To the Samawi friends and believers of the world,
This day is a most Holy and sorrowful day whereby the ministry of the Bab had reached it’s fulfillment and his holy form was left shattered. This is a day to remember, and one of the most sacred and major holidays of the year. Yet, so it is that Baha’u’llah has said that death has been made the messenger of joy, and such is truly the case for the mighty and magnificent sacrifice of the Bab, the likes of which caused his message to echo and reverberate throughout the whole of the known world far and wide.
This day is one that few are comfortable to admit the atrocities thereof: This day, the blood of a young believer alongside the blood of the Avatar of God was shed. Anis was merely 22 in age, and yet his courage was stronger than any other of his time, to the point that he was given a place by the noble side of the Bab during his final moments. So it was that a Christian group of soldiers prepared the execution in the square of Tabriz, yet by the Bab’s own words their fate was sealed in such a way that there would be no fatal blood upon their hands.
The Bab’s instructions to his disciple were interrupted, and he was suspended alongside the youthful Anis, at which point the shots were fired; when the smoke cleared, the ropes suspending Anis and the Bab were found to have been cut, with the youthful Anis’s blood being shed, yet he was not fatally wounded, and the Bab had disappeared. It is said that he finished his uninterruptible conversation much to the dismay of the local guard, the captain of which had struck the Bab to the ground with a blow to his head, whereby the local guard savaged the Bab rather brutally before dragging him back from his cell to the courtyard, where he and Anis were once again suspended and shot, this time by a smaller group composed of the local guard, while the Christian soldiers had considered their duty fulfilled at having fired at the Bab as ordered and having witnessed a miracle as such, showing the frayed ropes which once held the prisoners to the crowd as proof of the miraculous moment.
The bodies were kept under guard near a moat by the local guard, though the remains of Anis and the Bab were rescued, at which point they were safeguarded by the believers until such time that the remains of Anis and the Bab were interred upon Mount Carmel by Abdu’l-Baha.
Such a passion is difficult for the believers to hear, of the humiliation, wounding, and ultimate suffering of the Manifestation, and yet such a sacrifice is given in a variety of ways across the ages. Truly, one who recognizes the potent message of the execition of the Bab has realized the very essence of the passion of the Christ. This is the day when that beauteous Ancient One had come once again to shed his blood upon the altar of the New Age, that the crimson life-essence from his veins might seed the bountiful rose garden of the Divine.
The potency of the Bab’s sacrifice must never be understated, nor may it be treated as a relic of the past. The New Age itself began with his Declaration, and the sovereignty of the age was thus sealed by his blood.
Remember the day, and keep it holy. Unite in your hearts with your friends and family, gather together in the spirit of this remarkable day and stoke the fires of remembrance of the love of the Name.
To the Samawi community of the world with love,
-Zahratallah, Guardian of the Samawi Faith.