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Nabíl records what an eyewitness of this episode, an unbeliever residing in Shiraz, related to him:
I was present when Mullá Sádiq was being scourged. I watched his persecutors each in turn apply the lash to his bleeding shoulders and continue the strokes until they became exhausted. No one believed that Mulla Sádiq, so advanced in age and so frail in body, could possibly survive even fifty such savage strokes. We marvelled at his fortitude when we found that, although the number of the strokes of the scourge he had received had already exceeded nine hundred, his face still retained its original serenity and calm. A smile was upon his face, as he held his hand before his mouth. He seemed utterly indifferent to the blows that were being showered upon him. When he was being expelled from the city, I succeeded in approaching him, and asked him why he held his hand before his mouth. I expressed surprise at the smile upon his countenance. He replied: “The first seven strokes were severely painful; to the rest I seemed to have grown indifferent. I was wondering whether the strokes that followed were being actually applied to my own body. A feeling of joyous exultation had invaded my soul. I was trying to repress my feelings and to restrain my laughter. I can now realise how the almighty Deliverer is able, in the twinkling of an eye, to turn pain into ease, and sorrow into gladness. Immensely exalted is His power above and beyond the idle fancy of His mortal creatures.” 12ACT4
Nabíl then adds:
Mullá Sádiq, whom I met years after, confirmed every detail of this moving episode.
13ACT4
As foretold by the Báb 14ACT4 , Mullá ‘Alíy-i-Bástámí, had been the first Bábí to suffer for the Cause of the Báb, but he underwent his persecution in Iraq [it was in the Ottoman empire], and not Persia.15ACT4 It was Quddús, Mullá Sádiq and Mullá
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