The origin of the Baha'i faith can be traced to the city of Shiraz in southwest Iran, where, in 1844, Sayyid Ali Muhammad Shirazi confided to a select group of Shaykhi Shi'a Muslims that he was the Bab, the gate to the Hidden Imam of the Shi'a. The Bab took eighteen Shaykhis as his disciples, whom he called the "Letters of the Living." (1) The Babi movement met with much official resistance, both from Qajar and clerical authorities, as it recruited new adherents and became a ...