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A Note on Babi and Baha'i Numbers in Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Peter Smith
Peter Smith*
Affiliation:
University of Lancaster, England
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Extract

It is not yet possible to say with any certainty what the total number of Babis may have been. According to the Bab himself, in a work written in the latter part of 1848, 100,000 adherents had been converted during the first four years of his career (MacEoin, 1982:117-18), a figure also referred to by the Russian Ambassador Dolgorukov in February 1849, by the Iranian chief minister, Amir Kabir (Dolgorukov, 1966:19), and by the British minister Sheil in May 1850 (Momen, 1981:7n). That this figure was very much a guess, at least where the two diplomats were concerned, is underlined by Sheil's reference to an alternative (but presumed to be less likely) figure of 50,000. Whatever the case, no detailed support for any figure can be supplied because of the semisecret nature of the Babi organization.

Type
Research Note
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 2-3 , Spring Summer 1984 , pp. 295 - 301
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1984

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