The very moment the shots were fired [to execute of the
Báb] a gale of exceptional violence arose and swept over the city. From noon
till night a whirlwind of dust obscured the light of the sun, and blinded the
eyes of the people. In Shíráz an “earthquake,” foreshadowed in no less weighty
a Book than the Revelation of St. John, occurred in 1268 A.H. which threw the
whole city into turmoil and wrought havoc amongst its people, a havoc that was
greatly aggravated by the outbreak of cholera, by famine and other afflictions.
In that same year no less than two hundred and fifty of the firing squad, that
had replaced Sám Khán’s regiment, met their death, together with their
officers, in a terrible earthquake, while the remaining five hundred suffered,
three years later, as a punishment for their mutiny, the same fate as that
which their hands had inflicted upon the Báb. To insure that none of them had
survived, they were riddled with a second volley, after which their bodies,
pierced with spears and lances, were exposed to the gaze of the people of
Tabríz. The prime instigator of the Báb’s death, the implacable Amír-Nizám,
[the Grand Vizir] together with his brother, his chief accomplice, met their
death within two years of that savage act.
- Shoghi Effenid (‘God Passes By’)
