_raf, whose fathers had been slain in the
struggle of Zanjan, were decapitated on the same day in that city, the
former going so far as to instruct, while kneeling in prayer, his
executioner as to how best to deal his blow, while the latter, after
having been so brutally beaten that blood flowed from under his nails, was
beheaded, as he held in his arms the body of his martyred companion. It
was the mother of this same A_sh_raf who, when sent to the prison in the
hope that she would persuade her only son to recant, had warned him that
she would disown him were he to denounce his faith, had bidden him follow
the example of 'Aba-Basir, and had even watched him expire with eyes
undimmed with tears. The wealthy and prominent Muhammad-Hasan
_Kh_an-i-Ka_sh_i was so mercilessly bastinadoed in Burujird that he
succumbed to his ordeal. In _Sh_iraz Mirza Aqay-i-Rikab-Saz, together with
Mirza Rafi-i-_Kh_ayyat and Ma_sh_hadi Nabi, were by order of the local
mujtahid simultaneously strangled in the dead of night, their graves being
later desecrated by a mob who heaped refuse upon them. _Sh_ay_kh_
Abu'l-Qasim-i-Mazkani in Ka_sh_an, who had declined a drink of water that
was offered him before his death, affirming that he thirsted for the cup
of martyrdom, was dealt a fatal blow on the nape of his neck, whilst he
was prostrating himself in prayer.

Mirza Baqir-i-_Sh_irazi, who had transcribed the Tablets of Baha'u'llah in
Adrianople with such unsparing devotion, was slain in Kirman, while in
Ardikan the aged and infirm Gul-Muhammad was set upon by a furious mob,
thrown to the ground, and so trampled upon by the hob-nailed boots of two
siyyids that his ribs were crushed in and his teeth broken, after which
his body was taken to the outskirts of the town and buried in a pit, only
to be dug up the next day, dragged through the streets, and finally
abandoned in the wilderness. In the city of Ma_sh_had, notorious for its
unbridled fanaticism, Haji 'Abdu'l-Majid, who was the eighty-five year old
father of the afore-mentioned Badi and a survivor of the struggle of
Tabarsi, and who, after the martyrdom of his son, had visited Baha'u'llah
and returned afire with zeal to _Kh_urasan, was ripped open from waist to
throat, and his head exposed on a marble slab to the gaze of a multitude
of insulting onlookers, who, after dragging his body ignominiously through
the bazaars, left it at the morgue to be claimed by his relatives.

In Isfahan Mulla Kaz