ABSTRACT
The Babists were bitterly hostile to the reigning dynasty, and openly declared that it was their aim to replace it by a theocracy in which the Bab would be, at least for a time, the Imam’s vicar. At the death of the third leader of the Shaykhi school in 1844 a young man named Mirza ‘Ali Muhammad came forward and began to preach the same doctrines, claiming himself to be the intermediary between the concealed Imam and his people and assuming the title of Bab which had been in use amongst the earlier Shiites. ‘Abbas Effendi expressed his approval of all Khayru’llah’s teaching, but steadily avoided discussing doctrine with him. The ethical teaching of the Baha’is is unexceptional, if somewhat lacking in vigour; and as thought has developed in American surroundings it has tended towards pacifism, internationalism, and feminism.
