Upon their return from Karbila, [circa 1848] Tahirih and her
few companions were falsely accused of having been involved in the murder of
her husband, Mullá Taqí, who was a fiercest opponent of the Báb’s teachings
that she was promoting.
Nabil records: “The circumstances of the murder fanned to
fury the wrath of the lawful heirs of Mullá Taqí, who now determined to wreak
their vengeance upon Táhirih. They succeeded in having her placed in the
strictest confinement in the house of her father, and charged those women whom
they had selected to watch over her, not to allow their captive to leave her
room except for the purpose of performing her daily ablutions. They accused her
of really being the instigator of the crime. ‘No one else but you,” they
asserted, ‘is guilty of the murder of our father. You issued the order for his
assassination.’”
Following devious schemes and false promises the kinsmen of
murdered Mullá Taqí managed to murder those few remarkable companions of
Tahirih, among them were “Mírzá Muhammad-‘Alí, one of the Letters of the Living
and her brother-in-law, and Siyyid ‘Abdu’l-Hádí, who had been betrothed to her
daughter, travelled with her all the way from Karbilá to Qazvín.” (Nabil, ‘The
Dawn-Breakers’, translated and edited by Shoghi Effendi)
While “still in confinement, Táhirih, as soon as she was
informed of the designs of her enemies, addressed the following message to
Mullá Muhammad… the Imám-Jum’ih of Qazvín”: (ibid)
