This text examines the Islamic roots of the Baha'i faith through the Qur'anic studies of the Bab (Siyyad Ali Muhammad). It sheds light on both the development of the Babi movement and the continuities and discontinuities with Shi'i Islam.

In Tafsir as Mystical Experience, Todd Lawson shows how the Quran may be engaged with for meaning and understanding, the usual goal of mystical exegesis, and also how it may be engaged with through tafsīr in a quest for spiritual or mystical experience. In this earliest of the Báb’s extended works, written before his public claim to be the return of the hidden Imam, the act of reading is shown to be something akin to holy communion in which the sacred text is both entrance upon and destination of the mystic quest. The Quran here is a door to an “abode of glory” and an abiding...