# The Bab

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-21 — 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, The Bab, bahai-library.com.
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> World Religions: Belief, Culture, and Controversy                            http://religion.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1548326?sid=1548...
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> The Bab
> 
> The Bab (Arabic for "Gate") was the founder of the Babi faith, a religious movement that shook Iran in the
> mid-19th century. The Bab claimed to be the mahdi expected by all Muslims and the inaugurator of a new
> religious dispensation. His religion eventually formed the foundation of the Baha'i Faith.
> 
> The Bab was born Hajji Sayyid Ali Muhammad Shirazi in 1819 in Shiraz, Iran (then called Persia) to a merchant
> family that traced its descent from the Prophet Muhammad. His father died when he was young and he was
> raised by his mother and maternal uncle. After a perfunctory primary education, he began to work as a merchant
> in the businesses of his maternal uncles. In 1841, he traveled to Karbala, where he attended for a short time the
> lectures of Sayyid Kazim Rashti, the leader of the Shaykhi school. After six months in Karbala, the Bab returned
> to Shiraz and was married to Khadijih Begum. The couple had one child who died shortly after birth.
> 
> In 1844, several students of the recently deceased Sayyid Kazim Rashti, including Mulla Husayn Bushru'i and
> Ruh al-Quddus, came to Shiraz in search of a successor to their teacher. Eighteen of them met the Bab and
> accepted his claim, thus becoming what he called the "Letters of the Living" (they included Tahirih, who had not
> met the Bab but accepted him through correspondence). The Bab sent these Letters of the Living out to all parts
> of Iran and beyond to announce his claim. He himself set off for a pilgrimage to Mecca, where he proclaimed his
> mission, but without any response.
> 
> Upon the Bab's return from pilgrimage in 1845, he was arrested by the governor of Shiraz and kept under house
> arrest. In 1846, the Bab went to Isfahan, Iran, where he managed to gain the support of Manuchihr Khan, the
> governor. During this time, the number of his followers was growing throughout Iran (the number may have
> reached 100,000 adherents, out of a probable Iranian population of 5–7 million), and the Islamic religious leaders
> were becoming alarmed, not least because the Bab severely criticized them in his writings.
> 
> After the death of Manuchihr Khan in 1847, the prime minister, fearful of the Bab's growing influence, prevented a
> meeting between the Bab and the shah and tried to isolate the Bab by imprisoning him, first in the fortress of
> Maku and then (because the Bab had won over his wardens there) in Chihriq, both in northwestern Iran. The
> prime minister tried to discredit him by putting him on trial in Tabriz, the provincial capital, in April 1848. The trial
> was a mockery, but the Bab used it to proclaim openly for the first time his claim to be the mahdi expected by
> both Shiite and Sunni Muslims (prior to this he had worded his writings in such a way that many thought he was
> only claiming to be a representative of the mahdi).
> 
> After this open proclamation, events moved quickly: a conference of the Bab's followers (called Babis) gathered
> at Badasht in northeastern Iran in July 1848 and proclaimed the inauguration of a new religious dispensation. The
> old shah died in September and a new shah came to the throne—his new prime minister proving to be just as
> antagonistic to the Bab as his predecessor had been; some of the Babis, under Mulla Husayn and Quddus, were
> besieged and eventually massacred at Shaykh Tabarsi between October 1848 and May 1849. Clashes between
> the royal forces and the Babis at Nayriz in southern Iran in May–June 1850 and in Zanjan in May 1850–January
> 
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> World Religions: Belief, Culture, and Controversy                         http://religion.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1548326?sid=1548...
> 
> 1851 ended in the massacre of large numbers of Babis; and in other places, including Tehran, leading Babis were
> executed.
> 
> In the end, the prime minister decided to try to put an end to the upheaval caused by the Babi movement by
> executing the Bab in Tabriz on July 9, 1850. However, even this attempt to quash the Babi movement backfired
> by giving the Bab, at the hour of his death, an aura of the miraculous. The British minister in Iran reported: "He
> was killed by a volley of musketry, and his death was on the point of giving his religion a lustre which would have
> largely increased its proselytes. When the smoke and dust cleared away after the volley, Bab was not to be seen,
> and the populace proclaimed that he had ascended to the skies. The balls had broken the ropes by which he was
> bound." He was found completing a dictation to his secretary and was then shot by a second volley.
> 
> The Bab was mild-mannered and had a very attractive and engaging personality that captivated many of those
> who met him. The only firsthand account by a westerner was given by Dr. Cormick, an Anglo-Irish physician: "He
> was a very mild and delicate looking man, rather small in stature and very fair for a Persian, with a melodious soft
> voice, which struck me much. . . . In fact his whole look and deportment went far to dispose one in his favour."
> 
> One of the most convincing proofs of his station was the rapidity with which he produced his writings. One
> evening in Isfahan, before a roomful of high-ranking Muslim clerics, he was asked to write a commentary on a
> chapter of the Koran. He immediately proceeded to write a work of some 80–100 pages (depending on which
> manuscript one consults) rapidly and without pausing or correcting anything.
> 
> In addition, in all of his writings his style was remarkable—according to some, "miraculous"—in that he was able
> to draw together, in new and striking ways, themes and motifs particularly germane to Islamic messianic
> expectations, enchanting and emboldening the reader through a unique combination of the symbols and sacred
> vocabulary of the Islamic religious tradition. One of his most important works, the Qayyúm al-asma (Maintainer of
> the Divine Names), was received as nothing less than the "true Koran" thought by Shiites to be held in
> safekeeping by the hidden imam, who, upon his return, would promulgate it to the faithful. The Bab's writings had
> a very powerful effect on those who were attuned to their themes and arguments. His holiness may be thought to
> reside, in large measure, in the very charismatic quality of these texts. Unfortunately, a large proportion of his
> writings fell into the hands of his enemies, and most of this has probably been destroyed. What remains,
> however, is still extensive and comprises some 30 major works and numerous letters and other writings.
> 
> The Bab wrote of his claims that God had sent him with a mission and message in the same way that he had sent
> Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad in the past and would send others in the future. He stated that his coming was
> the Day of Judgment mentioned in all the scriptures of the past. The prophecies concerning that day were to be
> understood as having been fulfilled spiritually and figuratively—not necessarily only literally. For example, the
> return of Jesus (prophesied in both the Bible and Koran) meant the appearance of a figure who had the same
> spiritual reality as Jesus—and fulfilled the same function of being the representative of God on earth (that is, the
> Bab himself). The Bab also gave new laws that his followers were to obey, especially in his book the Bayan
> (Exposition). Above all, the Bab, especially in his later writings such as the Bayan, frequently referred to the
> future advent of "He whom God will make manifest."
> 
> Bab's religion survived despite the intense persecution it suffered and the thousands of its followers who were
> killed. In 1863–1868, Baha'u'llah claimed to be "He whom God will make manifest," and most of the Babis
> accepted this claim and became Baha'is.
> 
> 2 of 3                                                                                                                02/11/11 12:29 PM
> World Religions: Belief, Culture, and Controversy                         http://religion.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1548326?sid=1548...
> 
> Moojan Momen and B. Todd Lawson
> 
> Further Reading
> 
> Báb, The. Selections from the Writings of the Báb. Haifa, Israel: Bahá'i World Centre, 1976; Balyuzi, Hasan M.
> The Báb. Oxford, UK: George Ronald, 1973; Lawson, Todd. "The Dangers of Reading: Inlibration, Communion
> and Transference in the Qur'an Commentary of the Bab." In Scripture and Revelation. Edited by Moojan Momen.
> Oxford: George Ronald, 1997; Momen, Moojan. The Bábíand Bahá'í Religions, 1844–1944. Some Contemporary
> Western Accounts. Oxford, UK: George Ronald, 1981; Zarandi, Nabil. The Dawn-Breakers: Nabil's Narrative of
> the Early Days of the Bahá'i Revelation. Wilmette, IL: Bahá'i Publishing Trust, 1970.
> 
> Select Citation Style:     MLA
> 
> MLA
> Momen, Moojan and B. Todd Lawson. "The Bab." World Religions: Belief, Culture, and Controversy. ABC-CLIO,
> 2011. Web. 2 Nov. 2011.
> 
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> 3 of 3                                                                                                                02/11/11 12:29 PM
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> — *The Bab (Used by permission of the curator)*