The Execution at Tabriz

The Martyrdom of the Bab commemorates the execution of the Bab by firing squad in the public square of Tabriz in 1850, when he was about thirty years old, put to death by the Persian authorities amid the violent suppression of the Babi movement. Baha'i accounts recount the event with a detail the tradition holds dear: that a first volley left the Bab unharmed and his interrogator gone from the spot, and that only a second regiment carried out the sentence, a story Baha'is regard as attesting the significance of his life and death. His remains were eventually brought, decades later, to Mount Carmel in Haifa, where the golden-domed Shrine of the Bab is now one of the holiest places of the faith.

The day is one of the nine Baha'i holy days on which work is suspended, and, following the tradition that the execution took place around noon, its commemoration is held at midday. It is a solemn observance, kept with prayers and readings recalling the Bab's sacrifice, in contrast to the joy of the Twin Birthdays and the Declaration. For Baha'is the martyrdom seals the Bab's role as the herald who gave his life to prepare the way, and it holds a central place in their memory of the heroic and persecuted early age of their religion.