Chapter XX: Appendix: 4

THE SEVEN MARTYRS OF ṬIHRÁN

In the course of 1849, Prince Dolgorukov, the Russian Minister in Ṭihrán, had protested to the Persian Government that while going into the presence of the [_Sh_]áh he had been forced to witness the dragging away of the writhing corpses of eight criminals, executed in front of the [_Sh_]áh. Dolgorukov considered it an affront to him, the envoy of the Tsar, to be presented with such a spectacle. Sheil had backed Dolgorukov's protest.[1] Palmerston had, in turn, approved Sheil's action. On February 12th 1850, Prince Dolgorukov sent this report to Count Nesselrode in St. Petersburg:

'Minds are in an extraordinarily excited state due to the execution which has just taken place in the great square of Tihran. I have already once expressed my opinion that the method by which last year the troops of the Shah under the command of Prince Mahdi Quli Mirza exterminated the Babis will not lessen their fanaticism.

'From that time on the Government has learned that Tihran is full of these dangerous sectaries who do not recognize civil statutes and preach the partitioning of the property of those who do not join their doctrine. Becoming fearful for the social peace, the ministers of Persia decided to arrest some of these sectaries and, according to the common version, having received during the interrogation their confession of their faith, executed them. These persons, numbering seven, and arrested at random, since the Babis are counted already by thousands within the very capital, would by no means deny their faith and met death with an exultation which could only be explained as fanaticism brought to its extreme limit. The Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mirza Muhammad Ali, on the contrary affirms that those people have confessed nothing and that their silence was interpreted as a sufficient proof of their guilt.

'One can only regret the blindness of the Shah's authorities who imagine that such measures could extinguish religious fanaticism, as well as the injustice which guides their actions when examples of cruelty, with which they are trying to frighten the people, are committed without distinction against the first passer-by who falls into their hands...'[2]

Ten days later (February 22nd 1850), Sheil wrote to Palmerston that apparently the advice tendered by Her Majesty's Government that criminals should not be executed in the presence of the Sovereign had had some effect, because a few days before, seven Bábís, accused of conspiring to assassinate the Grand Vizier, had been put to death in public with no untoward incident. Sheil asserted that this fact proved the feasibility of public executions. Mírzá Taqí [_Kh_]án had earlier stated that with executions in public there was the risk of a malefactor being snatched and spirited away. Sheil felt, however, that on this occasion there was sympathy for the executed, because the story of a conspiracy to murder the Grand Vizier was not generally believed. He further observed that the Bábís had been offered their lives, were they to recant, and they had firmly refused to do so. His own comment to the Grand Vizier had been that executing the Bábís was the surest way of propagating their doctrines.[3]

Lord Palmerston in answer to Sheil stated that Her Majesty's Government was pleased to learn that Náṣiri'd-Dín [_Sh_]áh had agreed with the advice not to have executions carried out in his presence, but added, 'the punishment of men for religious belief, besides being unjust and cruel, is also an erroneous practice, and tends to encourage and propagate the belief which it is intended to suppress.'[4]