Quddús

Jináb-i-Quddús (Arabic: قدوس‎‎)(c.1820–1849), is the title of Mullá Muḥammad ‘Alí-i-Bárfurúshi, who was the most prominent disciple of the Báb. He was the eighteenth and final Letter of the Living.

Quddús was born some time between years 1815–1822, the variance being due to different sources. The latter date is specified by Nabil in The Dawn-breakers. Amanat [1987] reasons that the most likely date is 1819–1820 as it is in line with other sources.

Quddús was born to a family of rice cultivators in the outskirts of Bárfurúsh. He spent part of his childhood as a house servant of the local Shaykhí leader Mullá Muhammad-Hamza Sharí`at-madár.

He was sent to the town of Sárí for a madrassa education. Sometime in the mid-1830s he met Mullá Husayn (the first Letter of the Living) and other future Bábís after he joined a small group of students in Mashhad.

When he was eighteen, Quddús left for Karbalá and spent four years as a student in Sayyid Kázim's circle. He returned to Bárfurúsh circa 1843.

He was described as a charismatic mullá (religious leader) with "affability, combined with dignity and bearing" and he became a notable person within his hometown. Mírzá Músá, who met him in 1846, said: "whoever was intimately associated with him was seized with an insatiable admiration for the charm of the youth".

He met the Báb in Shiraz and travelled with him as his companion on pilgrimage to Mecca, leaving Búshihr on the 19th of Ramadán (October, 1844), and arriving in Mecca on the first of Dhi’l-Hájjih (December 12, 1844). During this visit the Báb made his first public declaration, openly challenging Mírzá Muhít-i-Kirmání, one of the most outstanding exponents of the Shaykhí school, and sending a letter conveyed by Quddús to the Sharif of Mecca.

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