all the provinces of his kingdom. The province of
A_dh_irbayjan he had entrusted to the weak and timid Muzaffari'd-Din
Mirza, the heir to his throne, who had fallen under the influence of the
_Sh_ay_kh_i sect, and was showing a marked respect to the mullas. To the
stern and savage rule of the astute Mas'ud Mirza, commonly known as
Zillu's-Sultan, his eldest surviving son, whose mother had been of
plebeian origin, he had committed over two-fifths of his kingdom,
including the provinces of Yazd and Isfahan, whilst upon Kamran Mirza, his
favorite son, commonly called by his title the Nayibu's-Saltanih, he had
bestowed the rulership of Gilan and Mazindaran, and made him governor of
Tihran, his minister of war and the commander-in-chief of his army. Such
was the rivalry between the last two princes, who vied with each other in
courting the favor of their father, that each endeavored, with the support
of the leading mujtahids within his jurisdiction, to outshine the other in
the meritorious task of hunting, plundering and exterminating the members
of a defenseless community, who, at the bidding of Baha'u'llah, had ceased
to offer armed resistance even in self-defense, and were carrying out His
injunction that "it is better to be killed than kill." Nor were the
clerical firebrands, Haji Mulla 'Aliy-i-Kani and Siyyid
Sadiq-i-Tabataba'i, the two leading mujtahids of Tihran, together with
_Sh_ay_kh_ Muhammad-Baqir, their colleague in Isfahan, and Mir
Muhammad-Husayn, the Imam-Jum'ih of that city, willing to allow the
slightest opportunity to pass without striking, with all the force and
authority they wielded, at an adversary whose liberalizing influences they
had even more reason to fear than the sovereign himself.

Little wonder that, confronted by a situation so full of peril, the Faith
should have been driven underground, and that arrests, interrogations,
imprisonment, vituperation, spoliation, tortures and executions should
constitute the outstanding features of this convulsive period in its
development. The pilgrimages that had been initiated in Adrianople, and
which later assumed in Akka impressive proportions, together with the
dissemination of the Tablets of Baha'u'llah and the circulation of
enthusiastic reports through the medium of those who had attained His
presence served, moreover, to inflame the animosity of clergy and laity
alike, who had foolishly imagined that the breach which had occurred in
the ranks of the f