Bábism

Bábism, also known as the Bábi Faith (Persian: بابیه, romanized: Babiyye), is a monotheistic religion which professes that there is one incorporeal, unknown, and incomprehensible God who manifests his will in an unending series of theophanies, called Manifestation of God. It has no more than a few thousand adherents according to current estimates, most of whom are concentrated in Iran. It was founded by ʻAli Muhammad Shirazi who first assumed the title of Báb (lit. ’Gate’) from which the religion gets its name, out of the belief that he was the gate to the Twelfth Imam. However throughout his ministry his titles and claims underwent much evolution as the Báb progressively outlined his teachings.Founded in 1844, the Bábi Faith 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 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 Baháʼí Faith, whose followers consider the religion founded by the Báb as a predecessor to their own. Baháʼí sources maintain that the remains of the Bab were clandestinely rescued by a handful of Bábis and then hidden. Over time the remains were secretly transported according to the instructions of Baháʼu’lláh and then ʻAbdu’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 ʻAbdu’l-Bahá, on Mount Carmel in present-day Haifa, Israel.