Table of Contents
had rarely experienced. Clad in the thinnest of garments, with no covering to protect them, they were abandoned, without food and shelter, in the wilderness. Their only protection was the gauze that covered their heads, with which they sought in vain to shield their faces from the icy wind that blew mercilessly upon them. Crowds of women, most of whom were inferior to them in social position, flocked from the various quarters of Zanján to the scene of their sufferings and poured upon them contempt and ridicule. “You have now found your god,” they scornfully exclaimed, as they danced wildly around them, “and have been rewarded abundantly by him.” They spat in their faces and heaped upon them the foulest invectives.
… [Eventually] the women were removed to the house of a mujtahid named Mírzá Abu’l-Qásim, in the hope that he would induce them to recant, in return for which they would be offered their freedom. The greedy mujtahid, however, had, with the aid of his wives, his sisters and daughters, … had stripped them of their garments, clothed them in the meanest attire, and appropriated for himself whatever valuables he could find among their belongings.
The fate of the Bábí men captives
Nabíl records:
As to the wounded, they were placed in custody until such time as the authorities in the capital should send directions as to how they were to be treated. Meanwhile the severity of the cold to which they were exposed and the cruelties they underwent were such that within a few days they had all perished.
The rest of the captives were … conducted in procession, to the accompaniment of drums and trumpets, to the camp where the army was stationed. All these regiments combined to add to the horror of the