Babi Executions and Uprisings
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Denis MacEoin, Babi Executions and Uprisings, New York: Columbia University, 1989, bahai-library.com.
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Bábí Executions and Uprisings

Denis MacEoin
published in Encyclopaedia IranicaVolume 3

New York: Columbia University, 1989

In the 1840s and 1850s a series of violent incidents involving members of the Babi sect (see babism) and Shiʿites took place in Iran, the most serious of which were four military encounters at Shaikh Ṭabarsī in Māzandarān, Zanjān, and Neyrīz (twice). At the inception of the Babi movement in 1260/1844, an uprising (ḵorūj) against unbelievers was keenly anticipated; it was at first believed that this event would begin in 1261/1845 in Karbalāʾ, when the Hidden Imam would appear to lead the jehād in person. The Bāb’s earliest major work, the Qayyūm al-asmāʾ, contains detailed regulations governing the conduct of jehād (Qayyūm al-asmāʾ, sūras 96-101; see MacEoin, “Holy War,” pp. 101-09). Up to 1264/1848, the sect’s jehād doctrine was essentially that of orthodox Shiʿism, but after that date, with the Bāb’s assumption of the role of Mahdī, a new legal system was promulgated in the Persian Bayān and other works. It appears that the entire Shiʿite population of Iran was now regarded as subject to jehād: non-Babis were to be forbidden to live in any of the five central provinces of Fārs, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Khorasan, and Māzandarān. More broadly, Babi law called for the destruction of the shrines and holy places of previous religions and, as one later Bahai source puts it, “the universal slaughter of all save those who believed and were faithful” (ʿAbbās Effendi, Makātīb ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ II, Cairo, 1330/1912, p. 266).
From 1844 to 1848, tension between Babis and the rest of the population increased rapidly through several key incidents: the arrest and trial in Baghdad of the Bāb’s emissary, Mollā ʿAlī Besṭāmī in 1260/1844-45; the arrest and punishment of three Babis in Shiraz in 1261/1845; the arrest of the Bāb on his return from the ḥajj in the same year; several challenges to mobāhala (mutual imprecation) issued by the Bāb and his followers to ʿolamāʾ in Iraq and Iran in 1262/1846 and 1263/1847; attacks on individual Babis in Hamadān, Qazvīn, Karbalāʾ, and Kermānšāh during the same period; and attacks on Babi merchants and ʿolamāʾ in Qazvīn in 1263/1847, leading to the assassination by three Babis of Mollā Moḥammad-Taqī Baraḡānī in October of that year. (For details of these incidents, see MacEoin, “Holy War,” pp. 109-12).

Several sources indicate that Babis in different centers were collecting and manufacturing arms in readiness for the postponed ḵorūj on the imam’s appearance (ibid., pp. 111-12; Māzandarānī, Ẓohūr al-ḥaqq, p. 374). The first serious incidents occurred in 1264/1848 in Mašhad, where armed members of the large Babi community clashed on two occasions with local soldiery. Expelled from Mašhad in Šaʿbān, 1264/July, 1848, a party of Babis under the leadership of Mollā Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Bošrūʾī headed into Māzandarān and in October of that year established themselves near Bārforūšī at the shrine of Shaikh Abū ʿAlī al-Fażl Ṭabarsī, which they fortified. From an original total of about 300, the number of insurgents rose to between 540 and 600 (Momen, “Social Basis,” pp. 161-65, esp. table 4). Leadership of the fort was in the hands of Bošrūʾī and another of the Bāb’s original disciples, Mollā Moḥammad-ʿAlī Bārforūšī Qoddūs. Between 14 Ḏu’l-qaʿda 1264/13 October 1848 and 16 Jomādā II 1265/9 May 1849, the Babi defenders and state troops under the overall command of Mahdīqolī Mīrzā engaged in sporadic fighting, with heavy losses of life on both sides. The siege was finally ended by a ruse and the surviving Babis either executed or taken prisoner.

Following disturbances in Yazd, a prominent Babi ʿālem (scholar) named Sayyed Yaḥyā Dārābī Waḥīd moved to Neyrīz in Rajab, 1266/May, 1850; on his arrival he preached to large crowds and soon converted (or at least gained the support of) a sizeable part of the population of the Čenārsūḵta quarter. Existing tensions between the populace and the governor, Zayn-al-ʿĀbedīn Khan, seem to have been reformulated and exacerbated by Dārābī, who was regarded by his followers as an independent authority in the town. Fighting soon broke out, whereupon around 1,000 Babis occupied the fort of Ḵᵛāja outside Neyrīz, where they were besieged by troops sent by Fīrūz Mīrzā Noṣrat-al-Dawla, the governor of Fārs. Hostilities continued until the capture of the fort by treachery in Šaʿbān/June; about 500 Babis were killed during the fighting and in the executions that followed.

The Zanjān episode of 1266-67/1850-51 was the most protracted and involved the largest numbers, with the town almost equally divided between the Babis and their opponents. The former, numbering over 2,000, were led by Mollā Moḥammad-ʿAlī Zanjānī Ḥojjat-al-Eslām, a former Aḵbārī ʿālem who had already been the center of religious controversy before his conversion and who seems to have advocated radical social changes. In the course of heavy fighting between the Babis and several contingents of state troops, from 1,000 to 1,800 Babis lost their lives and parts of the town were badly damaged.

Read the rest of this article online at www.iranicaonline.org/articles/babism-index.

Following the assassination by Babis of the governor of Neyrīz Ḥājī Zayn-al-ʿĀbedīn Khan, early in 1269/1853, fighting continued for several months in the mountains outside the town, resulting in the deaths of some 350 Babis.

In addition to these outbreaks of large-scale violence, other incidents involving Babis occurred between 1850 and 1853: on 19 or 20 February 1850, seven Babis of relatively high social status were executed in Tehran; on 27 or 28 Šaʿbān 1266/8 or 9 July 1850, the Bāb himself was publicly shot with one companion in Tabrīz; in Ḏu’l-qaʿda, 1268/August-September, 1852, some 37 Babis, including leading figures such as Qorrat-al-ʿAyn Ṭāhera (q.v.), Mollā Shaikh ʿAlī Toršīzī, and Sayyed Ḥosayn Yazdī were executed in reprisal for the Babi attempt on the life of Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah on 28, Šawwāl/15, August; at the same period, there were further attacks on Babis in Mīlān near Tabrīz, Tākor in Māzandarān, Yazd, Neyrīz, and possibly elsewhere.

In all, something like 3,000 Babis died in these episodes, or, if we take the lower figure of 1,000 deaths at Zanjān, just over 2,000 in all. Later estimates of 20,000 and more found in some Bahai works do not, in fact, correspond to the more detailed figures given in Bahai historical sources. Similarly, the very high figures for both participants and casualties given in state chronicles like the Nāseḵ al-tawārīḵ are manifestly exaggerated, probably in order to explain away the failure of the government forces to put down the disturbances rapidly.

It is impossible to identify a consistent pattern in these events. Ivanov’s (1939) Marxist analysis shows serious limitations in its treatment of motives and its portrayal of the Babi participants in the struggles as “peasants, artisans, urban poor, and small trades-people.” More recent studies by Momen (1983), Smith (1982), and MacEoin (1982) reveal a more complex interplay of social, political, and religious factors at work. The Shaikh Ṭabarsī siege was the most markedly religious of the larger incidents, while the Zanjān and Neyrīz uprisings were more closely linked to local politics. It is arguable that, whereas those involved in the Shaikh Ṭabarsī struggle and in the smaller pogroms were convinced Babis, many of those who participated in the fighting at Zanjān, Yazd, or Neyrīz may have been vague about or indifferent to the specific religious issues propounded by the Babi leadership. At Shaikh Ṭabarsī, messianic ambitions were linked to a belief that, through martyrdom, the defenders were reenacting the events of Karbalāʾ; the Qajar state and its forces were condemned as illegitimate and a defensive jehād proclaimed against them. At Zanjān, religious millenarianism was less marked, while puritan and egalitarian ideals were clearly in evidence.

Smallness of numbers, a limited social base, lack of a centralized or coordinated leadership, the absence of an agreed policy, and conflicts of motive all combined to rob the Babi uprisings of any potential they might otherwise have had of acting as catalysts for a broader movement for social, religious, or political change. Conversely, the military defeat of Babism all but stopped it in its tracks and forced the surviving leaders to reinterpret the religion and restate its goals, leading to the eventual emergence of Azalī Babism (q.v.) and Bahaism (q.v.). In the latter case, rejection of Babi militancy and the adoption of a pacifist orientation resulted initially in an emphasis on the absolute distinctiveness of the two movements; but as later doctrinal developments demanded increasing conflation of Babism and Bahaism, the Babi uprisings themselves were reinterpreted as defensive reactions to persecution by church and state (see, in particular, MacEoin, “From Babism to Baha’ism”).

Bibliography : Accounts of specific incidents: Mollā Moḥammad Nabīl Zarandī, The Dawn-Breakers, ed. and tr. Shoghi Effendi, New York, 1932, chaps. 19-24, 26. Mīrzā Moḥammad-Taqī Lesān-al-Molk Sepehr, Nāseḵ al-tawārīḵ: Salāṭīn-e Qājārīya, 4 vols. in 2, Tehran, 1385/1965-66, III, pp. 233-63, 285-97, 302-07, 337-42; IV, pp. 30-42, 72-73. Reżā Khan Lalabāšī, Rawżat al-ṣafā-ye nāṣerī, vols. 8-10, Tehran, 1274/1857; X, pp. 118, 121-33, 167-70. Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau, Religions et philosophies dans l’Asie centrale, 10th ed., Paris, 1957, chaps. 7-11. A. L. M. Nicolas, Séyyèd Ali Mohemmed dit le Bâb, Paris, 1905, chaps. 5-7, 9-12. Moḥammad-ʿAlī Malek Ḵosravī, Tārīḵ-ešohadā-ye amr, 3 vols., Tehran, 130 B. (Badīʿ)/1973-74, I-II; III, pp. 39-334. ʿAlīqolī Mīrzā Eʿteżād-al-Salṭana, Ketāb al-motanabbīyūn, section published as Fetna-ye Bāb, ed. ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Navāʾī, 2nd ed., Tehran, 1351 Š./1972-73, pp. 33-106. M. Momen, The Bábí and Baháʾí Religions, 1844-1944: Some Contemporary Western Accounts, Oxford, 1981, chaps. 1-8. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, Wilmette, 1944, chaps. 3-5. Mīrzā Ḥosayn Hamadānī, Tārīḵ-ejadīd, tr. E. G. Browne, The New History of Mīrzá ʿAlí Muḥammed, the Báb, Cambridge, 1893, pp. 44-110, 111-35, 135-68, 250-67, 293-312. Ḥājī Mīrzā Jānī Kāšānī, Ketāb-e noqṭat al-kāf, ed. E. G. Browne, London and Leiden, 1910, pp. 154-204, 215-23, 223-29, 230-38, 245-52. (ʿAbbās Effendi ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ), A Traveller’s Narrative Written to Illustrate the Episode of the Bāb, ed. and tr. E. G. Browne, 2 vols., Cambridge, 1891, I, pp. 211-18, 253-61, 306-09, 323-34. Mirza (Aleksandr) Kazem Beg, “Bab et les Babis,” Journal asiatique, 6th ser., 7, 1866, pp. 457-522, 8, pp. 196-252 (cf. also idem, Bab i Babidy i religiozno-politicheskaya smuta v Persii v 1844-1852 gg., St. Petersburg, 1865). ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Āvāra, al-Kawākeb al-dorrīya, 2 vols., Cairo, 1342/1924, I, chaps. 2-4. Moḥammad-Šafīʿ Rūḥānī Neyrīzī, Lamaʿāt al-anwār I, Tehran, 130 B./1973-74. Moḥammad-ʿAlī Fayżī, Neyrīz-e moškbīz, Tehran, 129 B./1972-73. ʿAbd-al-Aḥad Zanjānī, “Personal Reminiscences of the Bábí Insurrection at Zanján in 1850,” tr. E. G. Browne, JRAS 29, 1897, pp. 761-827.

Broader analyses: M. S. Ivanov, Babidskie vosstaniya v Irane (1848-1852), Moscow, 1939. M. Momen, “The Social Basis of the Bābī Upheavals in Iran (1848-53): A Preliminary Analysis,” IJMES 15, 1983, pp. 157-83. Idem, “Some Problems Connected with the Yazd Episode of 1850,” paper read to 3rd Bahai Studies Seminar, Lancaster University, 1977. D. M. MacEoin, “The Bābī Concept of Holy War,” Religion 12, 1982, pp. 93-129. Idem, “From Babism to Baha’ism: Problems of Militancy, Quietism, and Conflation in the Construction of a Religion,” Religion 13, 1983, pp. 219-55 (esp. pp. 236-37). Idem, “Bahāʾī Fundamentalism and the Academic Study of the Bābī Movement,” Religion 16, 1986, pp. 57-84. Idem, “A Note on the Numbers of Babi and Baha’i Martyrs in Iran,” Baha’i Studies Bulletin 2/2, 1983, pp. 84-88. M. Afnan and W. S. Hatcher, “Western Islamic Scholarship and Bahāʾī Origins,” Religion 15, 1985, pp. 29-51. P. Smith, A Sociological Study of the Babi and Baha’i Religions, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Lancaster, 1982, chap. 5. Idem, “Millenialism in the Babi and Baha’i Religions,” in R. Wallis, ed., Millenialism and Charisma, Belfast, 1982, pp. 231-83. Mangol Bayat, Mysticism and Dissent: Socioreligious Thought in Qajar Iran, Syracuse, 1982, chap. 4, esp. pp. 118-26.

For details of histories of Shaikh Ṭabarsī found in manuscripts, Neyrīz, Zanjān, and other incidents, see D. M. MacEoin, Early Babi Doctrine and History: A Survey of Source Materials (forthcoming).

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-- Babi Executions and Uprisings (Used by permission of the curator)