Because of His prominence in the defense of the Báb’s cause,
Bahá’u’lláh was arrested and brought, in chains and on foot, to Teheran.
Protected in some measure by an impressive personal reputation and the social
position of His family, as well as by protests which the Bábí pogroms had
evoked from Western embassies, He was not sentenced to death, as influential
figures at the royal court were urging. Instead, He was cast into the notorious
Síyáh-Chál, the “Black Pit”, a deep, vermin-infested dungeon which had been
created in one of the city’s abandoned reservoirs. No charges were laid but He
and some thirty companions were, without appeal, kept immured in the darkness
and filth of this pit, surrounded by hardened criminals, many of them under
sentence of death. Around Bahá’u’lláh’s neck was clamped a heavy chain, so
notorious in penal circles as to have been given its own name. When He did not
quickly perish, as had been expected, an attempt was made to poison Him. The
marks of the chain were to remain on His body for the rest of His life.
(From
‘Baha’u’llah’, A statement prepared by the Bahá'í International Community
Office of Public Information, at the request of the Universal House of Justice
and published in 1992)
