Abstract
The roots of the Shi’a clergy’s burning hatred of Baha’ism, the offspring of Babism, can be found in Sayyed ‘Alí-Muhammad’s assumption of the title “Bab,” which means the gate to the Hidden Imam. The Ulama challenged his very contention and finally brought about his execution in 1850. Babism, unlike the Baha’u’llah’s teachings, did not call for the abolishment of the clergy but it did challenge their domination within the Shi’a community and hinted that, following the imminent reappearance of the Mahdi, their historic role would be altogether annulled. Ideologically, from both the Shi’a’s and the Sunnah’s points of view, Islam was to be the last religion given by God to humanity and there was no way a new religion could claim to inherit Islam and simultaneously recruit the Shi’a’s Mahdi to its service.1
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Notes
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Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Mahjoob Zweiri, Iran and the Rise of its Neoconservatives; the Politics of Tehran’s Silent Revolution (London: I. B. Tauris, 2009), 64–65.
Fariba Adelkhah, Being Modern in Iran (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 92.
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© 2013 Ronen A. Cohen
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Cohen, R.A. (2013). The Hojjatiyeh Society. In: The Hojjatiyeh Society in Iran. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137304773_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137304773_4
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