# Sayyid Kazim Rashti

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-20 — 1 clipping.*

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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, Sayyid Kazim Rashti, bahai-library.com.
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> World Religions: Belief, Culture, and Controversy                         http://religion.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1559847?sid=1559...
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> Sayyid Kazim Rashti
> 
> Sayyid Kazim Rashti was appointed by Sheikh Ahmad al Ahsai to carry on his teaching. He was thus the second
> leader of the Sheikh school of Shia Islam.
> 
> Sayyid Kazim was born in 1793 in Rasht, Iran, to a family descended from the prophet Muhammad. He had a
> traditional religious education in his hometown, and in 1815, acting on a dream that involved the daughter of the
> prophet Muhammad, he moved to Yazd and became a student of Sheikh Ahmad. He was regarded by Sheikh
> Ahmad as his foremost pupil and appointed by him to take over leadership of his circle of students upon his death
> in 1826. By this time, Sheiykh Ahmad's teachings had provoked a great deal of opposition among some of the
> prominent Shiite religious leaders. Sayyid Kazim had several open debates in which he was called upon to
> defend these teachings, and he thus became a rallying point for students who were disillusioned with the
> traditional learning and came to study under him in Karbala.
> 
> Some 171 works by Sayyid Kazim can be identified over a broad range of subjects including philosophy,
> mysticism, theology, exegesis, and religious jurisprudence. Many of these were written in answer to specific
> questions that came to him from all parts of the Shiite world. In 1843, when the Ottomans sought to reassert their
> authority over Karbala, the house of Sayyid Kazim was one of only two places the Ottomans designated as safe
> refuges for the people once the Ottoman army entered the city and began a general massacre.
> 
> According to Babi and Bahai sources, Sayyid Kazim referred frequently in his lectures to the near advent of the
> day when the hidden Shia imam, or mahdi (forerunner of the apocalypse), would appear. He declined to appoint a
> successor to himself but instructed his followers that, after his death, they were to go out and search. Thus it was
> that following the death of Sayyid Kazim after midnight on the last night of 1843, a group of his students set out
> on a quest that led them eventually to accept the claims of the Bab, thus boosting the Babi movement. Those
> followers of Sayyid Kazim who did not become Babis divided into a number of sects, two of which remain to the
> present day. One of these follows the Ibrahimi Kirmani family centered in Kirman and Basra; the other follows the
> Uskui family centered in Kuwait.
> 
> Moojan Momen
> 
> Further Reading
> 
> Rafati, Vahid."The Development of Shaykhí Thought in Shí'í Islam." Ph.D. dissertation, University of California,
> Los Angeles, 1979.
> 
> Select Citation Style:     MLA
> 
> MLA
> Momen, Moojan. "Sayyid Kazim Rashti." World Religions: Belief, Culture, and Controversy. ABC-CLIO, 2011.
> Web. 2 Nov. 2011.
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> — *Sayyid Kazim Rashti (Used by permission of the curator)*