The Greatest Holy Leaf

Ṭihrán, Persia in the 1840s – 1860s, the city where the Greatest Holy Leaf was born in 1846. Source: Wikimedia Commons from the Met Museum, Gift of Charles K. and Irma B. Wilkinson, 1977.

In Ṭihrán in 1846—two years after the birth of their eldest son 'Abdu'l-Bahá and one year after their younger son ‘Alí-Muḥammad—a daughter was born to Bahá'u'lláh and Ásíyih Khánum.

She would be the only daughter they would ever have, she would be utterly steadfast, devoted and faithful to Bahá'u'lláh from her first breath to her last, and she would come to fundamentally affect Bahá'í history.

Her birth name was Fáṭimih Sulṭán.

Bahá'u'lláh would later give her the name Bahíyyih Khánum—the feminine version of “Bahá” or “Glory, Bahá'u'lláh’s own name—and we would all come to know her best as “Varaqiy-i-'Ulyá” or “The Greatest Holy Leaf.”

A depiction of Mírzá Buzurg, the father of Bahá'u'lláh and paternal grandfather of the Greatest Holy Leaf. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Bahíyyih Khánum was born into a family of great wealth, prestige and renown.

Both Bahíyyih Khánum’s parents were from prominent families. Their ancestral homes were in the district of Núr in the northern Persian region of Mázindarán.

Bahíyyih Khánum’s paternal grandfather, was Mírzá Buzurg who was a famous calligrapher and served as a Minister to Imám-Virdi Mírzá, the twelfth son of the Persian Qajar King, Fatḥ ‘Alí Sháh. Mírzá Burzurg was later appointed governor of the Persian provinces of Borujird and Lorestan.

Bahíyyih Khánum’s maternal grandfather was Mírzá Ismá‘íl-i-Yálrúdí, an aristocrat and minister in the Qajar court in the village of Yalrud in Mázindarán.

A photograph of the room in Ṭihrán where Bahá'u'lláh was born, from the book Land of Resplendent Glory, by the International Bahá'í Audio-Visual Centre, 1971. Source: Bahá'u'lláh: The Glory of God blog. Note: Because the scan of the photograph was of poor quality, the image has been modified with texture and effects to emphasize the light entering through the windows. 

Bahíyyih Khánum’s father, Mírzá Ḥusayn ‘Alí, was born in Ṭihrán on 12 November 1817, at the hour of dawn. His parents were Mírzá Buzurg, Vazir-i-Nuri, and his wife Khadíjih Khánum.

He would later be known as Bahá'u'lláh.

From His earliest childhood, Bahá'u'lláh distinguished Himself among His relatives and friends. He was far advanced, well beyond His years in His knowledge, wisdom and intelligence, and He felt powerful divine forces from His early childhood.

As a teenager, Bahá'u'lláh did not attend school. He already had the innate capacity of solving the most arduous problems of all those who came to see Him, and so He never received a formal education.

Bahá'u'lláh spent His youth between Ṭihrán, and Takúr, His family’s village in their ancestral province of Núr.

In October 1835, when He was 17 years old, Bahá'u'lláh married Ásíyih Khánum, from the village of Yalrúd, a neighboring town to His home village of Takúr.

Bahá'u'lláh and Ásíyih Khánum were married for 9 years during which they lost two baby boys. Their third child, born in 1844, they named ‘Abbás, and He would later be known around the world as 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

Two months after the birth of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Bahá'u'lláh received the message of the Báb and He became a Bábí upon reading the first words of a Tablet the Báb had addressed to Him.

Two years later, in 1846, His daughter Bahíyyih Khánum was born.

Abstract illustration of Ásíyih Khánum, a pearl among her contemporaries, which are cut out and digitally processed figures from Persian miniatures of the 19th century. © Violetta Zein.

Bahíyyih Khánum’s mother, Ásíyih Khánum, was a tall, slender, graceful young woman, exceptional among her peers. She was remarkably wise and intelligent and had the bearing and loveliness of a queen.

Her character was extraordinary, and wherever she went, her presence created a penetrating atmosphere of love, happiness, and gentle courtesy. 

She was full of consideration for everyone, gentle, remarkably unselfish, and displayed in her every act the loving-kindness of her pure heart. 

Ásíyih Khánum possessed a lofty station in the history of religion.

She was the manifestation of a 2,500-year old Biblical prophecy in the Book of Isaiah Chapter 54 verses 2 to 5 which speak about Ásíyih Khánum and her marriage to Bahá'u'lláh:

Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited...For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.

Portrait of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Edirne, in the Ottoman Empire around 1868, when 'Abdu'l-Bahá was 24 years old. Source: Bahá'í Media Bank, © Bahá'í International Community 2023.  

On the night of 23 May 1844, hours after the Declaration of the Báb had begun in Shíráz and the Báb was revealing the first chapter of the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá' to Mullá Ḥusayn, a boy named ‘Abbás was born in Ṭihrán to Bahá'u'lláh and Ásíyih Khánum.

He was their third boy, and the first of their children who would live to adulthood.

They called Him ‘Abbás, but He would later be known as 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

'Abdu'l-Bahá was two years older than His sister Bahíyyih Khánum, and He, like His sister, spent His first years in a loving and caring environment of privilege and wealth.

Both the childhood of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Bahíyyih Khánum would be marked by the most important event in their father’s life: His conversion from Shí’ah Islam to the Bábí Faith, and His complete and full acceptance of the message and claims of the Báb.

'Abdu'l-Bahá, like His father, would spend His childhood never formally schooled between the capital city of Persia, Ṭihrán, and the idyllic, gorgeous mountain region of Mázindarán.

'Abdu'l-Bahá would receive His education from His family and most particularly His father. He had a happy and carefree early childhood, and was very close to His younger siblings.

A 1930 panorama of the city of Ṭihrán, where ‘Alí Muḥammad was born in 1845. Source: © Bahá'í International Community. Bahá'í Media Bank.

In 1845, one year after 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Ásíyih Khánum gave birth to another son, ‘Alí Muḥammad, Bahíyyih Khánum’s second older brother.

Little is known about ‘Alí Muḥammad except for the fact that he passed away at the age of 7 in 1852 while His father Bahá'u'lláh was in Iraq.

He was one year older than Bahíyyih Khánum.

A photograph of the Greatest Holy Leaf’s youngest brother, Mírzá Mihdí, The Purest Branch, taken in Edirne, around 1864-1868, when he was around 18-20 years old. Source: Bahá'í Media Bank, © Bahá'í International Community 2023.

In 1848, two years after her birth, Bahíyyih Khánum’s younger brother, Mírzá Mihdí was born in Ṭihrán, in the same house where 'Abdu'l-Bahá, ‘Alí Muḥammad, and Bahíyyih Khánum were born.

He was a deeply sweet and gentle soul, known to all as “the Purest Branch” and he was born during one of the most tumultuous periods in Bábí history.

He was a very gentle and sweet soul, and by the time his family left Persia for their first exile, he was only four years old.

17th century painting of King David of Israel in prayer, one of the ancestors of the Greatest Holy Leaf. Painting by Pieter de Grebber. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Through her father Bahá'u'lláh, Bahíyyih Khánum was the descendent of two Manifestations of God: Zoroaster and Abraham.

Through Abraham, Bahíyyih Khánum was descended from King David, the ruler of Judah in 1,000 BC.

Bahíyyih Khánum was of distinguished royal Persian blood, a descendent of Yazdigird III, the last king of the Sásáníyán royal dynasty which ruled Persia from the third to the seventh centuries.

Bahíyyih Khánum’s royal lineage destined her for spiritual greatness.

Her selfless life of devoted service would defy human understanding.

17th century painting of King David of Israel in prayer, one of the ancestors of the Greatest Holy Leaf. Painting by Pieter de Grebber. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The Greatest Holy Leaf is described by Shoghi Effendi in God Passes By as the “outstanding heroine of the Bahá'í Dispensation.”

Bahíyyih Khánum was born in a Bábí family.

She was four years old when the Báb was martyred in Tabríz. She lived through the entire ministry of Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and the first 11 years of the ministry of Shoghi Effendi.

In this sense, Bahíyyih Khánum provides a direct living link between the three Central Figures of the Bahá'í Faith and the Guardian and between the Heroic and Formative Ages of the Faith.

Bahíyyih Khánum’s father Bahá'u'lláh was the Supreme Manifestation of God heralded by all previous Manifestations. He received the Revelation from God in the Síyáh-Chál when Bahíyyih Khánum was 6 years old and declared His mission in Baghdad when she was 16.

She shared in Bahá'u'lláh’s, 'Abdu'l-Bahá’s, and Shoghi Effendi’s sufferings, she served them all faithfully and firmly, and won the crown bestowed on her as the outstanding heroine of the Bahá'í Dispensation.

An extraordinary photograph of the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh, with the Mansion of Bahjí visible on the left edge of the photograph. Source: Ramin Hossaini Flickr page. © All rights reserved, used with permission.

In Leaves of the Twin Divine Trees, Baharieh Maani compiles the statements of Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá regarding Bahíyyih Khánum’s station:

Bahá'u'lláh has testified that she appeared in His name, a reference to the fact that of all the members of His family, His eldest daughter was named “Bahíyyih” the feminine form of Bahá. He also refers to her as the “Leaf that hath sprung” from the “Pre-existent Root,” and the “fragrance” of His “shining robe,” and elevated her to a "station such as none other woman hath surpassed."

Colorized portrait of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Paris, France, October 1911. Source: Bahá'í Media Bank, © Bahá'í International Community 2024.

'Abdu'l-Bahá has addressed Bahíyyih Khánum as “My well-beloved, deeply spiritual sister,” “dear sister, beloved of my heart and soul,” “my honoured and distinguished sister,” “my affectionate sister,” “my sister and beloved of my soul,” “my cherished sister,” “my sister in the spirit, and the companion of my heart,” “Greatest and Most Merciful Holy Leaf.”

Last photograph of Shoghi Effendi, taken by Amatu’l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum, September 1957. Source: Bahá'í Media Bank, © Bahá'í International Community 2024.

According to Shoghi Effendi, Bahíyyih Khánum was:

Next to 'Abdu'l-Baha, among the members of the Holy Family…the brightest embodiment of that love which is born of God and of that human sympathy which few mortals are capable of evincing.

The Guardian describes the Greatest Holy Leaf’s station in these terms:

The people of the Concourse on High seek the fragrance of thy presence, and the dwellers in the retreats of eternity circle about thee.

Shoghi Effendi at the time he became Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, 1921. Source: Bahá'í Media Bank, © Bahá'í International Community 2024.

In God Passes By, Shoghi Effendi states in no uncertain terms that the station of the Greatest Holy Leaf is comparable to Sarah in the Old Testament, to the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, to Fáṭimih, the holy daughter of the Prophet Muḥammad, and to Ṭáhirih, the only woman among the Báb’s 18 Letters of the Living. These women, one and all outshone the other women of the Mosaic, Christian, Islamic, and Bábí Dispensation.

Bahíyyih Khánum, the Greatest Holy Leaf was the Outstanding Heroine of the Bahá'í Dispensation.

Shoghi Effendi stated that Bahíyyih Khánum personified the attributes of Bahá'u'lláh:

To this bear witness the Company on High, and beyond them God Himself, the Supreme Lord of all the heavens and the earths: that during all thy days, from thine earliest years until the close of thy life, thou didst personify the attributes of thy Father, the Matchless, the Mighty. Thou wert the fruit of His Tree, thou wert the lamp of His love, thou wert the symbol of His serenity, and of His meekness, the pathway of His guidance, the channel of His blessings, the sweet scent of His robe, the refuge of His loved ones and His handmaidens, the mantle of His generosity and grace.

In a Persian letter dated 15 July 1932 to the Bahá'ís of the East, he penned a stunning portrait of the Greatest Holy Leaf:

In the heaven of severance, she shone like the Morning Star, fair and bright, and through her character and all her ways, she shed upon kin and stranger, upon the learned, and the lowly, the radiance of Bahá’u’lláh’s surpassing perfection…With the waters of her countless mercies, she brought thorny hearts to a blossoming of love from the All-Glorious, and with the influence of her pure loving-kindness, transformed the implacable, the unyielding, into impassioned lovers of the celestial Beauty’s peerless Cause.

Greatest Holy Leaf, Bahíyyih Khánum—daughter of Bahá'u'lláh and Ásíyih Khánum and sister of 'Abdu'l-Bahá—close to the end of her life. Source: Bahá'í Media Bank, © Bahá'í International Community 2024.

There can be no clearer indication of the exalted station of the Greatest Holy Leaf than the following terms which have been used by Bahá'u'lláh, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and Shoghi Effendi to refer to her blessed person:

A trusted supporter of the peerless Branch of Bahá’u’lláh, and a companion to Him beyond compare
That archetype of the people of Bahá
That day-spring of detachment in this world of being
That Orb of the heaven of eternal glory
That quintessence of love and purity within the towering pavilions of eternity
That rare treasure of the Lord
That remnant left by [Bahá'u'lláh] among His servants
That rich mine of faithfulness
That sacred treasure
That source of grace and mercy
That sweet scent of [Bahá'u'lláh’s] garment
That symbol of bounty and generosity
That trust left by Bahá among His people
The Day-spring of detachment in this world of being
The essence of loving-kindness
The eternal fruit, and the one last remembrance of the Holy Tree
The Liege Lady of the people of Bahá
The Most Exalted, the pure, the holy, the immaculate, the brightly shining Leaf
The Symbol of bounty and generosity
The very model of high honour and nobility and heavenly ways
The very sign and token of spiritual attributes and qualities and perfections
This essence of loving-kindness
This never-failing spring of grace

That, my dearly beloved friends, is who Bahíyyih Khánum, the Greatest Holy Leaf is.

That is the peerless station she occupies in the history of religion and in the Bahá'í Faith.

And this is the saintly woman whose extraordinary life we are about to honor in this chronology

The second oldest map ever made of Ṭihrán, the city where Bahíyyih Khánum spent her early happy childhood. This map was made in 1848, when Bahíyyih Khánum was 2 years old, by Elias Barezin in Qajar Persian, under the rule of Muḥammad Sháh, an enemy of the Bábís. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Bahíyyih Khánum’s earliest childhood were filled with peaceful happy memories of her beloved parents and her brothers, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, older than her by two years and ‘Alí-Muḥammad, one year older than her.

Bahíyyih Khánum remembered her mother, Ásíyih Khánum, as “queenly in her dignity and loveliness, full of consideration for everybody, gentle, of a marvelous unselfishness.” Ásíyih Khánum was full of loving-kindness, and she brought with her, wherever she went, an atmosphere of love, happiness, and gentle courtesy.

Both Bahá'u'lláh and Ásíyih Khánum stayed busy with their service to the disenfranchised in Ṭihrán, and their home was always open to those in need. They were known as "The Father of the Poor" and "The Mother of Consolation."

A color photograph dated September 1975 of Bahá'u'lláh’s ancestral house in Takur, a house where Bahíyyih Khánum spent part of her childhood. Source: Bahá'í Media Bank, © Bahá'í International Community 2023..

One of the few memories of Bahíyyih Khánum’s childhood were the times when she and her family went to their country house in the district of Núr.

Bahíyyih Khánum and her brothers loved to play in the beautiful gardens, filled with fruit, flowers and flowering trees.

The defining characteristic of Bahíyyih Khánum’s childhood was the Bábí Faith and its adherents, many of which gathered in the village of Badasht, pictured here in 1848, when Bahá’u’lláh hosted a gathering of the most eminent followers of the Báb. The meeting established for the growing number of believers the independent character of the Bábí religion, c. 1930. Source: Bahá'í Media Bank, © Bahá'í International Community 2023.

Bahíyyih Khánum, her older brothers 'Abdu'l-Bahá and ‘Alí-Muḥammad, and her younger brother Mírzá Mihdí spent their early childhood in an environment of wealth and love between their homes in Takúr, Mázindarán, and Ṭihrán.

The defining character of their childhood was, of course, the fact that their Father, Bahá'u'lláh, was a prominent Bábí.

As such, the children grew up in a deeply spiritual environment, where they witnessed the foremost heroes of the Bábí Dispensation visiting their homes: Ṭáhirih, Mullá Ḥusayn, Vaḥíd, and Sayyáḥ, the messenger of the Báb among many other eminent Bábís and Letters of the Living, not to mention their very own uncle and Bahá'u'lláh’s younger faithful brother, Mírzá Músá, who would have a very important role throughout their childhood, youth, and adulthood.

A stunning panoramic view of Takur, Mázindarán, were Bahá'u'lláh’s house was located taken around 1930. Bahá'u'lláh’s family spent much of the time Bahá'u'lláh was in Karbila around Takur and Yalrud. Source: Bahá'í Media Bank, © Bahá'í International Community 2023.

Soon after the martyrdom of the Báb, Mírzá Taqí Khán, the Prime Minister of Naṣiri'd-Dín Sháh who had ordered the execution of the Báb, asked Bahá'u'lláh to leave Persia for some time.

Bahá'u'lláh travelled to Karbilá, in Iraq, where He stayed for 8 months.

During Bahá'u'lláh's stay in Karbilá, Ásíyih Khánum and Bahá'u'lláh's four children: 'Abdu'l-Bahá, almost 8, 'Alí Muḥammad, around 6 and a half, Bahíyyih Khánum, 5 and Mírzá Mihdí, 2, lived in Núr, between Takúr, Bahá'u'lláh's ancestral home, and Yalrúd, Ásíyih Khánum's birthplace.

In early 1852, a few months after His departure, a tragedy struck Bahá'u'lláh’s family in Núr, when His second son 'Alí-Muḥammad died at the age of seven.

A few months later, in April 1852, Bahá'u'lláh returned to Persia.

Left: A portrait of Naṣiri'd-Dín Sháh from the 1870s by W. & D. Downey, for use as personal calling cards. Source: National Portrait Gallery.
Right: New York Times, 22 October 1852, page 6 article about the attempted assassination on the Sháh, from the article compiled by Ralph Wagner entitled: Babi Attempt on the Life of the Shah, 1852: Coverage in the New York Times. Bahá'í Library Online.

When Bahíyyih Khánum was six years old, her life changed forever.

On 15 August 18523, three Bábís, rendered half-mad by the martyrdom of the Báb two years earlier, decided to avenge Him by assassinating Naṣiri'd-Dín Sháh. They were armed with short daggers and pellet pistols, and only managed to inflict superficial wounds on the Sháh before they were stopped.

The reprisals began immediately.

Bahá'u'lláh—the most prominent Bábí in Persia—was arrested the next day, 16 August 1852, in the village of Zarkandih and brought to Ṭihrán barefoot and in chains. He was brutalized along the way, pelted with stones by the crowd, insulted, and ridiculed, and His headdress was snatched off His head.

Bahá'u'lláh was forced to walk towards the most infamous prison in the Persian Empire, the Síyáh-Chál (Dark Pit) a former water cistern converted into a terrifying dungeon, under the fierce summer sun, an estimated distance of about 20 kilometers (12.5 miles).

The Russian Legation in the village of Zarkandih, where Bahá'u'lláh was arrested before being thrown into the Siyáh-Chál. Souce: Nabíl, The Dawn-Breakers, page 604.

Ásíyih Khánum, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Bahíyyih Khánum, and Mírzá Mihdí, learned of Bahá'u'lláh’s imprisonment from Isfandíyár, the family’s African servant and a Bábí, who suddenly stormed into the house with terrifying news:

The master, the master (Bahá'u'lláh), He is arrested—I have seen Him! He has walked many miles! Oh, they have beaten Him! They say He has suffered the torture of the bastinado! His feet are bleeding! He has no shoes on! His turban has gone! His clothes are torn! There are chains upon His neck!

Ásíyih Khánum, devastated, grew paler and paler as the servant was speaking, and the children were so frightened, all they could do was weep bitterly.

Mírzá Músá, Bahá'u'lláh's faithful brother and 'Abdu'l-Bahá's uncle. Bahá'u'lláh, the Glory of God Website

Several things happened Immediately after the news that Bahá'u'lláh was arrested.

All of the Holy Family’s relatives and friends abandoned them.

All their servants fled the home, terrified. The only two servants left were Isfandíyár, and a woman.

The family’s palace and all the smaller houses surrounding it were stripped of all their treasures and furniture, stolen by the crowds.

Mírzá Músá, Bahá'u'lláh’s faithful younger brother, was always very kind to Ásíyih Khánum and the children and helped them escape into hiding.

Before they fled their home, Ásíyih Khánum was able to save a few of her marriage treasures. When she had married Bahá'u'lláh 17 years earlier, her very wealthy family’s dowry had taken 40 donkeys to transport to her new home. It had taken a jeweler six months to craft the wedding jewelry, and even the buttons of her garments were made of gold inlaid with jewels.

These buttons and other treasures would save the family’s life.

Ásíyih Khánum sold some of them and used the money to bribe the jailers, allowing her to bring safe food for Bahá'u'lláh to eat in the Síyáh-Chál, as well as defray the expenses of living in hiding.

Ruins of Bahá'u'lláh's ancestral home in Takúr, after it was destroyed during reprisals. Source: Nabíl, The Dawn-Breakers, page 111.

'Abdu'l-Bahá would later say about this time in the family’s life:

In Ṭihrán, we possessed everything at a nightfall, and on the morrow we were shorn of it all, to the extent that we had no food to eat.

In the space of a single night, Bahá'u'lláh’s family had gone from being one of the wealthiest in Persia, to being utterly penniless and dispossessed

An 1889 map of Ṭihrán, which Ásíyih Khánum and the children crossed on foot on 16 August 1852. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Ásíyih Khánum and Bahá'u'lláh had lived in a rented house near the Gate of Shimrán, the northern gate of the city of Ṭihrán since shortly after their wedding in October 1835. It was in this house that 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Bahíyyih Khánum, and Mírzá Mihdí had been born, and the only home they had ever lived in, apart from visits to their family home in Takúr, in Mázindarán.

On 16 August 1852, Ásíyih Khánum grabbed her three children, aged 8, 6, and 4, and they ran for their lives. Holding Mírzá Mihdí in her arms with 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Bahíyyih Khánum following close behind, Ásíyih Khánum hurried through from the north of the city to its center, a neighborhood they would not be recognized in, in a completely foreign part of the huge city.

They were rushing through unfamiliar streets and narrow, dusty lanes towards the general vicinity of the Síyáh-Chál, where Bahá'u'lláh was already being kept. At the time and even until several decades later, the people of this neighborhood were well-known for encouraging their children to persecute Bábís and throw stones at them, but nowhere was safe for Bábís, especially not the family of Bahá'u'lláh.

A photograph of Shimrán Gate in Ṭihrán, close to where the Holy Family’s rented house was. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Ásíyih Khánum and the children passed through the central part of Ṭihrán where the palace of the Sháh and the government ministers’ mansions were located, and entered the covered bazar, dark even in the middle of the day, and they emerged out onto a crowded and dangerous part of a road where people held religious meetings.

Once they passed that part of the road, they arrived into the Sangdaj neighborhood of Ṭihrán, where they were able to find a small place to shelter themselves.

Ásíyih Khánum, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Bahíyyih Khánum, and Mírzá Mihdí had just escaped death and crossed the capital city of the kingdom for hours on foot in broad daylight to safety.

Until the end of His life, 'Abdu'l-Bahá would recall the calm courage and presence of mind of His saintly mother, Ásíyih Khánum who had just saved the entire family of Bahá'u'lláh from certain death.

The family was now so poor that Ásíyih Khánum found herself unable to feed the children. At one point in their hiding, all Ásíyih Khánum could feed each child was a handful of raw flour in the palm of their little hands as a substitute for bread.

For four months between 16 August and 13 December 1852, Bahá'u'lláh was imprisoned in the Síyáh-Chál. During this time, between 16 and 27 October, was when Bahá'u'lláh received the Revelation from God that He was “Him Whom God shall make manifest”, the One promised by the Báb and by all past Manifestations of God.

The square of the Sabzih-Maydán of Ṭihrán, near the Síyáh-Chál where countless Bábís including the Seven Martyrs of Ṭihrán suffered martyrdom. Source: Nabíl, The Dawn-Breakers, page 457.

Even though the Greatest Holy Leaf was only 6 years old, she was fully aware not only of the perilous conditions in which she and her family were living, but also the mortal danger in which Bahá'u'lláh and every single person in Ṭihrán accused of being a Bábí was in.

All Bábís were accused of being infidels and apostates to Islám and they were all being mercilessly hunted down in retribution for the botched attempt on the life of the Sháh.

Bahíyyih Khánum and her family lived very close to the Síyáh-Chál and the marketplace that was used as a place of execution.

At the time in Persia, when religious fanaticism swept through the land, exciting the entire population, the government divested itself of the responsibility to put Bábís to death itself, through the dark offices of the State executioner.

What they did instead, was hand the people they had branded as infidels to the Persian people to deal with them as they saw fit.

Every morning, one or more Bábís were taken out of the Síyáh-Chál to be tortured and killed in a variety of horrific ways, and the people of Ṭihrán were given free rein to inflict on these pour souls any barbaric method of torture they wanted.

Christians being tortured in Qajar Persia in 1895, 43 years after the Bábí holocaust. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Bahíyyih Khánum explained that the various classes of merchants in Ṭihrán each had their own type of torture: the butchers, the bakers, the shoe cobblers, and the blacksmiths each had devised their own specific barbaric ways to make the Bábís suffer.

In the summer of 1852, following the botched attempt on the life of the Sháh, the Persian government gave everyone, butchers, bakers, shoe cobblers, blacksmiths and others, absolute free rein to torture and kill Bábís during the Bábí holocaust in the summer of 1852.

The mob was whipped up into a frenzy by the joyful chants of the crowd and the loud beating of drums, and these torturers and murderers, and the frantic bloodthirsty populace watching them were completely fanatical.

The Bábís were unaffected.

They were stoic, heroic and quiet, and that made the Muslim population and their executioners more and more furious because their methods of torture and execution never quelled the extraordinary spirit animating the Bábí victims.

The Bábís did not flinch, instead, they chanted prayers, they begged God to forgive their tormentors, and they praised God until they could no longer draw breath.

For the next nearly 8 decades of her life, Bahíyyih Khánum would never forget the traumatizing sound of these horrific events, and the pervading anxiety that filled her life during the months of her Father’s imprisonment.

'Abdu'l-Bahá, Bahíyyih Khánum, and Mírzá Mihdí hung to their mother, not knowing if that day’s victim of torture and execution amidst the sounds of the mob were their adored Father and Husband.

The radiant spirits of the imprisoned Bábís, while all this was taking place, were soaring, and never flagged, even for a moment. They desired, more than anything, the crown of martyrdom, they were completely unafraid of torture, and they chanted prayers night and day.

1925 Photograph of the original corridor to the entrance of the Síyáh-Chál, Ṭihrán, which was filled-in in 1868. Originally published in Bahá'í News, Number 540 (March, 1976), page 9. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Ásíyih Khánum was desperate to obtain any news about her beloved Husband, and, in the company of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, she would leave their apartment late at night or very early in the morning on her quest for any information.

Ásíyih Khánum defied mortal danger to go out every day in search for information about Bahá'u'lláh. At the time in Ṭihrán, Bábí women and children suffered the same horrifying fate as the men.

During those dark hours, Bahíyyih Khánum cowered in the dark, holding her four-year-old little brother Mírzá Mihdí, shivering with terror, and waiting, unbearable hour after unbearable hour, for her mother to return, and learn what information she had been able to gather.

As soon as Ásíyih Khánum would return, Mírzá Músá would join the family to find out what she had been able to learn.

Bahá'u'lláh mercifully avoided a death sentence thanks in large part to the intercession of the Russian Consul, Prince Dolgorukov.