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| Mah-Ku, circa 1935 |
And yet, the foolish and short-sighted Hájí Mírzá Áqásí
[Persia’s Prime Minister] fondly imagined that by confounding the plan of the
Báb to meet the Sháh face to face in the capital, and by relegating Him to the
farthest corner of the realm, he had stifled the Movement at its birth, and
would soon conclusively triumph over its Founder. Little did he imagine that
the very isolation he was forcing upon his Prisoner would enable Him to evolve
the System designed to incarnate the soul of His Faith, and would afford Him
the opportunity of safeguarding it from disintegration and schism, and of
proclaiming formally and unreservedly His mission. Little did he imagine that
this very confinement would induce that Prisoner’s exasperated disciples and
companions to cast off the shackles of an antiquated theology, and precipitate
happenings that would call forth from them a prowess, a courage, a
self-renunciation unexampled in their country’s history. Little did he imagine
that by this very act he would be instrumental in fulfilling the authentic
tradition ascribed to the Prophet of Islám regarding the inevitability of that
which should come to pass in Ádhirbáyján. Untaught by the example of the
governor of Shíráz, who, with fear and trembling, had, at the first taste of God’s
avenging wrath, fled ignominiously and relaxed his hold on his Captive, the
Grand Vizir of Muhammad Sháh was, in his turn, through the orders he had
issued, storing up for himself severe and inevitable disappointment, and paving
the way for his own ultimate downfall. - Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
