Table of Contents
explosive devices that could start fires were also brought in. The besieging forces also began building towers as high as various levels of the fort, from which they could then fire into the fort.
Food runs out in the Fort: They had to eat horse flesh
Although the spirits were high in the fort, all the food had run out. There was one cow left, which they used to milk and used the milk to prepare a pudding for QuddĂşs as his food. QuddĂşs would only take a few teaspoons of this and share the rest with the companions. Soon, they had to start killing and eating the horses they had brought away from the camp of the enemy. Everyone grew more worn and wasted through lack of food as days passed.
Mullá MĂrzá Muhammad-i-FĂşrĂşghĂ , one of the survivors of Fort Shaykh TabarsĂ, describes how during that time, every morning and every evening, QuddĂşs would send verses to be chanted to the companions 55_ACT9 , and how these would energize
God knows that we had ceased to hunger for food. Our thoughts were no longer concerned with matters pertaining to our daily bread. We were so enraptured by the entrancing melody of those verses that, were we to have continued for years in that state, no trace of weariness and fatigue could possibly have dimmed our enthusiasm or marred our gladness. And whenever the lack of nourishment would tend to sap our vitality and weaken our strength, MĂrzá Muhammad-Báqir would hasten to QuddĂşs and acquaint him with our plight. A glimpse of his face, the magic of his words, as he walked amongst us, would transmute our despondency into golden joy. We were reinforced with a strength of such intensity that, had the hosts of our enemies appeared suddenly before us, we felt ourselves capable of subjugating their forces.56_ACT9
388 / 803