ri'ah canonical Law in Turkey, led
to the virtual abandonment of that Law in _Sh_i'ah Persia, has, more
recently, been responsible for the dissociation of the System envisaged in
the Kitab-i-Aqdas from the Sunni ecclesiastical Law in Egypt, has paved
the way for the recognition of that System in the Holy Land itself, and is
destined to culminate in the secularization of the Muslim states, and in
the universal recognition of the Law of Baha'u'llah by all the nations,
and its enthronement in the hearts of all the peoples, of the Muslim
world.

Chapter III: Upheavals in Mazindaran, Nayriz and Zanjan

The Bab's captivity in a remote corner of A_dh_irbayjan, immortalized by
the proceedings of the Conference of Bada_sh_t, and distinguished by such
notable developments as the public declaration of His mission, the
formulation of the laws of His Dispensation and the establishment of His
Covenant, was to acquire added significance through the dire convulsions
that sprang from the acts of both His adversaries and His disciples. The
commotions that ensued, as the years of that captivity drew to a close,
and that culminated in His own martyrdom, called forth a degree of heroism
on the part of His followers and a fierceness of hostility on the part of
His enemies which had never been witnessed during the first three years of
His ministry. Indeed, this brief but most turbulent period may be rightly
regarded as the bloodiest and most dramatic of the Heroic Age of the
Baha'i Era.

The momentous happenings associated with the Bab's incarceration in Mah-Ku
and _Ch_ihriq, constituting as they did the high watermark of His
Revelation, could have no other consequence than to fan to fiercer flame
both the fervor of His lovers and the fury of His enemies. A persecution,
grimmer, more odious, and more shrewdly calculated than any which Husayn
_Kh_an, or even Haji Mirza Aqasi, had kindled was soon to be unchained, to
be accompanied by a corresponding manifestation of heroism unmatched by
any of the earliest outbursts of enthusiasm that had greeted the birth of
the Faith in either _Sh_iraz or Isfahan. This period of ceaseless and
unprecedented commotion was to rob that Faith, in quick succession, of its
chief protagonists, was to attain its climax in the extinction of the life
of its Author, and was to be followed by a further and this time an almost
complete elimination of its eminent supporters, with the sole exception of
One Who, at