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Kulayn was a peaceful beautiful village with wide stretches of orchards and meadows, and with soft-flowing streams. These were the last moments of peace the Báb was going to get before the gathering dark clouds broke into a storm.
”Did you believe Me to have escaped?”
One of the three amanuenses of the Báb [Mullá ‘Abdu’l-Karím of Qazvín] recounts this incident which occurred soon after:
My companions and I were fast asleep in the vicinity of the tent of the Bab when the trampling of horsemen suddenly awakened us. We were soon informed that the tent of the Bab was vacant and that those who had gone out in search of Him had failed to find Him. We heard Muhammad Big remonstrate with the guards. ”Why feel disturbed?” he pleaded. “Are not His magnanimity and nobleness of soul sufficiently established in your eyes to convince you that He will never, for the sake of His own safety, consent to involve others in embarrassment? He, no doubt, must have retired, in the silence of this moonlit night, to a place where He can seek undisturbed communion with God. He will unquestionably return to His tent. He will never desert us.”
In his eagerness to reassure his colleagues, Muhammad Big set out on foot along the road leading to Tihran. I, too, with my companions, followed him. Shortly after, the rest of the guards were seen, each on horseback, marching behind us. We had covered about a maydan [a unit of distance] when, by the