The Báb was the founder of Bábi Faith, and one of the central figures of the Baháʼí Faith. He was a merchant from Shiraz in Qajar Iran who, in 1844 at the age of 25, began the Bábi Faith. In the next six years, he gradually and progressively revealed his claim in his extensive writings to be a Manifestation of God, of a status as great as Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, receiving revelations as profound as the Torah, Gospel, and Quran. This new revelation, he claimed, would release the creative energies and capacities necessary for the establishment of global unity and peace.

Bábism, also known as the Bábi Faith, is a monotheistic religion founded in 1844 by the Báb. The Báb, an Iranian merchant-turned-prophet, professed that there is one incorporeal, unknown, and incomprehensible God who manifests his will in an unending series of theophanies, called Manifestations of God. The Báb's ministry, throughout which there was much evolution as he progressively outlined his teachings, was turbulent and short lived and ended with his public execution in Tabriz in 1850. A campaign of extermination followed, in which thousands of followers were killed in what has been described as potentially one of the bloodiest actions of the Iranian military in the 19th century.