The Bāb

Persian religious leader

• Born: October 20, 1819
• Birthplace: Shīrāz, Persia (now in Iran)
• Died: July 9, 1850
• Place of death: Tabriz, Persia (now in Iran)

The charismatic religious leader known as the Bāb encouraged revolt against the Persian state and traditional Islamic religious scholars and founded Bābīism, which became the basis for the modern Bahā՚ī and Azali faiths.

Early Life

Born Sayyid ՙAlī Muḥammad Shīrāzi (SAY-yid a-li mu-HAH-mahd shih-RAHZ-ee), the man who would later become known as the Bāb was orphaned as a boy and raised by a maternal uncle. The family believed itself to have been descended from the Prophet Muḥammad. After he received a few years of schooling, his uncle brought him into the family’s mercantile business. This experience exposed him to new regions of Iran and to Bushehr in Iraq. During this period, ՙAlī Muḥammad began to study religious literature and to compose prayers and sermons. His lack of institutional religious education and his idiosyncratic use of Arabic language positioned him outside the formalized ranks of religious scholars, or ulama. At the same time, the originality of thinking that he demonstrated in his early writings foreshadowed the unique and powerful character of his later work.

In 1840-1841, ՙAlī Muḥammad visited the renowned Shī ՙi shrines at Karbala in Iraq, where he came into contact with the leader of the Shaykhī Movement, Sayyid Kazim Rashtī. Although his relationship to Shaykhī ՙism during his stay there is poorly documented, it is clear that the visit allowed him to meet many of Rashti’s younger disciples, some of whom would later become his own followers. During the following year, ՙAlī Muḥammad was called home to Shīrāz by his family. In August of 1842, he married Kadija Begum, the daughter of his mother’s paternal uncle. The following year, his wife bore a child, who died not long afterward.

Life’s Work

After Rashti’s death in 1843, his disciples were expecting the appearance of a messiah, the Hidden (twelfth or occulted) Imam of Shī ՙi Islam. One of the disciples, Mullā Ḥūsayn of Bushruyah, met with ՙAlī Muḥammad in Shīrāz on May 22, 1844. During their encounter, ՙAlī Muḥammad presented himself as Rashti’s successor and as the channel of communication, or “Bāb” (meaning “gate” in Persian), between the Hidden Imam and the Muslim community. When Mullā Husayn accepted the young man’s claim that evening, he became the first of many followers to recognize the Bāb as a new spiritual leader. During that same long night, the Bāb began a long commentary in Arabic on the Qur՚ān’s Yusuf chapter (sura). Bābīs and Bahā՚īism consider that commentary the first of their faith’s revealed works, and both communities mark it as the beginning of a new era.

The Bāb’s followers were made up principally of Shaykhīs and Shī ՙi Muslims, from whom he selected eighteen persons whom he designated the “Letters of the Living.” Foremost among them were Mullā Ḥūsayn and a radical female follower Qurrat al-ՙAyn, who would afterward be known as Táhirih. The Bāb instructed his new disciples and sent them out as missionaries on his behalf to the provinces of Iran and Iraq.

In September of 1844, the Bāb made the traditional Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. He hoped that he might reform mainstream Muslims. However, his journey was a disappointment, because he discovered that the majority of Muslims did not accept his views.

In 1845, while the Bāb was returning home from Mecca, an incident in Shīrāz involving some Bābīs led the governor there to seek the Bāb’s arrest. He was taken into custody and placed under house arrest in his uncle’s home. There he continued to write and meet with visitors, many of whom were followers arriving from Karbala. Even while under arrest, he continued to direct his growing movement, which by that time had taken its name, Bābīism, from his title. Although successive imprisonments over the next five years prevented the Bāb from active participation in the affairs of his movement, his writings were copied and disseminated, and many pilgrims were able to interview him personally.

During an outbreak of cholera in Shīrāz in September of 1846, the Bāb managed to escape from his imprisonment and make his way to Iṣfahān, where he had sent ahead several of his disciples. Soon, however, growing opposition to his views from the clergy in Iṣfahān resulted in the issue of a holy order (fatwa) for his execution. After finding brief refuge at the governor’s residence, he was taken to the town of Maku in Azerbaijan, where he arrived in the summer of 1847. Meanwhile, his continued popularity in Persia was a source of consternation for the Persian prime minister. The Persian government feared that a new messianic movement would cause agitation on Russia’s Azerbaijani border. In May 1848, the Bāb was transferred to Chiriq near Urmia and placed under strict confinement.

In letters written to his followers during his stay at Maku, the Bāb began to make startling claims, including a proclamation that he was not merely the Gate to the Hidden Imam, but also the messiah himself. In those letters he called for the abolition of Islamic law. These pronouncements led to his being taken to Tabriz, where he was examined by a tribunal of religious and civil dignitaries. Before the tribunal, he made public his claims and was unofficially sentenced to death by several of the religious scholars present.

The Bāb’s execution was delayed. However, after Bābī groups rose up against the government in Māzandarān, Neyrīz, and Zanjān, Mirza Taqi Khan Amir Nezam ordered that he be put to death by firing squad. Some sources record the date of his execution as July 8, 1850, but Bahā՚īs commemorate the event on July 9. According to contemporary sources, the Bāb survived the first round of his executioners’ shots after bullets broke the rope suspending him. However, a second round of bullets finished the task. The Bāb’s body was then apparently thrown into a ditch, along with that of a disciple, where, according to some sources, they were eaten by dogs. Bābī sources, however, maintain that their leader was buried in secret at the Emamzada Ḥasan and later moved from one hiding place to another until put to a final rest in Palestine in 1899. Today, a marble superstructure topped by a gold dome stands over the shrine to the Bāb at Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel.

The Bāb left a number of writings, the foremost of which is the Bayan (declaration), the repository of laws announced formally by the leader in Azerbaijan. The Bayan provides the main source of Bābī doctrine, replacing the Islamic Shari՚a. It dictates a new direction for prayer, a new ritual calendar, and new eschatological ideas.

In nineteenth century Europe, the Bāb was recognized less for his spiritual doctrines than for his fine features, charismatic presence, and highly developed aesthetic temperament. During the years following his death, however, the Bāb’s doctrines were fixed by the two religious figures who succeeded him, Bahā՚ullāh and Subh-i Azal. During the 1860’s, Bābīs who followed Baha Allah became known as the Bahā՚ī, while the minority group that views Subh-i Azal as the successor of the Bāb were known as the Azali.

Significance

During the era of the Qajar Dynasty (1794-1925), Iran witnessed a proliferation of Shī ՙi beliefs and practices, which included both learned and popular expressions of piety. Bābīism and its successors, Azalism and Bahā՚īism, reflect the focus on messianic return that fueled the development of other heterodox doctrines during the nineteenth century. By reinterpreting Shī ՙi traditions concerning the Hidden Imam and proclaiming the coming of a new age, the Bāb challenged one of the bases for Iran’s religious and political order. Unlike many other messianic movements of the period, Bābīism broke with Islam in significant ways, and it established its own system of administration and ritual practice.

The significance of the Bāb as a charismatic authority figure has endured primarily for members of the Bahā՚ī faith, for which he remains not only a founder but also the herald of their messiah, Baha Allah. Though the Bāb and many of his followers were persecuted during the middle of the century, their fierce methods brought them considerable success in propagating their new faith under significant state resistance. At the turn of the twenty-first century, Bahā՚īs constituted the largest religious minority in Iran.

Bibliography

ՙAbbas Effendi ՙAbd al-Baha. A Traveller’s Narrative Written to Illustrate the Episode of the Bab. Edited and translated by Edward G. Browne. 2 vols. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1891. A firsthand account of the Bāb by the founder of the Bahā՚ī faith.

Amanat, Abbas. Resurrection and Renewal: The Making of the Babi Movement in Iran, 1844-1850. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989. Study of the historical and sociological background of the early Bābī period.

Browne, Edward G. Materials for the Study of Babi Religion. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1918. Seminal collection of primary sources on the Bābī faith.

MacEoin, Denis M. “Bab, Sayyed ՙAli Mohammad Sirazi.” In Encyclopaedia Iranica, edited by Ehsan Yarshater. Vol. 3. New York: Bibliotheca Persia, 2001. Concise article on the Bāb’s life and ideas, with a complete bibliography.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Sources for the Early Babi Doctrine and History: A Survey. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1992. Important study of partly unpublished manuscripts for Bābī history; supplements Edward Browne’s earlier collection of documents.

Momen, Mohsen, ed. The Babi and Baha՚i Religions, 1844-1944: Some Contemporary Western Accounts. Oxford, England: G. Ronald, 1981. A collection of important contemporary European sources on the Bāb.

Nabil Zarandi, Mulla Muhammad. The Dawn Breakers: Nabil’s Narrative of the Early Days of the Baha՚i Revelation. Reprint. Wilmette, Ill.: Baha՚i Public Trust, 1999. The primary historical source for the Bāb’s life. Written between 1888 and 1890, and first published in English translation by the Bahā՚ī leader Shoghi Effendi in 1932.