“In the village of Qamsar, not very far from Tihran, a
Persian, Aqa Rida by name, embraces the Baha’i faith. His friends and relatives
are indignant and furious. They determine to persecute him. He is several times
beaten severely and injured. They secure the sanction of the local Mulla to
enable his wife, without obtaining a divorce, to marry another man. This
unhappy person hastens desperately to Qashan and appealing to local authorities
seeks and obtains temporary and partial relief. A few days ago, the son of a
Mulla, Aqa Ahmad by name, visited Qamsar. Mischief-makers instantly incite him
to humiliate, torment, and even murder the miserable convert. He immediately
orders his arrest. His agents without notice and in a barbaric manner break
into the house of a believer called Nasru’llah, accuse him of having sheltered
his co-religionist, and command him to deliver the refugee immediately.
Unsatisfied by his protestations and emphatic assurances, they start to search
his house, violate the privacy of his home, enter the chamber of his wife, find
her lying in bed having given birth to a child the night before, approach her,
violently expose her, and shamelessly injure her to the point of almost ending
her life. They then turn to her wretched husband and, with the aid of clubs,
sticks, and chains, pitilessly mutilate his body. Fallen unconscious, they
leave him, thinking him dead, and continue their search. Having fully
investigated the matter they find that the husband was right after all and that
Aqa Rida had fled to Mazkan. Reinforced by two Siyyids they immediately resolve
to pursue him, and arriving in the village suddenly make their appearance at a
meeting where the Baha’is were gathered and there instantly recognize their
victim. They mercilessly drag him out, bind his hands behind his back, thrust
him to the front, and with their whips, chains, and the butt end of their
rifles drive him on to Qamsar. The Baha’i women in the vicinity, alarmed and
grief-stricken, run after these heartless villains, and with loud lamentations
vainly implore their mercy. Annoyed by their wailing they fire at them and
disperse them. They drag him to Qamsar till at last he is brought before the
Mulla’s son who orders him to recant. But this ardent devotee, though young in
faith, refuses to yield and with remarkable fortitude and sublime composure disdains
the threats and insults of his enemies. The Mulla’s son, angry and exasperated,
gives order first to throw him into the river, then to tie him to the trunk of
a tree and inflict on him the most severe corporal punishment. The people,
however, with unutterable cruelty drag him through the streets into the main thoroughfare
and start to force handfuls of straw into his mouth and with blows and kicks
strive to compel him to swallow. They then befoul his face with filth. Finally
they so disgrace and dishonor him and resort to such vile methods that the pen
would shrink from recording the further unspeakable indignities to which this
unfortunate man was subjected...”
(A communication by the secretary of the
Qaghan Spiritual Assembly to the National Assembly of Persia, dated January
7th, [1925], included in a letter from Shoghi Effendi dated March 3, 1925,
addressed to the ‘beloved of the Lord and the handmaids of the Merciful
throughout the West’; Baha’i News, no. 6, July-August 1925)
The year just closing has been overshadowed by the continued
persecution of the friends in Iran. They have been forced to disband their
administrative structure, they have been harassed, dispossessed, dismissed from
employment, made homeless and their children are refused education. Some six
hundred men, women and children are now in prison, some denied any contact with
their friends and relatives, some subjected to torture and all under pressure
to recant their faith. 
