Group of youth outside a world exhibit in the year 2030. Sign behind them reads, HALL OF MARTYRS.
Youth #1: Wasn’t that a great Exhibit?!
Youth #2: I was so moved!
Youth #3: How do they make them look so real?
Youth #4: I don’t know… it was like seeing them alive, face to face.
Youth #1: My favorite was Mulla Husayn, who was the first to believe in the Bab. He dedicated his whole life to the Bab and finally gave his life at the battle of Fort Tabarsi. He was a great warrior! I love the part where one of the killers of the beloved of God, took refuge behind a small tree. He held his musket in front of his body to shield himself as Mulla Husayn recognized him as the killer of his friend. With a single sweep of his sword, Mulla Husayn cut through the trunk of the tree, through the musket, and cut the body of his enemy in two!
Youth #5: Yeah, that was great, but my favorite was Quddus, the last of the Eighteen Letters of the Living; the last one to find the Bab all on his own. He could tell the Bab was the Promised One by the way He walked! And He fought beside Mulla Husayn at Tabarsi and also died there.
Youth #3: Can you imagine what great warriors they had to be to stand up to the12,000 troops the Shah sent to battle their three hundred and thirteen and they fought them off for moths!
Youth #6: Yeah! And they were practically kids – all in their twenties except for Badi – who was only like… seventeen when he walked to see Baha’u’llah in Akká. Baha’u’llah chose him to sacrifice his life. It was an honor to give your life, and Badi was thrilled to be the one chosen to take the Tablet Baha’u’llah wrote to the Shah of Iran.
Youth #2: He knew he would die but was willing, even happy, to give his life for his Faith.
Youth #6: He was instantly beheaded on the palace steps after he gave the Tablet to the Shah! He said, “The blood of those martyrs who gave their lives in the early days watered the tree of the Cause of God that has just been planted.”
Youth #4: That was unbelievably moving … but who touched my heart the most was Mona, who died later in the 1980’s in Iran during the revolution. She was so beautiful and was only seventeen, the youngest of the ten women martyrs of Tehran. She was asked to recant her Faith during her trial or face execution. She answered without a moment’s hesitation, “I kiss the order of execution.” And she was hung last because she was the youngest and was given many opportunities to recant her Faith and live. She watched all nine women go before her and she still bravely faced the hangman.
Youth #6: I wonder if I could have done that?
(Pause and silence as they all contemplate…)
Play song: Would you give your Life to Baha'u'llah