ABSTRACT
A brief look at the Babi and Baha’i Faiths as an object of study in nineteenth-century Russia and Britain The Baha’i Faith is a monotheistic religion founded by Bahá’u’lláh in nineteenthcentury Persia. There are an estimated 5 to 6 million Baha’is throughout the world, from different ethnic backgrounds, in more than 200 countries and territories. As pointed out by William Hatcher and J. Douglas Martin, ‘The new faith is a distinct religion, based entirely on the teachings of its founder, Bahá’u’lláh. It is not a cult, a reform movement or sect within any other faith, nor merely a philosophical system. Neither does it represent an attempt to create a new religion syncretistically by bringing together different teachings chosen from other religions’ (Hatcher and Douglas Martin 2002: xiii). Its history goes back to 1844, when a young merchant in the Persian city of Shiraz, Siyyid ‘Alí-Muhammad proclaimed his mission as the bearer of a new divine revelation. He assumed the title ‘Báb,’ meaning ‘the Gate,’ and is considered by Baha’is to be the forerunner of Bahá’u’lláh, and Prophet-Founder of the Babi Faith. The Báb declared in his many Writings1 that he saw his mission as one of alerting the people to the imminent advent of another Prophet, ‘Him Whom God shall make manifest.’2 The Báb addressed the issue of this Prophet on almost every page of his major doctrinal work, the Persian Bayán.
