THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
BABCOCK, MALTBIE DAVENPORT: Presbyterian; b. in Syracuse, N. Y., Aug. 3, 1858; d. in Naples, Italy, May 18, 1901. He was graduated at Syracuse University, 1879, and from Auburn Theological Seminary, 1882; he became pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Lockport, N. Y., 1882, of the Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, Md., 1887, and of the Brick Presbyterian Church, New York, 1900. In the following spring he went on an excursion to the Holy Land, on his way back contracted Mediterranean fever and died in a hospital in Naples. His comparatively brief life made a deep impression because he consecrated his remarkable powers and attainments to the public service. His sermons were of unusual effect. They were unconventional, sincere, and fervid, glowed with a spiritual light, and held the attention of even the most indifferent. His loving heart went out to all whom he met and his single desire was to do them good. As pastor and preacher he will long be remembered and spoken of in unmeasured terms of praise. In Baltimore he was counted one of the first citizens and in New York he bade fair to repeat his personal and professional triumph. Book-making was not his aim in life and the publications which bear his name were posthumous; they are: Thoughts for Every Day Living (New York, 1901), a volume of selections; Letters from Egypt and Palestine (1902), written to the Men's Association in the Brick Church; Three Whys and their Answer (1902); Hymns and Carols (1903); and The Success of Defeat (1905).
Bibliography: C. E. Robinson, Malibie Davenport Babcock, New York, 1904.
BABISM.
Antecedents of Babism (§1). Mirza Ali Mohammed, the Bab (§ 2). Persecution and Death of the Bab (§ 3). Doctrines (§4).
Babism, the system of a mystic Mohammedan sect, which originated in Persia about the middle of the nineteenth century, is said to have more than 1,000,000 adherents to-day and is still spreading, and offers in its history some striking parallels to the origin and early development of Christianity. Mohammedanism is a religion sharply defined, even iron-bound in its doctrinal precision, dogmatic to the last degree in its essentials; and yet it has manifested the greatest elasticity in politics, in social life, in philosophy, and in religious beliefs (see Mohammed, Mohammedanism). Material and expressed in material terms, its theology has nevertheless embraced the abstractions of Greek philosophy, Persian mysticism, and Hindu pantheism and incarnation among the doctrines held by its adherents. Babism and its precursors most completely illustrate these anomalies. The roots of the sect lie in the early doctrine known i. Antece- as Shiah, which has flourished most dents of prolifically and almost solely on Per- Babism. sian soil. The foundation of Shiah teaching is the doctrine concerning the Imam. According to this system, the Imamate or Calif ate is not elective nor is it to be usurped; it is of divine right and altogether spiritual; Ali, through Ayesha's guile thrice defeated for succes-
sion to Mohammed and finally assassinated, was the first Imam. The essence of the Imamate is a light which passed directly from Mohammed to Ali and passes from one Imam to the next. By virtue of this light the Imam becomes impeccable, omniscient, divine, an incarnation of deity. A philosophic ground of this doctrine is that even an infallible book like the Koran to be effective requires an infallible exponent, which is furnished by the Imamate. But the Imamate, though it is a succession, is not unlimited, and of the two main branches of Shiites one reckons six and the other twelve Imams. Both branches hold the mystical doctrine that the last Imam did not die, but lives " concealed " in one of the Arabic Utopias, Jabulka or Jabulsa. A corollary is that he is to reappear, e.g., as the Mahdi " the Guided," who is to " fill the earth with justice " — a prophecy and a hope which naturally lead to repeated attempts at their fulfilment and realization (see Mahdi). It is further held that there were two degrees of " concealment " or " occultation," the minor and the major. During the former, communication with the faithful was made by intermediaries who were called Abwab or " Gates " (singular bab). When the last of the Abwab died (1021) without naming a successor, the major occultation began in the entire cessation of communion between the Imam and the faithful. Naturally the Shiites have ever since been expecting the reopening of communication with the Imam and a period of enlightenment in his revealing.
The immediate precursors of the Babis were the Shaikhis, followers of Shaikh Ahmad (1753-1826), a Shiite mystic, ascetic, and thinker. His special teaching was that the Imams were personifications of divine attributes and that of these personifications Ali was chief. He gathered around him a great company of believers, the leadership of whom passed after his death to Hajji Sayyid Kazim, still a young man, but reserved, mysterious, and ascetic to a degree, under whom the sect multiplied in numbers and came to include many of the nobility. Just before his death (1843) Sayyid Kazim forbade his followers to mourn and declared that it was good that he should go in order that " the true one should appear." He died without appointing a successor. Among his disciples had been a certain Mirza Ali Mohammed, a native of Shiraz,
who was only twenty-three years of
2. Mirza Ali age when Sayyid Kazim died. Mirza
Mohammed, Ali was met by Mullah Husain, one of
the Bab. the searchers for a successor to the dead
leader, and claimed to be the sought one, the " true one who was to appear " and the Bab or " Gate." He also claimed inspiration, established his right to the place of leader by revealing undiscovered meanings in the Koran, and convinced the searchers that their quest was ended. This claim was the more easily allowed because the year in which it was made was reckoned as the one thousandth from that of the disappearance of the last Imam. Millenarianism of a certain kind is as potent in its influence over Mohammedans as it was in Christendom in the year 1000 of the Christian era. Adherents came in