Beg and Renan onwards, has been equally impressed by this phenomenon. Without dwelling anew on the history of the earlier martyrs of 1850 and 1852; of the Báb’s companion in death resisting the prayers of his wife and children that he would save his life by a simple recantation; of Mullá Isma‘íl of Qum laughing and the aged dervish Mírzá Qurbán-‘Alí reciting poetry under the headsman’s knife; of Sulaymán Khán, his body flaming with lighted wicks, going with dancing and song to his death; of the patient endurance of abominable sufferings by the beautiful Qurratu’l-‘Ayn, and of a hundred others, let us see what a missionary in Yazd, writing five years ago, has to say on this subject[1]. ‘‘Persians have very strong notions of loyalty both to causes and to individuals,” he says (p. 138). “Nothing has brought this out more than the history of the Bábí movement, which has certainly exhibited the strength of Persian character. Boys and young men have in this movement willingly undergone the most terrible tortures in the service of their spiritual teachers and the common cause.” “Passive courage,” he says in another place (p. 155), “the Yazdí possesses to a very high degree, but he must have a cause for which he cares sufficiently, if this courage is to be called out. If the terrible Bábí massacres that have taken place from time to time in Persia have proved nothing else, they have at least shewn that there is grit somewhere in Persian character. The way in which mere lads in Yazd went to their death in that ghastly summer of 1903 was wonderful. . . . The early Babis shewed good fighting qualities in the north of Persia, as well as passive courage, and, as they were chiefly townsmen, we may presume that there are military possibilities in the Persian people, even amongst those who dwell in cities.” And again (p. 176), “the thing which has opened people’s eyes to the enormous strength of Persian character under partially favourable moral conditions, is the way in which the Bábís have exposed themselves to martyrdom, and have stood firm to their beliefs and cause under tortures too horrible for description.” And though this writer, who knew the Persians well, is by no means sparing in his criticism of certain sides of their character, he concludes his discussion of
- ↑ Five Years in a Persian Town, by Napier Malcolm, London, 1905.
