The Life and Fate of Mulla Ali Bastami: Letter of the Living, “the second believer in God” and “the first to suffer for His sake”

We will follow the life of Mulla Ali Bastami, a disciple of the Bab, a Letter of the Living, who was sent as His emissary to Iraq to propagate His Cause. Bastami who was “the first to leave the House of God (Shíráz) and the first to suffer for His sake,” was imprisoned in Baghdad by the Ottomans, put on trial, exiled to Istanbul and punished with hard labour at the dockyard. Finally, as a consequence of the hardships he faced, Bastami most probably died in Istanbul. Baha’i sources and Ottoman archival documents will be used in this talk to illustrate this exceptional disciple of the Bab.