Writings and Teachings of the Bab

The other implication of the idea of the Promised One is the reinterpretation of the concept of jihad in the writings of the Bab. Since he was the Promised One of Islam, and the Muslims expected him to wage war against all infidels of the world, the Bab kept the symbol of jihad in his writings and yet he undermined it in several important ways. (Saiedi, Gate of the Heart Ch.14) One, and probably the most significant, of these ways is that he postponed the practice of these jihad-like laws to the time after the revelation of the Promised One (Persian Bayan 8:15). Consequently, the practice of jihad becomes an impossibility because after the coming of Him Whom God shall make manifest all laws of the Bab are cancelled and only the laws legislated by the new Manifestation would be binding. Once again, the culture of millenarian expectation turns into an affirmation of a culture of tolerance.

References Amanat, Abbas. (1989) Resurrection and Renewal, The Making of the Babi Movement in Iran, 1844- 1850. London: Cornell University Press. The Bab, Commentary on the Occultation Prayer. INBA 57:60-154. The Bab, Kitab al-Asma’. INBA 29. The Bab, Panj Sha’n The Bab, Persian Bayan The Bab, Seven Proofs Hegel, Georg W. F. (1900). The Philosophy of History . New York: Willey. Lawson, Todd. (2018). Tafsir as mystical experience: intimacy and ecstasy in Quran commentary: The Tafsīr Surat al -Baqara by Sayyid 'Ali Muhammad, the Bab (1819-1850). Leiden; Boston: Brill. Saiedi, Nader. (2008). Gate of the Heart: Understanding the Writings of the Báb. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University. Saiedi, Nader. (2012). The Phenomenology of Occultation and Prayer in the Báb’s Sahíifiyi Ja‘faríyyih. In: Lawosn, T. and Ghaemmaghami, O. eds. A Most Noble Pattern: Collected Essays on the Writings of the Báb . Oxford: George Ronald, pp. 196-216. Further Readings Saiedi, Nader. (2008). Gate of the Heart: Understanding the Writings of the Báb. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University. Lawosn, T. and Ghaemmaghami, O. (2012). A Most Noble Pattern: Collected Essays on the Writings of the Báb . Oxford: George Ronald.