At that time evidences of the dawn of a new Day were visible on every hand. Witnesses to this dawn arose in all countries and among all peoples, testifying in the name of poetry, art, science, philosophy and religion to the presence of a new, transforming Spirit. Materialists worked in hope to reform the body of society, while mystics felt the nearness of their Lord. From farthest East to farthest West the surfaces of habit and tradition broke asunder, and people tended to center around new and higher ideals.

The supreme expression of this universal awakening revealed itself in the heart of a radiant Youth of Persia known now as the Báb (i.e. Gate or Door). To this Youth came the clear realization of His mission to proclaim the coming of a mighty Educator, the One longed for by all peoples, who would quicken the souls, illumine the minds, unify the consciences and remold the customs of mankind. The life of the Báb from May 23, 1844, to July 9, 1850, exemplified the pure spiritual destiny of the Prophets and Messengers of old. Through Him a large portion of the Muslim population of Persia became imbued with true faith, but against Him gathered the fanatic hatred of the Muslim clergy and the desperate fear of the civil rulers, and by their combined efforts and influence the Báb was soon confined in prison, and on July 9, 1850, publicly martyred in Tabriz.

Those who lament that this is an age of dominant materialism may well ponder the results of the Báb’s mission in the heroic sacrifice of His faithful followers, many thousands of whom were tortured and slain with incredible brutality. Because these events took place in a Muslim land, and in a land peculiarly remote from European and American experience, little attention was paid to the Bábí movement in the West.

The motive animating the faith of the Báb’s followers was that His being and mission fulfilled the spirit of their own religious prophecy.

With Bahá’u’lláh, whose advent the Báb had foretold, the new Movement left behind its peculiar Muslim aspect and assumed a world-wide purpose and meaning. Bahá’u’lláh arose after the death of the Báb, took upon Himself full responsibility for leading a Movement proscribed by the government, and became the target for all the bitterness engendered by failure to extinguish the new light of faith. Bahá’u’lláh was imprisoned in Tihran with murderers and criminals, bastinadoed, condemned to death, exiled to Baghdád, then to Constantinople and Adrianople, and finaly confined for life in the desolate barracks of ‘Akká, a Turkish penal colony, facing Mount Carmel in the Holy Land.

On April 21, 1863, in a garden outside Baghdád, Bahá’u’lláh made known to a few followers that He was the One proclaimed and promised by the Báb. This announcement was made in His famous Epistles in Adrianople previous to the journey to ‘Akká, in 1868.

By this event the Bábí Movement was fulfilled in the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh, the “Glory of God,” and the streams of Christian and Jewish prophecy united with the inner reality of the Muslim Religion.