The Battle of Fort Ṭabarsàwas a battle between the forces of the Naser al-Din Shah Qajar and the BábÃÂs over a period of seven months: October 10, 1848 to May 10, 1849, at the Shrine of Shaykh TabarsÃÂ, in Afra, Iran. The commanding prince in charge of the government troops, unable to force the surrender of the followers of the Báb, resorted to a plan of betrayal to capture the remaining BábÃÂs. The shrine is located in Mazandaran Province, Iran.
Mullá Husayn-i-Bushru'i, one of the most prominent BábÃÂs and the first person to accept the new faith, marched with 202 of his fellow disciples, under instructions from the Báb, from Mashhad to the Shrine of Shaykh Tabarsàwith the Black Standard raised, fulfilling an Islamic prophecy. The mission was most likely proclamatory but possibly also to rescue another Bábàleader, Quddús, who was under house arrest in SárÃÂ. After being attacked at the town of Barfurush (home of Quddús), the group took up making defensive fortifications at the nearby Shrine of the Shaykh. Upon arriving at the shrine, the BábÃÂs, numbering a little over 300 according to Bábàand Baháüàsources and according to royal court historians, came under escalating attacks from mobs, local government forces and then imperial regiments.
A scholarly review finds reasonable support for between 540 and 600 people present including over a hundred villagers who joined locally after those that arrived from across the country. A census of the BábÃÂs who had traveled some distance to the Shrine shows 14 major former clerics of Islam, 122 minor former clerics of Islam, 12 nobility or high government officials, 5 wholesale merchants, 9 retail merchants, 39 guild tradesmen, 6 unskilled laborers, 6 peasants, and 152 unclassified. Different sources have some similarities of which cities/provinces they came from â the highest numbers coming from Isfahan, Boshruyeh, Miyami, and Bahnemir, though 33 locations are listed among the places of origin of the participants.
Sources describe the building of the fort as a matter of self-defence. The BábÃÂ's spent many months under attack in the fort, resorting to eating the leather of their own clothes to remain alive.
Over the weeks that followed, more and more BábÃÂs joined their fellow believers at the fort with numbers rising to perhaps six hundred. Most notable of the late arrivals is Quddús, who joined after being released by TabarsàBábÃÂs on October 20.
BaháüÃÂs see the battle as a heroic stand against oppressive government forces; it lasted seven months despite the few hundred BábÃÂs being outnumbered by up to 10,000 troops.
On May 10, 1849, at last having been reduced to near-starvation by the encirclement, the Bábàdefenders surrendered after a guarantee of safe passage from the government commander, including an oath sworn on the Quran â a guarantee that was immediately violated, with most of the members of the religion massacred on the spot after leaving the fort.
It is believed that eight of the disciples of the Báb, also called the Letters of the Living, were killed in the series of battles:
Quddús was taken prisoner in the city of Barfurush. There the leading Muslim clerics rallied the townsfolk into a vicious frenzy. Quddus was then left to the hands of the mob who beat him to death on May 16, 1849. What remained of Quddus' body was gathered by a friend and buried nearby.
The battle is considered the most important upheaval of the Bábàreligion because the Báb himself instructed Mullá Husayn-i Bushru'i to initiate this sequence of events with raising the "Black Standard" as well as a call for support of the collective initiative of BábÃÂs. The episode included two leading figures of the religion in Mulla Husayn and Quddús and overall nine out of eighteen of the Letters of the Living, and actually received a widespread response across the country. No other upheaval the BábÃÂs suffered had this amount of importance attached to it.
The battle was also followed and mentioned in French language newspaper accounts from the Journal de Constantinople in March 1849.