Bab: Persian Bayan

About the Author

Siyyid ’Ali Muhammad Shirazi is known today primarily as “the Bab,” which means “gate“ in Arabic. The Bab is revered by Baha’is as a “manifestation of God”; that is, his person and writings share the same significance of the founders of the great world religions—Jesus, Muhammad, and others—but his writings are also rejected in favor of the superiority of Baha’i scriptures. While there have been several “manifestations of God,” the one whom the Bab names “Him Whom God shall make manifest“ is understood to be a manifestation of God with the authority to supersede all other manifestations.

The Bab was born Siyyid ’Ali Muhammad Shirazi on October 20, 1819, to a middle-class family of prominent merchants in the Persian city of Shiraz; his father died young, and the Bab was taken in by his uncle. The Bab claimed that through both sides of his parents he was a descendant of Muhammad through the lineage of Husayn ibn ’Ali ibn Abi Talib (626–680), an important figure in Shia Islam. It is said that at an early age he rejected the merchant trade of his family in favor of the study of religion.

Sometime around 1839 and 1840, the Bab went on a pilgrimage that took him to Iraq and the holy city of Karbala. There he is believed to have met with the Shaykhi leader Sayyid Kazim, who urged his followers to seek out the Mahdi. One of those followers was Mulla Husayn, who traveled to Shiraz, where he met the Bab. A pivotal event took place on May 22, 1844, when Husayn invited the Bab to his home and revealed that he was searching for a successor to Kazim, who had died in December 1843. It was at this meeting that the Bab proclaimed himself to be Kazim’s successor, a claim that he made public in September of the following year. Kazim believed him and become his earliest follower. In the years that followed, the Bab proclaimed himself a “hidden“ imam, a forefunner to the final and most important teacher, who would be coming to restore Islam.

The Bab, however, became a threat to orthodox Islamic clergy. Accordingly, the governor of Shiraz ordered his arrest in 1845. After a cholera epidemic broke out in the city in 1846, he was released, but as his popularity grew, he was again arrested in January 1847. In an ironic reversal, he was popular among prison authorities and was treated well. During his time in the prison fortress at Maku in Iran, he wrote the Persian Bayan. Meanwhile, in the summer of 1847 early Babis, including Baha’u’llah, held the Conference of Badasht to debate the Bab’s teachings and the context of Babism within Islam. Because of his growing popularity, the Bab was put on trial for blasphemy, and during his trial he stated unequivocally that he was the Mahdi. In 1850, Amir Kabir (1807–1852), the premier of Iran, ordered that the Bab be executed. On July 9, 1850, a firing squad proceeded with the execution order, but both the Bab and another follower (who had begged to be executed with him) were unharmed by the firing squad’s bullets, and the Bab appeared to have miraculously escaped. When the smoke cleared, the Bab was discovered in hiding in the prison compound. He and his follower were tried again, and the second firing squad killed them both.