From Babi to Baha'i .... an interesting journey.

Baha’ullah’s journey was nothing close to a short process. It all began with his following for Babi which was very loyal and he became well known through that. Babi greatly relied on Baha’ullah and when Babi passed away, Baha’ullah continued to spread his beliefs and ideas. “Baha’ullah social position made it very dangerous for him if the government realized what a key role he was playing in the Babi community” (pg: 22). Baha’ullah journeyed from place to place (in part because of excile) and made a name for himself. Baha’ullah was also arrested numerous times (like any great change leader [Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Gandhi,etc]) and during his time in the “Black Pit” he had an experience which he himself designates as the birth of his mission. This time arouse a “flood of spiritual power from within him” which he used to revive the fortunes of the Babi community and urge them to turn away from revenge and look to manifesting their lives. He established a small group of followers which prospered and flourished as time went on and as his word spread more and more (even though he had not yet advanced any claims of his own. When Qazvini tried to convince the governor to arrest Baha’ullah saying that he was an enemy to religion the governor refuted with the fact that he just followed a different religion. On Baha’ullah’s first day in the garden before his departure to Istanbul, he first proclaimed that he was ‘He whom God shall make manifest.’ At the beginning of Baha’ullah’s trip to Istanbul, it could be said that Baha’ullah was a strong leader of the Babi but by the end of this journey, he was the founder and leader of an independent religion (pg: 69). Soon enough, Baha’ullah’s followers started referring to themselves as the Baha’is and only a very small number did not fully commit to Baha’ullah.

As read, the journey to finding this new religion in no way happened over night, this trek was a long process that took a lot of blood to come to be known and accepted as a religion. The Baha’i is just a addition to the original Babi religion, many of the views were the same because the leader originally was part of this earlier religion. There are many religious elements that can be seen from the Baha’i religion. Community is a major one as has already been elaborated on. Service and following of this community is also seen (pg: 86) when citizen’s would voluntarily pay to go into banishment and imprisonment with Baha’ullah. Social hierarchy is a large part obviously as well. There is also strong meaning behind the Baha’i with stories and history that blossom out of it.