embarrassed who dismissed himself, saying he would return another day. At the next interview, Vahid completely forgot the questions he had prepared only to find the Bab answering them.

For the third interview, Vahid decided to test the Bab by expecting Him to explain certain Holy verses without him bringing these up but when he entered His Presence, a great fear came into him. The Bab gently guided him to sit down and offered to answer whatever he wished. Vahid could not utter a word. The Bab proceeded to write a commentary on the holy verses Vahid had secretly. He was overcome because he realized that the Bab was the Promised One of God:

“He who had firmly resolved to confute the arguments of an obscure siyyid of Shiraz, to induce Him to abandon His ideas, and to conduct Him to Tihran as an evidence of the ascendancy he had achieved over Him, was made to feel, as he himself later acknowledged, as "lowly as the dust beneath His feet." Even Husayn Khan, who had been Vahid's host during his stay in Shiraz, was compelled to write to the Shah and express the conviction that his Majesty's illustrious delegate had become a Babi.”             

(Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By)