BABISM. — A new religion, arising in a Shiite Islamic milieu through the work of Sajjid 'Alī Mohammed of Širāz, known as the Bāb. The word bāb (in Arabic, “gate”) signifies the gate leading to knowledge of divine truth and had already been used to indicate a particular degree in the hierarchy of cosmic intelligences, for example by the Cārmati and other extreme Shiite sects.
The Bāb, known among his followers rather by the appellation Nuqtah, “point” (Nuqta-i bajān = Point of revelation, Nuqta-i ulā = First Point), was born on 20 October 1819 in Širāz, capital of the Persian province of Fārs. In 1844, returning to Širāz from a pilgrimage to the Shiite shrine of Kerbelā, where he had absorbed the doctrines of the Šejhī sect (founded in Persia in the eighteenth century), he secretly declared his divine mission to a small number of people, mostly former Šejhīs. A Šejhī, Husejn of Bušrūjeh, became the Bāb’s first fervent adherent, recognizing in him the mystical successor of Sajjid Kāzim of Rešt, one of the founders of the Šejhī sect, who had died shortly before.
When the Bāb returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca, the Bābī faith was proclaimed publicly for the first time: riots broke out and the Bāb’s missionaries were arrested. While investigations into the new religion were being conducted, cholera broke out in Širāz; the Bāb went (1846) to Isfahān, where he was protected by the city’s governor. His successor, who held different views, had the Bāb taken in 1847 to the fortress of Mākū, in Persian Azerbaijan, where he remained imprisoned.
Meanwhile Husejn of Bušrūjeh continued his preaching, converting, among others, in Teherān the two brothers Mīrzā Yahjā Nūrī (later called Subh-i Azal) and Mīrzā Husejn 'Alī Nūrī, the future Bahā'ullāh (v. BAHÁ'ISMO). A woman also, the beautiful and highly intelligent Qurrat al-'Ajn of Qazwīn, converted to the new religion.
At Bedešt, in Horāsān, the first meeting of the Bāb’s disciples took place (1848), and Islām was openly abrogated there in its external practices. Meanwhile the Bābīs were being ferociously persecuted throughout Persia; particularly noteworthy were the massacre of Bābists at the shrine of Šejh Tabarsī (1849) and at Zaṅgān (1850). After these disturbances the Bāb was transported to Tabriz to be sentenced to death. The Bāb, suspended from a rope together with a disciple, was shot in the presence of a great crowd. The first volley had no effect other than to break the ropes from which the Bāb was hanging; he fell to the ground unharmed:
the execution had to be repeated, and it was only by pure chance that the Báb did not manage to save himself (9 July 1850). The persecution of the Bābists intensified further after the attempt on the life of the shah Nāṣir ad-dīn (16 August 1852), apparently carried out by a follower of the Báb. The most celebrated adherents of the new religion were forced to leave Persia. Mīrzā Ḥusejn 'Alī (Bahā'ullāh) settled in Baghdad and was later exiled to Adrianople: he declared himself the successor of the Báb (v. BAHĀ'ISMO), while some Bābists remained more faithful to the letter of the master’s teachings and recognized Mīrzā Jāhā Nūrī (Subh-i Azaf) as their leader.
Bābist doctrine is a mixture of the doctrines of the Ismaili and Twelver Shiites, with the addition of numerous more or less original theories. Bābism asserts that human religious history consists of a succession of long cycles initiated respectively by Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed. Whereas for Muslims Mohammed is the “seal of the prophets,” for the Bābists this continual recurrence of increasingly perfect cycles continues still (the Bāb often speaks in his works of a mysterious personage who will succeed him and whom he calls “He whom God shall manifest”); the Bāb is precisely the initiator of a new prophetic cycle.
The Bāb himself composed numerous religious works, including a book in Arabic prose entitled Al-Bajān (“clear exposition”), which was composed at Bûsechr (Persian Gulf) in 1845, and another Bajān in the Persian language. The Qur’an is regarded by the Bābists as abrogated by the new sacred book. God is one, and the Bāb is the mirror in which each person can contemplate God. He created the world through seven attributes called the “Letters of Truth.” Cabalistic calculation accordingly plays a major role in the Bābist religion: the number 19 is of particular importance. In place of the Muslim shrines, which should be destroyed, nineteen temples should be erected. The year consists of nineteen months of nineteen days each, and the community is governed by a college of nineteen persons.
The faithful are required to pay this college a kind of annual tax on capital. All punishments are abolished except fines and the prohibition of cohabitation between husband and wife for a more or less extended period. Freedom of trade and interest is permitted. It is obligatory to marry at a very young age, and divorce is discouraged. Divorced spouses may reconcile up to nineteen times. Widowers and widows must remarry as soon as possible. No legal impurity exists; communal prayers are abolished, and women may appear unveiled. Begging is prohibited and travel is discouraged. Every day nineteen verses of the Bajān must be read and the name of God mentioned 361 times. For Persia, Bābism signified a profound spiritual renewal and a rebirth of pure and sincere religiosity, which also aroused the enthusiasm of well-known European orientalists such as, for example, Browne and Nicolas. Bābism’s influence on the liberal and reform movement that opened Persia to Western culture and progress was also considerable.