Mírzá Muhammad ʻAlí (Persian: میرزا محمد علی 1853–1937) was the second surviving son of Baháʼu'lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, and the first from Baháʼu'lláh's second wife Fatimih. He is well-known for an attempted schism in which he claimed leadership over his half-brother ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, and was rejected by the overwhelming majority of Baháʼís, who regard him as a Covenant-breaker.[1] The only result of his unsuccessful leadership attempt was to alienate most of the family of Baháʼu'lláh from ʻAbdu'l-Bahá.[2] His schism was short lived and no longer exists; by the 1960s his descendants had largely melded into Muslim society and had no collective religious life.[3][4][5]
Muhammad ʻAlí was born in Baghdad among the group of Iranians exiled from Iran for their adherence to the Bábí Faith. He would follow the family into further exiles into Istanbul, Edirne, and `Akka. As a teenager in Edirne, he began transcribing the writings of Baháʼu'lláh, and attempted his own claim to divine revelation, for which he was publicly chastised by his father.[2] He gradually developed a jealousy of his half-brother ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, who was nine years his senior and widely respected.
Baháʼu'lláh's Kitáb-i-ʻAhd appointed ʻAbdu'l-Bahá to be his successor in leadership to the Baháʼí community, and named Muhammad ʻAlí as being "beneath" and "after" ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, which was widely interpreted as a line of succession.[6] After Baháʼu'lláh's death in 1892, Muhammad ʻAlí accepted the appointment of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá but soon began to discredit and obstruct his brother.[7] After four years, the covert opposition became a campaign of open hostility, including forged documents and spurious complaints to the Turkish authorities that put ʻAbdu'l-Bahá back into confinement.[7] Muhammad ʻAlí was cast out of the Baháʼí community, and shunned.[8][9]
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's own Will and Testament labeled him as, "The Center of Sedition, the Prime Mover of mischief",[10] and instead of following the line of succession in the Kitáb-i-ʻAhd, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá appointed Shoghi Effendi as the first "Guardian" of the religion. Muhammad ʻAlí took the opportunity of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's death in 1921 to revive his claim to leadership and tried to seize the Baha'i properties in the Haifa/Akka area, but was ultimately unsuccessful. He died in 1937 with very few supporters.[8]
Early years
Mírzá Muhammad ʻAlí. Detail from a larger photograph, when Muhammad ʻAlí was 16.
Mírzá Muhammad ʻAlí was born on December 16, 1853, in Baghdad during Baháʼu'lláh's first year of exile in that city. In 1863, at the age of nine, he accompanied his family in their exile to Constantinople and Adrianople. During the final days in Adrianople, Mírzá Muhammad ʻAlí wrote about eighty letters to the believers of the Baháʼí Faith, such as those in Baghdad and its surrounding towns. He also asked permission of his father to travel abroad and spread the Baháʼí Faith.[citation needed]
Baháʼu'lláh gave Muhammad ʻAlí the title of G͟husn-i-Akbar ("Greatest Branch" or "Greater Branch").[6][a]
In the Kitáb-i-ʻAhd ("Book of the Covenant"), Baháʼu'lláh appointed ʻAbdu'l-Bahá as his successor,[11] with Muhammad ʻAli given a station "beneath" that of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. Both were noted explicitly by their titles, with Muhammad Ali being called G͟husn-i-Akbar and ʻAbdu'l-Bahá being called G͟husn-i-Aʻzam. As time passed, Muhammad ʻAlí claimed that ʻAbdu'l-Bahá was not sharing power.[12] According to some interpretations, Muhammad ʻAlí insisted that he should instead be regarded as the leader of the Baháʼís. Many accusations were leveled against each other by both ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and Muhammad ʻAlí, culminating in Muhammad ʻAlí's accusing his older brother of conspiring against the Ottoman government. This resulted in the imprisonment and near-death of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and his family. Almost all Baháʼís accepted ʻAbdu'l-Bahá as Baháʼu'lláh's successor.[13]
At the time of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's death, Shoghi Effendi was appointed the Guardian of the Faith by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in his Will and Testament, while Muhammad ʻAlí was reprimanded in the same document as "The Center of Sedition, the Prime Mover of mischief."[10] Muhammad ʻAlí took the opportunity of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's death to try to revive his claim to leadership, based on Baháʼu'lláh's will Kitáb-i-ʻAhd as well as an earlier private letter of Baháʼu'lláh to Mirza 'Ali-Muhammad Varqa. The documents named Muhammad ʻAlí as being second to ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in rank as well as to succeed him as leader of the Bahá'í community.[6] However, his attempt to occupy the Shrine of Baháʼu'lláh by force left him on the losing end of a legal battle that removed any rights he had to the property.
The division between rival sects with Mírzá Muhammad ʻAlí and Shoghi Effendi as their respective leaders was short-lived and Shoghi Effendi emerged as the leader of the global Baháʼí community, labeling Muhammad ʻAlí the arch-breaker of the Covenant of Baháʼu'lláh.[14] Mírzá Muhammad ʻAlí would lead the small Unitarian Baha'i denomination. In 1904, he sent his oldest son, Shua Ullah Behai, to the United States where he led the Unitarian Baha'i community. From 1934 to 1937, Behai published Behai Quarterly,[15] a Unitarian Baháʼí magazine written in English and featuring the writings of Mirza Muhammad ʻAlí and various other Unitarian Bahais, including Ibrahim George Kheiralla.[5] This schism had very little effect overall. In the ʻAkká area, the followers of Muhammad ʻAlí represented six families at most, they had no common religious activities,[5] and were almost wholly assimilated into Muslim society.[16] This group essentially disappeared.[16][17] A modern academic observer [clarification needed] has reported an ineffectual attempt to revive the claims of Muhammad Ali.[18]
Newspaper article, 11 January 1922
Death
Mirza Muhammad ʻAlí died on December 10, 1937, in the city of Haifa in the Mandate of Palestine. Memorial services were held at Haifa on Tuesday, January the 18th, 1938.[citation needed]
^The elative is a stage of gradation in Arabic that can be used both for a superlative or a comparative. G͟husn-i-Akbar could mean "Greatest Branch" or "Greater Branch."
Cohen, Erik (1972). "The Baha'i Community of Acre". In Ben-Ami, Issachar (ed.). Folklore Research Center Studies. Vol. III. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press • The Hebrew University. pp. 119–141.
