Table of Contents
Section Seven: The Cry of the Bábís of Zanján
At the passing of Hujjat, the number of remaining Bábí companions in Hujjat’s encampment were about seven hundred: two hundred men and five hundred women.94_ACT14 Despite losing their leader, the Bábí men continued to fight, but the news of Hujjat’s death quickly spread to the attackers. Nabíl records:
The knowledge of the removal of so inspiring a leader [Hujjat] nerved the enemy … They launched a general attack, fiercer and more determined than any previous one. Animated by the beating of drums and the sound of trumpets, and encouraged by the shouts of exultation raised by the populace, they threw themselves upon the companions with unbridled ferocity, resolved not to rest until the whole company had been annihilated. 95_ACT14
The remaining Bábí resistance was soon crushed.
The inhuman treatment of the Bábí captives begins
Nabíl records the pillage and atrocities that followed:
The ‘ulamá of Zanján, flushed with the victory that had cost them such exertion and loss of life, and which had involved to such an unprecedented degree their reputation and prestige, endeavoured to incite the populace to commit every imaginable outrage against the lives of their men captives and the honour of their women. …
The entire company [of Bábí captives] were huddled together like sheep in that wretched place, exposed to the cold of a severe winter. The enclosure into which they were crowded was roofless and without furniture. For a few days they remained without food. 96_ACT14
The fate of the Bábí women captives
Describing further what happened to the many women captives, Nabíl records:
Despite the severity of that winter, these captives were left exposed in the open for no less than fifteen days and nights to a biting cold such as Zanján
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