The Bab - Life and Writings

^{1  See Lambden, 1986b where it is argued that the Bābī‑ Bahā'ī accounts of the Bāb's first day at school are rooted in Christian apocryphal elaborations of the alpha‑beta logion as indirectly transmitted and elaborated in Islāmic literatures.}

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 For the edification of his first disciples and in proof of his claims, the Bāb wrote a lengthy commentary on the Qur'ānic sūrat Yūsuf (Q.12). This Arabic work, completed in the summer of 1844 and best known as the Qayyūm al‑asmā' (= QA lit. `Self‑Subsustence of the [divine] Names’)  formed the main basis of the earliest Bābī preaching. It came to be known (not without justification) as the `Bābī Qur'ān' ‑‑  being, in large measure, a kind of rearranged, rewritten semi‑expository Qur'ān at times focussing on an  esoteric‑qabbalistic, imamological, quasi‑messianic exposition of the twelfth sūra of the Q.  It purports to be a revelation "sent down" from the hidden Imām upon his servant the Bāb. Therein its author refers to himself as one who is at once in communication or identical with the dhikr Allāh ("remembrance of God", hidden, messianic imām ) and  khātim al‑abwāb (`seal of the gates’ cf. the `four gates’ of the lesser occultation) and one who (among other things) may be moved to utter the Sinaitic declaration of divinity ("Verily, I am God, no God is there besides me", see QA I. III. XXII, etc., see Lawson, 1988, Lambden 1988a).¹

            Having, by August 1844,  it seems,  completed his Qayyūm al‑asmā'  and attracted to himself a number of zealous disciples, the Bāb instructed several of them to travel to various parts of Iran and Iraq and to make known, albeit in a guarded and cautious manner, something of the nature and implications of his claims. Mullā Ḥusayn and other Shaykhī converts became active Bābī missionaries and succeeded in attracting, in a remarkably short space of time, large numbers of Shaykhīs and others to the emergent Bābī movement (see Zarandī, DB:67ff; Balyuzi, 1973:67ff; Amanat, 1989:211ff; Momen, 1982) 

            Accompanied, among others, by his youthful early disciple Muhammad `Alī entitled Quddūs (`the Most Sanctified’), the Bāb himself left Shīrāz on Sept. 9th 1844 (26th Sha`bān 1260) on a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. Here he intended, in accordance with Islamic eschatological expectations, to directly or indirectly make something of his claims known or to (more likely) announce the imminent advent of the messianic Qā'im ‑‑ who, according to certain  ḥadīth  resided (at times) incognito in Mecca.² He promised his followers that after his pilgrimage he would meet them in Karbalā where preparations should be made for the advent of the Qā'im (Māzandarānī, ZH. 3:325; MacEoin, 1982:23f).The Bāb did subsequently travel to Karbalā after his pilgrimage but informed the Bābīs that he, in accordance with a divine wisdom, had altered his plans. This caused a number of his devotees to turn away from him (cf. Qaṭīl ibn al‑Karbala'ī, Risāla in ZH 3:503f). While it seems probable that the Bāb considered himself the Qā'im at this time, subsequent events prevented him from explicitly claiming this until his imprisonment in Ādhirbayjān (1848>).

 During the course of his pilgrimage the Bāb wrote several important works and a large number of epistles, several of which are listed in his Kitāb al‑fihrist. 1 Foremost among the writings of this period is the Ṣaḥīfa bayn al‑ḥaramayn (`Epistle between the two Shrines’; Muḥarram 1261/ mid‑January 1845) which was in part composed in reply to questions posed by Mīrzā Muhammad Ḥusayn, Muḥīṭ‑ i Kirmānī (a prominent Shaykhī) ‑‑ to whom the Bāb had announced  certain claims near theḥajar al‑aswad   (black stone)  in the Ka`ba on the 15th of  Dhu'l‑Ḥijja 1260 (December 25th 1844).²  In this work the Bāb refers to himself as the dhikr Allāh (remembrance of God) and the fatā al‑`arabī (Arabian youth) as well as the  kalimat al‑`amā'ayn (`doubly beclouded Word’) and "the khaṭṭ al‑qā'im (`upright trace’) between the worlds subject at all times to inspiration from the spirit" (al‑rūḥ) (Ḥaramayn, F7 (9):fol6f). Apart from discussions of such subjects as the paths of the stars and the science of talismans the Ṣāḥifa bayn al‑ḥaramayn  contains a fair amount of material illustrative of the Bā b's marked interest in `ilm al‑fiqh (`jurisprudence’). Throughout his ministry the Bāb set forth in great detail sometimes novel regulations to be observed by the (ultra‑) pious adherent of what, by 1848 had evolved into the revolutionary new Bābī shari`a.

            It was on May 15th 1845 (8th Jumadī 1 1261) that the Bāb, having performed the pilgrimage and written a considerable amount, arrived back in Bushire (Khuṭba al‑Jidda  INBAMC 91:60f). He sent Quddūs (his fellow pilgrim and disciple) ahead to Shīrāz with a copy of his recently composed Khasā`il‑i sab`a.  In accordance with one of its daring precepts Mullā Sādiq Khurasānī (a leading Bābī) publicly uttered the new Bābī addition to the Shī`ī adhān  (Call ro prayer) formula. It apparently stated, "I bear witness that `Alī before Nabīl [= `Alī Muhammad = the Bāb] is the servant (`abd)  of the baqiyyat Allāh ("the Remnant of God", occulted the 12th Imām)" ‑‑ in the `new mosque ’  in Shīrāz (see Ishrāq Khāvarī, Muḥarḍirāt  :785; Zarandī, DB:100f; MacEoin, 1992:61f). Partly as a result of the tumult caused by this innovatory act and the presence in Shīrāz of a growing band of inquisitive Shaykhīs and zealous Bābī missionaries, Mīrzā Ḥusayn Khān the governor of Fars punished and expelled several leading Bābīs (including Quddūs and Mullā S ādiq). The Bāb was arrested whilst en route to Shīrāz (from Būshire) in early July 1845 (Zarandī, ibid). 

 When, under official escort, the Bāb himself arrived back in Shīrāz ‑‑ having been absent from the scene of his earliest claims for practically 10 months ‑‑ he was interrogated by Ḥusayn Khān, rebuked by leading Shī'ī divines, and placed under house arrest. He was subsequently compelled, in an attempt to calm the fanatical orthodoxy of sections of the Shīrāzī population, to address a Friday gathering at the Vakīl mosque in Shīrāz. As was desired, he diffused tensions by outwardly affirming his strict Shī'ī orthodoxy and denying his claim to be the representative (nā'ib) or gate (bāb) of the hidden Imām. Certain fanatical divines however, remained (understandably in the light of the Bāb's writings) unconvinced of the Bāb's orthodoxy and unsuccessfully pressed for his execution. ¹

 Despite the Bāb's house arrest and apparently thoroughgoing recantation of his claims the Bābī community continued to grow very rapidly. Knowledge of the young Siyyid's writings, claims and identity had, by mid‑1845, already become a matter of considerable excitement and concern in various parts of Iran and Iraq.² During, it seems, most of the period of his confinement in Shīrāz (July 1845 ‑ September 1846), the Bāb continued to write important works and to correspond with his increasingly far‑flung and rapidly growing band of enthusiastic supporters. In particular he continued, often in an abstruse style, and utilizing an  inner sometimes qabbalistic type hermeneutic, to comment on Qur'ānic sūras and verses and on a number of Shī'ī traditionsstatements attributed to the Twelver Imams.  One of the commentaries on Qur'ānic sūras dating from this period, the Tafsīr ṣūrat al‑kawthar (commentary on Q. 108) was written for Siyyid Yaḥyā Dārābī who had journeyed to Shīrāz in order to investigate the Bāb's claims on behalf of the reigning sovereign Muhammad Shāh (r. 1834‑1848). ³ Some sources have it that Siyyid Yaḥyā was won over to the Bābī cause as a result of the Bāb's astonishingly rapid dictation of this commentary (Zarandī, DB:123ff).¹ During this period that Bāb also continued to write such treatises as the Risāla furū` al‑`adliyya (early‑mid 1846/ early‑mid 1262) containing detailed ritualistic regulations (MacEoin 1992:70f).

  Perhaps in view‑of the turmoil attendant upon his return to Shīrāz after his pilgrimage and the ensuing attacks on his claims and writings, it appears to have been the case that the Bāb, throughout the Shīrāz period, attempted to underline the orthodoxy of his message ‑‑though without ultimately abandoning his claim to be `the servant' of the expected hidden twelfth Imām. His followers, for the most part devout and liberal minded Shaykhīs, did not conceive and were not called upon to view the movement with which they identified as anything but a religious school firmly within the bounds of Shī`ī‑Shaykhī orthodoxy. In the first major Persian work of the Bāb, the Ṣaḥī fa‑yi `adliyya  (`Treatise on Justice’ late Shīrāz period?) the Bāb explicitly states that his verses are wholly inferior to Qur'ānic revelation and the words of the Imāms and that the sharī`a legal system "shall not be abrogated." (Ṣaḥīfa‑yi `adliyya) Though he represents the enemies of Shaykh Aḥmad and Siyyid Kāzim as unbelievers he yet condemns belief in a  spiritual interpretation of the  mi`rāj  (`night journey’ [of the prophet Muhammad]) and resurrection of the dead.²  In such manner, during this period, did the Bāb attempt to underline his own orthodoxy and, to the same end, that of the teachings of the first two Shaykhi leaders.³

 Towards the end of his confinement in Shīrāz, the Bāb bequeathed his property to his wife and mother, took up residence in the house of Ḥājjī Mīrzā Siyyid `Alī (his uncle) and sent a number of his disciples to Isfāhān. The Bābīs in Shīrāz had been the object of increasing harassment and it appears to have been the intention of Mīrzā Ḥusayn Khān (on the orders of Ḥājjī Mīrzā Āqasī) to secretly have the Bāb executed. In late September 1846, however, a cholera epidemic swept Shīrāz and Mīrzā usayn Khān fled the city. In the absence of the Governor, the chief constable `Abd al‑amīd Khān detained the Bāb in his own house. Here he is said to have cured the latter's sons then sick with cholera. The grateful father subsequently induced Mīrzā usayn Khān to allow him to release the Bāb from house arrest. This though was on condition that the Bāb quit Shīrāz. Thus was precipitated the Bāb's six month sojurn in Isfāhān (Sept 1846 ‑> March 1847).

 The Bāb spent most of the Isfāhān period as the semi‑secret guest of the governor Manūchihr Kh ān (d. 1262/1847), Mu`tamad al‑Dawla (`Chancellor of the Empire), a Georgian eunuch who had outwardly embraced Islām. A somewhat tyrannical though excellent administrator and faithful servant of Muhammad Shāh, Manūchihr Khān had, for reasons that are not clear, responded favourably to a letter from the Bāb requesting asylum (Zarandī, DB:144f; Balyuzi, 1973:l09f; Mangol Bayat, 1982:95). For the first 40 days or  so of his residence in Isfāhān the Bāb was accommodated in the house of Mīrzā Siyyid Muhammad Sulṭān al‑`Ulam ā', the Imām Jum`a of the city. It was at his first host's request that he wrote, in just half a day a one hundred or so page Tafsīr ṣūrat wa'l‑`aṣr  (Commentary on the sūra of `By the Afternoon!' = Q.103; see INBMC 69:21‑119). About one third of this work, which is again expressive of the  Bāb's continuing role as Qur'ānic commentator, consists of an exposition of the 73 letters which are contained in this aforementioned sūra.¹ 

            Manūchihr Khān himself visited the Bāb at the house of the Imām Jum`a and asked him to write a treatise on the nubuwwa khāṣṣa (Specific prophethood) of Muhammad.<sup>2</sup>  In  compliance with this request the Bāb allegedly within two hours wrote this  fifty or so page Arabic According to Zarandī it led the Governor to make a sincere confession of his faith in Islam (Zarandī,DB:145ff). Within it is an acrostic type explanations of the names of Adam and Muhammad as well as qabbalistically informed speculations oriented around the chronology of the latter's mission, the Bāb identifies the mashīya  (Divine will’) as the bearer of the nubuwwa  khāṣṣa  in the being or body of the prophet Muhammad (see INBMC 14:321‑333b). Such demonstrations of inspired bābiyya ("gatehood") and the increasin g number of devotees which the Bāb had managed to attract to or gain in Isfāhān, served to arouse the opposition of a number of leading Isfāhānī `ulamā'. Once again the young Siyyid was condemned to death. The Imām Jum`a however, despite an increased openness on the part of the Bāb in asserting his claims, refused to view the Bāb as anything but an extraordinarily pious though somewhat unbalanced adherant of the Shī'ī creed.

 Though it was eventually decided that the Bāb should be expelled from Isfāhān and conducted to Tehran ‑‑ where grave concern about his influence had been expressed in official circles ‑‑ Manūchihr Khān gave secret orders that this journey to the capital be cut short and the Bāb be secretly condcuted to his private residence in Isfāhān. Such, according to Bahā'ī sources, was the devotion of Manūchihr Khān to the Bāb, that he offered him his considerable fortune and the resources of his army. The motivation behind this support was doubtless related to the Governor's political ambitions, which may have been fueled by his sharing of the Bā b's own vision of a new religio‑political order in Iran the like of which he subsequently outlined in his Persian Bayān. Whatever the case nothing concrete came of Manūchihr Khān's patronage of the Bāb for this powerful governor of Fārs died in the month of Rabi` al‑Awwal 1263 (21st Feb 1847). The properties he had bequeathed to the Bāb were appropriated by Gurgīn Khān the nephew of Manūchichr Khān and his successor  who hastened to inform Muhammad Shāh of the Bāb's whereabouts. 

 Having become aware of the Bāb's place of residence, Muhammad Shāh instructed Gurgīn Khān to have him escorted to Tehran. The king was apparently most desirous of meeting the one whose charismatic charms had exercised such a remarkable influence over the late Governor of Fā rs. Ḥājjī Mīrzā Āqāsī however, his haughty and hypnotic prime‑minister, anxious of the possible consequences of such a meeting, made sure that it never took place. After passing through Kāshān and Qum (en route to Tehran) the Bāb was detained for 20 days at Kulayn (a village about 20 miles from Tehran) until orders were received from ājjī Mīrzā Āqāsī instructing a group of Nuṣayrī horsemen to take him to prison in Mākū, a remote town in Ādhirbayjān near the Russian border. Here the Bāb remained, having passed through and caused considerable excitement in (among other places) Mīlān and Tabrīz (where he was detained for 40 days) for about 9 months,  from late summer (July/August?) 1847 until early April 1848.

 The imprisonment of the Bāb in Mākū neither succeeded in isolating him from his followers nor induced him to abandon his claims. It was during the period spent at Mākū that the Bāb wrote several important works and large numbers of epistles. Here he explicitly claimed to be the expected Qā'im, initially in early l848 in a letter to Mullā Shaykh Alī Turshīzī `Aẓīm (cited ZH III:1640‑6). In the light of his more developed claims he began to systematize and reformulate his teachings. The transformation of Bāb īsm from a semi‑heterodox and generally neo‑Shaykhī movement into an ultimately militant messianic and anti‑royalist faith superseding Islām and claiming to fulfill Islāmic eschatological expectations, was initiated by the Bāb during the latter part of his imprisonment in Mākū.

 Apart from the now lost series of nine Qur'ān commentaries which the Bāb dictated to his amanuensis in Mā kū, the most important writings of this period  expressive of developed Bābi thought are the Bāb's Dalā'il‑i sab`ih  (Seven Proofs) and Bayān‑i fārsī (Persian Bayān),  both of which exist in shorter (later?) Arabic versions or recensions.

 Towards the end of his imprisonment in Mākū the Bāb estimated the number of his followers at over 100,000 (Dalā'il, 64). He had gained the devotion of `Alī Khān the prison warder at M ākū who ignored official directives pressing for his strict imprisonment. Through the many Bābīs who flocked to ādhirbayjān to meet or be near their master, numerous devotees had been gained in that Iranian province. The turmoil caused by Bābī propagandists in various parts of Iran, along with Russian concern over the Bāb's presence near the Russian border, led to his transference from Mākū. ājjī Mīrzā Āqāsī sent orders for the Bāb's strict imprisonment in Chihrīq near Urumiyya (about 00 miles south of Māh‑Kū) where he arrived in early May 1848 (Jumadī II 1264). Here the Bāb remained for the best part of the remaining two years of his life and from here, as will be indicated, he continued to write much and to gain enthusiastic followers.                                                                   

 By the time of the Bāb's transference to Chihrīq, his developed teachings and by now explicit claim to be the Qā'im, had begun to become known amongst leading and well‑educated Bābīs in various parts of Iran and Iraq. At Badasht in western Khurāsān about 6 weeks after the Bāb's arrival at Chihrīq, a gathering of eighty or so Bābls was convened at which the nature and implications of the Bāb's developed claims and teachings were brought out into the open and hotly debated (during late June (?) ‑> mid‑July 1848). Several of the `Letters of the Living'(urūf al‑ayy), including Mullā Ḥusayn, ÿāhira and Quddūs, as well as Mīrzā Ḥusayn `Alī Bahā'‑Allāh, endorsed and championed the Bāb's new theophanic claims and announced the abrogation of the Islāmic law. āhira, who was looked upon as the incarnation of Fātima and who had for some time been voicing sentiments well outside the sphere of Shī'ī‑ Shaykhī orthodoxy, in symbolic gesture removed her veil to the horror of the more conservative brethren. 

 When this new development within Bābīsm became widely realised a not inconsiderable number of Bābīs either apostasized or adopted an attitude or marked dissimulation. Others however, fired by millenial zeal, greeted it with great enthusiasm. They, in the name of their Qā'im, prepared themselves for holy war (jihād) against non‑Bābī infidels and looked foward to the establishment of a B ābī theocracy. After Badasht and with the death of Muammad Shāh on September 4th 1848 certain groups of Bābīs ‑‑ as members of an essentially millenariam movement centered in a politically and ecomomically unstable realm ‑‑ adopted a militant anti‑royalist, anti‑`ulama stance. As members of a movement no longer merely neo‑Shaykhī (either doctrinally or in terms of the totality of Bābī adherants) they, despite vigorous attempts to stamp them out, caused considerable upheaval in Iran. They preferred martyrdom in the path of their Qā'im to life in what they deemed a decadent, redundant and corrupt society. 1  

 Yaḥyā Khān, the warden of the citadel at Chihrīq in which the Bāb was ordered to be strictly confined and isolated, was unable or unwilling to enforce strict isolation. Bābīs flocked to Chihrīq (as they had to Mākū) and such nearby towns as Urumiyya and Khū y where several leading divines and officials had become Bābīs ‑‑ including Mīrzā Assad Allāh, a learned government official entitled Dayyān by the Bāb. At Chihrīq the Bāb renamed in communication with his followers and wrote many letters on a wide range of subjects. It was during the last two years of his life that he wrote his Kitāb al‑asmā'  ("Book of Names"), Kitāb‑i panj sha'n ("Book of the Five Grades") and Law‑i Haykal al‑dīn  ("Book of the Temple of Religion") to mention a few of the best known works of the Chihrīq period.

 Like several other of the Bāb's major works his Kitāb al‑Asmā' (early 1266/late 1849) is divided into 19 wāids ("unities") each containing 19  bābs  ("sections"). Though extant manuscripts are (all?) defective it is clear that this work consists in large measure of often untranslatable and etymologically and grammatically impossible permutations of the names of "all things" (kull shay'; abjad   = 361 = 19 X 19) or 361 "names of God". Despite its, to the logically minded western reader, abstruse and difficult content it appears to have been much read by the Bābīs. It was believed to contain ciphers of the names of prominent followers of the Bāb. 2  

 Also illustrative of the Bāb's marked interest in qabbalistic permutations of the names of God is his Kitāb‑i panj sha'n  (mid 1266/spring 1850). Arranged in 17 sections (at least in the incomplete? Azalī edition) each of which contain verses in each of the 5 categories (shu'un) into which the Bāb divided his writings 3 and perhaps (separately) sent to various leading Bābīs, this work contains a fair amount of interesting prophetological, alchemical and talismanic material. The 17th section of this somewhat abstruse text, apparently separately circulated and variously known as the Lawh‑i ḥurūfāt ("Tablet of the Letters"), Risāla‑yi Ja`fariya ("Ja`farī Scroll") and Kitāb dar hayākil [‑i wāidl  ("Book concerning the Temples [of Unity]) deals with the `construction of talismans on qabbalistic lines' with a view to enabling the Bābīs to recognize the Bābī messiah (man yuhiruhu'llāh)  when he appears (MacEoin 1984:XXX; 1992:XXX).               

 The Lawḥ‑i haykal al‑dīn  (1266/early‑mid 1850) is an Arabic compendium of Bābī law in 8 wāḥids ("unities"), each except the last having 19 babs (MacEoin, 1992:90‑91). Within this work are many examples of the labyrinthine and novel legalistic enactments of the Bāb, many of which are designed to `prepare the way' for the advent of man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh. In order to give some idea of the teachings and laws formulated by the Bāb during the latest period of his life the following lines summarize a few sections of the Haykal al‑dīn.

• The age of maturity and from which marriage is permissible is eleven (I:5, 8:15).
•  
• That when the year 662 of the new Bābī calendar is reached contemporary men of learning will be viewed as being like 11 year olds (1:16)
• the year consisting of 19 months each with 19 days (= 361 days, 2:3 );
• To write the Bāb's verses in talismanic pentacles (hayākil) and circles (dawā'ir) (2:10); To write a testament (kitāb wisīya) for man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh  since one may, on the (next) "day of resurrection" come to believe in God and his signs or verses (2:13);
• To read nothing other than the Bāb's verses (3:15); That the future Bābī king, as a manifestation of the wrath of God (maẓhar qahr Allāh)  should put all non‑Bābīs to death (4:9);
• That children under the age of 5 should not be beaten; those over 5 may only be beaten lightly 5 times -- since the child may be man yuẓhiru-hu Allāh  (6:11);
• To cease work when man yuẓhiruhu Allāh appears ‑‑ except that which he permits (7:5);
• To present 19 precious stones to the first believers ("first wāḥid") in man yuẓhiruhu Allāh  (8:5b).