Síyáh-Chál

Síyáh-Chál (سیاه چال in Persian, literally "black pit") is the common word in Persian language for "dungeon".

Historically, siyah-chals were used as a harsher form of incarceration. Typically, such dungeons had no windows or outlets, other than the entrance, consisting of a short stairway into the ground.

In Bahá'i religious texts "The Síyáh-Chál" is taken to mean the dungeon in Tehran where Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Bahá'í Faith, claimed to have received a vision of a Maiden from God, through whom he received his mission as a Messenger of God and as the One whose coming the Báb had prophesized, while he was in captivity in there.