The Rise of Baha
7. Alleged Baha’s Inspection of the fortifications in the fort of Sheykh Tabarsi
Baha’s Inspection of the fortifications in the fort of Sheykh Tabarsi and his counsels and exhortations to its defenders devoid of historical foundation.
7.5 Abbas Effendi’s Account
In the Traveller’s Narrative of 1886, Sir Abbs Effendi says nothing about Baha’s tour of inspection of the fortifications in the foot of Shaykh Tabarsi, Baha’s counsels and exhortations to its defenders and Baha’s having been bastinadoed or scourged.
In his Will and Testament however, the Bahai World, 1926-1928 Vol. II., P. 82, Sir Abbs Effendi comes out with the story that in Mazandaran, the Blessed feet of the Abha beauty [i.e. Baha] may my life be offered for his loved-ones, were so grievously scourged as to bleed and be sore wounded.”
In the Tarikh-i-Jadid of 1880, the learned author says nothing about Baha’s tour of the fortifications of the fort of Shaykh Tabarsi, Baha’s counsels and exhortations to its defenders, and Baha’s having been bastinadoed or scourged.
The learned author writes:
(PP. 64-65) “About same time this misfortune occurred, the late Haji Mirza Jani, the chronicler of these events, together with Muhammad Taqi Khan of Nur and several others, arrived in the neighbourhood in company with His Holiness Baha (the lived of all beside him be his sacrifice), the mystery of whose real nature was still hidden within the veils of the divine wisdom, and desired to proceed to the castle of Shaykh Tabarsi. The late Haji Mirza Jani writes, ‘We repeatedly urged him [i.e. Baha] to proceed, and to let us bear him company, but he replied “If we go they will not suffer us to reach the castle;’ “
“ ‘For this is unattainable, and the matter is otherwise predestined.’ “At length, however, he yielded to the entreaties of his devoted companions. Of the sums of money which others have mentioned, they had with them in all less than four thousand Tumans in case, besides other goods and chattels when they had come within two Pharsangs of Shaykh Tabarsi, they were observed and seized by the royalist troops, who stripped them and bore them to the camp, intending to put to death. As, however, Baha belonged to a distinguished family of Mazandaran, certain of the royalist officers, accorded him their protection and sent him to Barfurush, where he suffered such afflictions as the pen is ashamed to portray. As to Haji Mirza Jani, two merchants of Kashan, who had claim on certain of the officers, received him as the equivalent of four hundred Tumans which were owing to them, and set him at liberty. When he was setting out from Teheran, some of his friends had strongly dissuades him from going, but he replied in answer to their remonstrances “I shall suffer martyrdom in Teheran, and though on this journey I shall be taken captive, I shall be released yet that I may have no cause for shame in not going, and that I may to the full accomplish my endeavour, I will go.’ “
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