Tablet to Hájí Muhammad-Nasír-i-Qazvíní (Lawh-i-Hájí Muhammad-Nasír-i-Qazvíní):

   Hájí Nasír was a well-known merchant and held in high esteem by his fellow citizens until he embraced the Bábí Faith. From that time onwards, he suffered persecutions and was bitterly opposed by the people. He recognized the divine origin of the Message of the Báb through Mullá Jalíl-i-Urúmí, one of the Letters of the Living. It is reported that when Hájí Nasír had acknowledged the authenticity of the claims of the Báb, Mullá Jalíl warned him that a mere acknowledgement was not sufficient in this day, that he could not call himself a Bábí unless he were prepared to lay down his life willingly in the path of God, should the enemy rise up against him. He bade him go home and search his heart to see whether he had sufficient faith to remain steadfast in the face of tortures and martyrdom. If he did, he was a Bábí, and otherwise not. Hájí Nasír responded to the words of Mullá Jalíl by spending the whole night in prayer and meditation. At the hour of dawn, he felt possessed of such faith and detachment as to be ready to sacrifice his life in the path of his Beloved. Overnight, he became endowed with a new zeal and radiance which sustained him throughout his eventful life.
   Soon the persecutions started; the first onslaught began when Hájí Nasír became the target of attacks by a blood-thirsty mob in Qazvín. They plundered all his possessions and he was temporarily forced to leave his native city. When the situation calmed down he returned home. From there, in obedience to the call of the Báb, he proceeded to Khurásán. He was privileged to attend the conference of Badasht where, some historians have stated, he acted as a guard at the entrance of the garden which was reserved for Bahá’u’lláh’s residence. From Badasht he proceeded to Mázindarán and was one of the defenders of the fortress of Shaykh Tabarsí. As history records, hundreds of his fellow disciples were massacred in that upheaval, but the hand of divine power spared Hájí Nasir’s life and enabled him to render further services to the Cause of God.    He returned to Qazvín and engaged in his work once again, but soon another upheaval engulfed the believers. The attempt on the life of Násiri’d-Dín Sháh in 1852 unleashed a wave of persecution against the Bábís. Hájí Nasír was arrested in Qazvín and put in prison. But after some time he was released. Another imprisonment he suffered was in Tihrán, where he was chained and fettered. When released from his ordeal, he found that all his possessions were gone. It was through the help and co-operation of Shaykh Kázim-i-Samandar that, in spite of much harassment by the enemy, Hájí Nasír continued to earn a living, but he had to move his residence to the city of Rasht.
   The crowning glory of his life was to attain the presence of Bahá’u’lláh in ‘Akká. On this pilgrimage he was accompanied by the above-named Shaykh Kázim. Bahá’u’lláh showered His bounties upon him and assured him of His loving-kindness. He spent the latter part of his life in the city of Rasht and was engaged in teaching the Cause of God by day and night. The enemies once again cast him into prison. This time, because of old age, he could not endure the rigours of prison life and his soul, after so many years of toil and suffering, took its flight to the abode of the Beloved. He died a martyr’s death in the prison of Rasht in the year 1300 A.H. (1888). (The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh Vol. 2, pp 245-6.

How bitter the humiliations heaped upon Me, in a subsequent age, on the plain of Karbilá! How lonely did I feel amidst Thy people! To what a state of helplessness I was reduced in that land! Unsatisfied with such indignities, My persecutors decapitated Me, and, carrying aloft My head from land to land paraded it before the gaze of the unbelieving multitude, and deposited it on the seats of the perverse and faithless. Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, Section XXXIX, p. 89 (MW’s note).