BĀBĪS. Bābīs are the followers of the teaching of Sayyid ʿAlī Muḥammad, known as the "Bāb." Immediately after the Bāb's demise, the name Bābīs was applied to these people for some years; since the 1860s those Bābīs who followed Bahāʾ Allāh, became known as the "people of Bahā" or as Bahāʾī. A minority group that follows Ṣubḥ-i Azal as a successor of the Bāb is known as Azalīs.

Sayyid ʿAlĪ MuḤammad, the BĀb

Born in Shiraz on October 20, 1819, ʿAlī Muḥammad was orphaned as a young boy and subsequently raised by a maternal uncle who, as is indicated by the title Sayyid, is believed to have been a descendant of Muḥammad. ʿAlī Muḥammad earned his early living as a...