An historical analysis of critical transformations

PART II
THE ORIGIN AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE BAHA’I

WORLD FAITH
CHAPTER III

THE BAB AND THE ABROGATION OF THE

QUR’ANIC DISPENSATION
Baha’is date the beginning of their faith from the Bab’s

declaration of his mission on May 22, 1844. The exact moment of that

declaration is preserved as two hours end eleven minutes after sunset

on the fifth day of Jamadiyu’l-Avval in the year A.H. 1260.1 To Baha’is,

this date, indeed the very hour, is of inestimable importance, for, as

Shoghi Effendi expresses it, “with this historic Declaration the dawn of

an Age that signalizes the consummation of all ages had broken,”2 marking

“the opening of the most glorious epoch in the greatest cycle which the

spiritual history of mankind has yet witnessed.”3 According to Nabil,

the Bab declared: “This night, this very hour will in the days to come

be celebrated as one of the greatest and most significant of all festi-

vals.”4
But to understand the significance of this declaration, the

excitement it aroused, and the context in which it was made requires a

lock at the religious background of the Babi-Baha’i movement.

THE RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND OF THE BAHA’I FAITH
Baha’is sometimes insist that their faith is not and has

never been a sect or offshoot of Islam or any other religion. John

Ferraby, for example, maintains that although the Babi and Baha’i faiths
originated in a Muslim country,
they constitute independent religions stemming neither from the

Muslim teachers of religion nor from the Prophet Muhammad himself,

but from God. They have no more and no less in common with the

teachings of Muhammad than with those of Jesus, or Moses, or any

other Founder of a great religion. They come from the same family

as all, they repeat the basic truths revealed by all, but they do

not belong to any one religion more than to anther; they are

independent.5

That the Baha’i faith is now an independent religion may be readily

acknowledged, but that it stemmed from no parent faith to which it is

more closely related than to other religions can hardly be maintained

in the light of historical facts.

Even if Ferraby’s contention that the Baha’i religion is “from

God” were granted, this would not necessarily mean that the religion had

no birth historically from another religion or that it arose in isolation

from a particular historical and religious milieu.

That the religion did in fact grow out of the parent religion

of Islam is confirmed by no less a Baha’i authority than Shoghi Effendi,

whose writings Baha’is believe are essentially infallible. Shoghi Effendi

speaks of the Baha’i faith as having “sprung from Shi‘ih Islam,”6 and

refers to Shi‘ih Islam as “its parent religion.”7 Shoghi Effendi else-

where charges those participating in their faith’s teaching campaign

throughout America and Canada to “strive to obtain, from sources that

are authoritative and unbiased, a sound knowledge of the history and

tenets of Islam—the source and background of their faith.”8 If the

Baha’i faith is no more closely related to Islam than to any other

religion and if it does not share more common features with it than

with other faiths, then Shoghi Effendi’s charge to study in particular

the history and tenets of Islam would be without meaning. In the Foreword

to his God Passes By, Shoghi Effendi traces in one sentence the religious

pedigree of the Baha’i faith when he speaks of “these momentous happen-

ings” which “transformed a heterodox and seemingly negligible offshoot

of the Shaykhi school of the Ithna-‘Ashariyyih sect of Shi‘ah Islam into

a world religion.”9 In this one sentence, Shoghi Effendi traces the

Baha’i faith from its parent religion Islam through the Shi‘ah (or Shi‘ih)

form of Islam (as against the Sunni form), through the Ithna-‘Ashariyyih

division of Shi‘ah Islam (the “Twelver Sect” as against the Seveners”

and other divisions of Shi‘ites), through the Shaykhi school (one of the

schools or divisions of the “Twelver Sect”), and through a “heterodox …

offshoot of the Shaykhi school” (the Babi religion).

The Islamic Background of the Baha’i Faith
The Baha’i faith, springing from Islam, bears various recog-

nisable traces of its parent religion. The five basic Muslim doctrines

are belief in God, his angels, his prophets, the Scriptures, and the last

day, The doctrine of angels has little place in Baha’i thought, the

manifestations or prophets as the intermediaries of God having largely

removed their need, and the last day is given allegorical interpretations,

but the other three doctrines have indelibly stamped themselves in Baha’i

theology, with some distinctive modifications, so that the Baha’i teachings

on these three doctrines cannot adequately be understood without a know-

ledge of the Muslin background.

The Doctrine of God
The Muslim doctrine of God underscores God’s absolute unity

or singleness and his utter transcendence. Islam is radically monotheistic.

God is one; one in essence, having no peer nor second; one in attributes,

utterly insusceptible to division into parts. The greatest of all sins is

shirk (“association”), the giving to anyone or anything a share in God’s

sovereignty. The essential and absolute difference between Creator and

creature is unquestionably maintained. Islam, therefore, rejects not

only polytheism, idolatry, and all forms of nature worship but Christian

Trinitarianism as well, believing the concept of the Trinity to be a basic

infringement on God’s absolute unity.

The Baha’i faith is heir to this strong monotheistic emphasis

in Islam. Throughout Baha’u’llah’s writings references are made to the

“one true God.”10 “No God is there save Thee,” Baha’u’llah declares, “the

Ever-Forgiving, the Most Generous.”11 “No God is there but Thee, the Most

Powerful, the Most Exalted, the Help in Peril, the Most Great, the One

Being, the Incomparable, the All-Glorious, the Unrestrained.”12 This

unrelenting emphasis on God’s unity, his incomparability, and his sove-

reign power is the direct contribution of Islam to the Baha’i faith.

The Prophets of God
Since God in his utter transcendence is beyond the comprehen-

sion of man, knowledge of God and of his laws, according to both Islam

and the Baha’i faith, must be communicated to man by revelation. In

Islam, this communication with man is made possible by a series of human

messengers, or prophets, to whom God makes known his will. The Qur’an,

the sacred book of Islam, declares emphatically: “There is not a people

but a warner has gone among them” (Qur’an XXXV:24; I:47). The exact

number of these prophets of God is not known, but they extend into the

hundreds of thousands. Less than thirty are called by name in the

Qur’an. The six greatest—Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, ‘Isa (Jesus),

and Muhammad—brought new dispensations.12
Baha’is continue the Muslim belief that God has sent his

prophets among the various peoples of the world through the ages, but

they depart from traditional Muslim belief about the prophets on at

least three points: (1) whereas Muslims believe that God’s progressive

revelation ended with Muhammad, the last or “Seal of the Prophets,”

Baha’is believe that the stream of revelation continues through Muhammad

to the more recent prophets of the Bab and Baha’u’llah and will be con-

tinued in other prophets in the future; (2) modern Baha’is add to the

list of prophets Zoroaster and the Buddha; (3) whereas in Muslim thought

the prophets are merely human instruments chosen by God according to his

own inscrutable will, Baha’is allow for a certain sense in which the

Prophets, or “Manifestations,” as they also call them, may be spoken of

as divine, inasmuch as they “mirror” God to men and reveal his will. The

sharp Muslim distinction between God and his creatures is maintained in

Baha’i thought, for the manifestations are not incarnations of God’s

essence, yet to know them is to know God and to submit to them is to

submit to God, for they represent God among men.
The Doctrine of Scripture
Muslims believe that each of the major prophets brought a

book of his words, containing the laws for his dispensation. Thus,

Moses’ book was the Taurat, or Torah, the law; Jesus left the Injil,

or Gospel, the original of which is lost, but the teachings of which

remain, though not in pure form in the four Christian gospels. The

Qur’an charges Christians with altering the texts of their scripture

(II:75-78). Muhammad left the Qur’an, regarded by Muslims as the

climactic and perfect revelation. Muslims believe the Qur’an is the

only scripture with a pure text. It is word for word as it was given

to Muhammad, and the word “say” at the beginning of his revelations

indicates that he is merely reporting what he was told to say. The Qur’an

is regarded as the one outstanding miracle which proves the validity of

its contents. The challenge is put forward to any who doubt its divine

nature to produce any other book that can compare with it (Qur’an II:23).

The Qur’an’s conclusion is: “If men and jinn should combine together to

produce the like of this Qur’an, they could not produce the like of it” (XVII 88).

Baha’is follow in this tradition, holding that each prophet

of the past revealed a book of law for his dispensation. The Bab added

his Bayan and Baha’u’llah his Kitab-i-Aqdas. The same claim is advanced

that the verses themselves are their own verification. The Bab, especially,

appealed to his “verses” as the one irrefutable proof of his mission, the

‘idea being that no mere human being could produce words of such compelling

power and beauty, that such words would have to flow from a divine source

using the human agent as a mere channel or instrument for their outpouring.

The Babis and Baha’is also looked upon the speed of composition and the

quantity of output of the verses as further signs of their divine charac-

ter. Various converts to the Bab—as Siyyid Yahya-i-Darabi (Vahid)13 and

the Imam-Jum‘ih—became convinced of the Bab’s mission by his speed of

producing verses.14
The stamp of the Islamic background on the Baha’i faith is

never more clearly seen than in Shoghi Effendi’s appraisal of the Qur’an

as being “apart from the sacred scriptures of the Babi and Baha’i Reve-

lation … the only Book which can be regarded as an absolutely

authenticated Repository of the Word of God.”15
The Shi‘ah Islamic Background of the Baha’i Faith
The Baha’i faith, however, is a product not simply of Islam

but of the Shi‘ah form of Islam, which is predominant in Persia. In his

Introduction to The Dawn-Breakers, Shoghi Effendi speaks of “the shi‘ahs

out of whose doctrines the Babi Movement rose.”16

When Shoghi Effendi refers to “the illegitimacy of the institu-

tion at the Caliphate, the founders of which had usurped the authority of

the lawful successors of the Apostle of God,”17 he is expressing a judg-

ment and joining sides with Shi‘ah Islam in a contention which split

Islam into two rival factions after the death of Muhammad, the founder of

Islam. That God sent his succeeding revelation through the Bab, who was

himself a descendant of the Imams of Shi‘ah Islam, is to Shoghi Effendi

the evident demonstration of the error of Sunni Islam, which in refusing

to recognize Muhammad’s rightful successors produced such & grievous

schism in Islam from the very beginning.18

The issue which divides Islam into the Sunnis and the Shi‘ahs

pertains to Muhammad’s successor. Muhammad had no son, and so, according

to the Shi‘ahs, appointed as his successor his cousin, ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib,

who was also his son-in-law by marriage to Fatimih (or Fatima), Muhammad’s

daughter. The Shi‘ahs believe that ‘Ali’s rightful place was usurped in
turn by Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, and ‘Uthman—the first three Caliphs (or rulers)

in Islam after Muhammad. ‘Ali was finally elected Caliph after ‘Uthman

but was assassinated after a short and troubled reign of five years.

‘Ali’s eldest son, al-Hasan, regarded by the Shi‘ahs as the second right-

ful successor to Muhammad (the second “Imam”), abdicated his reign five

or six years after his father’s death to the contender for leadership,

Umayyad Mu‘awiya, The third Imam, al-Husayn, the younger brother of

al-Hasan, tried unsuccessfully to regain the leadership and perished in

October 10, 680 A.D., a day celebrated with weeping in Shi‘ah communities,

especially in Persia. None of the remaining Imams ever regained the

leadership, although they were highly revered among the Shi‘ahs.
Unlike the Caliph, whose authority was given to him by the

consent of the Muslim community and who needed not be a descendant of

Muhammad, the Imam was a descendant of Muhammad, each one appointed by

his predecessor.19

According to the Shi‘as, they have had virtues and attributes

which have been superior to those of anyone in their times they

were endowed with greatness and the ability is perform miracles;

they were infallible and innocent; each one was introduced by

the previous Imam as his immediate successor.20
The Imam, in other words, functioned for the Shi‘ahs much as the prophet

Muhammad did in his day; he was the divinely appointed voice of God to

whom all the Shi‘ahs looked for infallible direction. This infallible

guidance was guaranteed because each Imam was appointed to his position

by the divinely guided Imam who preceded him, and the line went all the

way back to the Prophet Muhammad himself, who had appointed ‘Ali as the

first Imam.
The Shi‘ahs, moreover, rejected entirely the principle or

doctrine of ijma (“Consensus of the Community”), whereby Traditions

could be established, holding to the contrary that only the Imams

could rightly decide on questions of Muslim Law.21

The Ithna-Mashariyyih Sect of Shi‘ah Islam
With the passage of time, Shi’ites divided into various groups

over the number and identification of the Imams.

The Zaidites
The Zaidi sect considers Zaid as the fifth Imam rather than

Muhammad al-Baqir and through him trace a line of Imams which continues

to the present. The Zaidis believe that the fourth Imam forfeited the

imamate for failing to fight against the Umayyads. They more closely

approximate the Sunnite position than other Shi‘ite sects and have main-

tained a dynasty in Yemen (South Arabia) since the ninth century.22

The Isma‘ilis
The Isma‘ilis acknowledge seven Imams, holding that the seventh

and last was Isma‘il, brother of Musa al-Kazim, whom the Ithna-‘Asha-

riyyah sect regards as the seventh Imam. Isma‘il was the first son of

Ja‘far-i-Sadiq, the sixth Imam, and was designated by his father as the

next Imam, but the Ithna-‘Ashariyyih sect (the “Twelvers”) believes that

he disqualified himself as Imam when he was charged with drunkenness.

The Isma‘ilis refuse to believe the accusation, holding that since he

was the Imam-designate, he was already infallible and sinless and could

not have been guilty of drunkenness. The Isma‘ilis were excited further

by the report that Isma‘il had died (760 A.D.) five years before his

father (765 A.D.), and therefore could not have been Imam in succession

to his father. The doctrine developed among the Isma‘ilis that Isma‘il

was not dead, but only hidden, and that he would return one day as the

Mihdi. Some Isma‘ilis admitted that he had died but said that he had

left a son, Muhammad ibn-.Isma‘il, who “disappeared” in India, and he

would return as Mihdi. The concept of a “hidden Imam” who would reveal

himself one day as the Mihdi, or Qa’im (“he who ariseth”), was later

employed usefully by the Twelvers Sect.
The Ja‘faris
The most important of the Shiite sects is the Ithna-‘Ashariyyt

sect, or the Ja‘faris, named after the sixth Imam, Ja‘far-i-Sadiq, who

provided the basis of much of the Shi‘ah law. This is the sect ‘Abdu’l-

Baha refers to in the Traveller’s Narrative as “the Church of Ja‘far.”24

The Ja‘faris are characterized by their belief in twelve Imams,

beginning with ‘Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law, and ending with Muhammad

al-Muntazar. The twelfth Imam mysteriously disappeared shortly after

his father’s death in 874 A.D. (260 A.H.). Refusing to believe that the

divinely instituted line of Imams had come to a close (the twelfth Imam

having left no issue, being himself only about five years old), the

Twelvers maintain that the twelfth Imam “disappeared” or “withdrew” into

“concealment” (in the cave of the great mosque at Samarra) from whence,

at the appointed time, he will emerge as the Mihdi and will usher in a

period of justice in all the earth prior to the end of the world and

the last judgment.25
A development important to the study of the Babi-Baha’i

movement occurred with the disappearance of the twelfth Imam in 260 A.H.

Unwilling to believe that God’s guidance through the appointed Imams

bad come to an end with the disappearance of the twelfth Imam, the

Ja‘faris believed that the twelfth Imam still continued to communicate

his word to his followers through an agent known as a bab, meaning a

“gate” or “door” and indicating that the way of communication between

the Imam and his followers was still open. The first bab was appointed

by the eleventh Imam as the regent or guardian of his son, the twelfth

Imam. Three other babs followed in succession, each being appointed by

his predecessor. The fourth bab, however, refused to appoint a successor,

saying that the matter was now in the hands of God, and thus introduced

a period of silence known as the “Major Occultation,” when there is no

bab to a communicate the twelfth Imam’s message to his followers.26
The Shaykhi School of Shi‘ah Islam
The two outstanding figures of the original Shaykhi school are

Shaykh Ahmad-i-Ahsa’i (d. A.H. 1242 = A.D. 1826-1827), the founder, and

his disciple, Siyyid Kazim-i-Rashti (d. A.H. 1259 = A.D. 1843-1844), who

had attained such eminence that upon the death of the former he was

unanimously recognized as the new leader of the Shaykhi school
The Shaykhis are distinguished from other Shi‘ites in that

they reduced the Shi‘ah’s five “Supports,” or essential principles of

religion, to only three and added to these a “Fourth Support” not included

in the original five. As explained to Edward G. Browne by Mulla

Ghulam Husayn, a Shaykhi doctor of Kirman with whom be conversed

in June, 1888, the five “Supports” of Shi‘ah Islam are (1) belief in

the unity of God; (2) belief in the justice of God; (3) belief in
prophethood; (4) belief in the Imamate; (5) and belief in the resurrec-

tion. But the Shaykhis believed that principles two and five are included

in number three, for if one believes in the prophet he believes in his

“book” which sets forth belief in the apostles of God, as well as the

mercy, wisdom, power and other attributes of God, and belief in the resur-

rection. To the remaining three principles, the Shaykhis added a “Fourth

Support,” namely, that there must always be among the Shi‘ahs a “Perfect

Shi‘ite” to serve as “a channel of grace”‘ between the absent twelfth Imam

and his followers. Since four supports are necessary for stability, more

than these are unnecessary 27

The “Fourth Support” which as explained above is a principle or

doctrine, became a tern far the “Perfect Shi‘ite,” at least outside of

the Shaykhs circle among the Babis and other Shi‘ites.28 ‘Abdu’l-Baha in

the Traveller’s Narrative refers to “some divines of the Sheykhi party”

who were “ever seeking for some great, incomparable, and trustworthy

person” whom they called the “Fourth Support.”29

Before Siyyid Kazim died, according is the author of the New

History, he began to speak of his approaching death and of “the Truth”

that should appear after his pasing.30 When he died, his disciples

scattered in search of the expected one who would be the “channel

of grace” between the hidden Imam and his people. For some of the

Shaykhis, this search ended when ‘Ali Muhammad declared in 1844 that

he was the Bab, ‘the Gate of the hidden Imam.”31 A considerable number

of Shaykhis, however, refused to accept ‘Ali Muhammad’s claims, following

Instead Haji Muhammad Karim Khan of Kirman, and became the Babis bitterest

opponents. Several Shaykhis were among those who heaped insults on

the Bab at his first .examination in Tabriz and who ratified his death-

warrant two years later. The Bab stigmatized Karim Khan as “the Quin-

tessence of Hell-fire,” and the latter wrote at least two treatises,

one entitled “The Crushing of Falsehood,” denouncing the Babi doctrines.

Edward G. Browne testifies to the “bitter enmity” existing between the

Shaykhis and the Babis which he observed during the two months he spent

at Kirman in the summer of 1888.32 The conflict between the Bab and

Karim Khan is only a foreshadowing of conflict to follow in Babi-Baha’i

history. The future, however, belonged not to Karim Khan’s followers

but to the Babis who centered around ‘Ali-Muhammad.
‘ALI-MUHAMMAD, THE BAB
Siyyid ‘Ali Muhammad, who later assumed the title of the “Bab,”

was born in Shiraz, Persia, on the first of Muharram, in the year—accord-

ing to ‘Abdu’l-Baha in the Traveller’s Narrative—A.H. 1235,33 which would

be October 20, 1819. He was a Siyyid, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.

His father, a merchant in Shiraz, died when ‘Ali Muhammad was quite young,

and he was placed in the care of his maternal uncle, Haji Siyyid ‘Ali.

The Bab’s Education
One question arising from the Bab’s early years is whether or

not he received a formal education. ‘Abdu’l-Baha says:

It was universally admitted by the Shiites that he had never

studied in any school, and had not acquired knowledge from any

teacher, all the people of Shiraz bear witness to this. Never-

theless, he suddenly appeared before the people, endowed with

the most complete erudition.34
The Bab, himself, however, refers in the Bayan to “Muhammad” his “teacher,”