Praise be to God, thy heart is engaged in the commemoration of God, thy soul is gladdened by the glad tidings of God and thou art absorbed in prayer. The state of prayer is the best of conditions
The Bab began life as Sayyid Ali Muhammad Shirazi (1819 - 1850), a merchant from Shiraz. The title 'Sayyid' at the beginning of his name denotes that he was a descendent of the Prophet Muhammad, and in his early life he followed Twelver Shiism, the branch of Islam that is prevalent in Iran. In 1844 he experienced a series of revelatory visions after which he pronounced himself to be the bab (the gate) to the Mahdi, the Hidden Imam of Twelver Shi'sm. The first book that the Bab wrote after he put forward his claim is