The Báb:

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“In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful”, the teacher asked Ali Muhammad to recite the first verse of the Qur’an. The 5-year old Ali Muhammad asked what the verse meant. This was unusual; that a child asked the meaning of a verse.

But Ali Muhammad was an unusual child.

The teacher pretended ignorance, and asked Ali Muhammad what he thought the verse meant. Ali Muhammad spoke with such fluency that the teacher was amazed, and he expounded the meanings of ‘God’, of ‘Compassionate’ and of ‘Merciful’ in ways the teacher had never heard or read. The pupil was also teaching a lesson to the teacher – that one must recite only that which one understands.

The year was 1825 A.D. The place, a language school in Shiraz, in Persia (now Iran). Ali Muhammad attended that school for about five years, after which he joined the family’s trading business. As a tradesman, he was known for his integrity and uprightness. For a person of the merchant class, Ali Muhammad was unusually pious and attentive to his religious duties. Yet, he had never received any formal religious education.

When he was 24 years old, he suddenly gave up his business in Bushihr, and moved back to Shiraz. He assumed the title ‘Báb’ (‘Gate’ in Arabic), and selectively started proclaiming that He was a Manifestation of God. When the first wave of believers accepted Him, He instructed them to travel throughout Persia, and to announce publicly – in mosques, bazaars, streets, everywhere – that the Promised One was manifested by God; to call everyone to follow His Cause; to not be dismayed by the moral degeneracy of the people for God would lead them to victory; to shower upon the people the blessings which God had conferred upon them; and to share with those who were receptive to their call His Writings that these may cause them to soar into divine realms, purge their hearts of worldly desires and exemplify the attributes of God by their words and their deeds.

Inspired by these instructions, ignited by the intense fire of their love for the Báb, and armed with the writings He had revealed, they scattered throughout Persia. Wherever they went, in a populace that was largely superstitious, cowardly and depraved, these early Bábis distinguished themselves by their genuine faith, profound knowledge and saintly purity. They were also fearless. For in a fanatical and cruel society, it was inevitable that anyone who stood up for truth and justice would be persecuted, and they were. They were ready for it, because they knew that suffering and sacrifice were essential for transmuting a degenerate, spiritless society into a virtuous, spiritual one. The Báb Himself had said, “I have come into this world to bear witness to the glory of sacrifice.”

Word spread throughout Persia that this young merchant had claimed to possess innate knowledge, and that in a span of two days He had revealed verses equal to the third of the Qur’an, and which possessed the same power and authority; and that He was effortlessly defeating Muslim scholars in debates on the most abstruse aspects of Islamic theology.

Very rapidly, the proclamations of the Bábis stirred all of Persian society. People who were disillusioned with the hypocrisy and depravity of the clergy and civil government, and with the blindness and fanaticism of the populace, recognized that in the ethical standards, the social principles and the religious teachings of the Báb lay hope and salvation. Many such, in tens of thousands, who could feel the fire His Divinity, became His followers. Many hundreds of thousands of others of the populace, gullible and easily swayed, looked upon Him as a holy figure, a miracle worker. Once His fame had spread, whichever city He visited, people lined up in streets to get a glimpse of Him and greet Him with shouts of the customary Islamic greeting, “Allah’u’Akbar!” (“God is Great!”).

As word spread, many priests, scholars and doctors of Islam came to meet Him. Some came to challenge Him with abstruse questions, some to deepen their own understanding of Islam, some out of reverence and awe. Whatever their motive, when they met the Báb, He would listen attentively and patiently to each of their questions. Sometimes the questioner would be too overwhelmed in His presence to even remember the question he had conceived, the Báb would then smile, and Himself state the question that was in the questioner’s mind. Then He would answer it.

He would take pen and paper and start writing. He would write with extreme rapidity and no premeditation, without stopping, sometimes for many hours, until He had finished the entire commentary or dissertation. As verses flowed from His pen, He would murmur them with gentle intonations. The effect on those present was mesmerizing. They would sit enraptured and astounded. The greatest doctors of Islam would spontaneously get up and reverently kiss the hem of His garment. Some of the most renowned and powerful scholars of Islam, on witnessing Him revealing verses, recognized His Divinity. Humbled, they renounced their positions and their wealth and became His followers. Many courted martyrdom.

The following is what the Báb wrote about His own manner of revelation:

And if anyone should reflect on the appearance of this Tree, he will undoubtedly testify to the loftiness of the Cause of God. For if one from whose life only twenty-four years have passed, and who is devoid of those sciences wherein all are learned, now reciteth verses after such fashion without thought or hesitation, writes a thousand verses of prayer in the course of five hours without pause of the pen, and produceth commentaries and learned treatises on such lofty themes as the true understanding of God and of the oneness of His Being, in a manner which doctors and philosophers confess surpasseth their power of understanding, then there is no doubt that all that hath been manifested is divinely inspired.

In those clergy and government officials who were arrogant and corrupt, the Báb evoked fear. For if He did indeed possess the supernatural powers ascribed to Him of innate knowledge, of causing miraculous events, of seeing into people’s souls, then surely He was able to see their morally corrupt ways, and it would be only a matter of time before He exposed them and their positions and power would be taken away from them. The only way out was to crush Him and His Faith, before He crushed them. For people whose capacity of perception is deadened by their greed for power, position, wealth and comforts, will have no compunction in crushing anyone that threatens their desires. The more deadened they are, the more harsh and inhuman their cruelties will be.

In mid-1846 A.D., the Báb was arrested in Shiraz by the order of the governor, who plotted to kill Him. But on the same day, there was an outbreak of cholera in the city and the governor himself fled the city. The Báb was released, and was asked to leave the city. After a few months, He was arrested again in Isfahan, and was sent first to the remote prison-fortress of Mah-Ku, on the north-western border of Persia, and after nine months to another even more remote prison-fortress in Chihriq, both in regions dominated by Sunni Kurds who were inimical to the mainstream Shi’ahs.

At Mah-Ku (1847-48 A.D.), the warden of the prison, Ali Khan, was initially extremely stern, and did not allow any disciples of the Báb to meet Him. The Báb caused him to see a vision, in which Ali Khan saw the Báb rapt in prayer by the river that ran along Mah-Ku village, while the Báb was actually inside the prison-fortress. The vision initially shook Ali Khan, but after a soothing conversation with the Báb, the vision convinced him of the Divinity of the Báb, and he then permitted everyone to come visit the Báb. At Chihriq, similarly, the warden Yahya Khan’s heart became so suffused with the Báb’s love that he put no restrictions on visitors, in spite of strict instructions from the Shah.

During these three years (1847-50 A.D.) of the Báb’s stay at the two prison-fortresses, four inter-related processes unravelled concomitantly.

In the relative tranquility of the prisons, the Báb revealed scriptures profusely. The variety of themes on which He revealed included prayers, scientific treatises, doctrinal works, exhortations, commentaries on the Qur’an, epistles to religious dignitaries, to the Shah and to other high government officials, laws and ordinances of His Faith, and, most significantly, tributes to “Him Whom God will make manifest” that referred to a Manifestation greater than Himself, Whose coming the Báb had come to announce.

The Báb’s dissertations were original, His style was vigorous, vivid and accurate to the minutest detail, and His words had the power and authority of God. In the following quote, referring to one of His writings, the Bayán, He asserts that for a questioning mind, the greatest proof of His Divinity was His writings:

Let Me set forth some rational arguments for thee. If someone desireth to embrace the Faith of Islám today, would the testimony of God prove conclusive for him? If thou dost contend that it would not, then how is it that God will chastise him after death, and that, while he lives, the verdict of “nonbeliever” is passed upon him? If thou affirmest that the testimony is conclusive, how wouldst thou prove this? If thy assertion is based on hearsay, then mere words are unacceptable as a binding testimony; but if thou deemest the Qur’an as the testimony, this would be a weighty and evident proof.

Now consider the Revelation of the Bayán. If the followers of the Qur’an had applied to themselves proofs similar to those which they advance for the nonbelievers in Islám, not a single soul would have remained deprived of the Truth, and on the Day of Resurrection everyone would have attained salvation.

Should a Christian contend, “How can I deem the Qur’an a testimony while I am unable to understand it?” such a contention would not be acceptable. Likewise the people of the Qur’an disdainfully observe, “We are unable to comprehend the eloquence of the verses in the Bayán, how can we regard it as a testimony?” Whoever uttereth such words, say unto him, “O thou untutored one! By what proof hast thou embraced the Religion of Islám? Is it the Prophet on whom thou hast never set eyes? Is it the miracles which thou hast never witnessed? If thou hast accepted Islám unwittingly, wherefore hast thou done so? But if thou hast embraced the Faith by recognizing the Qur’an as the testimony, because thou hast heard the learned and the faithful express their powerlessness before it, or if thou hast, upon hearing the divine verses and by virtue of thy spontaneous love for the True Word of God, responded in a spirit of utter humility and lowliness—a spirit which is one of the mightiest signs of true love and understanding—then such proofs have been and will ever be regarded as sound.”

He revealed at Mah-Ku the Persian Bayan (‘Exposition’) – the repository of the laws and precepts of the Bábi Faith, and the treasury of most of His references and tributes to “Him Whom God will make manifest”. The Bayan abrogated the laws and ceremonials mandated by the Qur’an regarding prayer, fasting, marriage, divorce and inheritance, and upheld the belief in the prophetic mission of Muhammad, even as Prophet Muhammad had annulled the ordinances of the Christian Bible and recognized the Divinity of Jesus Christ.

Once the Báb had revealed the Bayan, the next step was to communicate its contents and its implications to the entire Bábi community. Until that time, the Bábis had been devout followers of Muslim law, and had regarded the Báb as the promised One who would revive Islam from within. Therefore the promulgation of the Bayan was going to be a cataclysmic event; it was also destined and designed to lead to consequences that were at once eternally glorious and unbearably tragic.

The Báb had decided that the proclamation would be first made by convening a conference. So He arranged for Mirza Husayn Ali, an early and eminent Bábi who was in constant correspondence with Him, to organize a Conference at Badasht.

But before going to the Conference, we digress a little to introduce this most important person: Mirza Husayn Ali was born in 1817 A.D., in an extremely rich, aristocratic family. He had a brilliant, energetic and charismatic personality. He never received any religious education, but by the time he was 13-14 years old, he was defeating doctors of religion in religious discussions. He became a Bábi in mid-1844, very soon after the Báb had declared His mission, and became an eminent and leading Bábi. By his uncontrollable enthusiasm, his magical eloquence, his inexhaustible energy, his compassion for the poor, the genius of his arguments, the absoluteness of his faith, and the influence he enjoyed in society, he taught the Bábi Faith to a large number of people, high and low alike, particularly in his home province of Mazindaran. While the Báb was imprisoned in Mah-Ku and then Chihriq, it was Mirza Husayn Ali who, through his correspondence with the Báb and his intimate association with the leading disciples of the Bábi Faith throughout Persia, fostered its growth, elucidated its principles and reinforced its ethical foundations. All in all, it appeared as if he was a perfect human being, perhaps even super-human.

Mirza Husayn Ali organized and hosted the conference at Badasht, which was attended by eighty-one leading Bábis from across Persia. Given the historic gravity of the proclamation, in that it entailed a sudden and complete break from the laws and traditions of Islam, and the announcement of the Bábi Faith as the new, independent revelation from God with its own laws and teachings, the proclamation itself had to be dramatic, drastic, historic, graphic and powerful. The proclamation was made by the only woman participant at the conference – Tahirih.

In the ultraorthodox Shi’ah Muslim Persian culture of the mid-nineteenth century, where for a woman to appear without a veil in public was considered unacceptable, criminal and an indication of loose morality, Tahirih, the scion of one of the most elite Muslim ecclesiastical families of Persia, highly esteemed for her knowledge of Islamic theology and considered an emblem of chastity, appeared unveiled before the gathered men at the conference, and gave a powerful speech proclaiming the birth of a new religion. After the initial shock and indignation that divided the attendees into two camps – the traditional and the revolutionary, and led to heated debates and viciously opposing viewpoints, and after a few of the attendees left the conference in disillusionment, the inspiring words of Tahirih, the calming influence of Mirza Husayn Ali, and everyone’s faith in the divinity of the Báb, eventually convinced them of the necessity of a complete break from Islam. By the end of the conference, all those present had relinquished the laws and traditions of Islam and had accepted those of the Bayan.

During that same time period, the Báb was transferred from Mah-Ku to the even more remote prison-fortress of Chihriq to further cut Him off from the rest of the country. But a large number of people continued to visit Him there too. Many eminent scholars and government officials called upon Him and became His followers. His fame and influence kept increasing unabated. Alarmed by this, and to curb this tide, the Báb was ordered back to the city of Tabriz where a gathering of the most powerful ecclesiastical and civil dignitaries was convened to interrogate Him, to arraign Him, and to decide on how to completely uproot and destroy His Cause.

The Báb was ordered to appear before this gathering. He entered the gathering, a young man of 27 and outwardly a prisoner of the government. He went and occupied the place reserved for the heir to the throne of Persia. No one had the courage to reprimand Him! When the president of the assembly, the Nizamul-Ulama, asked Him, “Who do you claim to be?”, He gave His celebrated reply, which was to subsequently reverberate throughout Persia: “I am, I am, I am, the Promised One! I am the One whose name you have for a thousand years invoked, at whose mention you have risen, whose advent you have longed to witness, and the hour of whose Revelation you have prayed God to hasten. Verily I say, it is incumbent upon the peoples of both the East and the West to obey My word and to pledge allegiance to My person.”

The entire gathering was awestruck by the proclamation. After some frivolous remarks and superficial questions about grammar, the Báb rose disdainfully and left the assembly, with no one finding a voice to stop Him. The gathering did not produce any of the results intended by the clergy and government; on the contrary, it served quite the opposite purpose: It enabled the Báb to make an unqualified and formal declaration in the presence of the future Shah (king) of Persia, and the most eminent ecclesiastical dignitaries of Tabriz, that He was the promised One. By making this public declaration, the Báb initiated the next phase of the life of His Faith – a phase of abominable cruelties and killings.

Until that time, the Báb was largely seen as a holy figure with supernatural powers and an uncanny knowledge of Islamic theology. But the promulgation of the Persian Bayan, the Conference of Badasht, and the proclamation of the Báb in Tabriz, decisively established the Bábi Faith as a religion independent from Islam. This caused a stark polarization in Persian society. Those who had felt the fire of the Divinity of the Báb adhered to His Faith and laid down their lives for it. Those whose pride prevented them from experiencing the heat, rejected His Faith and became its persecutors.

By the proclamation in Tabriz, the Báb explicitly demanded that all – including the Shi’ah ecclesiastical order, the civil government, and all the way up to the king – submit to His authority. This was unacceptable to the latter, enamoured as they were with their power and wealth, and blind as they were to recognize the Báb’s Divinity. Thus began an active, nationwide campaign to destroy the Bábi community. At Shaykh Tabarsi in the north, then Nayriz in the south, and then Zanjan in the north-west where a large number of Bábis resided (200 to 3000), entire cavalry and infantry divisions were sent with explicit orders to destroy the entire communities of Bábis. From all historical accounts it is evident that there was nothing noble or truly religious in the motives underlying these orders. In each of the three places, these regiments initiated armed attacks on the Bábis. The Bábis never initiated an attack; they always reacted, in self-defence. They were all law-abiding, peace-loving citizens, but also indomitable and inflamed with the love of God. It is a mystery that future historians will have to solve as to how a band of Bábis, untrained in warfare of any kind and a large number of whom were of the clerical class, defended themselves successfully for months on end, and repulsed and defeated the attacks of trained infantry and cavalry divisions whose numbers were much larger than their own. Eventually, the government forces called for a truce, swearing by the Holy Qur’an, which the Bábis accepted as a mark of reverence for the Holy Book, while fully aware that they would be betrayed – which they were. All those who were then captured were mercilessly and cruelly massacred. They were blown from guns, plunged into ice-cold water and lashed severely, their skulls were soaked in boiling oil, and they were left to perish in the winter snow.

In spite of these massacres, or perhaps because of the heroism of the Bábis during these struggles, the number of people accepting the Faith of the Báb kept increasing. The Prime Minister then saw no option but to execute the Báb Himself.

On July 9, 1850 A.D., before a jeering, fanatical and incredulous crowd of ten thousand people, the Báb was executed by a firing squad of 750 soldiers in Tabriz. The Báb had prophesied His own death, and presumably this was all part of a Divine Plan created a long time ago. His body having been executed, He went back to the heavenly realms He had come from. The persecutions of the Bábis continued. In mid-1852 A.D., two crazed and frustrated Bábis made a foolishly planned and futile attempt on the life of the Shah. The Shah escaped without harm, but this triggered a renewed nationwide holocaust on the Bábi community. In the end, some 20,000 Bábis had been willingly martyred, and many tens of thousands more had accepted to be looted, shamed and permanently ostracized.

An Austrian officer, Captain Von Goumoens, stationed in Tihran at that time, witnessed first-hand some of the atrocities committed on the Bábis, and described them in a letter which was published in the ‘Soldatenfreund’, “Follow me, my friend, you who lay claim to a heart and European ethics, follow me to the unhappy ones who, with gouged-out eyes, must eat… their own amputated ears; or whose teeth are torn out with inhuman violence by the hand of the executioner; or whose bare skulls are simply crushed by blows from a hammer; or where the bazaar is illuminated with unhappy victims, because on right and left the people dig deep holes in their breasts and shoulders, and insert burning wicks in the wounds... Not seldom it happens that the unwearying ingenuity of the Oriental leads to fresh tortures. They will skin the soles of the Bábí’s feet, soak the wounds in boiling oil, shoe the foot like the hoof of a horse, and compel the victim to run. No cry escaped from the victim’s breast … the body cannot endure what the soul has endured; he falls… They hang the scorched and perforated bodies by their hands and feet to a tree head downwards, and now every Persian may try his marksmanship to his heart’s content from a fixed but not too proximate distance on the noble quarry placed at his disposal. I saw corpses torn by nearly one hundred and fifty bullets.” A man as far-famed as Renan, in his “Les Apôtres” characterized the hideous butchery perpetrated in a single day, as “a day perhaps unparalleled in the history of the world!”

All the prominent leaders of the Faith – clergymen, scholars, merchants – had been killed. Only one remained – Mirza Husayn Ali. The remnant of the Bábi community was left dispirited and practically extinguished.

What then was the purpose of the Báb’s coming and of His short-lived Faith?

The Bábi Faith permanently weakened the centuries-old hold of the corrupt and faithless Shi’ah ecclesiastical order on the people of Persia. The revealed Scriptures of the Báb, which in volume exceed, many times over, the sum total of all Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Christian and Muslim Scriptures, are, like these latter, a repository of spiritual knowledge for all humanity.

The Báb kindled such a fire of genuine faith in more than a hundred thousand believers – which included great scholars, priests and statesmen – that they became examples, for all posterity, of uncompromising adherence to the path of Truth even in the face of unimaginable cruelties, persecutions and death. And their willing sacrifices of their wealth, honour, family and life became, in mystical and rationally inscrutable ways, the seeds that are to germinate and result in the establishment of the reign of peace and justice on earth.

Most importantly, the story of the Faith did not end in 1852 A.D. This was only the first chapter of an incredibly long Story. As we saw earlier, the Báb had made mention a large number of times in His Persian Bayan of “Him whom God will make manifest”. He had written, “Be attentive from the inception of the Revelation till the number of Váhid (19)”, meaning 19 years after His own declaration, another Manifestation of God will come who will establish a new Faith that will, in due course, be the cause of the establishment of the unity of all humankind. In a particularly significant quote in the Persian Bayan, He had written, “Well is it with him who fixeth his gaze upon the Order of Bahá’u’lláh, and rendereth thanks unto his Lord. For He will assuredly be made manifest.”

In 1863 A.D., 19 years after the declaration of the Báb, Mirza Husayn Ali, whom we have encountered earlier, declared that he was the Manifestation of God heralded by the Báb. He assumed the title Baha’u’llah, and established the Baha’i Faith, which ever since its inception has been spreading rapidly throughout the world with its message of enduring peace and unity, of the oneness of God, of all religions, and of humankind.

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