The Organizational Hierarchy of the Bābīs during the period of Ṣubḥ-i-Azal’s residency in Baghdad (1852–1863)
Abstract
This article discusses the organizational hierarchy of
the Bābīs during the period of Ṣubḥ-i-Azal’s (d. 1912) concealment from the
public and his residency in Baghdad
between the years 1852 to 1863. It pursues an analytic historiographical and
textual critical approach by mainly utilizing primary and secondary sources in
Arabic, Persian and English belonging to both the Bayānīs (i.e. Azalīs) and the
Bahāʾīs alike. First by offering some brief context,
it will explain this organizational hierarchy of the Bābīs during the Middle
Bābī period (1850-66), highlighting the role and function of the witnesses of
the Bayān (shuhadāʾ-i-bayān). More importantly, it will introduce a hitherto unknown
work (and primary source) of Ṣubḥ-i-Azal’s from that era, namely the kitāb
al-waṣīya (the Book of the Testament), wherein seven to eight prominent Bābīs
of that period were appointed to the rank. The two presently known MSS
of this work will be discussed, as well as extensively quoted in translation,
with the individuals named in it identified. The sectarian narratives (with their
conflicting authority claims) dividing the Bayānīs (i.e. Azalīs) and Bahāʾīs over the history of the period will be critically evaluated
while also briefly revisiting the ‘episode of Dayyān’. It will conclude by
proposing the untenability of the terms ‘Azalī’ and ‘Azalī Bābism’. This study
supplements Denis MacEoin’s two articles on the subject published during the
1980s.
