The Social and Political Thought of Sayyed ʿ⁠Ali Moḥammad Širāzi, the Bāb

Abstract

Sayyid ʿ⁠Ali Muḥammad Širāzi (1819–50), known as “the Bāb”, is one of the most important modernizers of the 19th century in Iran. He is one of the first thinkers, within the Islamic thought’s modern framework, who challenged the forces of tradition such as the Shiite clergy and the Persian absolute monarchy by offering a new religious view, which went beyond Islamic religion. This article, after a brief reconstruction of the intellectual biography of the Bāb, will analyse his social and political thought, highlighting his main ideas regarding the role of rationality; the role of education and pedagogy; the economy and industrialization; the environment and the importance of civic cohabitation. The article will focus on Bāb’s views concerning the role of the women in the society and the abolition of the clergy from the religious sphere. This work will also show how Bāb’s thought contributed, together with secular and Islamic reformist intellectuals, to the Iranian constitutional revolution (Mašrūṭe) in the early 20th century.