# Ali Bastami, Mulla

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Moojan Momen, Ali Bastami, Mulla, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Ali Bastami, Mulla
> 
> Moojan Momen
> 
> 1995
> 
> `Ali Bastami, Mulla (?-1846) Second Letter of the Living (q.v.) and first Babi martyr. The
> 
> Bab chose him to announce his advent in the Shi`i shrine cities of Iraq where the most
> 
> important Shi`i clerics lived. When he did so, he was arrested, tried, and sent to Istanbul where
> 
> he died.
> 
> 1. Early life and Conversion. Mulla `Ali was born in one of the villages near Bastam (or
> 
> Bistam) in western Khurasan. He did his primary studies in his hometown, married, and had
> 
> children. He completed his education in Mashhad, where he became known for his sincerity
> 
> and his zeal in investigating religious matters. In the course of his studies, he came to learn of
> 
> the Shaykhi (q.v.) movement from Mulla Ja`far Kirmanshahi, one of the Shaykhi `ulama of
> 
> Mashhad. He was immediately attracted to the movement and soon entered into
> 
> communication with its leader, Sayyid Kazim Rashti (q.v.). Eventually he left his home and
> 
> family to study under Sayyid Kazim in Karbala. After seven years his father and relatives,
> 
> distressed by his long absence, came to Karbala and obtained Sayyid Kazim's approval for the
> 
> eager scholar to return home. Mulla `Ali could not, however, settle at home and after less than
> 
> two years was back in Karbala.
> 
> Mulla `Ali was one of those who accompanied Sayyid Kazim Rashti on his last pilgrimage to
> 
> Kazimayn and was in Karbala when Sayyid Kazim died on 2 January 1844. This event caused a
> 
> crisis in the Shaykhi community because Sayyid Kazim had not appointed a successor. After
> 
> several weeks of indecision, some of the disciples including Mulla `Ali retired to the mosque of
> 
> Kufih for forty days of fasting and prayer (i`tikaf). They then decided to set off in search of the
> 
> new leader to whom Sayyid Kazim had alluded. Mulla `Ali, who reached Shiraz and recognized
> 
> the Bab about a month after Mulla Husayn Bushru'i (q.v.), was given the titles Thani man
> 
> amana ("the second who believed") and Letter of the Living, and may, in view of a statement
> 
> in the Persian Bayan (q.v.), have been regarded as the return of the Imam `Ali (BYP 1:3). He is
> 
> said to have been led to the Bab by a vision.
> 
> 2. Mission to Iraq. The Bab instructed Mulla `Ali to go to Bushihr and meet there with the
> 
> Bab's uncle Haji Mirza Sayyid Muhammad (see "Afnan.1.c"). He then went to Najaf, a holy
> 
> city in Iraq that is the site of the shrine of the Imam `Ali and a center of Shi`i scholarship.
> 
> There he delivered a message from the Bab to Shaykh Muhammad Hasan Najafi, the foremost
> 
> Shi`i mujtahid of the day. The message was abruptly rejected and Mulla `Ali expelled from the
> 
> city. He arrived in Karbala, the other important center of Shi`i scholarship in Iraq and the
> 
> headquarters of the Shaykhi movement. Here he spread the writings of the Bab, especially
> 
> among the Shaykhis, many of whom accepted the message. So great was the messianic fervor
> 
> and controversy that resulted that it was even reported in the dispatches of the British consul in
> 
> Baghdad (BBR 83-89).
> 
> Eventually, the Shi`i `ulama in Karbala had Mulla `Ali arrested and transferred to Baghdad.
> 
> Najib Pasha, the governor of Baghdad, convened the most prominent of the Sunni and Shi`i
> 
> `ulama on 13 January 1845 to try Mulla `Ali. Among those gathered were Shaykh Mahmud al-Alusi, the Mufti of Baghdad; nineteen other Sunni `ulama; Shaykh Hasan ibn Kashifi'l-Ghita',
> 
> the leading Shi`i figure after Shaykh Muhammad-Hasan; Sayyid Muhammad-Baqir Qazvini, the
> 
> foremost cleric in Karbala, who had been the bitter enemy of Sayyid Kazim; Shaykh Hasan
> 
> Gawhar, a leading Shaykhi; and five other Shi`i `ulama.
> 
> Accounts of the proceedings are confused and contradictory. However, the written verdict of
> 
> the court is extant. It reveals that the court had examined a copy of the Qayyumu'l-Asma (q.v.,
> 
> which Mulla `Ali had brought with him) and had grasped the fact that the author of the book
> 
> was claiming divine revelation. The Sunni `ulama unhesitatingly pronounced both the author
> 
> and the bearer of the book to be heretics and condemned them to death. The Shi`i `ulama were
> 
> more guarded in their verdicts (probably because the affair had been politicized into a Sunni
> 
> versus Shi`i, and Turk versus Iranian issue) and refused to countenance more serious
> 
> punishment than banishment or imprisonment.
> 
> The events associated with Mulla `Ali in Najaf and Karbala and his trial in Baghdad are of
> 
> importance for several reasons. First, the commotion caused by Mulla `Ali and the willingness
> 
> of large numbers to accept his message was in itself remarkable--especially as the Bab had told
> 
> Mulla `Ali not to reveal the Bab's identity at first. The message of the Bab reached here a level
> 
> of public awareness and controversy that was not seen elsewhere in the early years of the Bab's
> 
> ministry. Second, these events mark the first clash between the nascent Babi-Bahá'í religion and
> 
> the `ulama of Islam (Shaykh Muhammad-Hasan's rejection of the message brought by Mulla
> 
> `Ali is referred to in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, q.v., KA 166:79). The verdict of the court set the
> 
> pattern for later Muslim denunciations of the new religion. Third, the opposition met by Mulla
> 
> `Ali from both the religious and secular authorities altered the course of Babi history in that it
> 
> persuaded the Bab to abandon his original plan of proceeding from Mecca directly to Karbala.
> 
> The affair of Mulla `Ali had wider consequences in that it even threatened relations between
> 
> Iran and the Ottoman Empire. Concerned to maintain the jurisdiction of the Iranian
> 
> government over its subjects in Iraq, Haji Mirza Aqasi (q.v.) and Muhibb-`Ali Khan, the
> 
> governor of Kirmanshah, insisted on Mulla `Ali's return to Iran. The foreign ambassadors in
> 
> Istanbul were involved in attempts to mediate. The event is of importance in Islamic history
> 
> also: the coming together of Sunni and Shi`i `ulama to give a joint fatwa was unprecedented in
> 
> modern times and also marked the first occasion in which the Ottoman Empire had accorded
> 
> the Shi`i `ulama official recognition as a judicial authority.
> 
> 3. Imprisonment and death. When the Iranian government intervened, Najib Pasha referred the
> 
> matter to Istanbul in a letter dated 25 January 1845. In mid-April instructions arrived to the
> 
> effect that Mulla `Ali should be sent to Istanbul. After being kept at Bolu for a time, he was
> 
> brought to Istanbul. He was interrogated there again and openly declared his belief in the
> 
> message of the Bab. Since the authorities feared that if he were simply exiled to one of the
> 
> Aegean islands he would continue to spread the Babi teachings, he was sentenced to hard labor
> 
> in the naval dockyards outside Istanbul.
> 
> The Iranian government, however, continued to press for his extradition for punishment in
> 
> Iran. Eventually the Ottoman authorities agreed, but according to an Iranian report dated 4
> 
> December 1846, when orders were sent to release him from his forced labor, it was found that
> 
> he had died a few days earlier. He was thus the first Babi to die for his faith.
> 
> Bibliography. On Mulla `Ali's life, see RR 175-80, 211-19. On his trial, see BBR 83-90;
> 
> Moojan Momen, "The Trial of Mulla `Ali Bastami: a Combined Sunni-Shi`i Fatwa against the
> 
> Bab," Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 1982, 20:113-43; RR 220-38.
> 
> See also GPB 10; DB 66-69, 87-92; ZH 3:105-9; BHD 58-68.
> 
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> Views16531 views since posted 1999; last edit 2022-03-02 00:11 UTC;
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> previous at archive.org.../momen_encyclopedia_ali_bastami;
> URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org
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> — *Ali Bastami, Mulla (Used by permission of the curator)*