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A Light in Dungeon Darkness: the Siyah-Chal and the beginning of Bahá’u’lláh’s mission
Chained, humiliated and conducted over fifteen miles in the heat of summer, Bahá’u’lláh had been cast into Tehran’s most notorious dungeon: Siyah-Chal – the Black Pit. In the city outside a pogrom was sweeping the city taking the lives of hundreds. Baha’u’llah’s own words describe what was done to him: … from Niyavaran [they] conducted Us, on foot and in chains, with bared head and bare feet, to the dungeon of Tihran. A brutal man, accompanying Us on horseback, snatched off Our hat, whilst We were being hurried along by a troop of executioners and officials.[1] In God Passes By, Shoghi Effendi records: On the way He several times was stripped of His outer garments, was overwhelmed with ridicule,…
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The Resignation of Captain von Goumoens
When the Austrian Captain Alfred von Goumoens obtained a posting as a military attache to Persia, it was the kind of appointment that is the making of a career and the height of adventure. The country was thought of by Europeans as “oriental” and far away. It was a time when European military technology and know-how was in demand in other countries. It was a position of potential influence where he could serve the interests of his country. The Captain was to be Iran during some of the most momentous events of the time. He may have been in Iran when, in 1850, the Bab was executed. Captain von Goumoens…
