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Áqá Alíy-i-Qazvíní
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This eminent man had high
ambitions and aims. He was
to a supreme degree constant, loyal and firmly rooted in
his faith, and he was among the earliest and greatest of the
believers. At the very dawn of the new Day of Guidance
he became enamored of the Báb and began to teach. From
morning till dark he worked at his craft, and almost every
night he entertained the friends at supper. Being host in
this way to friends in the spirit, he guided many seekers to
the Faith, attracting them with the melody of the love of
God. He was amazingly constant, energetic, and persevering.
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Then the perfume-laden air began to stir from over the
gardens of the All-Glorious, and he caught fire from the
newly kindled flame. His illusions and fancies were burned
away and he arose to proclaim the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh.
Every night there was a meeting, a gathering that rivaled
the flowers in their beds. The verses were read, the prayers
chanted, the good news of the greatest of Advents was
shared. He spent most of his time in showing kindness to
friend and stranger alike; he was a magnanimous being,
with open hand and heart.
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The day came when he set out for the Most Great
Prison, and arrived with his family at the Akká fortress.
He had been afflicted with many a hardship on his journey,
but his longing to see Bahá'u'lláh was such that he
found the calamities easy to endure; and so he measured
off the miles, looking for a home in God's sheltering grace.
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At first he had means; life was comfortable and pleasant.
Later on, however, he was destitute and subjected to terrible
ordeals. Most of the time his food was bread, nothing
else; instead of tea, he drank from a running brook. Still,
he remained happy and content. His great joy was to enter
the presence of Bahá'u'lláh; reunion with his Beloved was
bounty enough; his food was to look upon the beauty of
the Manifestation; his wine, to be with Bahá'u'lláh. He was
always smiling, always silent; but at the same time, his
heart shouted, leapt and danced.
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Often, he was in the company of `Abdu'l-Bahá. He was
an excellent friend and comrade, happy, delightful; favored
by Bahá'u'lláh, respected by the friends, shunning
the world, trusting in God. There was no fickleness in
him, his inner condition was always the same: stable, constant,
firmly rooted as the hills.
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Whenever I call him to mind, and remember that
patience and serenity, that loyalty, that contentment, involuntarily
I find myself asking God to shed His bounties
upon Áqá `Alí. Misfortunes and calamities were forever
descending on that estimable man. He was always ill,
continually subjected to unnumbered physical afflictions.
The reason was that when at home and serving the Faith
in Qazvín, he was caught by the malevolent and they
beat him so brutally over the head that the effects stayed
with him till his dying hour. They abused and tormented
him in many ways and thought it permissible to inflict
every kind of cruelty upon him; yet his only crime was to
have become a believer, and his only sin, to have loved
God. As the poet has written, in lines that illustrate the
plight of Áqá `Alí:
By owls the royal falcon is beset.
They rend his wings, though he is free of sin.
"Why"--so they mock--"do you remember yet
That royal wrist, that palace you were in?"
He is a kingly bird: this crime he did commit.
Except for beauty, what was Joseph's sin?
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Briefly, that great man spent his time in the Akká
prison, praying, supplicating, turning his face toward
God. Infinite bounty enfolded him; he was favored by
Bahá'u'lláh, much of the time admitted to His presence
and showered with endless grace. This was his joy and
his delight, his great good fortune, his dearest wish.
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Then the fixed hour was upon him, the daybreak of his
hopes, and it came his turn to soar away, into the invisible
realm. Sheltered under the protection of Bahá'u'lláh, he
went swiftly forth to that mysterious land. To him be
salutations and praise and mercy from the Lord of this
world and the world to come. May God light up his resting-place
with rays from the Companion on high.
Áqá Muhammad-Báqir and Áqá Muhammad-Ismá'íl,
the Tailor
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These were two brothers
who, in the path of God,
captives along with the rest, were shut in the Akká fortress.
They were brothers of the late Pahlaván Ridá. They
left Persia and emigrated to Adrianople, hastening to the
loving-kindness of Bahá'u'lláh; and under His protection,
they came to Akká.
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Pahlaván Ridá--God's mercy and blessings and splendors
be upon him; praise and salutations be unto him--
was a man to outward seeming untutored, devoid of learning.
He was a tradesman, and like the others who came
in at the start, he cast everything away out of love for God,
attaining in one leap the highest reaches of knowledge.
He is of those from the earlier time. So eloquent did he
suddenly become that the people of Káshán were astounded.
For example this man, to all appearances unschooled,
betook himself to Hájí Muhammad-Karím Khán
in Káshán and propounded this question:
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"Sir, are you the Fourth Pillar? I am a man who thirsts
after spiritual truth and I yearn to know of the Fourth
Pillar."
[In Shaykhí terminology, the Fourth Support or Fourth Pillar was the perfect man or channel of grace, always to be sought. Hájí Muhammad-Karím Khán regarded himself as such. Cf. Bahá'u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán (The Book of Certitude), p. 184, and `Abdu'l-Bahá, A Traveller's Narrative, p. 4.]
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Since a number of political and military leaders were
present, the Hájí replied: "Perish the thought! I shun all
those who consider me the Fourth Pillar. Never have I
made such a claim. Whoever says I have, speaks falsehood;
may God's curse be on him!"
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A few days later Pahlaván Ridá again sought out the
Hájí and told him: "Sir, I have just finished your book,
Irshadu'l-`Avám (Guidance unto the Ignorant); I have
read it from cover to cover; in it you say that one is obligated
to know the Fourth Pillar or Fourth Support; indeed,
you account him a fellow knight of the Lord of the Age.
[The promised Twelfth Imám.]
Therefore I long to recognize and know him. I am certain
that you are informed of him. Show him to me, I beg of
you."
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The Hájí was wrathful. He said: "The Fourth Pillar is
no figment. He is a being plainly visible to all. Like me,
he has a turban on his head, he wears an `abá, and carries
a cane in his hand." Pahlaván Ridá smiled at him. "Meaning
no discourtesy," he said, "there is, then, a contradiction
in Your Honor's teaching. First you say one thing,
then you say another."
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Furious, the Hájí replied: "I am busy now. Let us discuss
this matter some other time. Today I must ask to be
excused."
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The point is that Ridá, a man considered to be unlettered,
was able, in an argument, to best such an erudite
"Fourth Pillar." In the phrase of Allámíy-i-Hillí, he
downed him with the Fourth Support.
[Allámíy-i-Hillí, "the Very Erudite Doctor," title of the famed Shí'ih theologian, Jamálu'd-Dín Hasan ibn-i-Yúsúf ibn-i-`Alí of Hilla (1250-1325 A.D.).]
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Whenever that lionhearted champion of knowledge began
to speak, his listeners marveled; and he remained, till
his last breath, the protector and helper of all seekers after
truth. Ultimately he became known far and wide as a
Bahá'í, was turned into a vagrant, and ascended to the
Abhá Kingdom.
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As for his two brothers: through the grace of the Blessed
Beauty, after they were taken captive by the tyrants, they
were shut in the Most Great Prison, where they shared the
lot of these homeless wanderers. Here, during the early
days at Akká, with complete detachment, with ardent
love, they hastened away to the all-glorious Realm. For our
ruthless oppressors, as soon as we arrived, imprisoned all of
us inside the fortress in the soldiers' barracks, and they
closed up every issue, so that none could come and go. At
that time the air of Akká was poisonous, and every
stranger, immediately following his arrival, would be taken
ill. Muhammad-Báqir and Muhammad-Ismá'íl came down
with a violent ailment and there was neither doctor nor
medicine to be had; and those two embodied lights died
on the same night, wrapped in each other's arms. They
rose up to the undying Kingdom, leaving the friends to
mourn them forever. There was none there but wept that
night.
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When morning came we wished to carry their sanctified
bodies away. The oppressors told us: "You are forbidden
to go out of the fortress. You must hand over these two
corpses to us. We will wash them, shroud them and bury
them. But first you must pay for it." It happened that we
had no money. There was a prayer carpet which had been
placed under the feet of Bahá'u'lláh. He took up this carpet
and said, "Sell it. Give the money to the guards." The
prayer carpet was sold for 170 piasters
[The Turkish ghurúsh or piaster of the time was forty paras, the para one-ninth of a cent. These figures are approximate only.]
and that sum was
handed over. But the two were never washed for their
burial nor wrapped in their winding sheets; the guards
only dug a hole in the ground and thrust them in, as they
were, in the clothes they had on; so that even now, their
two graves are one, and just as their souls are joined in the
Abhá Realm, their bodies are together here, under the
earth, each holding the other in his close embrace.
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The Blessed Beauty showered His blessings on these
two brothers. In life, they were encompassed by His grace
and favor; in death, they were memorialized in His Tablets.
Their grave is in Akká. Greetings be unto them, and
praise. The glory of the All-Glorious be upon them, and
God's mercy, and His benediction.
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