Articles

  By Denis Mac Eoin       BĀB “door, gate, entrance”: a term of varied applications.             It is applied differently in several sects to a rank in the spiritual hierarchy, either as conceived in transcendent terms or as actually…

  By Denis Mac Eoin            Azali Babism, designation of a religious faction which takes its name from Mīrzā Yaḥyā Nūrī Ṣobḥ-e Azal (about 1246-1330/1830 - 1912), considered by his followers to have been the legitimate successor to…

  By Vance Salisbury   Introduction While searching for information about the Sufism during the latter part of the 19th century, British orientalist Edward Granville Browne, came upon an account of Ali Muhammad Shirazi, the Bab…

Abstract Dissimulation of the faith was widespread among Babis and Baha’is until the early years of the ministry of Shoghi Effendi (1921-57), when he, in a number of messages starting in 1927, prohibited its practice. …

           A religious thought appeared in Persia around 1844 at the invitation of a man from the people of Shiraz, known as Ali Muhammad. He was a disciple of some of the students of Sheikh Ahmad Zainuddin Al-Ahsa’ei, who combined Sufi…

Abstract Double standard of Baha’i organization on the problem of whom one should obey when there is apparent conflict between the immediate civil authority under which one resides and a superior authority, such as a state or the…

           Although Babism never developed much beyond the stage of a sectarian movement within Shia Islam, it experienced a number of minor but interesting divisions, particularly in its early phase. The first of these involved the…

            Muhammad bin Abdul-Vahhab Qazvini, arrived in Paris from Clarens, Switzerland, on 6 October 1911 and immediately got such a severe cold that for a week I stayed home. During this period I did not leave my dwelling and…

            Shoghi Effendi did not accept to make any changes to the contents of the 10 years plan, nor to change the members of the International Bahá'í Council, or to change its appointed chairman (Mason Remey); and had referred in…

           It was toward the end of 1911 when I arrived in Paris from Istanbul, where I had been staying since the beginning of February of that year. I made this journey by the invitation of Haji Ali-Quli Khan Sardar Asad Bakhtiyari…