[see al-ʿāmilī ].

, Ottoman jurist and theologian. Born in Istanbul in 1004/1595-6, he was the son of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Efendi, a Ḳāḍīʿasker of Rumelia, and the grandson of the historian Saʿd al-Dīn. Entering upon the cursus honorum of the religious institution, he became mudarris and molla and was appointed ḳāḍī first in Salonica and then, in 1043/1633-4, in Aleppo. A heavy smoker, he was reported by the Beylerbey …

, conventional form Shoghi Effendi (b. 1 March 1897, d. 4 November 1957), head or Guardian of the Bahāʾī religion 1921-57. The great-grandson of Mīrzā Ḥusayn ʿAlī Nūrī Bahāʾ Allāh [ q.v.], the sect’s founder, Shoghi was born in Haifa, Palestine, for some time the home of his grandfather, ʿAbbās Efendi ʿAbd al-Bahāʾ [ q.v.] and later the international centre for the movement. Shoghi was educated in Haifa and at the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut, after which he spent about a year at Balliol College, Oxford. In November 1921, he was recalled to Palestine on the death of ʿAbbās Efendi. In his…

, a term used in the Bahāʾī movement for four related concepts: 1. In Iran (loosely) to describe early morning gatherings for reading of prayers and sacred writings. 2. Generally of any house erected for the purpose of prayer. 3. Most widely, to refer to Bahāʾī temples ( maʿbad ) or “houses of worship”, of which six have been built on a continental basis. The earliest was constructed in As̲h̲kābād, Russian Central Asia by the expatriate Iranian Bahāʾī community there (begun 1902; completed ¶ 1920; damaged by earthquake 1948; demolished 1963). The others are: Wilmette, Illinois…

, adherents of the new religion which was founded by Bahāʾ Allāh [ q.v.], and of which the forerunner, according to Bahāʾī doctrine, was the Bāb [ q.v.]. The foremost aut…

(a.), denotes the act of violating a religious covenant ( ʿahd or mīt̲h̲āḳ ), occasionally used in S̲h̲īʿsm and, more commonly, Bahāʾism [ q.v.], where the standard English term is “covenant-breaking”. The terms ʿahd and mīt̲h̲āḳ are Ḳurʾānic (II, 27, 63, 83; III, 81; VIII, 56; XIII, 20, ¶ 25; XVI, 91, etc.), where they refer to God’s general covenant with men or His prophets, or to specific covenants, such as that with the Banū Isrāʾīl [see mīt̲h̲āḳ ]. In S̲h̲īʾī tradition, the Prophet entered into a specific mīt̲h̲āḳ con…

, an early work on the Bābī [ q.v.] movement. In 1910, E.G. Browne published a work entitled Kitáb-i Nuqṭatu ’l-Káf , a Persian history of the early Bābī movement, based on a “unique” manuscript (Suppl. persan 1071) in the Bibliothèque Nationale. This manuscript had been bought by the library in 1884, in a sale of books belonging to the late Comte de Gobineau. Authorship of the history was ascribed by the Bābī leader Ṣubḥ-i Azal [ q.v.] to Ḥād̲…

, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Bahāʾī al-Dimas̲h̲ḳī , an Arabic writer of Berber origin (d. 815/1412) who composed, under the title Maṭāliʿ al-budūr fī manāzil al-surūr , an anthology on the model of the adab books but which, as the author justly boasts in the preface, is in its content favourably distinguished from the great mass of these writings. He deals with the house and its different sections, all the pleasures of life and spo…

— Founder of the new religion which took the name of Bahāʾī from his own name (literally, ‘Glory, Splendour, of God’). In Persian it is known commonly as Amr-i Bahāʾī , ‘Bahāʾī Cause’, or Amr Allāh , ‘Cause of God’; the adjective amrī is used of publications, matters and facts pertaining to the Cause, e.g., nas̲h̲riyyāt-i amrī ‘religious publications’, etc. Bahāʾ Allāh is generally called by his disciples Ḏj̲amāl-i Mubārak , ‘The Blessed Beauty’ and Ḏj̲amāl-i Ḳidam , ‘The Ancient Beauty’. His name was originally Mīrzā Ḥusayn ʿAlī Nūrī (from Nūr, in …

, muḥammad b. ḥusayn bahāʾ al-dīn , with the tak̲h̲alluṣ of Bahāʾī, born in 953/1547, died 1030/1621; author of several works in Arabic and Persian, on a variety of subjects. Originating from Ḏj̲abal ʿĀmila in Syria, he migrated to Persia, and eventually obtained an honoured place at the court of S̲h̲āh ʿAbbās. The best-known of his works is the anthology al-Kas̲h̲ḳūl ("the beggar’s bowl"), frequently printed in the East; he also wrote an exposition of S̲h̲īʿite fiḳh (in Persian), under the title of Ḏj̲āmiʿ-i ʿAbbāsī …

, Nīrīz , the name of a mediaeval Islamic region and of a town of Fārs in southern Persia. The Nayrīz plain is essentially a landlocked region in the southern Zagros mountains, drained by the Kūr and Pulwār rivers which rise in the Zagros and flow southeastwards into the shallow lake known in mediaeval Islamic times as the Lake of Nayrīz and in more recent ones as Lake Bak̲h̲tigān [ q.v., and also E. Ehlers, art. Bak̲tagān Lake , in EIr …

, followers of the religion founded by the Bāb [ q.v.]. The history of the Bābīs has been and still is, at least in the East, one of persecution. It can be divided into two phases: the first, from the foundation of the new faith (1260/1844) up to the persecutions following the attempt on Nāṣir al-Dīn S̲h̲āh (1268-9/1852-3), which seemed as though they would crush the new movement for ever, a period characterised by a frequently violent attitude on the part of the Bābīs themselves; the second, which might …

(a.), pl. maẓāhir , literally “place of outward appearance”, hence “manifestation, theophany”, a technical term used in a wide variety of contexts in ąīʿism, Ṣūfism, Bābism, and, in particular, Bahāʾism, where it is of central theological importance. At its broadest, the term may be applied to any visible appearance or expression of an invisible reality, reflecting the popular contrast between ẓāhir and bāṭin …

(p.), a term used for a number of heterodox religious leaders within the broad S̲h̲īʿī tradition. It appears to have originated in the 19th century, possibly in recognition of links between the title’s bearers and the Ḳād̲j̲ār court. The title (meaning something like “lord and chief”) was used for the first Āḳā K̲h̲ān (Ḥasan ʿAlī S̲h̲āh, 1804-81 [ q.v.] and several of his successors, as heads of the Nizārī Ismāīʿlīs (sometimes as Sarkār Āḳā K̲h̲ān); it is, however, not in current use. Leaders of the S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ī branch of the Twelver S̲h̲īʿa [see s̲h̲ayk̲h̲iyya ] ha…

, Mullā (1227-67/1812-51), leading exponent of Bābism in Zand̲j̲ān, and chief protagonist of the Bābī uprising there. Born in Zand̲j̲ān to a clerical family, he studied in Nad̲j̲af, but on his father’s death returned to take his place. He soon acquired a reputation for a puritan implementation of the s̲h̲arīʿa and for his introduction of religious innovations, thereby incurring the disfavour of the clerical establishment. The circumstances of his conversion to Bābism around 1260/1844 are unclear, but his connection with the sect intensified his role as an ind…

, the sobriquet of Mīrzā Yaḥyā Nūrī ( ca. 1830-1912), founder of the Azalī sect of Bābism [ q.v.]. Yaḥyā’s father was the calligrapher and civil servant, Mīrzā ʿAbbās Nūrī (d. 1839). In Yaḥyā’s early childhood, Nurī was dismissed from his governorship and dispossessed of much of his considerable wealth and property. Yaḥyā’s mother died about 1844; by then he was living in Tehran under the tutelage of an older brother, Mīrzā Ḥusayn ʿAlī (Bahāʾ Allāh [ q.v.]). In 1844, Ḥusayn ʿAlī and Yaḥyā, then about fourteen, were among the first converts to Bābism in the capital. Four …

Ḳuddūs , Mullā (1239-65/1824-49) outstanding leader of early Bābism [see bāb , bābīs ]. Born to a peasant family in Bārfurūs̲h̲ in Māzandarān, he pursued religious studies there and in Mas̲h̲had. In 1256/1840-1, he moved to Karbalāʾ, where he studied under Sayyid Kāẓim Ras̲h̲tī [ q.v.], head of the S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ī school [ q.v.]. He was the last member of the small group of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ī ʿulamāʾ to accept Sayyid ʿAlī Muḥammad S̲h̲īrāzī (sc. the Bāb) as Ras̲h̲tī’s successor in 1260/1844. Bārfurūs̲h̲ī accompanied S̲h̲īrāzī on a ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ journey (1844-5), was arr…

, Ṣadr al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm Ḳawāmī S̲h̲īrāzī ( ca. 979-80/1571-2 to 1050/1640), known as Mullā Ṣadrā, the leading Iranian S̲h̲īʿī philosopher of the Ṣafawid period. After elementary studies in S̲h̲īrāz, he completed his education in Iṣfahān, where his teachers included three of the chief thinkers of his day: Mīr Muḥammad Bāḳir Astarābādī (Mīr Dāmād [see al-dāmād ]), S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Bahāʾ al-Dīn ʿĀmilī [ q.v.] (S̲h̲ayk̲h̲-i-Bahāʾī), and—probably—Mīr Abu ’l-Ḳāsim Findiriskī [ q.v. in Suppl.]. Ṣadrā’s subsequent exposition of unorthodox doctrines, notably that of waḥdat al-wud̲…

, lit. “river which increases”, a river of the central basin of Persia which flows past Iṣfahān. It is so called because it was believed that springs along its course increased the volume of its water (Ibrāhīm K̲h̲ān Taḥwīldār, D̲j̲ug̲h̲rāfiyā-yi Isfahān , ed. M. Sotoodeh, Tehran AHS 1342/1963-4, 37). Early authors called it Zinda-Rūd. In the Bundahis̲h̲n it is mentioned as Zendeh Rud (A. Houtum-Schindler, Eastern Persian Irak , London 1898, 17). Abū Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad b. Abi ’l-Riḍā Āwī states that it was also known as Zarīn-Rūd, the “Gold…

, ʿabd al-ḥaḳḳ ʿadnān , modern Turkish abdülhak adnan adivar , Turkish author, scholar and politician (1882-1955). He was born in Gelibolu (Gallipoli), while his father Aḥmed Bahāʾī, who came from a prominent ʿulamāʾ family of Istanbul, was ḳāḍī there. He studied medicine at the University of Istanbul and while a student, contributed to various newspapers and was in trouble with the Ḥamīdian police. Upon graduation he fled to Europe, spent a year in Paris and Zürich and settled in Berlin where he became an assi…