That cruel and impious ruler [the governor of Fars, Husayn Khán] was sorely displeased with such
an answer [from Mulla Sádiq]. He reviled and cursed him, ordered his attendants to strip him of
his garments and to scourge him with a thousand lashes. He then commanded that
the beards of both Quddús and Mullá Sádiq should be burned, their noses be
pierced, that through this incision a cord should be passed, and with this
halter they should be led through the streets of the city. “It will be an
object lesson to the people of Shíráz,” Husayn Khán declared, “who will know what
the penalty of heresy will be.” Mullá Sádiq, calm and self-possessed and with
eyes upraised to heaven, was heard reciting this prayer: “O Lord, our God! We
have indeed heard the voice of One that called. He called us to the
Faith—‘Believe ye on the Lord your God!’—and we have believed. O God, our God!
Forgive us, then, our sins, and hide away from us our evil deeds, and cause us
to die with the righteous.” With magnificent fortitude both resigned themselves
to their fate. Those who had been instructed to inflict this savage punishment
performed their task with alacrity and vigour. None intervened in behalf of
these sufferers, none was inclined to plead their cause. Soon after this, they
were both expelled from Shíráz. Before their expulsion, they were warned that
if they ever attempted to return to this city, they would both be crucified. By
their sufferings they earned the immortal distinction of having been the first
to be persecuted on Persian soil for the sake of their Faith. Mullá
‘Alíy-i-Bastamí, though the first to fall a victim to the relentless hate of
the enemy, underwent his persecution in ‘Iráq, which lay beyond the confines of
Persia. Nor did his sufferings, intense as they were, compare with the
hideousness and the barbaric cruelty which characterised the torture inflicted
upon Quddús and Mullá Sádiq. (Chapter 8, ‘The Dawn-Breakers’)
