The London Times of Wednesday, November 19th 1845, carried
this item of news on its third page, taken from the Literary Gazette of the
preceding Saturday:
MAHOMETAN SCHISM. -- A new sect has lately set itself up in
Persia, at the head of which is a merchant who had returned from a pilgrimage
to Mecca, and proclaimed himself a successor of the Prophet. The way they treat
such matters at Shiraz appears in the following account (June 23): -- Four
persons being heard repeating their profession of faith according to the form
prescribed by the impostor, were apprehended, tried, and found guilty of
unpardonable blasphemy. They were sentenced to lose their beards by fire being
set to them. The sentence was put into execution with all the zeal and
fanaticism becoming a true believer in Mahomet. Not deeming the loss of beards
a sufficient punishment, they were further sentenced the next day, to have
their faces blacked and exposed through the city. Each of them was led by a
mirgazah[Mir-Ghadab] (executioner), who had made a hole in his nose and passed
through it a string, which he sometimes pulled with such violence that the
unfortunate fellows cried out alternately for mercy from the executioner and
for vengeance from Heaven. It is the custom in Persia on such occasions for the
executioners to collect money from the spectators, and particularly from the
shopkeepers in the bazaar. In the evening when the pockets of the executioners
were well filled with money, they led the unfortunate fellows to the city gate,
and there turned them adrift….
(H.M. Balyuzi, ‘The Báb - The Herald of the Day
of Days’)
