By: Siyyid Muhammad Tabib-i Manshadi
On Saturday, Aqa Ali-Muhammad, the son of Hajji Nasru'llah, had taken refuge in the house of his nephew, when six men entered the house to capture him. They tied a rope around his neck and two men forcefully pulled each end. Such is how Aqa Ali-Muhammad was martyred two hours before the sunset. After the killing, they stoned and clubbed his remains and left the body. That evening the believers took his remains to a nearby property belonging to Aqa Ali- Muhammad himself and buried him. He was fifty years old.
The following day, Sunday, Aqa Ghulam-Rida, the son of Hajji Ali-Naqi, who had also taken refuge at a home of a friend, was discovered. Three hours after the sunrise, four men who had committed many of the earlier killings, along with a large mob, came to the house and captured him. They tied his hands behind him, leading him through the streets and eventually to a neighborhood known as Pusht-i Bagh. There, he was shot to death by two of the gunmen and his body was stoned, clubbed, and then thrown into a well. Two months later, his body was recovered from the well by fellow believers and was buried in his own home, a site near his mother's grave, Khadijih-Sultan, who was killed earlier by the hand of the same people. These two souls, the mother and son, are still buried next to each other. He was forty years old.
On the following Wednesday evening, Aqa Assadu'llah, a nephew of martyrs Shattir-Hasan and Aqa Ali-Akbar, decided to travel to Yazd, knowing that it would be better to leave Manshad for a time. Together with his traveling companion, Siyyid Ali, they took a route through the valleys outside of town, walking day and night. The next morning, while passing by a village named Mihrijard, they were recognized by a few of the villagers. The villagers immediately captured these two believers, taking them to Ibrahim-Abad, a nearby farm. To each was given the opportunity to recant. Siyyid-Ali, who was a Muslim, did so and was set free. Aqa Assadu'llah, however, held back and refused to recant.
The people sent a report of the day's event to Imam-Jum`ih of Yazd, Mirza Ibrahim, who was visiting a nearby village. When the messenger arrived to deliver the report, he was intercepted by one of the community leaders who took the report and read its content. Then, without consulting the religious leader, the Imam-Jum`ih, this prideful man dispatched six of his gunmen to the farm where Aqa Assadu'llah was held, instructing them to kill him. When the men came to the farm, about three hours into the afternoon, they took Aqa Assadu'llah to the rooftop of a building on the farm and asked if he was a Baha'i. On hearing an affirmative response, one of the men stabbed him with a knife and the others mercilessly shot him. His body was thrown into the streets, where it lay untouched for only a short while.
Meanwhile, learning of his arrest, ten men from Manshad rod to Ibrahim-Abad farm. Arriving about an hour after the execution of Aqa Assadu'llah, one of the men approached the body and with his ax severed the head from the body of Aqa Assadu'llah. The head, as if a prize, was brought back to Manshad and thrown on the grounds at the town square. For a period of three hours, it remained there until it was taken and hung from the door of Aqa Assadu'llah's own shop, where it became the target of the stoning, cursing, even spitting by the passers by. On seeing this spectacle, Mulla Muhammad-Husayn, the soothsayer, a well-known Muslim, cried out: "O people! When in Karbala the infidels killed our beloved Imam Husayn and hung his head from the gates of the city, the people of Islam have cursed them for centuries. Today you have committed the same shameful act of the infidels!"
Upon hearing this, the people stopped their assault. A day later the head was brought down and taken to the home of his brother, next door to the same shop, and buried. His body, still lying in the same field, was thrown in a well. Two months later, one of the believers removed his body from the well and buried it the same farm that Aqa Assadu'llah was martyred. Four months later, his head was also exhumed and taken to the farm known as Hujjat-Abad and buried. Aqa Assadu'llah was thirty-five years old.
On Friday morning, Aqa Mirza Muhammad, son of martyred Aqa Mulla Ali-Akbar, who had taken refuge in a farm house belonging to another of the believers fell prey to the enemy. A mob numbering in excess of two hundred hastened in gathering around that farm house. They went inside, capturing Aqa Mirza Muhammad and restraining him by tying his hands together. As such they dragged him to the home of Aqa Ali-Akbar, who was martyred days earlier. There, he was tied to a tree and executed with successive vollies of gun fire. His body was then untied, doused with kerosine, and set on fire, all the while being stoned and kicked by the murderers. Afterwards, one of the relatives of Aqa Mirza Muhammad took his remains and buried him in a property adjacent to his house. Aqa Mirza Muhammad was forty-three years old.
(to be continued)
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Translated by, and reprinted with permission of Ahang Rabbani.
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