It was instigated by a no less sustained and violent outburst of
uncompromising ecclesiastical hostility. It was accompanied by
corresponding manifestations of blind religious fanaticism. It was
provoked by similar acts of naked aggression on the part of both clergy
and people. It demonstrated afresh the same purpose, was animated
throughout by the same spirit, and rose to almost the same height of
superhuman heroism, of fortitude, courage, and renunciation. It revealed a
no less shrewdly calculated coordination of plans and efforts between the
civil and ecclesiastical authorities designed to challenge and overthrow a
common enemy. It was preceded by a similar categorical repudiation, on the
part of the Babis, of any intention of interfering with the civil
jurisdiction of the realm, or of undermining the legitimate authority of
its sovereign. It provided a no less convincing testimony to the restraint
and forbearance of the victims, in the face of the ruthless and unprovoked
aggression of the oppressor. It exposed, as it moved toward its climax,
and in hardly less striking a manner, the cowardice, the want of
discipline and the degradation of a spiritually bankrupt foe. It was
marked, as it approached its conclusion, by a treachery as vile and
shameful. It ended in a massacre even more revolting in the horrors it
evoked and the miseries it engendered. It sealed the fate of Vahid who, by
his green turban, the emblem of his proud lineage, was bound to a horse
and dragged ignominiously through the streets, after which his head was
cut off, was stuffed with straw, and sent as a trophy to the feasting
Prince in _Sh_iraz, while his body was abandoned to the mercy of the
infuriated women of Nayriz, who, intoxicated with barbarous joy by the
shouts of exultation raised by a triumphant enemy, danced, to the
accompaniment of drums and cymbals, around it. And finally, it brought in
its wake, with the aid of no less than five thousand men, specially
commissioned for this purpose, a general and fierce onslaught on the
defenseless Babis, whose possessions were confiscated, whose houses were
destroyed, whose stronghold was burned to the ground, whose women and
children were captured, and some of whom, stripped almost naked, were
mounted on donkeys, mules and camels, and led through rows of heads hewn
from the lifeless bodies of their fathers, brothers, sons and husbands,
who previously had been either branded, or had their nails torn out