A Merchant of Shíráz: The Birth of the Báb

Each year on the First Day of the Twin Birthdays, Bahá’ís remember the birth of Siyyid ‘Alí-Muḥammad — the One whom history would come to know as the Báb — in Shíráz, in southern Persia, on October 20, 1819. Esslemont’s short account of His early life, in *Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era*, sketches the years before the Declaration:

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> Mírzá ‘Alí-Muḥammad, Who afterwards assumed the title of Báb (i.e. > Gate), was born at Shíráz, in the south of Persia, on the 20th of > October 1819 A.D.

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He was a Siyyid — a descendant of the Prophet Muḥammad through the line of His daughter Fáṭimih. *His father, a well-known merchant, died soon after His birth,* Esslemont writes, *and He was raised by a maternal uncle.*

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The young Siyyid stood out from the other children of His city.

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> He was noted for great personal beauty and charm of manner, and > also for exceptional piety, and nobility of character.

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Esslemont notes how His religious observance went well beyond what was required of Him:

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> He was unfailing in His observance of the prayers, fasts and other > ordinances of the Muḥammadan religion, and not only obeyed the > letter, but lived in the spirit of the Prophet’s teachings.

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When He was about fifteen He entered the family business — first with His guardian uncle, and afterward with another uncle who lived at Búshihr, the trading port on the Persian Gulf. He spent His youth, then, as a merchant of cloth and silks, weighing His goods honestly, paying His debts promptly, and earning a reputation in the bazaar for fairness so striking that it was remembered long after the Declaration.

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> He married when about twenty-two years of age. Of this marriage one > son was born, who died while still an infant, in the first year of > the Báb’s public ministry.

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The biography is, on its surface, an ordinary merchant’s biography. But beneath the surface — in the long prayers, the unbroken honesty of His dealings, the gentleness Esslemont describes — there was a preparation already underway. On the eve of His twenty-fifth year, the merchant of Shíráz would step out of His shop and into history.

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For Bahá’ís the Birth of the Báb is paired, in the lunar calendar that governs the Twin Birthdays, with the Birth of Bahá’u’lláh — the two days observed on consecutive evenings every year, often together, as a single luminous celebration.

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