Fate of Those Who Persecuted the Bab, Who Opposed the Construction of His Shrine and Threatened Its Destruction

• Muhammad Shah, who disregarded the appeal of the Bab to meet Him in person and plead His Cause, sustained a sudden reverse of fortune, and succumbed, at the age of forty, to a complication of maladies.

• Nasiri’d-Din Shah, during whose reign the Bab was executed, and under whose aegis the greatest massacre of the Babis took place, was, in the plenitude of his power, dramatically assassinated on the eve of his jubilee. The Qajar dynasty, to which he belonged, was subsequently brought to an ignominious end.

• Haji Mirza Aqasi, the Grand Vazir of Muhammad Shah and chief instigator of the outrages perpetrated against the Bab, was disgraced by his sovereign, lost his fortune, was expelled to Karbila, and became a victim of disease and poverty.

• Miza Taqi Khan, the Amir Nizam, the Grand Vazir of Nasiri'd-Din Shah, who was directly responsible for the execution of the Bab, was disgraced and put to death by royal order in the bath of the Palace of Fin, near Kashan.

• Mirza Hasan Khan, who carried out the execution of the Bab, was subjected, two years after, to a dreadful punishment which ended in his death.

• Miza ‘Ali-Asghar, the Shaykhu’l-Islam of Tabriz, who inflicted the bastinado on the Bab with his own hand, was stricken, in that same year, with paralysis, and died a miserable death.

• The Regiment, which constituted the firing squad that executed the Bab, lost, in that same year, two hundred and fifty of its officers and men in an earthquake near Ardibil, while the remaining five hundred were shot, two years later, in Tabriz, for mutiny. The head of the regiment, Aqa Jan Big, lost his life, six years after the Martyrdom of the Bab, during the bombardment of Muhammarih by the British.

• The Shi’ih Sacerdotal, which violently opposed the Bab, aroused the populace and instigated the government against Him, was discredited, fell from power, and ceased to exercise its paramount influence on both the people and the government.

• Sultan ‘Abdu’l-Hamid, who lent his support to the enemies of the Faith in their efforts to obstruct the construction of the Shrine of the Bab was deposed and made a prisoner of state. The Caliphate was subsequently abolished and the Sultanate ceased to exist.

• The Four Members of the Commission of Inquiry, who were appointed by 'Abdu'l-Hamid to investigate the activities of 'Abdu'l-Baha, and who misrepresented the Shrine of the Bab as a fortress and vast ammunition depot on Mt. Carmel, suffered an ignominious fate, one being shot, another robbed of all his possessions, the third exiled, and the fourth sinking into abject poverty.

• Jamal Pasha, the Turkish Commander-in-Chief, who threatened the destruction of the Holy Tomb, was defeated in battle, fled, and was slain while a refugee in the Caucasus.

• Mirza Muhammad-‘Ali, the Arch-Breaker of the Covenant of Baha'u'llah, who was the chief instigator of the enemies of 'Abdu'l-Baha, and exerted his utmost to obstruct the construction of the Shrine of the Bab, was stricken with paralysis, and lived to see every hope he had cherished dashed to the ground.

• The Invading Forces of Field Marshal Rommel, whose threat to Alexandria constituted the gravest danger to the Holy Land, and whose victory would have precipitated the direst crisis in the fortunes of the Faith at its World Centre, and imperilled its institutions, was routed from the continent of Africa, and the peril of a regime inimical to the Faith removed forever.

• The Arab Community living in the neighbourhood of the Shrine of the Bab, which violated the sacredness of its precincts, in the course of the disturbances in the Holy Land, and supported the schemes of the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem, who had threatened to extirpate the Faith, fled in ignominy and joined the great army of refugees that was seeking shelter in the adjoining territories. 

(The Baha’i Faith 1844 -1963, Statistical and Comparative, Compiled by the Hands of the Cause Residing in the Holy Land)