d the greatest
proof is this very transaction. Thus they relate that the possessions of a
certain Babi in Ka_sh_an were plundered, and his household scattered and
dispersed. They stripped him naked and scourged him, defiled his beard,
mounted him face backwards on an ass, and paraded him through the streets
and bazaars with the utmost cruelty, to the sound of drums, trumpets,
guitars, and tambourines. A certain gabr who knew absolutely naught of the
world or its denizens chanced to be seated apart in a corner of a
caravansary. When the clamor of the people rose high he hastened into the
street, and, becoming cognizant of the offence and the offender, and the
cause of his public disgrace and punishment in full detail, he fell to
making search, and that very day entered the society of the Babis, saying,
"This very ill-usage and public humiliation is a proof of truth and the
very best of arguments. Had it not been thus it might have been that a
thousand years would have passed ere one like me became informed."

At all events the minister with the utmost arbitrariness, without
receiving any instructions or asking permission, sent forth commands in
all directions to punish and chastise the Babis. Governors and magistrates
sought a pretext for amassing wealth, and officials a means of [acquiring]
profits; celebrated doctors from the summits of their pulpits incited men
to make a general onslaught; the powers of the religious and the civil law
linked hands and strove to eradicate and destroy this people.

Now this people had not yet acquired such knowledge as was right and
needful of the fundamental principles and hidden doctrines of the Bab's
teachings, and did not recognize their duties. Their conceptions and ideas
were after the former fashion, and their conduct and behavior in
correspondence with ancient usage. The way of approach to the Bab was,
moreover, closed, and the flame of trouble visibly blazing on every side.
At the decree of the most celebrated of the doctors, the government, and
indeed the common people, had, with irresistible power, inaugurated rapine
and plunder on all sides, and were engaged in punishing and torturing,
killing and despoiling, in order that they might quench this fire and
wither these [poor] souls. In towns where these were but a limited number
all of them with bound hands became food for the sword, while in cities
where they were numerous they arose in self-defense agreeably to their
former