The [Báb’s] claim had evoked violent hostility from the
Muslim clergy, who taught that the process of Divine Revelation had ended with
Muhammad; and that any assertion to the contrary represented apostasy,
punishable by death. Their denunciation of the Báb had soon enlisted the
support of the Persian authorities. Thousands of followers of the new faith had
perished in a horrific series of massacres throughout the country, and the Báb
had been publicly executed on July 9, 1850. In an age of growing Western
involvement in the Orient, these events had aroused interest and compassion in
influential European circles. The nobility of the Báb’s life and teachings, the
heroism of His followers, and the hope for fundamental reform that they had
kindled in a darkened land had exerted a powerful attraction for personalities
ranging from Ernest Renan and Leo Tolstoy to Sarah Bernhardt and the Comte de
Gobineau.
(From ‘Baha’u’llah, a brief introduction to Bahá’u’lláh’s life and
work', prepared at the request of the Universal House of Justice by the Bahá’í
International Community Office of Public Information and published in 1992.)
