Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:23:59.779Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Usuli, Akhbari, Shaykhi, Babi: The Tribulations of a Qazvin Family

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Moojan Momen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Last Half of the Eighteenth Century and the First Half of the Nineteenth century saw Twelver Shiᶜi Islam, especially in Iran, undergoing a number of upheavals as a result of conflicts between different schools of thought. These upheavals were primarily ideological but they also led to conflict, fighting and even deaths. This period began in the political turmoil following the collapse of the Safavid Empire. The Akhbari school of Twelver Shiᶜism had been in the ascendant during the latter half of the Safavid era, but the period following the overthrow of the Safavids saw the defeat of the Akhbari school and the triumph of the Usuli school at the hands of Aqa Muhammad Baqir Bihbihani, known as Vahid Bihbihani (d. ca. 1207/1792) in the shrine cities of Iraq, the main centre of Twelver scholarship. The Usuli school enabled the ulama to give legal opinions (fatwās) and hence intervene in social areas from which the more restrained Akhbari school would refrain.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , September 2003 , pp. 317 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Iranian Studies 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. This title was that of nāᵓib al-ᶜāmm (general vicegerent) rather than nāᵓib al-khāṣṣ (speciᶜc vicegerent, i.e. the four Babs who claimed to be in touch with the Hidden Twelfth Imam in the ninth–tenth century C.E.). See Momen, Moojan, Introduction to Shiᶜi Islam (New Haven, 1985) 189-91Google Scholar; Arjomand, Said Amir, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order and Societal Change in Shiᶜite Iran from the Beginning to 1890 (Chicago, 1984) 141–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Floor, Willem, “The Economic Role of the Ulama in Qajar Persia,” in The Most Learned of the Shiᶜa: The Institution of the Marjaᶜ Taqlid, ed. Walbridge, Linda (New York, 2001), 53–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. See for example the “Introduction” to Muhammad Salih Baraghani, Mawsūᶜa al-Baraghānī fī Fiqh al-Shīᶜa, (n. p., 1985) 8–65, written by ᶜAbd al-Husayn al-Salihi, a descendant of Muhammad Salih Baraghani. On Shaykh Muhammad Kazim, see ibid., 12–13; also Tihrani, Agha Buzurg, Ṭabaqāt Aᶜlām al-Shīᶜa (eleventh century), (Tehran, 1367/1988), 463Google Scholar, and al-Amin, Hasan, Mustadrakāt Aᶜyān al-Shīᶜa, 7 vols. (Beirut, 1408/1987), 2: 301Google Scholar.

4. Cole, Juan, “Shiᶜi clerics in Iraq and Iran, 1722–1780: The Akhbari-Usuli Conflict reconsidered”, Iranian Studies 18 (1985): 3–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. al-Salihi, “Introduction,” 25–26.

6. al-Salihi, “Introduction,” 12.

7. al-Salihi, “Introduction,” 13–14; Tihrani, Ṭabaqāt, 463.

8. al-Salihi, “Introduction,” 25–26.

9. al-Salihi, “Introduction,” 26; on al-Bahrani in particular and the Usuli-Akhbari conflict in the eighteenth century in general, see Gleave, Robert, “The Akhbari-Usuli Dispute in Tabaqat Literature: The Biographies of Yusuf al-Bahrani and Muhammad Baqir al-Bihbahani,” Jusūr: The UCLA Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 10 (1994): 79–109Google Scholar. Although al-Bahrani is said to have moderated his Akhbari views in several biographical sources, no other source attributes this to Shaykh Muhammad Malaᵓikah.

10. al-Salihi, “Introduction,” 26. He is called leader (zaᶜīm) of the Usulis in al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 4: 159 and 6: 276. This event must have occurred in about 1751 since all of the surviving sons of Malaᵓikah are said to have been born in Baraghan.

11. The name of Shaykh Muhammad's wife is given in Tunukabuni, Muhammad, Qiṣaṣ alᶜUlamā, (Tehran, n.d.), 32Google Scholar.

12. Most of the biographies do not give a date of birth for Mulla Taqi. I have here taken a date from al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 2:303, where the date and place of birth (Baraghan) of Mulla Taqi has, I think, been mistakenly given as that of his son, Shaykh Muhammad Jaᶜfar. The Bahaᵓi historian, Fadil Mazandarani, states that at the time of his death in 1263/1847, he was about 80 years old, which would make his date of birth about 1183/1769, but this would not accord with the dates of birth of his brothers; Tārīkh Ẓuhūr al-Ḥaqq, (Tehran, n.d.), 3: 309.

13. al-Amin, Muhsin, Aᶜyān al-Shiᶜa 11 vols. (Beirut, 1406/1985) 9: 369–70Google Scholar, no. 802, gives Mulla Salih's date of birth as 1200/1785. This would make him 69 years of age at his death in 1271/1854. I have, however, given 1167/1753 as the date of birth in the text as this is based on family records and is presumably more accurate. This would make him more than 100 years of age (in Islamic lunar years) at the time of his death. Usually, it is specifically noted and commented upon in the biographical literature when one dies at an age greater than 100. Mulla Salih's father is in any case stated to have died in 1200/1785, see above, so this is unlikely to be the date of Mulla Salih's birth.

14. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 2: 299, no. 181.

15. al-Salihi, “Introduction,” 22–23.

16. Tihrani, Ṭabaqāt (thirteenth century), (Najaf, 1954), 2: 51, 228Google Scholar. Mulla Taqi had three of his sons by this woman.

17. Tunukabuni, Qiṣaṣ al-ᶜUlamā, 22, 27Google Scholar.

18. Willem Floor, “The Economic Role of the Ulama in Qajar Persia,” 61, 63.

19. Tunukabuni, Qiṣaṣ al-ᶜUlamā, 23; Algar, Hamid, Religion and State in Iran 1785-1906: The Role of the Ulama in the Qajar Period, (Berkeley, 1969), 15CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For more details on Mulla Taqi's methods in acquiring wealth and power, see Tunukabuni, Qiṣaṣ al-ᶜUlamā, 22–23, 27–29; also in Amanat, Abbas, Resurrection and Renewal: The Making of the Babi Movement, 1844–1850, (Ithaca, 1989), 317–2Google Scholar.

20. Tunukabuni, Qiṣaṣ al-ᶜUlamā, 22, 30, 31.

21. Tunukabuni, Qiṣaṣ al-ᶜUlamā, 22–24.

22. It is true that the main teachers of Mulla ᶜAbd al-Wahhab were all Usulis. However, in at least one of his books, Hidāyat al-Mustarshidīn, he opposes the standard Usuli position taken by Mulla Muhammad Baqir Shafti that, after the death of a mujtahid, it is necessary for his muqallid to choose a new living mujtahid; Agha Buzurg Tihrani, al-Dharīᶜa ilā Taṣānīf al-Shīᶜa, 25 vols. (Qum, 1408/1987), 25: 193, no. 217. Another of his works, Risāla fī ᶜadam al-ḥujjiya al-ẓann fī’la ḥkām (Treatise rejecting that Opinion can be a Basis for Giving a Legal Ruling) would appear from its title to have tended to the Akhbari position. Tihrani, al-Dharīᶜa 15: 237, no. 1540. On these differences between Usulis and Akhbaris, see Momen, Introduction to Shiᶜi Islam, 223–25.

23. Gulriz, Sayyid Muhammad ᶜAli, Minūdar yā Bāb al-Jannat Qazvīn, (Tehran, 1337/1958), 576Google Scholar.

24. al-Salihi, “Introduction,” 52; al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 2: 304-305.

25. Tunukabuni, Qiṣaṣ al-ᶜUlamā, 20.

26. He had studied under the Akhbari scholar, Mirza Muhammad Akhbari. Hasan al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 2: 299, no. 181. He is called an Akhbari in Mihrabi, Muᶜin al-Din, Qurrat al-ᶜAyn: Shāᶜir-i Azādīkhāh va Millī-yi Īrān, (3rd printing, Koln, 1994), 54Google Scholar.

27. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 2: 222–23, no. 148.

28. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 3: 136, no. 161; Dāᵓirat al-Maᶜārif-i Tashayyuᶜ (ed. Ahmad Sadr Haj Sayyid Jawadi et al., vol. 1, Tehran, 1366/1987), 501.

29. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 6: 319, no. 421.

30. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 4: 104, no. 25 and 6: 320, no. 424.

31. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 4: 104, no. 28.

32. This despite the fact that Mulla Taqi had previously been opposed to the performance of the Friday Prayer during the Imam's Occultation. Tunukabuni, Qiṣaṣ al-ᶜUlamā, 29.

33. See Juan Cole, “Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsāᵓi on the Sources of Religious Authority” in The Most Learned of the Shiᶜa, 82–93.

34. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 3: 136–37, no. 161.

35. Mulla ᶜAli studied 2 years with Ahsaᵓi and had an ijāza from him. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 2: 299, no. 181.

36. See Dāᵓirat al-Maᶜārif-i Tashayyuᶜ 1: 236. The article is probably by Dr ᶜAbd al-Husayn Shahidi Salihi (as he is editor for biographies for the encyclopaedia. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 2: 7, no. 1.

37. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 3: 218, no. 280, 3: 138, no. 166 and 3: 134, no. 153.

38. Shaykh Ahmad states that he believed that financial consideration were at the root of Mulla Taqi's enmity, see his letter to Mulla Abd al-Wahhab, written from Karbala after his departure from Qazvin in Ibrahimi, Abu al-Qasim, Fihrist-i Kutub-i Mashāyikh ᶜIẓām, (3rd ed., Kirman, n.d.), 1: 157Google Scholar.

39. ᶜAbd al-Rida Ibrahimi in his introduction to Ahmad al-Ahsaᵓi, Sharḥ al-Ziyāra al-Jāmiᶜa al-Kabīra, (Kirman. n.d. [1397/1976]), 1: 17.

40. Tunukabuni, Qiṣaṣ al-ᶜUlamā, 42.

41. Dāᵓirat al-Maᶜārif-i Tashayyuᶜ, 1: 501.

42. See note 22.

43. al-Salihi, “Introduction,” 27.

44. Ibrahimi, Fihrist, 1: 152.

45. al-Salihi, “Introduction,” 27.

46. Ibrahimi, Fihrist, 1: 151–53; ᶜAbd al-Rida Ibrahimi in Introduction to Sharḥ al-Ziyāra, 1: 17–18.

47. Introduction to Ahmad al-Ahsaᵓi, Rasāᵓil al-Rajᶜa (Beirut, 1993), 12.

48. See letter from Shaykh Ahmad to Mulla ᶜAbd al-Wahhab in Ibrahimi, Fihrist, 1: 157–58; see also a similar defence by ᶜAbd al-Rida Ibrahimi in his introduction to al-Ahsaᵓi, Sharḥ al-Ziyāra, 1: 18; and the introduction to al-Ahsaᵓi, Rasāᵓil al-Rajᶜa (Beirut, 1993), 1.

49. Tunukabuni, Qiṣaṣ al-ᶜUlamā, 4.

50. Usuli scholars maintain that, following the takfīr, Shaykh Ahmad was shunned wherever he went (see article in Dāᵓirat al-Maᶜārif Tashayyuᶜ, 1: 501). Against this view, however, it can be pointed out that when Shaykh Ahmad died, there were three days of mourning for him organized by the leading ulama of Isfahan. See Khwansari, Muhammad Baqir, Rawẓat al-Jannāt, 6 vols. (Beirut, 1991), 1: 103Google Scholar.

51. The length of time that Shaykh Ahmad spent in Qazvin is not clear. Some of the biographical accounts of the shaykh seem to imply that he was merely passing through Qazvin on his way between Kirmanshah and Mashhad. I have, however, given the figure of approximately two years from the statement that Mulla ᶜAli Baraghani studied under al-Ahsaᵓi for two years (al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 2: 299, no. 181). It is true that Mulla ᶜAli could have traveled to Kirmanshah and studied under al-Ahsaᵓi there for part of this period. However, Amina, the wife of Mulla Salih, is also stated to have obtained an ijāza from Shaykh Ahmad (al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 2: 7, no. 1) and she would not have traveled to Kirmanshah—and a two-year period would have been about right for obtaining an ijāza.

52. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 3:218–19, no. 280 and 3: 134, no. 153, respectively.

53. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 2: 303; ᶜAbd al-Rida Kirmani in Ibrahimi, Fihrist, 156.

54. al-Salihi, “Introduction,” 47–52 for the sons: Muhammad (1205/1790–1240/1825), ᶜAbd al-Wahhab (d. 1294/1877), Hasan (d. 1281/1864), Husayn (d. 1309/1891), Rida (d. 1308/1890), Musa (d. 1298/1880) and Muhammad ᶜAli (d. 1315/1897). al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 2: 304, no. 183, lists a further son, Shaykh Muhammad, Kashif al-Asrar (1240/1824–1294/1877) between Rida and Musa. For the daughters, I have collected the list from individual entries in al-Amin, Mustadrakāt: Qurrat al-ᶜAyn, Tahira 6: 239, no. 328; Mardiyya (c. 1233/1817–c. 1313/1895) 6:319, no. 421; Nargis (1240/1824–1322/1904) 4:213, no. 96; Zahra (1240/1824–1320/1902) 5: 218–19, no. 199; Fatima (d. 1295/1878) 6: 201, no. 322; Rubaba (d. 1297/1879) 4: 104, no. 28; and Khadija Sultan (d. 1321/1903) 4: 104, no. 25.

55. On Tahira, see Nusratu’llah Muhammad-Husayni, Hadārat-i Ṭāhira, (Dundas, Ont., 2000); Mazandarani, Ẓuhūr al-Ḥaqq 3: 311–69, Nabil [Zarandi], The Dawn-Breakers: Nabīl's Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahāᵓī Revelation, (trans. and ed. Shoghi effendi, Wilmette, Ill., 1962), 81–84, 268–99, 621–29; Chahār Maqāla dar bārah-yi Ṭāhira Qurrat al-ᶜAyn, (ed. Abu’l-Qasim Afnan, Wienacht, Switzerland, 1991); Khūshah-hā’ī az Kharman-i Adab va Hunar, vol. 3: Dawra-i Ṭāhira, (Wienacht, Switzerland, 1992).

56. His lineage went back to several Safavid ulama who had written a number of well-known books. See Tihrani, al-Dharīᶜa, 4: 72, no. 296; 5: 146, no. 617; 24: 214, no. 1134.

57. Muhsin al-Amin, Aᶜyān al-Shīᶜa 5: 414–15, no. 893; al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 3:159, no. 214.

58. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 2: 7, no. 1.

59. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 2: 304, no. 183.

60. Mazandarani, Ẓuhūr al-Ḥaqq, 3: 311Google Scholar.

61. Mazandarani, Ẓuhūr al-Ḥaqq, 3: 311Google Scholar.

62. al-Wardi, ᶜAli, Lamaḥāt Ijtimāᶜiyya min Taᵓrīkh al-ᶜIrāq al-Ḥadīth, 2 vols. (Baghdad, 1969), 2: 152Google Scholar, 154n (the section of this work on Tahira has been published separately under the title Hākadha qatalū Qurrat al-ᶜAyn, [Koln, 1991]). al-Wardi's source is an unpublished manuscript by ᶜAbbud (=ᶜAbd al-Husayn) al-Salihi, a descendant of Mulla Salih. See also Denis Mac Eoin, “From Shaykhism to Babism: A study in Charismatic Renewal,” Ph. D. Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1979, 222, n. 76.

63. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 6: 239, no. 328.

64. Ibid. It is probable that Tahira grew up speaking both Persian and Turkish since her family lived in the Turkish-speaking quarters of Qazvin. An Azeri scholar Azize Caferzade, cites a poem of Tahira which she says was composed in Turkish and is preserved in a library in the Republic of Azerbaijan; see idem, Az¥rbaycanιn aşιk v¥ şair qadιnlarι (in Cyrillic letters, [Baku, 1991]), 65–66. I am grateful to Necati Alkan for this reference.

65. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 6: 239, no. 32.

66. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 6: 241, no. 328, quoting al-Wardi, Lamaḥāt ijtimāᶜiyya, 2: 152, which in turn quotes from the Arabic translation of [Zarandi], The Dawn-Breakers, 63–66 (English translation 84n.) which is taken from A. L. M. Nicolas, Seyyed ᶜAli Mohammed dit le Bab, (Paris, 1905), 273. The source of this account is probably an oral report by Mirza Hasan Adib (who was one of Nicolas's informants) who studied under Mirza ᶜAbd al-Wahhab and who gives a similar account in a short biography of Tahira that he wrote: “Sharḥ-i aḥvāl-i Janāb-i Ṭāhirah,” in Chahār Maqāla dar bārah-yi Ṭāhira Qurrat al-ᶜAyn, 68–69.

67. al-Wardi, Lamaḥāt, 2: 153.

68. al-Wardi, Lamaḥāt, 2: 153.

69. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 6: 174, no. 273.

70. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 6: 240, no. 328; Agha Buzurg Tihrani, Ṭabaqāt-i Aᶜlām al-Shīᶜa (14th century), (Najaf, 1943), 1: 23, 164. Tahira is listed as the teacher of these two sons in al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 2: 302–303; On Zaynah, see al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 6: 174, no. 273.

71. al-Salihi, “Introduction,” 18; al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 2: 305, no. 183; 3: 32, no. 48; Tihrani, Ṭabaqāt-i Aᶜlām al-Shīᶜa (14th century), 1: 132.

72. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 2: 302-303, 3: 32, no. 48.

73. Bahaᵓi sources state that Tahira first heard of Shaykh Ahmad's teaching when she chanced upon one of his books at the house of a cousin, Mulla Javad Viliyani (Mazandarani states that he was the son of a maternal aunt), in 1253/1837. This man became a Babi but later left the Bab and returned to Shaykhism as a follower of Hajji Karim Khan Kirmani. See ᶜAbdu’l-Baha, Memorials of the Faithful (trans. Marzieh Gail, Wilmette, Ill., 1971), 191; Fadil Mazandarani, Ẓuhūr al-Ḥaqq, 3:312; Nabil, Dawn-Breakers, 159, 161 (where he is called Mulla Javad Baraghani, but this would appear to be an error).

74. Varjavand, Parviz, Sīmā-yi Tārīkh va Farhang-i Qazvīn, 3 vols. (Tehran, 1377/1998) 2: 1081Google Scholar.

75. This more elevated claim was to being the recipient of divine revelation and thus on a par with Muhammad. This was evident, for example, to the Shiᶜi and Sunni ulama gathered in January 1845 in Baghdad to try Mulla ᶜAli Bastami, the Bab's envoy to the shrine cities of Iraq. See Moojan Momen, “The Trial of Mullā ᶜAlī Basṭāmī: a combined Sunnī-Shīᶜī fatwā against the Bāb.” Iran 20 (1982): 113–43.

76. Although most sources state that Tahira arrived in Karbala in early 1844 and was there when she first heard of the Bab's claim, there is the puzzling statement in a letter that she wrote to Mulla Javad Vilyani, saying she was in Qazvin when she first heard of the claim of the Bab (Mazandarani, Ẓuhūr al-Ḥaqq, 3: 494).

77. While some Muslim sources deny that Mulla ᶜAli was a Babi, this is affirmed by at least one source that was close to the Baraghani family: Tunukabuni, Qiṣaṣ al-ᶜUlamā, 19, 20. See also Mazandarani, Ẓuhūr al-Ḥaqq, 3: 309Google Scholar.

78. Qayyūm al-Asmāᵓ (mss. prepared for Mulla Husayn Bushru’i, dated 1261, in photocopy collection of Iranian National Baha’i Archives, vol. 3) Surah 2, Surat al-ᶜUlamā, v. 9–13, p. 5.

79. Persian Bayān, ([Tehran], n.d.), vahid 4, chap. 10, pp. 120–21. The summary translation of this by Browne can be found in Selections from the Writings of E.G. Browne on the Bābī and Bahāᵓī Faiths (ed. Momen, M., Oxford, 1987), 354Google Scholar.

80. Samandar, Shaykh Kazim, Tārīkh-i Samandar va Mulḥaqāt, (Tehran, 131 BE/1974), 98Google Scholar.

81. Samandar, Tārīkh-i Samandar, 349. Denis MacEoin, “From Shaykhism to Babism”, 211.

82. al-Wardi, Lamaḥāt, 2: 153–57; al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 6: 242, no. 328.

83. Amanat, Resurrection and Renewal 300; al-Wardi, Lamaḥāt, 2: 169.

84. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 6: 242, no. 328, quoting from the newspaper al-Manār of 21 April 1967, 6.

85. Nabil, The Dawn-Breakers, 273–75.

86. Samandar, Tārīkh-i Samandar, 63–65.

87. On this mosque see Gulriz, Minūdar, 557.

88. Nabil, The Dawn-Breakers, 276–67. This source states that Mulla ᶜAbd Allah, who later called himself Mirza Salih, was a Shaykhi who was on his way to meet the Bab and investigate the latter's claims for himself. He later became a Babi and perished in the Babi upheaval at Shaykh Tabarsi.

89. al-Salihi, “Introduction,” 17.

90. “Shukūhī namānd dar ān khāndān / kih bāng-i khurūs ayad az mākiyān.” Samandar, Tārīkhi Samandar, 75. See a slightly different translation of this verse in Amanat, Resurrection and Renewal, 322.

91. Nabil, The Dawn-Breakers, 283–86.

92. Nabil, The Dawn-Breakers, 292–86.

93. al-Salihi, “Introduction,” 19–20.

94. The family came to use surnames derived from the three brothers: Shahidi, descendants of Mulla Taqi, who became known after his murder as Shahid-i Thalith, the Third Martyr, after two medieval Shiᶜi martyrs; Salihi, descendants of Mulla Salih; and ᶜAlawi, descendants of Mulla ᶜAli. Some of the latter two lines of descent also attached the name Shahidi to themselves in honor of Mulla Taqi and thus became Shahidi Salihi and Shahidi ᶜAlawi. Biographies of these descendants can be found in al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, Tihrani, Ṭabaqāt Aᶜlām al-Shīᶜa (14th century) and Shahidi, Yahya, Shajara-yi Khānivādah-hā-yi Shahīdī, Ṣāliḥī, ᶜAlavī-Shahīdī, 2 vols. (Tehran, 1376/1997)Google Scholar.

95. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 6:174, no. 273.

96. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 6: 243, no. 328. See also Shahidi, Shajara 2: 931–38. Of course such activities as reading the Qur’an, praying and fasting were commonplace among the Babis and prove nothing. Such piety was part of the ethos of the Babi movement. The Bab himself is reported, while he was imprisoned in Maku, to have read and shed tears over the Muḥriq al-Qulūb, an account by Mulla Mahdi Naraqi of the martyrdom of the Imam Husayn; Nabil, The Dawn-Breakers, 252.

97. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 4:213, no. 9.

98. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 4:104, no. 25; 6:324, no. 43.

99. al-Amin, Mustadrakāt, 6:319, no. 42.

100. Nabil, The Dawn-Breakers, 285; Nabil states, somewhat enigmatically, that he came to believe in the Bab but “failed to demonstrate subsequently by his acts the sincerity of his belief.”

101. See for example, Milani, Farzaneh, Veils and Words: The Emerging Voices of Iranian Women Writers, (London, 1992), 77–99Google Scholar.

102. See for example, Maneck, Susan, “Tahirih: A Religious Paradigm of Womanhood,” The Journal of Bahāᵓī Studies 2 (1989): 35–48Google Scholar.

103. See Mottahedeh, Negar, “The Mutilated Body of the Modern Nation: Qurrat al-ᶜAyn Tahira's Unveiling and the Iranian Massacre of the Babis,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, 18 (1998): 38–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

104. A number of books and papers have appeared about Tahira in the West. See, for example, Hatcher, John S. and Hemmat, Amrollah, The Poetry of Ṭāhirih, (Oxford, 2003)Google Scholar. There has also been a continuing fascination with and a stream of publications on Tahira in the Indian sub-continent ever since Muhammad Iqbal's references to her in his Javīdnāmah (Lahore, 1932). On this see Schimmel, Annemarie, “Iqbal and the Babi-Baha’i Faith,” The Bahāᵓī Faith and Islam, ed. Moayyad, H. (Ottawa, 1990), 111–19Google Scholar. A bibliography of the literature on Tahira in oriental languages can be found in Khūshah-hāᵓī az Kharman-i Hunar va Adab, 3 (1992): 135–42, which lists 180 items, and in western languages in Khūshah-hāᵓī az Kharman-i Hunar va Adab, 4 (1993): 205–22, which lists 206 items. These items range from passing references to entire books.

105. Edward Shils, Tradition (London, 1981)