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The Báb remained confined in the prison of Mákú for about nine months. In His writings He identifies Mákú with Makkah (Mecca)— alluding to the identity of His Revelation with all the previous Revelations. During the Mákú period the Báb wrote some of His most important works, including the Persian Bayán and the Arabic Bayán. At the end of this period, in April 1848, the Báb was exiled to the prison fortress of Chihríq.37 During His incarceration there, He wrote many new works, including the greater part of the Kitábu’l-Asmá’ (Book of Divine Names) and Panj Sha’n (Five Modes of Revelation). In June 1848, a few months after arriving at Chihríq, the Báb was taken to Tabriz to be interrogated by the leading Shí‘ih clerics, led by conservative segments of the Shaykhí leadership, who had now joined the orthodox clergy in opposing the Báb.38 When asked about His revolutionary claims, the Báb formally announced to them that He was the Qá’im. In support of His claim, He began to reveal divine verses. The clerics interrupted Him rudely and questioned His authority since He was disregarding the traditional rules of grammar. They demanded that the Báb answer irrelevant questions concerning superstitious medieval conceptions of knowledge which were then current among the Shí‘ih clergy. But their questions clearly indicated that the traditionalist clerics were failing to face the Báb’s claim; they were treating Him as if He were merely claiming to be an ordinary divine and hence they insisted on testing His conformity to the same ossified tradition that He was fundamentally invalidating. The scene presented an ironic contrast between the forceful authority of the young revolutionary prophet and the priestly traditionalism and obscurantism of the scholar-guardians of the old religious order. Faced with the clerics’ repetition of their own doctrines, the Báb reaffirmed His authority on the grounds of His ability to reveal divine verses, and He refused to dignify their questions with any answer. After the interrogation, the Báb was taken back to Chihríq. In June 1848, during the first months of the Báb’s imprisonment in Chihríq, some eighty-four of His followers, including Quddús, T .áhirih, and Bahá’u’lláh, gathered in a historic conference at the hamlet of Badasht.39 Shoghi Effendi states that“The primary purpose of that gathering was to implement the revelation of the Bayán by a sudden, a complete and dramatic break with the past—with its order, its ecclesiasticism, its traditions, and ceremonials. The subsidiary purpose of the conference was to consider the means of emancipating the Báb from His cruel 24 gate of the heart confinement in Chihríq. The first was eminently successful; the second was destined from the outset to fail.”40 It was at Badasht that T .áhirih, who, although a woman, was one of the Báb’s most prominent disciples and a Letter of the Living—dramatically proclaimed the formal abrogation of the Islamic Dispensation through the gesture of appearing unveiled in the presence of the male Bábís. Symbolically representing the formal break between Islam and the new religion, she declared:“I am the Word which the Qá’im is to utter, the Word which shall put to flight the chiefs and nobles of the earth!”41 The last two years of the Báb’s imprisonment in Chihríq marked the beginning of a new and heightened stage of persecution by both the state authorities and the Shí‘ih religious establishment. It was during this time that the first massive confrontation took place between government troops and the persecuted Bábís, who were forced to take shelter in the shrine of Shaykh T .abarsí in Mázandarán. The state, unable to defeat them, promised amnesty if the Bábís left the shrine and surrendered their weapons. That promise, however, was a cruel ruse and the innocent Bábís were slaughtered. Throughout this entire episode, which lasted from September 1848 to May 1849, hundreds of the Báb’s followers, including half of the Letters of the Living, were killed, among them the first and the last Letters of the Living—Mullá H . usayn and Quddús. The Báb was once again taken from Chihríq to Tabriz. This...

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