EARLY LIFE.

Bahai house of worship at Sydney, Australia

    Mirza 'Ali Muhammad, who afterwards assumed the title of Bab (i.e. Gate), was born at Shiraz, in the south of Persia, on the 20th of October, 1819 A.D.* He was a Siyyid, that is, a descendant of the prophet Muhammad. His father, a well-known merchant, died soon after His birth, and He was then placed under the care of a maternal uncle, a merchant of Shiraz, who brought Him up. In childhood He learned to read, and received the elementary education customary for children.** At the age of fifteen He went into business, at first with His guardian, and afterwards with another uncle who lived at Bushihr, on the shore of the Persian Gulf.

   As a youth He was noted for great personal beauty and charm of manner, and also for exceptional piety, and nobility of character. He was unfailing in His observance of the prayers, fasts and other ordinances of the Muslim religion, and not only obeyed the letter, but lived in the spirit of the Prophet's teachings. He married when about 22 years of age. Of this marriage one son was born, who died while still an infant, in the first year of the Bab's public ministry.

  

      * First day of Muharram, 1235 A.H.

    ** On this point a historian remarks: "The belief of many people in the East, especially the believers in the Bab (now Baha'is) was this: that the Bab received no education, but that the Mullas, in order to lower him in the eyes of people, declared that such knowledge and wisdom as he possessed were accounted for by the education he had received. After deep search into the truth of this matter we have found evidence to show that in childhood for a short time he used to go to the house of Shaykh Muhammad (also known as 'Abid) where he was taught to read and write in Persian. It was this to which the Bab referred when he wrote in the book of Bayan: 'O Muhammad, O my teacher!...'

    "The remarkable thing is this, however, that this Shaykh, who was his teacher, became a devoted disciple of his own pupil, and the uncle of the Bab who was like a father to him, whose name was Haji Siyyid 'Ali, also became a devout believer and was martyred as a Babi.

    "The understanding of these mysteries is given to seekers after truth, but we know this, that such education as Bab received was but elementary, and that whatever signs of unusual greatness and knowledge appeared in him were innate and from God."