'So Haji Suleyman Khan bore those holy bodies to his house, shrouded them in white silk, placed them in a chest, and, after a while, transported them to Tihran, where they remained in trust till such time as instructions for their interment in a particular spot were issued by the Sources of the will of the Eternal Beauty. Now the believers who were entrusted with the duty of transporting the holy bodies were Mullā Ḥuseyn of Khurasan and Aḳa Muḥammad of Isfahan, [Footnote: TN, p. 110, n. 3; NH, p. 312, n. 1.] and the instructions were given by Baha-'ullah.' So far our authority. Different names, however, are given by Nicolas, AMB, p. 381.
The account here given from the New History is in accordance with a letter purporting to be written by the Bāb to Haji Suleyman Khan exactly six months before his martyrdom; and preserved in the New History, pp. 310, 311.
'Two nights after my martyrdom thou must go and, by some means or other, buy my body and the body of Mirza Muḥammad 'Ali from the sentinels for 400 tumāns, and keep them in thy house for six months. Afterwards lay Aḳa Muḥammad 'Ali with his face upon my face the two (dead) bodies in a strong chest, and send it with a letter to Jenab-i-Baha (great is his majesty!). [Footnote: TN, p. 46, n. 1] Baha is, of course, the short for Baha-'ullah, and, as Prof. Browne remarks, the modest title Jenab-i-Baha was, even after the presumed date of this letter, the title commonly given to this personage.
The instructions, however, given by the Bāb elsewhere are widely different in tendency. He directs that his remains should be placed near the shrine of Shah 'Abdu'l-'Azim, which 'is a good land, by reason of the proximity of Wahid (i.e. Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel).' [Footnote: The spot is said to be five miles south of Tihran.] One might naturally infer from this that Baha-'ullah's rival was the guardian of the relics of the Bāb. This does not appear to have any warrant of testimony. But, according to Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel himself, there was a time when he had in his hands the destiny of the bodies. He says that when the coffin (there was but one) came into his hands, he thought it unsafe to attempt a separation or discrimination of the bodies, so that they remained together 'until [both] were stolen.'
It will be seen that Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel takes credit (1) for carrying out the Bāb's last wishes, and (2) leaving the bodies as they were. To remove the relics to another place was tantamount to stealing. It was Baha-'ullah who ordered this removal for a good reason, viz., that the cemetery, in which the niche containing the coffin was, seemed so ruinous as to be unsafe.
There is, however, another version of Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel's tradition; it has been preserved to us by Mons. Nicolas, and contains very strange statements. The Bāb, it is said, ordered Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel to place his dead body, if possible, in a coffin of diamonds, and to inter it opposite to Shah 'Abdu'l-'Azim, in a spot described in such a way that only the recipient of the letter could interpret it. 'So I put the mingled remains of the two bodies in a crystal coffin, diamonds being beyond me, and I interred it exactly where the Bāb had directed me. The place remained secret for thirty years. The Baha'is in particular knew nothing of it, but a traitor revealed it to them. Those blasphemers disinterred the corpse and destroyed it. Or if not, and if they point out a new burying-place, really containing the crystal coffin of the body of the Bāb which they have purloined, we [Ezelites] could not consider this new place of sepulture to be sacred.'
The story of the crystal coffin (really suggested by the Bayan) is too fantastic to deserve credence. But that the sacred remains had many resting-places can easily be believed; also that the place of burial remained secret for many years. Baha-'ullah, however, knew where it was, and, when circumstances favoured, transported the remains to the neighbourhood of Ḥaifa in Palestine. The mausoleum is worthy, and numerous pilgrims from many countries resort to it.
EULOGIUM ON THE MASTER
The gentle spirit of the Bāb is surely high up in the cycles of eternity. Who can fail, as Prof. Browne says, to be attracted by him? 'His sorrowful and persecuted life; his purity of conduct and youth; his courage and uncomplaining patience under misfortune; his complete self-negation; the dim ideal of a better state of things which can be discerned through the obscure mystic utterances of the Bayán; but most of all his tragic death, all serve to enlist our sympathies on behalf of the young prophet of Shiraz.'
'Il sentait le besoin d'une réforme profonde à introduire dans les moeurs publiques…. Il s'est sacrifié pour l'humanité; pour elle il a donné son corps et son âme, pour elle il a subi les privations, les affronts, les injures, la torture et le martyre.' (Mons. Nicolas.)