The Babi-Baha'i Community in Khorasan
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Minou Foadi, The Babi-Baha'i Community in Khorasan, New York: Columbia University, 2022, bahai-library.com.
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The Bábí-Bahá'í Community in Khorasan

Minou Foadi
published in Encyclopaedia Iranica

New York: Columbia University, 2022

Khorasan, the largest province in the northeast of Iran, is of special significance in the history of the Babi-Bahai religions. The first convert to Babism (q.v.) and the provincial Babi leader in Khorasan was Mollā Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Bošruʾi (q.v., 1814-49), a Shaikhi (see SHAIKHISM) from Bošruya (in southern Khorasan). His influence on clergy, fellow Shaikhis, acquaintances, and relatives was considerable, which led Khorasan to have one of the largest and most active Babi communities in Iran during 1844-48 (A. Amanat, pp. 273, 369).
On Mollā Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Bošruʾi’s first visit to Mashhad in 1844, he created, in collaboration with Mollā Mirzā Moḥammad Bāqer Qāʾeni, the first center for the Babi activities, known as the Bābiya. A small house belonging to Qāʾeni in the neighborhood of Bālā Ḵiābān, it became a base for Mollā Moḥammad-Ḥosayn’s teachings and a frequent gathering place of the Babi disciples in Khorasan. The main concentration of the Babis of Khorasan was in three areas. Central Khorasan in the area known as Qohestān, on the edge of the highlands that surround the Khorasan desert, and the triangle between Torbat-e Ḥaydariya, Bošruya, and Qāʾen contained the largest concentrations of Babis in Iran. Second, on the northwestern side of the borderlands of Māzandarān, particularly on the northern route to Khorasan in Besṭām (q.v.), Mayāmay, and Biārjomand, there were also sizable Babi communities. And, third, there were a number of converts in cities such as Mashhad, Sabzavār, and Nishapur (A. Amanat, pp. 273-74).
Notable in the early period was the conversion of a number of leading jurists (mojtaheds): Mollā Ṣādeq Moqaddas Ḵorāsāni (q.v.), Mirzā Sayyed Aḥmad Azḡandi, Mollā Mirzā Moḥammad Bāqer Qāʾeni, Shaikh Aḥmad Moʿallem from Nāmeq, Ḥāji ʿAbd-al-Majid from Nishapur, Mirzā Moḥammad Foruḡi, and other senior shaikhis, such as Mollā Ḵāleq Yazdi. These individuals preached the Babi faith openly and occasionally from mosques (A. Amanat, pp. 277-84; Foʾādi Bošruʾi, p. 72). The influence of Babi teachings spread to high-ranking officials, military personnel, and Qajar princes in Khorasan.
One of the possible reasons for the success of the Babi movement (see BABISM i.) in Khorasan was its heterodox background with notable Ismaʿili (see ISMAʿILISM), Shaikhi and Sunni converts, and places where the influence of theologians (ʿolamāʾ) and oṣuli jurists (mojtaheds) was reduced, and anti-Babi incitement often ignored. Non-Bahai sources report a wider heterodoxy. In 1844, the Jewish Christian missionary, Joseph Wolff (1795-1862), on his way to Bukhara, noticed that many people in Mashhad requested copies of the Bible, and he was invited to an open discussion with a local cleric (A. Amanat, pp. 275-76). Travelogues of Khorasan in the mid-1870s describe non-adherence to strict Islamic laws and non-observance of the traditional fasting rules in Ṭabas and Bošruya (Eʿteṣām-al-Molk, p. 266).
Women played a significant role in the early Babi communities. Mollā Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Bošruʾi’s sister, Bibi Kučak, held meetings for both sexes in Mashhad, which led to conversions (Arbāb, p. 49). His mother and sisters, and Qāʾeni’s wife and female relatives, were reportedly knowledgeable in Islamic studies (Foʾādi Bošruʾi, pp. 346-48).

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Read the rest of this article online at referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-iranica-online/khorasan-COM_12453.

During the early period of Babism, six of the first eighteen individuals who accepted the Bāb’s claim and were given the honorific title of Ḥoruf-al-Ḥayy (“Letters of the Living”) were from Khorasan. In addition, a group of Babis in 1848 began a march to Māzandarān from Khorasan, carrying the Black Standard foretold in Islamic traditions (Ḏabiḥi-Moqaddam, pp. 39-41). In Ḥeṣār and Nāmeq, after hearing Mollā Ḥosayn’s address in the mosque, all the students of Mojtahed Mollā Aḥmad joined the movement, and in Bošruya about forty people did so. Overall, around a third of those on the march and those killed in the subsequent battle at the shrine of Shaikh Abu ʿAli Fażl Ṭabarsi were from Khorasan. Some Babis escaped death, including Mirzā Moḥammad Foruḡi and Mollā Ṣādeq Moqaddas, whose accounts of the battle at the shrine of Shaikh Ṭabarsi were included in Nabil‑e Aʿẓam Zarandi’s (q.v.) early chronicle of Babi history. In Mashhad, in particular, and in Bošruya, Babis were persecuted (Barāqi, pp. 192-93). Persecutions intensified following the Bāb’s execution in 1850 and an unsuccessful attempt on Nāṣer-al-Din Shah’s life in 1852 by a very small Babi group.
After the execution of the Bāb, the Babis continued their propagation activities when restrictions were lifted. In 1858, Āqā Moḥammad Qāʾeni Nabil-e Akbar (q.v.) arrived in Khorasan and succeeded in converting some 150 people in Qāʾenāt, some of whom proselytized further (Āyati, pp. 281-82). In Tun (present-day Ferdows, q.v.), a city located south of Mashhad, the descendants of the Sufi master Šāh Neʿmat-Allāh Wali converted, and the town subsequently became a center for Bahai activities (Foʾādi Bošruʾi, pp. 302-6; Momen, 2015, pp. 206-7). Šojā-al-Dawla, governor of Qučān, and some Sabzavār cavalries and theologians in Nishapur and Sabzavār, also converted to Babism. Mirzā Moḥammad-Reẓā Moʿtamen-al-Salṭana also converted and rose in local government to became minister of finance and vizier of Khorasan during Nāṣer-al-Din Shah’s reign (Foʾādi Bošruʾi, p. 95; Balyuzi, pp. 52-54). This widespread network of support led to a relative tolerance toward Babis in this period (Foʾādi Bošruʾi, pp. 93-94).
In 1866-67, Mollā Moḥammad Nabil-e Aʿẓam Zarandi informed the Babi community of the claim of Bahāʾ-Allāh (q.v.), and the vast majority converted to Bahaism (q.v.). The foundations were laid by prominent Babis such as Moqaddas and Nabil-e Akbar and by Babis visiting Bahāʾ-Allāh in Baghdad. No records of Azali Babism (q.v.) communities in Khorasan exist.
During this period, persecution from regional governors started, including from Ḥešmat-al-Molk Amir ʿAlam Ḵān ʿAlam of Qāʾenāt, who extorted large amounts of money and land from Bahais (Foʾādi Bošruʾi, p. 372-82). The first Bahai martyr in Khorasan was Ḥāji ʿAbd-al-Majid Nišāburi (Abā Badiʿ) in 1877. His death sentence was instigated by Shaikh Bāqer Mojtahed from Isfahan, despite resistance from the governor of Mashhad, Rokn-al-Dawla, the brother of the king, and other officials (Foʾādi Bošruʾi, p. 156; Ešrāq Ḵāvari, pp. 687-99).
The Bahai community of Khorasan expanded during Bahāʾ-Allāh’s lifetime. Prince Ḥāji Šayḵ-al-Raʾis, grandson of Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah Qajar (q.v., r. 1797-1834), and a prominent figure in the reform movement of Iran, whose mother was a convert, promoted the Bahai movement openly (Foʾādi Bošruʾi, p. 145; Momen, 2015, pp. 128-31).
A notable female Bahai was Ruḥāniya Bošruʾi, whose apologetic essays (Resāla) impressed some theologians (Foʾādi Bošruʾi, pp. 350-52). Mirzā Ḵānlar Ḵān Eʿteṣām-al-Molk (first secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) records that, in his journey to Khorasan, he travelled to Bošruya to meet with her and noted her erudition around 1876-78 (pp. 252-56). From 1880, in Mashhad and Torbat‑e Ḥaydariya, Iranian Jews converted to the Bahai Faith and, by the 1890s, there were sixty such converts in Mashhad (M. Amanat, p. 12).
Under the leadership of ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ (q.v.), there was some dissension in the community of Ḵusf, in southern Khorasan, due to the influence of his brother Mirzā Moḥammad-ʿAli, which was unsuccessful (Foʾādi Bošruʾi, pp. 79-80). Bursts of heavy persecution ensued, especially after the assassination of Nāṣer-al-Din Shah in 1896, as people suspected Bahais (based on the previous Babi attempt). In Torbat-e Ḥaydariya, five innocent Bahais were imprisoned and killed by a mob on their release. This shocked foreign officials, who were concerned that steps were not taken to identify and punish the perpetrators (Momen, 1981, pp. 405-17). In Nāmeq and Ḥeṣār, Bahais were attacked, imprisoned, and some killed, including women, children, and the elderly. Local clergy mostly instigated this and continued to do so until the end of the Qajar period (Foʾādi Bošruʾi, pp. 261-62).
The response to this persecution changed from quiet acceptance to lobbying for protection after the murder of Ḥāji Moḥammad Tork (also known as Tabrizi) in 1898. He was dragged from his house, tortured, and burned to death on the main street of Mashhad. The British minister in Tehran at the time, Charles Hardinge (q.v.), wrote to the prime minister Mirzā ʿAli Khan Amin-al-Dawla (q.v.), questioning him about this public act and the lenient punishment of the murderers (Momen, 1981, pp. 406-17). In Bošruya, Bahais were heavily persecuted, and the house of Mollā Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Bošruʾi was destroyed. In 1915, when Shaikh ʿAli-Akbar Qučāni was killed and the nineteen-year-old Mašiyat-Allāh tortured to death, local Bahais sent a formal protest to Aḥmad Shah Qajar (q.v., r. 1909-25), the Majles, government ministers, and the local governors (Foʾādi Bošruʾi, pp. 159-65). The continued persecution led to an exodus to Ashkabad and surrounding Russian-held territories from 1900 to the 1920s (Foʾādi Bošruʾi, p. 355).
After realizing that the government was reluctant to persecute Bahais, the clergy used indirect methods. They instigated a campaign of labeling Bahais as enemies of Islam, and accused them of political crimes and espionage, particularly during the Constitutional Revolution (q.v.). Later confiscation of properties and assets of Babis on spurious grounds was common (Foʾādi Bošruʾi, pp. 137-38).
Bahāʾ-Allāh allowed Bahai institutions to be established in Khorasan before other provinces in Iran. The first administrative body, Maḥfel-e Ruḥāni (q.v.), “Spiritual Assembly” of Khorasan was elected in Mashhad in 1905. It met five nights a week and regularly communicated with local Bahais. These meetings were first held in Bābiya until a permanent Bahai center was purchased in Sar Āb. In 1907, Percy Sykes (q.v.) reported that there were 200 Bahais in Mashhad (Momen, 1981, p. 418). By 1927, there were 30 local assemblies and 65 localities registered.
The Bahais of Khorasan made some notable contributions to the wider society. Many schools were established. In Mashhad, Moḥammad-ʿAli Toršizi, known as “Modir,” set up the first modern-style educational institution with 100 students in 1913. However, it was forced to close in 1914 when students were attacked by members of a neighboring theological college. Toršizi opened another school the following year called Hemmat, with student numbers reaching 400. It led to other schools opening in Torbat‑e Ḥaydariya, Toršiz, Darragaz (q.v.), Qučān and Marv. Despite having Bahai teachers, some of these were not formally Bahai schools but rather were based on a modern curriculum (Foʾādi Bošruʾi, pp. 140-41). Toward the end of Moẓaffar-al-Din Shah’s reign, Toršizi and two others purchased a printing press and from 1906-9 published two newspapers, Bešārāt (q.v.) and Ṭus in Mashhad (Foʾādi Bošruʾi, p. 141). In 1925, one of the leading Bahais of Mashhad, Mirzā ʿAli Khan Golkani brought out a Sāl-nāma-ye Bahāʾiān dar Ḵorāsān (“Yearbook of the Bahais of Khorasan”). It continued for three years and later changed into a magazine call Badiʿ (Foʾādi Bošruʾi, p. 218; Momen, 2015, pp. 144-45). Našriya Erż-e Ḵā was another magazine published locally until the 1970s.
During 1922-24, anti-Bahai activities increased, which coincided with the formation of the Ḥojjatiya (q.v.) in Mashhad, after Sayyed ʿAbbās ʿAlawi, a colleague of its founder, had converted to Bahaism. There was a range of persecutions, including insulting an effigy of ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ in Mashhad, widespread attacks on individuals, and a plan for a pogrom. Bahai petitions were refused by the postal office in Mashhad (Foʾādi Bošruʾi, pp. 189-90, 207).
During the reign of Reżā Shah Pahlavi (r. 1925-41), Bahai communities were treated in a similar way to other religious minorities (Vahman, p. 44). However, in 1934, branches of Tarbiat and other Bahai-run schools were closed by order of the government. During the reign of Moḥammad-Reżā Shah Pahlavi (r. 1941-79), Bahais enjoyed many religious freedoms but lacked some civil rights and the right to marry according to Bahai law. There was a brief period of persecution in 1955, following radio broadcasts by Ḥojjat-al Eslām Falsafi (Vahman, pp. 136-37).
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, conditions for Bahais in Khorasan, as in other parts of Iran, have worsened. Bahais’ civil rights have been restricted; their institutions disbanded; some Bahais dismissed from their employment; Bahai properties confiscated, looted, or burned; pensions for Bahais stopped; admission of Bahais to universities denied; and some Bahais have emigrated to other countries. There remains a Bahai community in most towns and cities of Khorasan, but the overall size and distribution is not known.
Minou Foadi
Bibliography

Abbas Amanat, Resurrection and Renewal: The Making of the Babi Movement in Iran, 1844-1850, Ithaca and London, 1989.

Mehrdad Amanat, “Messianic Expectation and Evolving Identities: The Conversion of Iranian Jews to the Baha’i Faith,” in Dominic P. Brookshaw and Seena B. Fazel, eds., The Baha’is of Iran: Socio-Historical Studies, London and New York, 2008, pp. 6-29.

Foruḡ Arbāb, Aḵtarān-e tābān, New Delhi, 1999.

Shaikh Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Āyati, Bahārestan, Tehran, 1948.

Hasan Balyuzi, Eminent Bahā’īs in the Time of Bahā’u’llāh: With Some Historical Background, Oxford, 1985.

Firuz Barāqi, Bošruya, n.p. [Spain], 2001.

ʿAbd-al-Ḥamid Ešrāq Ḵāvari, Moḥāżerāt II, Tehran, 1964; Hofheim-Langenhain, 1987.

Ḵānlar Ḵān Eʿteṣām-al-Molk, Safar-nāma, ed. Manučehr Maḥmudi, as Safar-nāmā-ye Mirzā Ḵānlar Ḵān Eʿteṣām-al-Molk, Tehran, 1972.

Ḥasan Foʾādi Bošruʾi, Tāriḵ-e diānat-e Bahāʾi dar Ḵorāsān, eds. Minu D. Foʾādi and Fereydun Vahman, Darmstadt, 2007.

Moojan Momen, ed., The Bábí and Bahá’í Religions, 1844-1944: Some Contemporary Western Accounts, Oxford, 1981.

Idem, The Baha’i Communities of Iran, 1851-1921 I: The North of Iran, Oxford, 2015. Fereydun Vahman, 175 Years of Persecution: A History of the Babis and Baha’is of Iran, London, 2019.

Siāmak Ḏabiḥi-Moqaddam, Wāqaʿa-ye Qalʿa-ye Šayḵ Ṭabarsi, Darmstadt, 2002.

Mollā Moḥammad Nabil Zarandi, Maṭāleʿ al-anwār: Tāriḵ-e Nabil Zarandi, ed. and tr. Shoghi Effendi, as The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl’s Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá’i Revelation, New York, 1932; repr. London, 1953.

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-- The Babi-Baha'i Community in Khorasan (Used by permission of the curator)