The first to embrace the Cause of the Báb in that city
[Isfahan] was a man, a sifter of wheat, who, as soon as the Call reached his
ears, unreservedly accepted the Message. With marvellous devotion he served
Mullá Husayn, and through his close association with him became a zealous
advocate of the new Revelation. A few years later, when the soul-stirring
details of the siege of the fort of Shaykh Tabarsí were being recounted to him,
he felt an irresistible impulse to throw in his lot with those heroic
companions of the Báb who had risen for the defence of their Faith. Carrying
his sieve in his hand, he immediately arose and set out to reach the scene of
that memorable encounter. “Why leave so hurriedly?” his friends asked him, as
they saw him running in a state of intense excitement through the bazaars of
Isfáhán. “I have risen,” he replied, “to join the glorious company of the
defenders of the fort of Shaykh Tabarsí! With this sieve which I carry with me,
I intend to sift the people in every city through which I pass. Whomsoever I
find ready to espouse the Cause I have embraced, I will ask to join me and
hasten forthwith to the field of martyrdom.”
- Nabil (‘The Dawn-Breakers’,
translated and edited by Shoghi Effendi)
