Late in May 1844, two men met in the outskirts of the southern Iranian city of Shiraz. One of them, Mullah Husayn, was a religious leader of high standing; the other, Sayyid 'Ali Muhammad, was a 24-year old merchant with notions of himself as the bab (gate) who would usher in a new cycle of prophecy, and maybe even the end of the world. So convinced was Mullah Husayn by the young man that he became his first disciple. Things moved fast from that moment on. The Bab won thousands of followers and in 1848 they proclaimed their total break with Islam. By July 1850, when the Bab was executed by government firing squad, a new religion had been born. Before long, the Babis themselves split, with the majority going on to become Baha'is.
The outlines of this six-year period has long been known but Amanat, a historian at Yale University, capably fills it in with details. This is a formidable task, given the lacunae and the biases of the sources, but Amanat weaves his account with a sure, even masterful hand. The author's erudition is great, and he tells a story well.
He also shows the significance of the Babi movement in Iranian history. In his estimation, the forward-looking doctrines espoused by the Bab offered "perhaps the last chance for an indigenous reform movement before [Iranian] society became truly affected by the consequences of the Western predominance." The author implies that Khomeini's efforts to impose a "tragically anachronistic solution" on Iran follows in good part from the Iranians' vehement rejection of the Bab.
