The First of Seven2 – Dawn Breakers

ransom. The Maliku’t-Tujjár

[Head of merchants] has interceded on your behalf. A word of recantation from you is sufficient to set you free and ensure your return, with honours to your native city. I pledge my word that, should you be willing to acquiesce, the remaining days of your life will be spent in honour and dignity under the sheltering shadow of your sovereign.

Hájí Mírzá Siyyid ‘Alí, replied:

Your Excellency, if others before me, who quaffed joyously the cup of martyrdom, have chosen to reject an appeal such as the one you now make to me, know of a certainty that I am no less eager to decline such a request. My repudiation of the truths enshrined in this Revelation would be tantamount to a rejection of all the Revelations that have preceded it. … God knows that whatever I have heard and read concerning the sayings and doings of those Messengers, I have been privileged to witness the same from this Youth, this beloved Kinsman of mine, from His earliest boyhood to this, the thirtieth year of His life. … I only request of you that you allow me to be the first to lay down my life in the path of my beloved Kinsman.

The Amír-Kabír was stupefied by this answer. Without uttering a word, he motioned that Hájí Mírzá Siyyid ‘Alí should be taken out and beheaded.

Hájí Mírzá Siyyid ‘Alí was led out to the Sabzih Maydán

[green square/field] market which adjoined the imperial palace, for his beheading. Turning to the crowd that pressed forward to witness the execution, he said:

Hear me, O people, I have offered myself up as a willing sacrifice in the path of the Cause of God. … For over a thousand years, you have prayed and prayed again that the promised Qá’im be made manifest. At the mention of His name, how often have you cried, from the depths of your hearts … And now that He is come, you have driven Him to a hopeless exile in a remote and sequestered corner of Ádhirbáyján and have risen to exterminate His companions. Were I to invoke the malediction of God upon you, I am certain that His avenging wrath would grievously afflict you. Such is not, however, my prayer. With my last breath, I pray that the Almighty may wipe away the stain of your guilt and enable you to awaken from the sleep of heedlessness.

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