This state of tension continued until the time when a certain Mullá ‘Abdu’lláh, a native of Shíráz and fervent admirer of both Shaykh Ahmad and Siyyid Kázim, arrived in Qazvín at the beginning of the month of Ramadán, in the year 1263 A.H. Subsequently, in the course of his trial in Tihrán, in the presence of the Sáhib-Diván, [Master of the Registers] this same Mullá ‘Abdu’lláh recounted the following:
“I have never been a convinced Bábí. When I arrived at Qazvín, I was on my way to Máh-Kú, intending to visit the Báb and investigate the nature of His Cause. On the day of my arrival at Qazvín, I became aware that the town was in a great state of turmoil. As I was passing through the market-place, I saw a crowd of ruffians who had stripped a man of his head-dress and shoes, had wound his turban around his neck, and by it were dragging him through the streets. An angry multitude was tormenting him with their threats, their blows and curses. ‘His unpardonable guilt,’ I was told in answer to my enquiry, ‘is that he has dared to extol in public the virtues of Shaykh Aḥmad and Siyyid Kázim. Accordingly, Hájí Mullá Taqí, the Hujjatu’l-Islám, has pronounced him a heretic and decreed his expulsion from the town.’”
I was amazed at the explanation given me. How could a shaykhí, I thought to myself, be regarded as a heretic and be deemed worthy of such cruel treatment? Desirous of ascertaining from Mullá Taqí himself the truth of this report, I betook myself to his school and asked whether he had actually pronounced such a condemnation against him. ‘Yes,’ he bluntly replied, ‘the god whom the late Shaykh Ahmad-i-Bahrayní worshipped is a god in whom I can never believe. Him as well as his followers I regard as the very embodiments of error.’ I was moved that very moment to smite his face in the presence of his assembled disciples. I restrained myself, however, and vowed that, God willing, I would pierce his lips with my spear so that he would never be again able to utter such blasphemy.
