Suchergebnisse

Introduction --. - The succession to Muhammad --. - The life and times of the Twelve Imams --. - The political leadership of the Shi'ah --. - The intellectual and spiritual history of Shi'i Islam --. - Shi'i Islam as a lived religion --. - The role and position of women --. - Shi'i doctrines and practices --. - Alternative Shi'i communities --. - Shi'i Islam in the contemporary world

Worldwide in its membership and increasingly being recognized as a world religion, the Baha'i Faith is enjoying rapid expansion. In this captivating book, one of the world''s leading Baha'i scholars gives a brief survey of the life, the works, and the teachings of Baha''u''llah, its founder. Covering the resistance he encountered, including successive forced exiles and vitriolic opposition, this book highlights his dedication and that of his followers who were often willing to sacrifice their lives for his teachings. Comprehensive and yet concise, and complete with a detailed guide to sources

Abstract
Nineteenth Century Qazvin was a maelstrom of religious controversy and conflict. Uṣūlīs, Akhbārīs, Shaykhīs, Bābīs, and Bahā'īs all interacted in conflict with each other and sometimes even in violence. This paper will first try to create a religious map of Qazvin in the early 19th Century. The central figure for much of the religious conflict in the city was Qurrat al-ʿAyn Tahirih, the daughter of an Uṣūlī scholar, who became a Shaykhī and then a Bābī. This paper will look at the circle of women around her and how she interacted with them. Although she herself was killed in 1852, the impact that she had on the women of the city had a lasting direct effect until the end of the nineteenth century and an indirect one up the present time.

Accounts of the Constitutional Revolution in Iran have tended to ignore the role of the Baha'is in that event. This paper looks at the case of Sari, capital of Mazandaran province, where the Baha'is of the city played a major part in initiating the move towards Constitutionalism and in educating people about the reforms envisaged and about the modern world. They also led the way in carrying out some of these reforms. In particular, the Baha'is established the first modern schools in the town. In this process, they were opposed by the Muslim 'ulama in the town, who equated Constitutionalism and the Baha'i Faith, and persecuted the Baha'is of the town relentlessly for both reasons, leading eventually to the killing of five of the leading Baha'is of Sari in 1913. A brief account is also given of the attitude of the Baha'i leader 'Abdu'l-Baha (1844–1921) towards the Constitutional Movement and the role of the Baha'is in it. This paper follows the events of the seven years 1906–13 in Sari and describes seven swings of the pendulum of power in the town alternating between the Baha'is and Constitutionalists on the one hand and the 'ulama and the royalist forces supporting Muhammad 'Ali Shah on the other. It points out that the neglect of the Baha'i aspect of these events by historians has led to a failure to account adequately for some of the events of these years.

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.