The Cause Of the Banishment of Babis From Edirne to Palestine & Cyprus

2.    Ottoman Archives

2.3   Documents Concerning The Banishment of Babis
These documents are stored in a file numbered 1475 and are classified under ‘Miscellaneous Files’. It contains the proceedings of the interrogations of the Babis and Bahais in 1285 which resulted in the separation of Baha’ullah from Subh-i Azal, exiling of the former to Acre and the latter to Cyprus. As far as I know the proceeding of the trials, the cause of it, and the text of the decree issued have not been published before. Awara in his ‘Kawakib al-Duriyya’ (Stars of the Pearls) and in ‘Kashf-al Hiyyal’ (Uncovering of Deceptions) by reference to his former book has included an erroneous Turkish copy of the decree issued on Rabi-al-Thani 1285 A.H by Sultan Abd-al Aziz and addressed to the governor of Edirne. They do not however provide any details of the proceedings that led to the issuing of the decree.

It becomes apparent after the perusal of the file that the root cause and the reason for the arrest and interrogation of the Babis was thea letter that Baha’ullah had written to the governor of Edirne and in which he had accused his brother Mirza Yahya Subh-i Azal and his followers to have conspired against the Ottoman government and in which he had given the names of some of the close companions of Subh-i Azal as the perpetrators and assistants to the implementation of that conspiracy.

Baha’ullah says in his letter: “The expectation of this servant is that an investigation with the utmost careful attention be held into the matter, and that the persons whose names are entered in the list be examined so that it may become known who is the source of these mischiefs”.

The governor of Edirne sends Baha’s letter to Istanbul and explains in a detailed letter that Sayyed Muhammad of Isfahan believed in Mirza Yahya and in his compliments says that the main person pursued by the Iranian government is Mirza Yahya. His opinion is that Mirza Husayn Ali’s feeling was hurt by his younger brother Mirza Yahya.

The list of names of Mirza Yahya’s followers which apparently formed as an appendix to Bahaullah’s letter is written on a small paper numbered 12 in the mentioned file. It contains the names of the following ten persons:
1- Hajji Muhammad Effendi
2- Ismat’ullah Effendi
3- Al-Haj Nowras Effendi
4- Fayz’ullah Effendi
5- Saeid Effendi
6- Muhammad Effendi
7- Ahmad Effendi
8- Jamal-al Din Effendi
9- Hasan Effendi
10- Naqib Ashraf

Those who were arrested and interrogated in Istanbul are as follows:
1- Ali Sayyah of Maraqeh
2- Muhammad Baqir of Isfahan
3- Aqa Jan of Salmas
4- Darvish Ali of Qazvin
5- Muhammad Ali of Isfahan

One of these five persons, i.e. Aqa Jan of Salmas is a follower of Subh-i Azal and the other four are followers of Baha’ullah.

You can view previous section of this topic, view next section of this topic, or close this window:

To read other topics about Bahaism and its claims please got to the main page and select Bahaism.