A Russian official who was in 'Ishqábád at this time, A. D. Kalmykov (q.v.), has recorded in his memoirs:

This harmless, progressive, liberal sect was founded by the Bab, who was shot in Tabriz in 1850, close to the wall of the citadel at a place which I tried in vain to locate. The Babis were persecuted in Persia in my time and had to conceal their faith; I had never met them there. They came to Russia and even spread to America, where they were called Baha'i.

The Babis in Ashkhabad formed a closely knit community of honest, law-abiding people, somewhat reminiscent of the early Christian churches in the first century after Christ. The great event in the life of the Babi colony was the arrival of Hadji Mirza M.Taghi,* a Babi chief, and nephew of Bab, from Yezd, Persia in 1902. A rich, wise, kind old man of Biblical appearance and dressed in floating Oriental garments, he looked like one of the Magi who came to Bethlehem to adore the birth of Christ. Hadji MirzaM. Taghi had been consular agent for | Russia, England, and France in his native town for many years. Although wideh respected, he was finally forced to leave by persecution which continuously increased in violence. I had been informed beforehand about his arrival, and he was warmly recommended to me by my friend and future brother-in-law, Dr D. M. Vinogradov, who had visited him in Yezd.

After being welcomed with due reverence by all the Babi community of Ashkhabad and meeting with a hospitable reception on the part of the Russian authorities, Hadji Mirza M. Taghi decided to settle in Ashkhabad and, as the crowning act of hi'' long religious life, to build there a beautiful Babi temple, the first on the continent of Asia. He lived in a very simple manner but spared no money for the completion of the temple or the cause of his religion.

I presented Hadji Mirza M. Taghi to military governor of Transcaspia, General D. I. Subotich, who agreed to lay the corner-stone of the Babi temple. It was an impressive ceremony, this Russian recognition of Babism as an established religion at a moment when hundreds of Babis were being slaughtered in Persia. The Bab community presented General Subotich with a picture by the famous calligrapher Meshkin Kalam, representing a bird on a tree. The picture was formed with the letters composing the verse, 'On the Tree of Eternity sits the Bird of Truth repeating: "He (God) is one, is one, is one." '

Although the Babis in Ashkhabad kept the outward appearance of old-fashioned Moslems, their conceptions were entirely different. Babi women visited European families and enjoyed a freedom unknown at that time in Moslem countries. The Babishad a small book called Kitabi Siossieh (The Book of Behavior). They considered that each man had a divine spark which must be kept pure during his lifetime in order to ascend to heaven. The Babis in Ashkhabad presented various stages of evolution, ranging from a purely Oriental to a European way of life. However, they retained their Persian attire, whereas in European Russia they wore western clothes. I was glad to hear that after the revolution the persecution of Babis ceased in Persia, and I have no doubt that they will prove to be excellent Persian citizens. They are rtainly good examples of what may become of a Persian liberated from the suffocating atmosphere of an old decaying past. 3

*Haji Mirza Muhammad-Taqi, the Afnan (q.v.,see fig.45)