The vain and despotic Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh, denounced by
Bahá’u’lláh as the “Prince of Oppressors”; of whom He had written that he would
soon be made “an object-lesson for the world”; whose reign was stained by the
execution of the Báb and the imprisonment of Bahá’u’lláh; who had persistently
instigated his subsequent banishments to Constantinople, Adrianople and Akká;
who, in collusion with a vicious sacerdotal order, had vowed to strangle the
Faith in its cradle, was dramatically assassinated, in the shrine of Sháh
‘Abdu’l-‘Aẓím, on the very eve of his jubilee, which, as ushering in a new era,
was to have been celebrated with the most elaborate magnificence, and was to go
down in history as the greatest day in the annals of the Persian nation. The
fortunes of his house thereafter steadily declined, and finally through the
scandalous misconduct of the dissipated and irresponsible Aḥmad Sháh, led to
the eclipse and disappearance of the Qájár dynasty.
- Shoghi Effendi (‘God
Passes By’)
