205-544: Bábism ( Persian : بابیه , romanized : Babiyye ), also known as the Bábi Faith , is a monotheistic religion founded in 1844 by the Báb ( b. 'Ali Muhammad). The Báb, an Iranian merchant-turned-prophet, professed that there is one incorporeal, unknown, and incomprehensible God who manifests his will in an unending series of theophanies , called Manifestations of God . The Báb's ministry, throughout which there
410-655: A Dari dialect. In the 19th century, under the Qajar dynasty , the dialect that is spoken in Tehran rose to prominence. There was still substantial Arabic vocabulary, but many of these words have been integrated into Persian phonology and grammar. In addition, under the Qajar rule, numerous Russian , French , and English terms entered the Persian language, especially vocabulary related to technology. The first official attentions to
615-479: A Letter of the Living and the incarnation of Fatimah . In his early teachings, the Báb emphasized observing sharia and extraordinary acts of piety. However, his claim of being the Báb, i.e. the authority direct from God, was in conflict with this more conservative position of supporting sharia. Táhirih innovated an advance in the understanding of the priority of the Báb's station above that of Islamic sharia by wedding
820-549: A Mahdi claimant enabled unity among tribes and/or a region, often enabled them to forcibly seize power, but the lifespan of such a force was usually limited, as their Mahdi had to conform to hadith prophesies—winning their battles and bringing peace and justice to the world before Judgement Day—which (so far) none have. The Mahdi figure in Islam can be likened to the Maitreya figure of Buddhism . Both are prophesied saviors sharing
1025-547: A bid to gain time, al-Mahdi also sought to shift the messianic expectations on his son, al-Qa'im : by renaming himself as Abdallah Abu Muhammad, and his son as Abu'l-Qasim Muhammad rather than his original name, Abd al-Rahman, the latter would bear the name Abu'l-Qasim Muhammad ibn Abdallah. This was the name of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and it had been prophesied that the Mahdi would also bear it. The Fatimids eventually dropped
1230-458: A break with Shia Islam , beginning a new religious system with its own unique laws, teachings, and practices. While Bábism was violently opposed by both clerical and government establishments, it led to the founding of the Bahá'í Faith , whose followers consider the religion founded by the Báb as a predecessor to their own. Bahá'í sources maintain that the remains of the Báb were clandestinely rescued by
1435-576: A common principle that had multiple dimensions and forms. In Twelver Shiʻa Islamic belief there were twelve Imams , the last of whom, known as Imam Mahdi , communicated with his followers only through certain representatives. According to the Twelver 's belief, after the last of these representatives died, the Imam Mahdi went into a state of Occultation; while still alive, he was no longer accessible to his believers. Shiʻa Muslims believe that when
1640-418: A dictionary called Words of Scientific Association ( لغت انجمن علمی ), which was completed in the future and renamed Katouzian Dictionary ( فرهنگ کاتوزیان ). The first academy for the Persian language was founded on 20 May 1935, under the name Academy of Iran . It was established by the initiative of Reza Shah Pahlavi , and mainly by Hekmat e Shirazi and Mohammad Ali Foroughi , all prominent names in
1845-401: A distinct concept of the Mahdi developed, with select Isma'ili Imams representing the Mahdi or al-Qa'im at various times. When the sixth Shia imam Ja'far al-Sadiq died, some of his followers held his already dead son Isma'il ibn Ja'far to be the imam asserting that he was alive and will return as the Mahdi. Another group accepted his death and acknowledged his son Muhammad ibn Isma'il as
2050-605: A distinct feature throughout the Bab's writings. John Walbridge views the "unquestionably hypnotic" use of repetition in the Bab's Kitab-i-Panj Sha'n, where "the same evocative words are repeated ceaselessly" with gradual variations over time, as anticipating a minimalist aesthetic as well as possibly prefiguring the modernist style of Finnegans Wake . The Báb himself categorised his writings into five modes: divine verses, prayers , commentaries , rational discourse — written in Arabic — and
2255-599: A few days before his death in 941. With the death of the fourth agent, thus began the Major Occultation ( الغيبة الكبرى , ghayba al-kubra ), in which the communication between the Mahdi and the faithful was severed. The leadership vacuum in the Twelver community was gradually filled by jurists. During the Major Occultation, the Mahdi roams the earth and is sustained by God. He is the lord of
SECTION 10
#17327648341892460-524: A few others were imprisoned in the Siāhchāl ('Black Pit'), an underground dungeon in Tehran. Meanwhile, echoes of the newspaper coverage of the violence continued into 1853. In most of his prominent writings, the Báb alluded to a Promised One, most commonly referred to as " He whom God shall make manifest ", and that he himself was "but a ring upon the hand of Him Whom God shall make manifest." Within 20 years of
2665-627: A few thousand adherents, most of whom are concentrated in Iran, but it has persisted into the modern era in the form of the Bahá'í Faith , to which the majority of Bábís eventually converted. Bábism flourished in Iran until 1852, then lingered on in exile in the Ottoman Empire , especially Cyprus , as well as underground in Iran. An anomaly amongst Islamic messianic movements, the Bábí movement signaled
2870-566: A handful of Bábis and then hidden. Over time the remains were secretly transported according to the instructions of Bahá'u'lláh and then 'Abdu'l-Bahá through Isfahan , Kermanshah , Baghdad , Damascus , Beirut , and then by sea to Acre on the plain below Mount Carmel in 1899. On 21 March 1909, the remains were interred in a special tomb, the Shrine of the Báb , erected for this purpose by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, on Mount Carmel in present-day Haifa , Israel. The name Báb ( lit. ' Gate ' )
3075-505: A language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Farsi , which is the Persian word for the Persian language, has also been used widely in English in recent decades, more often to refer to Iran's standard Persian. However, the name Persian is still more widely used. The Academy of Persian Language and Literature has maintained that the endonym Farsi is to be avoided in foreign languages, and that Persian
3280-417: A literary language considerably different from the spoken Persian of the time. This became the basis of what is now known as "Contemporary Standard Persian". There are three standard varieties of modern Persian: All these three varieties are based on the classic Persian literature and its literary tradition. There are also several local dialects from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan which slightly differ from
3485-554: A long commentary on the surah of Yusuf , which has come to be known as the Qayyūmu l-Asmā' and is often considered the Báb's first revealed work, though he had before then composed a commentary on Surat al-Fatihah and Surat al-Baqara . This night and the following day are observed in the Bahá'í Faith as a holy day since then. After Mullá Husayn accepted the Báb's claim, the Báb ordered him to wait until 17 others had independently recognized
3690-401: A messianic claim. The Babi movement [...] [became] an important catalyst of social progressiveness in mid-nineteenth-century Iran, promoting interreligious peace, social equality between the sexes and revolutionary anti-monarchism. Babism was a reflection of an older Iran that had been mass-producing messiahs in opposition to mainstream Islam since the seventh century [...] And yet
3895-456: A messianic figure that would complete the revelation that the Báb begun. The Báb describes this messianic figure as the origin of all divine attributes, and states that his command is equivalent to God's command. Unlike earlier religions in which references to future promised figures were occasional and only in hints and allusions, the entirety of the Bayan , the mother book of the Bábí dispensation,
4100-549: A messianic-like quality, and both are predicted to hold a position of world rulership. The prophesied savior duo of the Mahdi and the Messiah in Islam can be likened to the prophesied pair of the two Jewish savior figures, Mashiach ben Yosef and Mashiach ben David, respectively, in the sense that the Islamic Messiah and Masiach ben David take a central eschatological role, while the Mahdi and Mashiach ben Yosef take
4305-419: A million to a million Bahá'ís, and at most only a hundred followers of Subh-i Azal. According to Ali Raza Naqavi, Bábism and the Bahá'í Faith are "almost inseparable" and have "almost identical beliefs and doctrines." He writes that in the way Muslims view Judaism as having been abrogated by Christianity and Christianity as having been abrogated by Islam, Bahá'ís view Bábism as having been abrogated and replaced by
SECTION 20
#17327648341894510-537: A new Manifestation of God comes, and the acceptance or rejection of those on the Earth. Thus the Báb taught that with his revelation the end times ended and the age of resurrection had started and that the end-times were symbolic as the end of the past prophetic cycle. The Báb wrote: "Verily, the world and the hereafter are two spiritual states. If you turn towards God, exalted be He, then you are in paradise and if you are occupied with your self then you are in hell and in
4715-458: A new message. In 931, the then Qarmati leader Abu Tahir al-Jannabi declared a Persian prisoner named Abu'l-Fadl al-Isfahani as the awaited Mahdi. The Mahdi went on to denounce Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad as liars, abolished Islam, and instituted the cult of fire . Abu Tahir had to depose him as imposter and had him executed. Meanwhile, in Syria, Sa'id ibn al-Husayn's partisans took control of
4920-568: A peaceful mujaddid (renewer of religion), who spreads Islam with "heavenly signs and arguments". Throughout history, various individuals have claimed to be or were proclaimed to be the Mahdi. Claimants have included Muhammad Jaunpuri , the founder of the Mahdavia sect; Ali Muhammad Shirazi , the founder of Bábism ; Muhammad Ahmad , who established the Mahdist State in Sudan in
5125-536: A period of several centuries, Ottoman Turkish (which was highly Persianised itself) had developed toward a fully accepted language of literature, and which was even able to lexically satisfy the demands of a scientific presentation. However, the number of Persian and Arabic loanwords contained in those works increased at times up to 88%. In the Ottoman Empire, Persian was used at the royal court, for diplomacy, poetry, historiographical works, literary works, and
5330-566: A reference to the Gate of the Hidden Imám of Muhammad, but this understanding he publicly disclaimed. He later proclaimed himself, in the presence of the heir to the Throne of Persia and other notables, to be al-Qā'im. In the Báb's writings, the Báb appears to identify himself as the gate ( báb ) to Muhammad al-Mahdi and later he begins to explicitly proclaim his station as equivalent to that of
5535-438: A shift takes place where his emphasis moves to the philosophical elucidation and finally to legislative pronouncements. In the second philosophical stage, the Báb gives an explanation of the metaphysics of being and creation, and in the third legislative stage his mystical and historical principles are explicitly united. An analysis of the Báb's writings throughout the three stages shows that all of his teachings were animated by
5740-652: A small number of the total Bábí population of perhaps 100,000. Their meetings appear to have come under the control of a "Husayn Jan", an emotive and magnetic figure who obtained a high degree of personal devotion to himself from the group. Meanwhile, Tahirih and Baha'u'lláh, visible leaders of the community previously, were removed from the scene – Tahirih by arrest and in the case of Baha'u'lláh an invitation to go on pilgrimage to Karbila. On 15 August 1852, three from this small splinter group, acting on their own initiative, attempted to assassinate Naser al-Din Shah Qajar as he
5945-599: A speaker of Persian. Persian is a member of the Western Iranian group of the Iranian languages , which make up a branch of the Indo-European languages in their Indo-Iranian subdivision . The Western Iranian languages themselves are divided into two subgroups: Southwestern Iranian languages, of which Persian is the most widely spoken, and Northwestern Iranian languages, of which Kurdish and Balochi are
6150-432: A time when it will be accessible to all the people. Although today the kings have their own special couriers, this is fruitless, for the poor are deprived of such a service." Commenting on the extremes of wealth and poverty in society, the Báb also teaches that the true station of the rich should be as "the depositories of God" and enjoins generosity and charity. He says, "Should ye find one stricken with poverty, enrich him to
6355-583: A title for Jesus when he returns. Others, like the historian and the Qur'an commentator Ibn Kathir ( d. 1373 ), elaborated a whole apocalyptic scenario which includes prophecies about the Mahdi, Jesus, and the Dajjal (the antichrist) during the end times . The common opinion among the Sunnis is that the Mahdi is an expected ruler to be sent by God before the end times to re-establish righteousness. He
Bábism - Misplaced Pages Continue
6560-512: A transition in Twelver arguments from a traditionist to a rationalist approach in order to vindicate the occultation of the twelfth Imam. The Twelver authors also aim to establish that the description of Mahdi in Sunni sources applies to the twelfth Imam. Their efforts gained momentum in the seventh (thirteenth) century when some notable Sunni scholars endorsed the Shia view of the Mahdi, including
6765-565: Is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages . Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran , Afghanistan , and Tajikistan in three mutually intelligible standard varieties , respectively Iranian Persian (officially known as Persian ), Dari Persian (officially known as Dari since 1964), and Tajiki Persian (officially known as Tajik since 1999). It
6970-664: Is a continuation of Middle Persian , an official language of the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), itself a continuation of Old Persian , which was used in the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE). It originated in the region of Fars ( Persia ) in southwestern Iran. Its grammar is similar to that of many European languages. Throughout history, Persian was considered prestigious by various empires centered in West Asia , Central Asia , and South Asia . Old Persian
7175-628: Is a direct descendant of Middle and Old Persian. Gernot Windfuhr considers new Persian as an evolution of the Old Persian language and the Middle Persian language but also states that none of the known Middle Persian dialects is the direct predecessor of Modern Persian. Ludwig Paul states: "The language of the Shahnameh should be seen as one instance of continuous historical development from Middle to New Persian." The known history of
7380-574: Is a reference to the gate to the Twelfth Imam . Bábism , a term originating from Orientalists rather than the followers of the religion, comes from the Arabic noun bāb "gate" ( Arabic : باب ). Additionally, Bayání comes from the Semitic root ب ي ن , which forms a class of words relating to concepts of clarity, differentiation, and separation, including Bayán , which can refer to explanation, commentary, or exposition as well as
7585-474: Is also personified as the female figure of the Maid of Heaven . The Báb also foreshadowed later developments in media, by emphasising the need for a rapid system of news communication, which would be available for all to access, no matter their wealth or social standing. He writes, regarding the news, that "until such a system is made universal, its benefit will not reach those servants of the kingdom unless there come
7790-799: Is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan , as well as within other regions with a Persianate history in the cultural sphere of Greater Iran . It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet , a derivative of the Arabic script , and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet , a derivative of the Cyrillic script . Modern Persian
7995-675: Is attested in Old Persian cuneiform on inscriptions from between the 6th and 4th century BC. Middle Persian is attested in Aramaic -derived scripts ( Pahlavi and Manichaean ) on inscriptions and in Zoroastrian and Manichaean scriptures from between the third to the tenth centuries (see Middle Persian literature ). New Persian literature was first recorded in the ninth century, after the Muslim conquest of Persia , since then adopting
8200-425: Is conventionally divided into three stages: Early New Persian remains largely intelligible to speakers of Contemporary Persian, as the morphology and, to a lesser extent, the lexicon of the language have remained relatively stable. New Persian texts written in the Arabic script first appear in the 9th-century. The language is a direct descendant of Middle Persian, the official, religious, and literary language of
8405-416: Is essentially a discourse on a messianic figure, even greater than himself, that the Báb refers to as "he Whom God shall make manifest". The Báb always discusses his own revelation and laws in the context of this promised figure. The essence and purpose of the Báb's own mission, as he always stressed, was to prepare the people for the advent of him. He asks his followers to independently investigate and look for
Bábism - Misplaced Pages Continue
8610-509: Is far from being extinct, or even declining, and the Báb may yet contest with Mahomed (sic) the privilege of being regarded as the real prophet of the faithful. Bábism in its infancy was the cause of a greater sensation than that even which was produced by the teaching of Jesus, if we may judge from the account of Josephus of the first days of Christianity . Latter commentators also noted these kinds of views: Ernest Renan , Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch, son of Charles Bulfinch , and others. For
8815-630: Is held to be from among the descendants of Muhammad through his daughter Fatima and her husband Ali , and his physical characteristics including a broad forehead and curved nose. He will eradicate injustice and evil from the world. He will be from the Hasanid branch of Muhammad's descendants, as opposed to the Shia belief that he is of the Husaynid line. The Mahdi's name would be Muhammad and his father's name would be Abd Allah. Abu Dawud quotes Muhammad as saying: "The Mahdi will be from my family, from
9020-498: Is mentioned in several canonical compilations of hadith , but is absent from the Quran and the two most-revered Sunni hadith collections, Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim . Thus, some Sunni theologians have questioned the orthodoxy of the Mahdi. The doctrine of the Mahdi seems to have gained traction during the confusion and unrest of the religious and political upheavals of the first and second centuries of Islam. Some of
9225-460: Is not actually attested until 600 years later when it appears in the Sassanid era (224–651 AD) inscriptions, so any form of the language before this date cannot be described with any degree of certainty. Moreover, as a literary language, Middle Persian is not attested until much later, in the 6th or 7th century. From the 8th century onward, Middle Persian gradually began yielding to New Persian, with
9430-643: Is not unusual; the genre of the letter has been a venerable medium for composing authoritative texts as far back as Paul of Tarsus. Three-quarters of the chapters of the New Testament are letters, were composed to imitate letters, or contain letters within them. Sometimes the Báb revealed works very rapidly by chanting them in the presence of a secretary and witnesses. Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ),
9635-475: Is one of Afghanistan's two official languages, together with Pashto . The term Dari , meaning "of the court", originally referred to the variety of Persian used in the court of the Sasanian Empire in capital Ctesiphon , which was spread to the northeast of the empire and gradually replaced the former Iranian dialects of Parthia ( Parthian ). Tajik Persian ( форси́и тоҷикӣ́ , forsi-i tojikī ),
9840-585: Is one of the earliest attested Indo-European languages. According to certain historical assumptions about the early history and origin of ancient Persians in Southwestern Iran (where Achaemenids hailed from), Old Persian was originally spoken by a tribe called Parsuwash , who arrived in the Iranian Plateau early in the 1st millennium BCE and finally migrated down into the area of present-day Fārs province. Their language, Old Persian, became
10045-495: Is the appropriate designation of the language in English, as it has the longer tradition in western languages and better expresses the role of the language as a mark of cultural and national continuity. Iranian historian and linguist Ehsan Yarshater , founder of the Encyclopædia Iranica and Columbia University 's Center for Iranian Studies, mentions the same concern in an academic journal on Iranology , rejecting
10250-483: Is the now-extinct Husaynites in Yemen , who denied the death of al-Husayn ibn al-Qasim al-Iyani and awaited his return. In Sunni Islam , the Mahdi doctrine is not theologically important and remains as a popular belief instead. Of the six canonical Sunni hadith compilations, three— Abi Dawud , Ibn Maja , and al-Tirmidhi —contain traditions on the Mahdi; the compilations of al-Bukhari and Muslim —considered
10455-491: The Encyclopædia Iranica notes that the Iranian, Afghan, and Tajiki varieties comprise distinct branches of the Persian language, and within each branch a wide variety of local dialects exist. The following are some languages closely related to Persian, or in some cases are considered dialects: More distantly related branches of the Iranian language family include Kurdish and Balochi . The Glottolog database proposes
SECTION 50
#173276483418910660-506: The Kalila wa Dimna . The language spread geographically from the 11th century on and was the medium through which, among others, Central Asian Turks became familiar with Islam and urban culture. New Persian was widely used as a trans-regional lingua franca , a task aided due to its relatively simple morphology, and this situation persisted until at least the 19th century. In the late Middle Ages, new Islamic literary languages were created on
10865-668: The British colonization , Persian was widely used as a second language in the Indian subcontinent . It took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts on the subcontinent and became the sole "official language" under the Mughal emperors . The Bengal Sultanate witnessed an influx of Persian scholars, lawyers, teachers, and clerics. Thousands of Persian books and manuscripts were published in Bengal. The period of
11070-617: The Dajjal , as well as secular reports about long-lived men. Along these lines, Tabatabai emphasizes the miraculous qualities of al-Mahdi, adding that his long life, while unlikely, is not impossible. He is viewed as the sole legitimate ruler of the Muslim world and the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran recognizes him as the head of the state. Before his reappearance ( Arabic : ظهور , romanized : ṭuhūr ),
11275-593: The Mahdi ("He who is rightly guided"), the Hidden Imam will start a holy war against evil, would defeat the unbelievers, and would start a reign of justice. In 1830s Qajar Persia , Kazim Rashti was the leader of the Shaykhis , a sect of Twelvers. The Shaykhis were a group expecting the imminent appearance of al-Qāʾim. At the time of Kazim's death in 1843, he had counselled his followers to leave their homes to seek
11480-745: The Qayyúmu'l-Asmáʼ (a commentary on the Sura of Joseph ), and the Persian Bayán , which the Bábís saw as superseding the Qurʼan . The latter has been translated into French ; only portions exist in English . The works of the Báb have also excited scholarly interest and analysis. Elham Afnan describes the writings of the Báb as having "restructured the thoughts of their readers, so that they could break free from
11685-537: The Qur'an at multiple places and in various contexts, the word Mahdi never occurs in the book. The associated verb is hada , which means to guide. However, Mahdi can be read in active voice, where it means the one who guides, as well as passive voice, where it means the one who is guided. Some historians suggest that the term itself was probably introduced into Islam by southern Arabian tribes who had settled in Syria in
11890-409: The Second Muslim Civil War (680–692), after the death of Mu'awiya I ( r. 661–680 ), the term acquired a new meaning of a ruler who would restore Islam to its perfect form and restore justice after oppression. Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr , who laid claim to the caliphate against the Umayyads and found temporary success during the civil war, presented himself in this role. Although the title Mahdi
12095-444: The Shafi'i traditionist Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Gandji. Since then, Amir-Moezzi writes, there is Sunni support from time to time for the Twelvers' view of Mahdi. There has also been some support for the mahdiship of the twelfth Imam in Sufi circles, for instance, by the Egyptian Sufi al-Sha'rani . Before the rise of the Fatimid Caliphate , as a major Isma'ili Sh'a dynasty, the terms Mahdi and Qa'im were used interchangeably for
12300-455: The Sultanate of Rum , Turkmen beyliks of Anatolia , Delhi Sultanate , the Shirvanshahs , Safavids , Afsharids , Zands , Qajars , Khanate of Bukhara , Khanate of Kokand , Emirate of Bukhara , Khanate of Khiva , Ottomans , and also many Mughal successors such as the Nizam of Hyderabad . Persian was the only non-European language known and used by Marco Polo at the Court of Kublai Khan and in his journeys through China. A branch of
12505-439: The Turkic , Armenian , Georgian , & Indo-Aryan languages . It also exerted some influence on Arabic, while borrowing a lot of vocabulary from it in the Middle Ages. Some of the world's most famous pieces of literature from the Middle Ages, such as the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi , the works of Rumi , the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám , the Panj Ganj of Nizami Ganjavi , The Divān of Hafez , The Conference of
SECTION 60
#173276483418912710-556: The Waqifites to argue that Musa al-Kazim , the seventh Imam, had not died but was in occultation. In parallel, traditions predicting the occultation of a future imam also persisted in the writings of the mainstream Shia, who later formed the Twelvers. Based on this material, the Twelver doctrine of occultation crystallized in the first half of the fourth (tenth) century, in the works of Ibrahim al-Qummi ( d. 919 ), Ya'qub al-Kulayni ( d. 941 ), and Ibn Babawayh ( d. 991 ), among others. This period also saw
12915-423: The ezāfe construction, expressed through ī (modern e/ye ), to indicate some of the relations between words that have been lost with the simplification of the earlier grammatical system. Although the "middle period" of the Iranian languages formally begins with the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the transition from Old to Middle Persian had probably already begun before the 4th century BC. However, Middle Persian
13120-479: The " Persianized " Turko-Mongol dynasties during the 12th to 15th centuries, and under restored Persian rule during the 16th to 19th centuries. Persian during this time served as lingua franca of Greater Persia and of much of the Indian subcontinent . It was also the official and cultural language of many Islamic dynasties, including the Samanids, Buyids , Tahirids , Ziyarids , the Mughal Empire , Timurids , Ghaznavids , Karakhanids , Seljuqs , Khwarazmians ,
13325-405: The Abbasids and establish his righteous caliphate . The propaganda of the Mahdi's return had a special appeal to peasants, Bedouins, and many of the later-to-be Twelver Shias, who were in a state of confusion ( hayra ) in the aftermath of the death of their 11th imam Hasan al-Askari, and resulted in many conversions. In 899, the leader of the movement, Sa'id ibn al-Husayn , declared himself
13530-410: The Bahá'í Faith. Subh-i Azal died in Famagusta , Cyprus in 1912, and his followers are known as Azalis or Azali Bábis. Denis MacEoin notes that after the deaths of those Azali Babis who were active in the Persian Constitutional Revolution , the Azali form of Babism entered a stagnation from which it has not recovered as there is no acknowledged leader or central organization. Some few have coined
13735-572: The Birds by Attar of Nishapur , and the miscellanea of Gulistan and Bustan by Saadi Shirazi , are written in Persian. Some of the prominent modern Persian poets were Nima Yooshij , Ahmad Shamlou , Simin Behbahani , Sohrab Sepehri , Rahi Mo'ayyeri , Mehdi Akhavan-Sales , and Forugh Farrokhzad . There are approximately 130 million Persian speakers worldwide, including Persians , Lurs , Tajiks , Hazaras , Iranian Azeris , Iranian Kurds , Balochs , Tats , Afghan Pashtuns , and Aimaqs . The term Persophone might also be used to refer to
13940-442: The Báb and his followers was not completely severed but was quite difficult, and more responsibilities were devolved to the Letters as he was not able to elucidate his teachings to the public. With Bábí teachings now mostly spread by his followers, they faced increasing persecution themselves. The role played by Táhirih in Karbalāʾ was particularly significant. She began an effort of innovation in religion based on her station as
14145-400: The Báb himself sometimes less or more credit for being authentic in the process. However, some went further. In 1866 British diplomat Robert Grant Watson (1834–1892) published a history of the first 58 years of the 19th century of Persia and would serve in several diplomatic capacities. Watson summarizes the impact of the Báb in Persia: Bábism, though at present a proscribed religion in Persia,
14350-440: The Báb's death, over 25 people claimed to be the Promised One, most significantly Bahá'u'lláh . Shortly before the Báb's execution, a follower of the Báb, Abd al-Karim, brought to the Báb's attention the necessity to appoint a successor; thus the Báb wrote a certain number of tablets which he gave to Abd al-Karim to deliver to Subh-i Azal and Bahá'u'lláh. These tablets were later interpreted by both Azalis and Bahá'ís as proof of
14555-407: The Báb's delegation of leadership. 'Abdu'l-Bahá stated that the Báb did this at the suggestion of Bahá'u'lláh. In one of the tablets, which is commonly referred to as the Will and Testament of the Báb, Subh-i Azal is viewed to have been appointed as leader of the Bábís after the death of the movement's founder; the tablet, in verse 27, orders Subh-i Azal "...to obey Him Whom God Shall Make Manifest." At
14760-471: The Báb's followers on obedience to He whom God shall make manifest. The Báb affirms that the verses revealed by a Manifestation of God are the greatest proof of His mission and the writings of the Báb comprise over two thousand tablets, epistles, prayers, and philosophical treatises. These writings form part of Baháʼí scripture , particularly his prayers, which are often recited individually as well as in devotional gatherings. The Báb's major writings include
14965-691: The Bábis followed him and later became known as Baháʼís The Azalis (those Babis who did not accept Baháʼu'lláh) objected to Baháʼu'lláh's statement. The Báb abrogated Islamic law and in the Persian Bayán promulgated a system of Bábí law, thus establishing a separate religion distinct from Islam. Some of the new laws included changing the direction of the Qibla to the Báb's house in Shiraz, Iran and changing
15170-490: The Hidden Imam and a new messenger from God. Saiedi states the exalted identity the Báb was claiming was unmistakable, but due to the reception of the people, his writings appear to convey the impression that he is only the gate to the Hidden Twelfth Imam. To his circle of early believers, the Báb was equivocal about his exact status, gradually confiding in them that he was not merely a gate to the Hidden Imam, but
15375-524: The Iraqi garrison town of Kufa in the name of Ali's son Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya , whom he proclaimed as the Mahdi in the messianic sense. The association of the name Muhammad with the Mahdi seems to have originated with Ibn al-Hanafiyya, who also shared the epithet Abu al-Qasim with Muhammad, the Islamic prophet. Among the Umayyads, the caliph Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik ( r. 715–717 ) encouraged
15580-530: The Living like preaching activities and answering questions from the community. In particular, as these first public activities multiplied, opposition by the Islamic clergy arose and prompted the Governor of Shiraz to order the Báb's arrest. The Báb, upon hearing of the arrest order, left Bushehr for Shiraz in June 1845 and presented himself to the authorities. This series of events become the first public account of
15785-654: The Lord of the Age whose advent would soon break on the world. On 22 May 1844, Mullá Husayn , of Boshruyeh in Khorasan , a prominent disciple of Sayyid Kāẓim, entered Shiraz following the instruction by his master to search for al-Qā'im. Soon after he arrived in Shiraz, Mullá Husayn came into contact with the Báb. On the night of 22 May 1844, Mulla Husayn was invited by the Báb to his home; on that night Mullá Husayn told him that he
15990-554: The Mahdi appeared only at later times in hadith books such as Sunan Abi Dawud and Sunan al-Tirmidhi , but are absent from the early works of Muhammad al-Bukhari and Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj . The term al-Mahdi was employed from the beginning of Islam, but only as an honorific epithet ("the guide") and without any messianic significance. As an honorific, it was used in some instances to describe Muhammad (by Hassan ibn Thabit ), Abraham , al-Husayn, and various Umayyad caliphs ( هداة مهديون , hudat mahdiyyun ). During
16195-453: The Mahdi is a messianic figure and if signs and predictions of his time had been satisfied. In Medina, among the conservative religious circles, the belief in Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz being the Mahdi was widespread. Said ibn al-Musayyib ( d. 715 ) is said to identify Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz as the Mahdi long before his reign. The Basran, Abu Qilabah, supported the view that Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz
16400-418: The Mahdi is believed to be Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi , twelfth Imam, son of the eleventh Imam, Hasan al-Askari ( d. 874 ), who is said to be in occultation ( ghayba ) by divine will. This is rejected by Sunnis, who assert that the Mahdi has not been born yet. The term Mahdi is derived from the Arabic root h-d-y ( ه-د-ي ), commonly used to mean "divine guidance". Although the root appears in
16605-483: The Mahdi recognized as ruler by the people. The Dajjal would appear and will spread corruption in the world. With an army bearing black banners, which would come to his aid from the east, the Mahdi would fight the Dajjal, and will be able to defeat him. Dressed in saffron robes with his head anointed, Jesus would descend at the point of a white minaret of the Umayyad Mosque in eastern Damascus (believed to be
16810-510: The Mahdi, the earth would be filled with anarchy and chaos. Divisions and civil wars, moral degradation, and worldliness would be prevalent among the Muslims. Injustice and oppression would be rampant in the world. In the aftermath of the death of a king, the people would quarrel among themselves, and the as yet unrecognized Mahdi would flee from Medina to Mecca to take refuge in the Ka'ba. He would be
17015-657: The Mahdi. This brought about schism in the unified Isma'ili community as not all adherents of the movement accepted his Mahdist claims. Those in Iraq and Arabia, known as Qarmatians after their leader Hamdan Qarmat , still held that Muhammad ibn Isma'il was the awaited Mahdi and denounced the Salamiyya-based Mahdism. In the Qarmati doctrine, the Mahdi was to abrogate the Islamic law (the Sharia ) and bring forth
17220-644: The Manifestation of the Hidden Imam and al-Qā'im himself. During his early meetings with Mullá Husayn, the Báb described himself as the Master and the Promised One; he did not consider himself just Sayyid Kāẓim Rashti's successor, but claimed a prophetic status, with a sense of deputyship delegated to him not just from the Hidden Imam, but from Divine authority. His early texts, such as the Commentary on
17425-625: The Middle Ages, and is because of the lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The standard Persian of Iran has been called, apart from Persian and Farsi , by names such as Iranian Persian and Western Persian , exclusively. Officially, the official language of Iran is designated simply as Persian ( فارسی , fārsi ). The standard Persian of Afghanistan has been officially named Dari ( دری , dari ) since 1958. Also referred to as Afghan Persian in English, it
17630-647: The Middle East. The Báb's message was disseminated by the Letters of the Living through Iran and southern Iraq . One of these initial activities was communicated to the West starting 8 January 1845 as an exchange of diplomatic reports concerning the fate of Mullá ʿAli-e Bastāmi , the second Letter. These were exchanges between Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baronet who wrote first to Stratford Canning, 1st Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe . Followups continued until in 1846 he
17835-558: The Minaret of Jesus) and join the Mahdi. Jesus would pray behind the Mahdi and then kill the Dajjal. The Gog and Magog would also appear wreaking havoc before their final defeat by the forces of Jesus. Although not as significant as the Dajjal and the Gog and Magog, the Sufyani , another representative of the forces of dark, also features in the Sunni traditions. He will rise in Syria before
18040-543: The Ottoman Empire all spoke Persian, such as Sultan Selim I , despite being Safavid Iran's archrival and a staunch opposer of Shia Islam . It was a major literary language in the empire. Some of the noted earlier Persian works during the Ottoman rule are Idris Bidlisi 's Hasht Bihisht , which began in 1502 and covered the reign of the first eight Ottoman rulers, and the Salim-Namah , a glorification of Selim I. After
18245-530: The Persian language can be divided into the following three distinct periods: As a written language , Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscription , dating to the time of King Darius I (reigned 522–486 BC). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran , Romania ( Gherla ), Armenia , Bahrain , Iraq , Turkey, and Egypt . Old Persian
18450-481: The Persian language, a language historically called Dari, emerged in present-day Afghanistan. The first significant Persian poet was Rudaki . He flourished in the 10th century, when the Samanids were at the height of their power. His reputation as a court poet and as an accomplished musician and singer has survived, although little of his poetry has been preserved. Among his lost works are versified fables collected in
18655-666: The Persian mode, which encompasses the previous four. Baháʼí scholars have argued that there are commonalities between the Báb's writings and those of Western philosophers such as Hegel , Kant and James Joyce . Most of the writings of the Báb have been lost. The Báb himself stated they exceeded five hundred thousand verses in length; the Qurʼan, in contrast, is 6300 verses in length. If one assumes 25 verses per page, that would equal 20,000 pages of text. Nabíl-i-Zarandí , in The Dawn-Breakers , mentions nine complete commentaries on
18860-401: The Persian model: Ottoman Turkish , Chagatai Turkic , Dobhashi Bengali , and Urdu, which are regarded as "structural daughter languages" of Persian. "Classical Persian" loosely refers to the standardized language of medieval Persia used in literature and poetry . This is the language of the 10th to 12th centuries, which continued to be used as literary language and lingua franca under
19065-886: The Perso-Arabic script. Persian was the first language to break through the monopoly of Arabic on writing in the Muslim world , with Persian poetry becoming a tradition in many eastern courts. It was used officially as a language of bureaucracy even by non-native speakers, such as the Ottomans in Anatolia , the Mughals in South Asia, and the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. It influenced languages spoken in neighboring regions and beyond, including other Iranian languages,
19270-455: The Qurʼan, revealed during the Báb's imprisonment at Máh-Kú , which have been lost without a trace. Establishing the true text of the works that are still extant, as already noted, is not always easy, and some texts will require considerable work. Others, however, are in good shape; several of the Báb's major works are available in the handwriting of his trusted secretaries. Most works were revealed in response to specific questions by Bábís. This
19475-484: The Sasanian Empire (224–651). However, it is not descended from the literary form of Middle Persian (known as pārsīk , commonly called Pahlavi), which was spoken by the people of Fars and used in Zoroastrian religious writings. Instead, it is descended from the dialect spoken by the court of the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon and the northeastern Iranian region of Khorasan , known as Dari. The region, which comprised
19680-535: The Sassanids (who were Persians, i.e. from the southwest) from the preceding Arsacids (who were Parthians, i.e. from the northeast). While Ibn al-Muqaffa' (eighth century) still distinguished between Pahlavi (i.e. Parthian) and Persian (in Arabic text: al-Farisiyah) (i.e. Middle Persian), this distinction is not evident in Arab commentaries written after that date. "New Persian" (also referred to as Modern Persian)
19885-518: The Seljuks, the Sultanate of Rum , took Persian language, art, and letters to Anatolia. They adopted the Persian language as the official language of the empire. The Ottomans , who can roughly be seen as their eventual successors, inherited this tradition. Persian was the official court language of the empire, and for some time, the official language of the empire. The educated and noble class of
20090-588: The Shah's army under the command of Prince Mahdi Qoli Mirza. They were, after being weakened through attrition and starvation, subdued through false promises of safety, and put to death or sold into slavery. The revolt at the fortress of ʿAli Mardan Khan in Zanjan in northwest Iran was by far the most violent of all the conflicts. It was headed by Mullā Muhammad 'Ali Zanjani, called Hujjat , and also lasted seven or eight months (May 1850–January 1851). The Bábí community in
20295-474: The Sunni belief, although in some Twelver traditions it is the Mahdi who would kill the Dajjal. Those who hold enmity towards Ali ( Arabic : نَواصِب , romanized : nawāṣib , lit. 'haters') will be subject to jizya (poll tax) or killed if they do not accept Shia Islam. The Mahdi is also viewed as the restorer of true Islam, and the restorer of other monotheistic religions after their distortion and abandonment. He establishes
20500-563: The Sura of Yusuf, used Qur'anic language that implied divine authority and identified himself effectively with the Imam. When Mullā ʿAlī Basṭāmī, the second Letter of the Living, was put on trial in Baghdad for preaching about the Báb, the clerics studied the Commentary on the Sura of Yusuf, recognized in it a claim to divine revelation, and quoted from it extensively to prove that the author had made
20705-660: The Zaydi imamate doctrine lacks eschatological characteristics and there is no end-times redeemer in Zaydism. The title of mahdi has been applied to several Zaydi imams as an honorific over the centuries. In the Ahmadiyya belief, the prophesied eschatological figures of Christianity and Islam, the Messiah and Mahdi, actually refer to the same person. These prophecies were fulfilled in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908),
20910-431: The advent of the promised one and refers to the time of his advent as year nine and nineteen. After the Báb's execution in 1850, there were some Bábis who claimed to be "He whom God shall make manifest". Later in 1863, nineteen years after the declaration of the Báb, Baháʼu'lláh privately laid claim to be the messianic figure, and made his claim publicly in 1866–1868. His claim was by far the most successful. The majority of
21115-414: The advocating of the cleanliness displayed by Christians, the non-cruel treatment of animals, the prohibition of beating children severely, the recommendation of the printing of books, even scripture and the prohibition on the study of logic or dead languages, and abolishment of priesthood. Other laws include elaborate regulations regarding pilgrimage, fasting, the manufacture of rings, the use of perfume, and
21320-455: The appearance of Mahdi. When the latter appears, the Sufyani, along with his army, will either be swallowed up en route to Mecca by the earth with God's command or defeated by the Mahdi. Jesus and the Mahdi will then conquer the world and establish caliphate. The Mahdi will die after 7 to 13 years, whereas Jesus after 40 years. Their deaths would be followed by reappearance of corruption before
21525-498: The area of Lake Urmia in the records of Shalmaneser III . The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain, but from a linguistic viewpoint the word matches Old Persian pārsa itself coming directly from the older word * pārćwa . Also, as Old Persian contains many words from another extinct Iranian language, Median , according to P. O. Skjærvø it is probable that Old Persian had already been spoken before
21730-468: The authorities which led to an armed struggle in a nearby fort. The Bábís resisted attacks by the town's governor as well as further reinforcements. After being given a truce offer on 17 June 1850, Vahid told his followers to give up their positions, which led to Vahid and the Bábís being killed; the Bábí section of the town was also plundered, and the property of the remaining Bábís seized. Later, in March 1853
21935-692: The belief that he was the Mahdi, and other Umayyad rulers, like Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz ( r. 717–720 ), have been addressed as such in the panegyrics of Jarir ( d. 728 ) and al-Farazdaq ( d. 728–730 ). Early discussions about the identity of the Mahdi by religious scholars can be traced back to the time after the Second Fitna . These discussions developed in different directions and were influenced by traditions ( hadith ) attributed to Muhammad. In Umayyad times, scholars and traditionists not only differed on which caliph or rebel leader should be designated as Mahdi but also on whether
22140-669: The blink of an eye" and sets the penalty for causing grief to women as double that of causing grief to men. ( Persian Bayān 7:18) He also encourages the education of women and does not display a gender distinction in Bábi laws on education. Armin Eschraghi notes the context of 19th century Iran and that, "Modern western readers might not appreciate the revolutionary potential" of the Báb's teaching that "Those who have been brought up in this community, men and women, are allowed to look [at each other], speak and sit together" The Primal Will of God
22345-543: The branch of Arabic rhetoric dealing with metaphors and interpretation. Twelver Shia Muslims regard the Twelfth Imam , Muhammad al-Mahdi , as the last of the Imams. They contend that Muhammad al-Mahdi went into the Occultation in 874 CE, at which time communication between the Imam and the Muslim community could only be performed through mediators called bābs ('gates') or nā'ibs ('representatives'). In 940,
22550-627: The calendar to a solar calendar of nineteen months and nineteen days (which became the basis of the Baháʼí calendar ) and prescribing the last month as a month of fasting. The Bab also prohibits confession and seeking forgiveness from anyone but God and His Manifestation. In many respects, the Báb raised the status of women in his teachings. The Báb taught that, since God transcends the boundaries of male and female, God wishes that "neither men exalt themselves over women, nor women exalt themselves over men". He instructs his followers to not mistreat women "even for
22755-769: The central Syria in 903, and for a time the Friday sermon was read in the name of the "Successor, the rightly-guided Heir, the Lord of the Age, the Commander of the Faithful , the Mahdi". Eventually, the uprising was routed by the Abbasids. This forced Sa'id to flee from Syria to North Africa, where he founded the Fatimid Caliphate in Ifriqiya in 909. There he assumed the regnal name al-Mahdi Billah ; as
22960-484: The chains of obsolete beliefs and inherited customs". Jack McLean notes the novel symbolism of the Báb's works, observing that "The universe of the Báb's sacred writings is pervasively symbolic. Numbers, colors, minerals, liquids, the human body, social relationships, gestures, deeds, language (letters and words), and nature itself are all mirrors or signs that reflect the profounder reality of the names and attributes (asmá va sifát) of God". Todd Lawson similarly identifies in
23165-435: The city had swelled to around 3,000 after the conversion of one of the town's religious leaders to the Bábí movement. The conflict was preceded by years of growing tension between the leading Islamic clergy and the new rising Bábí leadership. The city governor ordered that the city be divided into two sectors, with hostilities starting soon thereafter. The Bábís faced resistance against a large number of regular troops, and led to
23370-589: The clergy of the province led to the Shah, Mohammad Shah Qajar , ordering the Báb to Tehran in January, 1847. After spending several months in a camp outside Tehran, and before the Báb could meet the Shah, the Prime Minister sent the Báb to Tabriz in the northwestern corner of the country, and later Maku and Chehriq , where he was confined. During his confinement, he was said to have impressed his jailers with his patience and dignity. Communication between
23575-457: The code fas for the dialects spoken across Iran and Afghanistan. This consists of the individual languages Dari ( prs ) and Iranian Persian ( pes ). It uses tgk for Tajik, separately. In general, the Iranian languages are known from three periods: namely Old, Middle, and New (Modern). These correspond to three historical eras of Iranian history ; Old era being sometime around the Achaemenid Empire (i.e., 400–300 BC), Middle era being
23780-512: The collapse of the Sassanid state, Parsik came to be applied exclusively to (either Middle or New) Persian that was written in the Arabic script . From about the 9th century onward, as Middle Persian was on the threshold of becoming New Persian, the older form of the language came to be erroneously called Pahlavi , which was actually but one of the writing systems used to render both Middle Persian as well as various other Middle Iranian languages. That writing system had previously been adopted by
23985-406: The commentaries of the Báb an assertion of "the potential and ultimate meaningfulness of all created things, from the highest to the lowest." The Báb's works are characterised by linguistic innovation, including many neologisms whenever He found existing theological terms inadequate. Several scholars have identified the continual repetition of particular words or phrases of religious importance to be
24190-555: The concept of the Báb's overriding religious authority with ideas originating in Shaykhism pointing to an age after outward conformity . She seems to have made this connection c. 1262 /1846 even before the Báb himself. The matter was taken up by the community at large at the Conference of Badasht . This conference was one of the most important events of the Bábí movement when in 1848 its split from Islam and Islamic law
24395-525: The daily administration of the Bábí affairs. Bahá'u'lláh claimed that in 1853, while a prisoner in Tehran, he was visited by a " Maid of Heaven ", which symbolically marked the beginning of his mission as a Messenger of God. Ten years later in Baghdad, he made his first public declaration to be "He whom God shall make manifest" to a small number of followers, and in 1866 he made the claim public. Bahá'u'lláh's claims threatened Subh-i Azal's position as leader of
24600-419: The day of Ashura (the tenth of Muharram ), the day the third Imam Husayn ibn Ali was slain. He will be "a young man of medium stature with a handsome face," with black hair and beard. A divine cry will call the people of the world to his aid, after which the angels, jinns , and humans will flock to the Mahdi. This is often followed shortly by another supernatural cry from the earth that invites men to join
24805-455: The death of several Bábís and their opponents, as well as an armed conflict between Bábís and their enemies in fort Ṭabarsí . After that, two other big clashes between the Bábís and their opponents took place in the cities of Zanjan and Neyriz in the north and south of Iran, respectively, as well as a smaller conflict in Yazd . A total of several thousand Bábís were killed in these conflicts. In
25010-455: The death of several thousand Bábís. After Hujjat was killed, and the Bábí numbers being greatly reduced, the Bábís surrendered in January 1851 and were massacred by the army. Meanwhile, a serious but less protracted struggle was waged against the government at Neyriz in Fars by Yahya Vahid Darabi of Nayriz. Vahid had converted around 1500 people in the community and had thus caused tensions with
25215-597: The deaths occurring during the first 20 years. The first major killings of Bábís recorded in history took place in Qazvin . Since then, attacks against the Bábís by prominent clerics and their followers became more common and some Bábís started to carry arms. In remote and isolated places the scattered Bábís were readily attacked and killed while in places where large numbers of them resided they acted in self-defense. One of these attacks occurred in Babol of Mazandaran which led to
25420-413: The descendants of Fatimah". Another hadith states: Even if only one day remains [until the doomsday], God will lengthen this day until He calls forth a man from me, or from the family of my house, his name matching mine and his father's name matching that of my father. He will fill the Earth with equity and justice just as it had previously been filled with injustice and oppression. Before the arrival of
25625-533: The desert between Mecca and Medina. When the people see this, the righteous men ... of Syria and ... Iraq will come to him and pledge allegiance to him. Thereafter a man of the Quraysh will arise whose maternal uncles are of Kalb. He will send an expedition against them, but they will defeat them ... He will then divide the wealth and act among them according to the Sunna of their Prophet. Islam will settle down firmly on
25830-582: The eleventh imam, Hasan al-Askari . According to the Twelvers, the Mahdi was born in Samarra around 868, though his birth was kept hidden from the public. He lived under his father's care until 874 when the latter was killed by the Abbasids . When his father died in 874, possibly poisoned by the Abbasids, the Mahdi went into occultation by the divine command and was hidden from public view for his life
26035-401: The eleventh imam. Through him the Mahdi would answer the demands and questions of the Shia. He was later succeeded by his son Muhammad ibn Uthman al-Amri , who held the office for some fifty years and died in 917. His successor Husayn ibn Rawh al-Nawbakhti was in the office until his death in 938. The next deputy, Ali ibn Muhammad al-Simari , abolished the office on the orders of the imam just
26240-467: The enemies of the Mahdi, and would appeal to disbelievers and hypocrites. The Mahdi will then go to Kufa , which will become his capital, and send troops to kill the Sufyani in Damascus. Husayn and his slain partisans are expected to resurrect to avenge their deaths, known as the doctrine of raj'a ( lit. ' return ' ). The episode of Jesus' return in the Twelver doctrine is similar to
26445-425: The environment must not be polluted since all substances return to the inland water table and the oceans. The Arabic Bayán (9:11) also forbids the commodification of the four elements, earth, air, fire and water. The Báb also created a large number of other rituals, rites and laws. Some of these include the carrying of arms only in times of necessity, abstaining from smoking tobacco, the obligatory sitting on chairs,
26650-403: The expectations of his propagandists and followers who expected him to do wonders. Al-Mahdi attempted to downplay messianism and asserted that the propaganda of Muhammad ibn Isma'il's return as the Mahdi had only been a ruse to avoid Abbasid persecution and protect the real imam predecessors of his. The Mahdi was actually a collective title of the true imams from the progeny of Ja'far al-Sadiq. In
26855-652: The extent of its influence on certain languages of the Indian subcontinent. Words borrowed from Persian are still quite commonly used in certain Indo-Aryan languages, especially Hindi - Urdu (also historically known as Hindustani ), Punjabi , Kashmiri , and Sindhi . There is also a small population of Zoroastrian Iranis in India, who migrated in the 19th century to escape religious execution in Qajar Iran and speak
27060-477: The extent of your ability ... should ye find one who is in distress, bring him tranquility by any means in your power". Jack McLean, summarizing Baháʼí scholar Nader Saiedi's analysis, writes that "the Báb's writings even foresee current global issues of crisis, such as the protection of the environment and the commodification of natural resources" The Báb specifically calls for the absolute purity of water (Bayán 6:2). It may be easily deduced from this injunction that
27265-546: The final end of the world. In Twelver Shi'ism , the largest Shia branch, the belief in the messianic imam is not merely a part of creed, but the pivot. For the Twelver Shia, the Mahdi was born but disappeared, and would remain hidden from humanity until he reappears to bring justice to the world in the end of time, a doctrine known as the Occultation . This imam in occultation is the twelfth imam, Muhammad , son of
27470-534: The first references to the Mahdi appear in the late 7th century, when the revolutionary Mukhtar al-Thaqafi declared Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya , a son of Caliph Ali ( r. 656–661 ), to be the Mahdi. Although the concept of a Mahdi is not an essential doctrine in Islam, it is popular among Muslims. Over centuries, there have been a vast number of Mahdi claimants . The Mahdi features in both Shia and Sunni branches of Islam , though they differ extensively on his attributes and status. Among Twelver Shias ,
27675-575: The following phylogenetic classification: Mahdi The Mahdi ( Arabic : ٱلْمَهْدِيّ , romanized : al-Mahdī , lit. 'the Guided';; Persian : مهدی ) is a figure in Islamic eschatology who is believed to appear at the End of Times to rid the world of evil and injustice. He is said to be a descendant of Muhammad , who will appear shortly before Jesus . The Mahdi
27880-444: The formation of many modern languages in West Asia, Europe, Central Asia , and South Asia . Following the Turko-Persian Ghaznavid conquest of South Asia , Persian was firstly introduced in the region by Turkic Central Asians. The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties. For five centuries prior to
28085-421: The formation of the Achaemenid Empire and was spoken during most of the first half of the first millennium BCE. Xenophon , a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BCE, which is when Old Persian was still spoken and extensively used. He relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like
28290-406: The founder of the movement; he is held to be the Mahdi and the manifestation of Jesus . However, the historical Jesus in their view, although escaped crucifixion, nevertheless died and will not be coming back. Instead, God made Mirza Ghulam Ahmad the exact alike of Jesus in character and qualities. Similarly, the Mahdi is not an apocalyptic figure to launch global jihad and conquer the world, but
28495-426: The fourth nā'ib claimed that Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi had gone into an indefinite " Major Occultation ", and that he would cease to communicate with the people. According to Twelver belief, the Hidden Imam is alive in the world, but in concealment from his enemies, and will only emerge shortly before the Last Judgment . At that time, acting as Qa'im Al Muhammad ("He who will arise"), a messianic figure also known as
28700-409: The governor of the city was killed by the Bábís. These further events led to a second armed conflict near the city where the Bábís once again resisted troop attacks until November 1853, when a massacre of Bábís happened, with their women being enslaved. The revolts in Zanjan and Nayriz were in progress when in 1850 the Báb, with one of his disciples, was brought from his prison at Chehriq citadel, which
28905-423: The ground ... He will stay seven years and then die, and the Muslims will pray over him. Refusing to recognize the new caliph, Yazid I ( r. 680–683 ), after Mu'awiya's death in 680, Ibn al-Zubayr had fled to the Meccan sanctuary. From there he launched anti-Umayyad propaganda, calling for a shura of the Quraysh to elect a new caliph. Those opposed to the Umayyads were paying him homage and asking for
29110-408: The hadith's prediction was successful in removing Ibn al-Zubayr. The hadith lost relevance soon afterward, but resurfaced in the Basran hadith circles a generation later, this time removed from its original context and understood as referring to a future restorer. Around the time when Ibn al-Zubayr was trying to expand his dominion, the pro-Alid revolutionary al-Mukhtar al-Thaqafi took control of
29315-435: The historian Heinz Halm comments, the singular, semi-divine figure of the Mahdi was thus reduced to an adjective in a caliphal title, 'the Imam rightly guided by God' ( al-imam al-mahdi bi'llah ): instead of the promised messiah, al-Mahdi presented himself merely as one in a long sequence of imams descending from Ali and Fatima. Messianic expectations associated with the Mahdi nevertheless did not materialize, contrary to
29520-408: The imam instead. When he died, his followers too denied his death and believed that he was the last imam and the Mahdi. By the mid-9th century, Isma'ili groups of different persuasions had coalesced into a unified movement centered in Salamiyya in central Syria, and a network of activists was working to collect funds and amass weapons for the return of the Mahdi Muhammad ibn Isma'il, who would overthrow
29725-460: The increased fervour of the Bábís and the clerical opposition had led to a number of confrontations between the Bábís and their government and clerical establishment. After the death of Mohammad Shah Qajar , the shah of Iran, a series of armed struggles and uprisings broke out in the country, including at Tabarsi. These confrontations all resulted in Bábí massacres; Bahá'í authors give an estimate of 20,000 Bábís killed from 1844 to present, with most of
29930-435: The killings of many Bábís. Of the conflicts between the Bábís and the establishment, the first and best known took place in Māzandarān at the remote shrine of Shaykh Tabarsi , about 22 kilometres (14 mi) southeast of Bārfarush (modern Babol ). From October 1848 until May 1849, around 300 Bábís (later rising to 600), led by Quddús and Mullá Husayn, defended themselves against the attacks of local villagers and members of
30135-487: The kingdom of God on earth and Islamizes the whole world. In their true form, it is believed, all monotheistic religions are essentially identical to Islam as "submission to God." It is in this sense, according to Mohammad Ali Amir Moezzi , that one should understand the claims that al-Mahdi will impose Islam on everyone. His rule will be paradise on earth, which will last for seventy years until his death, though other traditions state 7, 19, or 309 years. In Isma'ilism
30340-410: The language of the Persians. Related to Old Persian, but from a different branch of the Iranian language family, was Avestan , the language of the Zoroastrian liturgical texts. The complex grammatical conjugation and declension of Old Persian yielded to the structure of Middle Persian in which the dual number disappeared, leaving only singular and plural, as did gender. Middle Persian developed
30545-402: The late 19th century. The Iranian dissident Massoud Rajavi , the leader of the MEK , also claimed to be a 'representative' of the Mahdi. The adherents of the Nation of Islam hold Wallace Fard Muhammad , the founder of the movement, to be the Messiah and the Mahdi. Adnan Oktar , a Turkish cult leader, is considered by his followers as the Mahdi. Ibn Khaldun noted a pattern where embracing
30750-550: The messianic imam anticipated in Shia traditions. With the rise of the Fatimids in the tenth century CE, however, al-Qadi al-Nu'man argued that some of these predictions had materialized by the first Fatimid caliph, Abd Allah al-Mahdi Billah , while the rest would be fulfilled by his successors. Henceforth, their literature referred to the awaited eschatological imam only as Qa'im (instead of Mahdi). In Zaydi view, imams are not endowed with superhuman qualities, and expectations for their mahdiship are thus often marginal. One exception
30955-479: The mid-7th century. They believed that the Mahdi would lead them back to their homeland and re-establish the Himyarite Kingdom . They also believed that he would eventually conquer Constantinople . It has also been suggested that the concept of the Mahdi may have been derived from earlier messianic Jewish and Christian beliefs. Accordingly, traditions were introduced to support certain political interests, especially anti-Abbasid sentiments. These traditions about
31160-432: The middle-period form only continuing in the texts of Zoroastrianism . Middle Persian is considered to be a later form of the same dialect as Old Persian. The native name of Middle Persian was Parsig or Parsik , after the name of the ethnic group of the southwest, that is, "of Pars ", Old Persian Parsa , New Persian Fars . This is the origin of the name Farsi as it is today used to signify New Persian. Following
31365-449: The millenarian rhetoric. The Tayyibi Musta'li Isma'ili Shia believe that their Occulted Imam and Mahdi is Abu'l-Qasim al-Tayyib , son of the Fatimid Caliph Al-Amir bi-Ahkam Allah . In Zaydism , the concept of imamate is different from the Isma'ili and Twelver branches; a Zaydi Imam is any respectable person from the descendants of Ali and Fatima who lays claim to political leadership and struggles for its acquisition. As such,
31570-403: The most authoritative by the Sunnis and the earliest of the six—do not, nor does al-Nasa'i . Some Sunnis, including the philosopher and historian Ibn Khaldun ( d. 1406 ), and reportedly also Hasan al-Basri, an influential early theologian and exegete, deny the Mahdi being a separate figure, holding that Jesus will fulfill this role and judge over mankind; Mahdi is thus considered
31775-411: The most widely spoken. The term Persian is an English derivation of Latin Persiānus , the adjectival form of Persia , itself deriving from Greek Persís ( Περσίς ), a Hellenized form of Old Persian Pārsa ( 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 ), which means " Persia " (a region in southwestern Iran, corresponding to modern-day Fars ). According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the term Persian as
31980-411: The nationalist movement of the time. The academy was a key institution in the struggle to re-build Iran as a nation-state after the collapse of the Qajar dynasty. During the 1930s and 1940s, the academy led massive campaigns to replace the many Arabic , Russian , French , and Greek loanwords whose widespread use in Persian during the centuries preceding the foundation of the Pahlavi dynasty had created
32185-448: The necessity of protecting the Persian language against foreign words, and to the standardization of Persian orthography , were under the reign of Naser ed Din Shah of the Qajar dynasty in 1871. After Naser ed Din Shah, Mozaffar ed Din Shah ordered the establishment of the first Persian association in 1903. This association officially declared that it used Persian and Arabic as acceptable sources for coining words. The ultimate goal
32390-501: The new current was also a product of Iran's grappling with novelty and change, and [the Babi movement] went on to present a vision of modernity that was based on secularism, internationalism, and the rejection of war. It is this vision which has enabled it to survive to the present day – as Bahaism, which emerged from Babism in the late nineteenth century – in pockets and communities peopled by 5 million souls, and which qualifies it for inclusion in any narrative about modernisation in
32595-404: The new religion in the West when they were published 1 November 1845 in The Times of London. The story was also carried from 15 November by the Literary Gazette which was subsequently echoed widely. Meanwhile the Báb was placed under house arrest at the home of his uncle, and was restricted in his personal activities, until a cholera epidemic broke out in the city in September 1846. The Báb
32800-414: The next period most officially around the Sasanian Empire , and New era being the period afterward down to present day. According to available documents, the Persian language is "the only Iranian language" for which close philological relationships between all of its three stages are established and so that Old, Middle, and New Persian represent one and the same language of Persian; that is, New Persian
33005-430: The next two years comparatively little was heard of the Bábís. The Bábís became polarized with one group speaking of violent retribution against Naser al-Din Shah Qajar , while the other, under the leadership of Baha'u'lláh, looked to rebuild relationships with the government and advance the Babí cause by persuasion and the example of virtuous living. The militant group of Bábís was between thirty and seventy persons, only
33210-549: The northern part of Greece). Vardar Yenicesi differed from other localities in the Balkans insofar as that it was a town where Persian was also widely spoken. However, the Persian of Vardar Yenicesi and throughout the rest of the Ottoman-held Balkans was different from formal Persian both in accent and vocabulary. The difference was apparent to such a degree that the Ottomans referred to it as "Rumelian Persian" ( Rumili Farsisi ). As learned people such as students, scholars and literati often frequented Vardar Yenicesi, it soon became
33415-498: The now-extinct sects of Nawusites and Waqifites . For instance, these traditions were cited by the now-extinct Kaysanites , who denied the death of Ibn al-Hanafiyya, and held that he was in hiding in the Razwa mountains near Medina . This likely originated with two groups of his supporters, namely, southern Arabian settlers and local recent converts in Iraq , who seem to have spread the notions now known as occultation and raj'a . Later on, these traditions were also employed by
33620-418: The official language of the Achaemenid kings. Assyrian records, which in fact appear to provide the earliest evidence for ancient Iranian (Persian and Median) presence on the Iranian Plateau, give a good chronology but only an approximate geographical indication of what seem to be ancient Persians. In these records of the 9th century BCE, Parsuwash (along with Matai , presumably Medians) are first mentioned in
33825-440: The physical reappearance of the Imam Mahdi who had died a thousand years earlier. In Bábí belief the statements made from previous revelations regarding the Imam Mahdi were set forth in symbols. The Báb also stated that he was not only the fulfillment of the Shiʻi expectations for the Qá'im, but that he also was the beginning of a new prophetic dispensation. The Báb taught that his revelation was beginning an apocalyptic process that
34030-524: The present territories of northwestern Afghanistan as well as parts of Central Asia, played a leading role in the rise of New Persian. Khorasan, which was the homeland of the Parthians, was Persianized under the Sasanians. Dari Persian thus supplanted Parthian language , which by the end of the Sasanian era had fallen out of use. New Persian has incorporated many foreign words, including from eastern northern and northern Iranian languages such as Sogdian and especially Parthian. The transition to New Persian
34235-405: The promised one, and recognize him out of his own intrinsic reality, works and attributes, and not due to any reasons external to him. He even warns them not to be deprived of the promised one by arguing against him from the works of the Báb, the same way the followers of the previous religions opposed the next prophet while citing their holy scriptures. Furthermore, the Báb speaks of the imminence of
34440-594: The public proclamation of his caliphate, forcing Yazid to send an army to dislodge him in 683. After defeating rebels in the nearby Medina , the army besieged Mecca but was forced to withdraw as a result of Yazid's sudden death shortly afterward. Ibn al-Zubayr was recognized caliph in Arabia, Iraq, and parts of Syria, where Yazid's son and successor Mu'awiya II ( r. 683–684 ) held power in Damascus and adjoining areas. The hadith hoped to enlist support against an expected Umayyad campaign from Syria. The Umayyads did indeed send another army to Mecca in 692, but contrary to
34645-477: The region during the following centuries. Persian continued to act as a courtly language for various empires in Punjab through the early 19th century serving finally as the official state language of the Sikh Empire , preceding British conquest and the decline of Persian in South Asia. Beginning in 1843, though, English and Hindustani gradually replaced Persian in importance on the subcontinent. Evidence of Persian's historical influence there can be seen in
34850-441: The reign of Sultan Ghiyathuddin Azam Shah is described as the "golden age of Persian literature in Bengal". Its stature was illustrated by the Sultan's own correspondence and collaboration with the Persian poet Hafez ; a poem which can be found in the Divan of Hafez today. A Bengali dialect emerged among the common Bengali Muslim folk, based on a Persian model and known as Dobhashi ; meaning mixed language . Dobhashi Bengali
35055-503: The religion since it would mean little to be leader of the Bábís if "Him Whom God Shall Make Manifest" were to appear and start a new religion. Subh-i-Azal responded by making his own claims, but his attempt to preserve the traditional Bábísm was largely unpopular, and his followers became the minority. Eventually Bahá'u'lláh was recognized by the vast majority of Bábís as "He whom God shall make manifest" and his followers began calling themselves Bahá'ís. By 1908, there were probably from half
35260-426: The return to life of (some) Shia Imams, particularly Husayn ibn Ali , to exact their revenge on their oppressors. Traditions that predicted the occultation and rise of a future imam were already in circulation for a century before the death of the eleventh Imam in 260 (874 CE), and possibly as early as the seventh-century CE. These traditions were appropriated by various Shia sects in different periods, including
35465-554: The site of a flourishing Persianate linguistic and literary culture. The 16th-century Ottoman Aşık Çelebi (died 1572), who hailed from Prizren in modern-day Kosovo , was galvanized by the abundant Persian-speaking and Persian-writing communities of Vardar Yenicesi, and he referred to the city as a "hotbed of Persian". Many Ottoman Persianists who established a career in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul ) pursued early Persian training in Saraybosna, amongst them Ahmed Sudi . The Persian language influenced
35670-413: The split. During this same month the Báb was brought to trial in Tabriz and made his claim to be the Mahdi public to the Crown Prince and the Shi'a clergy. Several sources agree that by 1848 or 1850 there were 100,000 converts to Babism. In the fall of 1850 newspaper coverage fell behind quickly unfolding events. Though the Báb was named for the first time he had in fact already been executed. By 1848
35875-452: The standard Persian of Tajikistan, has been officially designated as Tajik ( тоҷикӣ , tojikī ) since the time of the Soviet Union . It is the name given to the varieties of Persian spoken in Central Asia in general. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa for the Persian language, as its coding system is mostly based on the native-language designations. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses
36080-458: The standard Persian. The Hazaragi dialect (in Central Afghanistan and Pakistan), Herati (in Western Afghanistan), Darwazi (in Afghanistan and Tajikistan), Basseri (in Southern Iran), and the Tehrani accent (in Iran, the basis of standard Iranian Persian) are examples of these dialects. Persian-speaking peoples of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan can understand one another with a relatively high degree of mutual intelligibility . Nevertheless,
36285-413: The station of the Báb before they could begin teaching others about the new revelation. Within five months, seventeen other disciples of Sayyid Kāẓim had independently recognized the Báb as a Manifestation of God. Among them was one woman, Zarrin Tāj Baraghāni, a poet, who later received the name of Táhirih (the Pure). These 18 disciples were later to be known as the Letters of the Living and were given
36490-406: The task of spreading the new faith across Iran and Iraq. The Báb emphasized the spiritual station of these 18 individuals, who along with himself, made the first "Unity" of his religion. After his declaration, he soon assumed the title of the Báb. Within a few years the movement spread all over Iran, causing controversy. His claim was at first understood by some of the public at the time to be merely
36695-487: The term Bayání faith though it died out in Cyprus. ( Persian : بيانى , Bayání ). In 2001, Azalis were estimated to number no more than a few thousand, living mainly in Iran. The Báb's teachings can be grouped into three broad stages which each have a dominant thematic focus. His earliest teachings are primarily defined by his interpretation of the Quran and other Islamic traditions . While this interpretive mode continues throughout all three stages of his teachings,
36900-477: The three main conflicts in Ṭabarsí, Zanjan and Neyriz, Bábís were accused by their enemies of revolting against the government. However, it seems unlikely that these actions were purely revolutionary. In all three cases, the battles that took place were of a defensive nature, and not considered an offensive jihad , as the Báb did not allow it and in the case of two urban conflicts (Neyriz and Zanjan), they were related to pre-existing social and political tensions within
37105-427: The time ( صاحب الزمان sahib az-zamān ) and does not age. Although his whereabouts and the exact date of his return are unknown, the Mahdi is nevertheless believed to contact some of his Shia if he wishes. The accounts of these encounters are numerous and widespread in the Twelver community. Shia scholars have argued that the longevity of the Mahdi is not unreasonable given the long lives of Khidr , Jesus , and
37310-510: The time of the apparent appointment Subh-i Azal was still a teenager, had never demonstrated leadership in the Bábí movement, and was still living in the house of his older brother, Bahá'u'lláh. All of this lends credence to the Bahá'í claim that the Báb appointed Subh-i Azal the head of the Bábí Faith so as to divert attention away from Bahá'u'lláh, while allowing Bábís to visit Bahá'u'lláh and consult with him freely, and allowing Bahá'u'lláh to write Bábís easily and freely. Subh-i Azal's leadership
37515-413: The towns. There is also no evidence of a coordinated plan of action. Wilson suggests that the Bábí uprisings were deliberate and that their clashes with authority were sometimes extremely brutal to respond to the tactics of the supporters of government. In mid-1850 a new prime-minister, Amir Kabir , was convinced that the Bábí movement was a threat and ordered the execution of the Báb which was followed by
37720-422: The use of Farsi in foreign languages. Etymologically, the Persian term Farsi derives from its earlier form Pārsi ( Pārsik in Middle Persian ), which in turn comes from the same root as the English term Persian . In the same process, the Middle Persian toponym Pārs ("Persia") evolved into the modern name Fars. The phonemic shift from /p/ to /f/ is due to the influence of Arabic in
37925-465: The washing and disposal of the dead. Nader Saiedi states that the severe laws of the Bayán were never meant to be put in practice, because their implementation depended on the appearance of He whom God shall make manifest, while at the same time all of the laws would be abrogated unless the Promised One would reaffirm them. Saiedi concludes that these can then only have a strategic and symbolic meaning, and were meant to break through traditions and to focus
38130-399: The world becomes oppressed, the Imam Mahdi (also termed the Qa'im ) will come out of occultation and restore true religion on Earth before the cataclysmic end of the world and judgement day. In Bábí belief the Báb is the return of the Imam Mahdi, but the doctrine of the Occultation is implicitly denied; instead the Báb stated that his manifestation was a symbolic return of the Imam, and not
38335-454: The world will plunge into chaos, where immorality and ignorance will be commonplace, the Qur'an will be forgotten, and religion will be abandoned. There will be plagues, earthquakes, floods, wars and death. The Sufyani will rise and lead people astray. The Mahdi will then reappear in Mecca, with the sword of Ali ( ḏū l-fiqār ) in his hand, between the corner of the Ka'ba and the station of Abraham . By some accounts, he will reappear on
38540-455: The world. Therefore understand these allusions". In the Persian Bayán , the Báb wrote that religious dispensations come in cycles, as the seasons, to renew "pure religion" for humanity. This notion of continuity anticipated future prophetic revelations after the Báb. One of the core Bábí teachings is that a new prophet would soon come, whom the Báb termed He whom God shall make manifest ( Arabic : من يظهر الله , Persian : مظهر کلّیه الهی ),
38745-416: Was already complete by the era of the three princely dynasties of Iranian origin, the Tahirid dynasty (820–872), Saffarid dynasty (860–903), and Samanid Empire (874–999). Abbas of Merv is mentioned as being the earliest minstrel to chant verse in the New Persian tongue and after him the poems of Hanzala Badghisi were among the most famous between the Persian-speakers of the time. The first poems of
38950-471: Was bringing the Islamic dispensation to its cyclical end, and starting a new dispensation. He taught that the terms "resurrection", "Judgement Day", "paradise" and "hell" used in Shiʻa prophecies for the end-times are symbolic. He stated that "Resurrection" means that the appearance of a new revelation, and that "raising of the dead" means the spiritual awakening of those who have stepped away from true religion. He further stated that "Judgement Day" refers to when
39155-484: Was called jabal alshadid , meaning 'mount extreme', by the Báb, to Tabriz and publicly shot in front of the citadel. The body, after being exposed for some days, was recovered by the Bábís and conveyed to a shrine near Tehran , whence it was ultimately removed to Haifa , where it is now enshrined . Most Western scholars who reviewed the Faith of the Báb after 1860 saw it as a way of letting in Western and Christian ideals into "a closed and rigid Moslem system" and gave
39360-404: Was commonly given the epithet al-Qa'im ( القائم ), which can be translated as 'he who will rise,' signifying his rise against tyranny in the end of time. Distinctively Shia is the notion of temporary absence or occultation of the Mahdi, whose life has been prolonged by divine will. An intimately related Shia notion is that of raj'a ( lit. ' return ' ), which often means
39565-486: Was controversial. He generally absented himself from the Bábí community spending his time in Baghdad in hiding and disguise; and even went so far as to publicly disavow allegiance to the Báb on several occasions. Subh-i Azal gradually alienated himself from a large proportion of the Bábís who started to give their alliance to other claimants. During the time that both Bahá'u'lláh and Subh-i-Azal were in Baghdad, since Subh-i Azal remained in hiding, Bahá'u'lláh performed much of
39770-420: Was in danger from the Abbasids. Only a few of the elite among the Shia, known as the deputies ( سفراء , sufara ; sing. سفير safir ) of the twelfth imam, were able to communicate with him; hence the occultation in this period is referred to as the Minor Occultation ( ghayba al-sughra ). The first of the deputies is held to have been Uthman ibn Sa'id al-Amri , a trusted companion and confidant of
39975-414: Was made clear. Three key individuals who attended the conference were Bahá'u'lláh , Quddús , and Táhirih. Táhirih, during the conference, was able to persuade many of the others about the Bábí split with Islam based on the station of the Báb and an age after outward conformity. She appeared at least once during the conference in public without a veil , heresy within the Islamic world of that day, signalling
40180-411: Was much evolution as he progressively outlined his teachings, was turbulent and short lived and ended with his public execution in Tabriz in 1850. A campaign of extermination followed, in which thousands of followers were killed in what has been described as potentially one of the bloodiest actions of the Qajar Iranian military in the 19th century. According to current estimates, Bábism has no more than
40385-516: Was not applied to him, his career as the anti-caliph significantly influenced the future development of the concept. A hadith was promulgated in which Muhammad prophesies the coming of a just ruler. There will arise a difference after the death of a caliph, and a man of the people of Medina will go forth fleeing to Mecca. Then some of the people of Mecca will come to him and will make him rise in revolt against his will ... An expedition will be sent against him from Syria but will be swallowed up ... in
40590-484: Was patronised and given official status under the Sultans of Bengal , and was a popular literary form used by Bengalis during the pre-colonial period, irrespective of their religion. Following the defeat of the Hindu Shahi dynasty, classical Persian was established as a courtly language in the region during the late 10th century under Ghaznavid rule over the northwestern frontier of the subcontinent . Employed by Punjabis in literature, Persian achieved prominence in
40795-436: Was released and departed for Isfahan . There, many came to see him at the house of the imám jum'ih, head of the local clergy, who became sympathetic. After an informal gathering where the Báb debated the local clergy and displayed his speed in producing instantaneous verses, his popularity soared. After the death of the Governor of Isfahan, Manouchehr Khan Gorji , an Iranian Georgian , who had become his supporter, pressure from
41000-423: Was returning from the chase to his palace at Niavarān . Notwithstanding the assassins' claim that they were working alone, the entire Bábí community was blamed, and a slaughter of several thousand Bábís followed, starting on 31 August 1852 with some thirty Bábís, including Táhirih. Dr Jakob Eduard Polak , then the Shah's physician, was an eye-witness to her execution. Bahá'u'lláh surrendered himself and he along with
41205-489: Was searching for the possible successor to Sayyid Kāẓim, al-Qā'im, and the Báb told Mullá Husayn privately that he was Sayyid Kāẓim's successor and the bearer of divine knowledge. Through the night of the 22nd to dawn of the 23rd, Mullá Husayn became the first to accept the Báb's claims as the gateway to Truth and the initiator of a new prophetic cycle; the Báb had replied in a satisfactory way to all of Mullá Husayn's questions and had written in his presence, with extreme rapidity,
41410-430: Was sentenced by the Ottomans to serve in the naval shipyards at hard labor—the Ottoman ruler refusing to banish him as it would be "difficult to control his activities and prevent him spreading his false ideas." Separately each of the Letters and other early believers were sent on various missions to begin public presentations of the new religion. Indeed various activities the Báb initiated were devolved to various Letters of
41615-488: Was taught in state schools, and was also offered as an elective course or recommended for study in some madrasas . Persian learning was also widespread in the Ottoman-held Balkans ( Rumelia ), with a range of cities being famed for their long-standing traditions in the study of Persian and its classics, amongst them Saraybosna (modern Sarajevo , Bosnia and Herzegovina), Mostar (also in Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Vardar Yenicesi (or Yenice-i Vardar, now Giannitsa , in
41820-419: Was the Mahdi. Hasan al-Basri ( d. 728 ) opposed the concept of a Muslim Messiah but believed that if there was the Mahdi, it was Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz. By the time of the Abbasid Revolution in 750, Mahdi was already a known concept. Evidence shows that the first Abbasid caliph al-Saffah ( r. 750–754 ) assumed the title of "the Mahdi" for himself. In Shia Islam, the eschatological Mahdi
42025-425: Was to prevent books from being printed with wrong use of words. According to the executive guarantee of this association, the government was responsible for wrongfully printed books. Words coined by this association, such as rāh-āhan ( راهآهن ) for "railway", were printed in Soltani Newspaper ; but the association was eventually closed due to inattention. A scientific association was founded in 1911, resulting in
#188811