The Organizational Hierarchy of the Bābīs during the period of Ṣubḥ-i-Azal’s residency in Baghdad (1852 – 1863)

Description

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.