In October 1848 Mulla Husayn and about seventy-one of his
companions arrived near the town of Barfurush in northern Persia. One of the
leading clergy in that town felt threatened by their presence. He instructed the
townspeople to go outside the gates of the town and attack them. Seven of Mulla
Husayn’s companions were subsequently killed. In the resulting battle the
townspeople were defeated and they begged for truce, to which Mulla Husayn agreed.
It was during this battle that Mulla Husayn, in one blow from his sword, cut in
half an attacker, his musket and the tree behind which the man was hiding. (Adapted from ‘The Dawn-Breakers’)
