35 Facts About Subh-i-Azal

Subh-i-Azal was an Iranian religious leader and writer who was the second head of the Babi movement after the execution of its founder, the Bab, in 1850.

Subh-i-Azal was named the leader of the movement after being the Bab's chief deputy shortly before its execution, and became a generally-acknowledged head of the community after their expulsion to Baghdad in 1852.

The Bab believed Subh-i-Azal had an ability to write divinely-inspired verses and saw him as a mirror, providing the ability to explain the unexplained, in the time before the appearance of the messiah, known in the Babi religion as He whom God shall make manifest.

Two years later, a pogrom began to exterminate the Babis in Iran, and Subh-i-Azal fled for Baghdad for 10 years before joining the group of Babi exiles that were called to Istanbul.

Subh-i-Azal's given name was Yahya, which is the Arabic form of the English name "John".

Subh-i-Azal was born in 1831 to Mirza Buzurg-i-Nuri and his fourth wife Kuchak Khanum-i-Karmanshahi, in the province of Mazandaran.

Subh-i-Azal's father was a minister in the court of Fath-Ali Shah Qajar.

In 1845, at about the age of 14, Subh-i-Azal became a follower of the Bab after the adoption of the faith by his elder brother.

Subh-i-Azal met Tahirih, the 17th Letter of the Living who had, upon leaving the Conference of Badasht, traveled to Nur to propagate the faith.

Shortly thereafter, she arrived at Barfurush and met Subh-i-Azal and became acquainted with Quddus who instructed her to take Subh-i-Azal with her to Nur.

Subh-i-Azal remained in Nur for three days, during which he propagated the new faith.

The prisoners were ordered to be beaten, but when it came time that Subh-i-Azal should suffer the punishment, Baha'u'llah objected and offered to take the beating in his place.

Subh-i-Azal's sons included: Nurullah, Hadi, Ahmad, Abdul Ali, Rizwan Ali, and four others.

Subh-i-Azal first came to the attention of the Bab after receiving letters from Azal, and the two began corresponding.

In particular, there is a dispute regarding whether Subh-i-Azal was permanently designated as the Bab's successor or merely appointed, as the Baha'is officially assert, as a protective measure for Baha'u'llah.

Later, Milani dates the Nuqtatu'l-Kaf to the year 1852, and based on newly found manuscripts that are even earlier, explains the added sections on Subh-i-Azal as being added at some point before that year.

Subh-i-Azal allied himself with a faction led by Azim, and in 1852 coordinated a new militant uprising in Takur, Iran.

Subh-i-Azal took up a disguise to escape Iran and joined a cohort of exiles in Baghdad.

In Baghdad, Subh-i-Azal kept his whereabouts secret and lived secluded from the Babi community, keeping in contact through agents termed "witnesses of the Bayan".

The most significant challenger to Subh-i-Azal was Mirza Asad Allah Khu'i, known by the title Dayyan, who made a claim to be He whom God shall make manifest.

Subh-i-Azal gradually alienated himself from a large proportion of the Babis who started to give their alliance to other claimants.

The formal exile of Subh-i-Azal ended in 1881, when Cyprus was acquired by Britain in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War, but he remained on the island for the rest of his life until his death on 29 April 1912.

Subh-i-Azal remained elusive and secretive, living off a British pension and being perceived as a Muslim holy man by the people of Cyprus, even receiving a Muslim burial.

On Cyprus, Subh-i-Azal was in contact with Edward Granville Browne, who visited him there during March 1890.

Subh-i-Azal provided Browne with copies of some of the works of the Bab in his possession and with his own succinct account of the history of the Babi movement.

Subh-i-Azal started showing symptoms of an unidentified illness in July 1911.

Subh-i-Azal was buried according to Islamic customs outside Famagusta, without the presence of the witnesses of the Bayan.

Shoghi Effendi wrote in 1944 that Subh-i-Azal appointed Hadi Dawlatabadi as his successor, and that he later publicly recanted his faith in the Bab and in Subh-i-Azal.

Jalal Azal, a grandson of Subh-i-Azal who disputed the appointment of Hadi Dawlatabadi, later told William Miller between 1967 and 1971 that Azal did not appoint a successor.

The seven witnesses of the Bayan who remained loyal to Subh-i-Azal included Sayyid Muhammad Isfahani, Mulla Muhammad Ja'far Naraqi, Mulla Muhammad Taqi, Haji Sayyid Muhammad, Haji Sayyid Jawad, Mirza Muhammad Husayn Mutawalli-bashi Qummi, and Mulla Rajab 'Ali Qahir.

One of the best known works of Subh-i-Azal is the Book of Light, written in Baghdad during the first few years after the death of the Bab.

Subh-i-Azal describes it as proof of his status of successor to the Bab, in his later work named Sleeper Awakened.

Large collections of Subh-i-Azal's works are found in the British Museum Library Oriental Collection, London; in the Browne Collection at Cambridge University; at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris; and at Princeton University.

In "Materials for the Study of the Babi Religion", Browne lists works of Subh-i-Azal collected by him, with a short description of each one of them.

The ideal leader, to Subh-i-Azal, is someone who combines temporal and spiritual leadership.