ave led to the cowardly crime committed in the
darkness of the night at the instigation of the fanatical clergy--the
deadliest opponents of the Faith in that town.

Assassination of Persian Believer

Our martyred brother, Aminu'l-'Ulama' by name, had for some time past
become notorious in the eyes of the Muslim inhabitants of Ardibil for his
tenacity of faith by openly refusing at every instance to vilify and
renounce his most cherished convictions. In the latter part of Ramadan--the
month associated with prayer, pious deeds and fasting--his use of the
public bath (that long-established institution the amenities and
privileges of which are as a rule accorded only to the adherents of the
Muslim Faith) had served to inflame the mob, and to provide a scheming
instigator with a pretext to terminate his life. In the market place he
was ridiculed and condemned as an apostate of the Faith of Islam, who, by
boldly rejecting the repeated entreaties showered upon him to execrate the
Baha'i name, had lawfully incurred the penalty of immediate death at the
hands of every pious upholder of the Muslim tradition.

In spite of the close surveillance exercised by a body of guards stationed
around his house, in response to the intercession of his friends with the
local authorities, the treacherous criminal found his way into his home,
and on the night of the 22nd of Ramadan, corresponding with the 26th of
March, 1927, assailed him in a most atrocious and dastardly manner.
Concealing within the folds of his garment his unsheathed dagger, he
approached his victim and claiming the need of whispering a confidential
message in his ears, plunged the weapon hilt-deep into his vitals, cutting
across his ribs and mutilating his body. Every attempt to secure immediate
medical assistance seems to have been foiled by malicious devices on the
part of the associates of this merciless criminal, and the helpless victim
after a few hours of agonizing pain surrendered his soul to his Beloved.
His friends and fellow-believers, alarmed at the prospect of a fresh
outbreak that would inevitably result were his mortal remains to be
accorded the ordinary privileges of a decent burial, decided to inter his
body in one of the two rooms that served as his own dwelling, seeking
thereby to appease the fury of an unrelenting foe.

He leaves behind in desperate poverty a family of minors with no support
but their mother, expectant to bring forth her child, a